Information
Rapid finds its origins with no-nonsense Modernist construction company logos found on heavy-duty machinery and road work vehicles in Switzerland. Referencing the intensity and power of the tools, the pragmatic style was adapted from industrial engines to industrial music and soon became a reference point for the early UK Club scene. The aesthetic gained popularity thanks to designers such as Peter Saville, 8vo, and Designers Republic, and eventually could be seen throughout the crowds of the early UK Club scene — from warehouses in Manchester and Sheffield to basements in London. As the rave scene evolved so did the style, becoming synonymous with progressive visual culture and informing universally understood aesthetics for ideas of “the future.”
Today, Rapid carries with it artifacts of this warped design history that went from construction companies to rave culture to science-fiction. The typeface offers an extreme width and weight range for all your time and space-traveling typographic needs.
ST Rapid is designed by Laurenz Brunner, first released by Source Type in 2022.
Available Styles
- Regular
- Regular Wide
- Regular Extended
- Medium
- Medium Wide
- Medium Extended
- Bold
- Bold Wide
- Bold Extended
- Black
- Black Wide
- Black Extended
Source Material

Photograph by Qiu Yang

Swiss construction company logos (c. 1940–50)

Swiss construction company logos (c. 1940–50)

Ads found in various Swiss archicture journals (c. 1950–60)

Earth typeface, author unknown (c. 1970)

Roland TR-909 drum machine (1983)

Terminator (1984)

Detail from Peter Saville’s “Use Hearing Protection” for Hacienda 51 Club (1978)

Haçienda logotype, Julian Morey for Peter Saville Associates (1990)

Wipeout 2097, The Designers Republic (1996)

10th Anniversary Sony Mini Disc (2002) originally released in 1992
Type Specimen
Special Features

Alternate M’s from Rapid’s Sharp and Wavy stylistic sets

Rapid variable font design space

Alternate glyphs from Rapid’s Curved stylistic set

Alternate glyphs from Rapid’s Sharp stylistic set

Alternate glyphs from Rapid’s Wavy stylistic set

Rapid glyph overview showing all alternate characters

Rapid’s discretionary ligatures
Type Tester
Glyphs Overview
Letters
Figures
Latin Supplement and Extension
Discretionary Ligatures
Stylistic Set 1
Stylistic Set 2
Stylistic Set 3
Punctuation and Symbols
Case Sensitive Forms
Superscript and Subscript
Fractions and Ordinals
Currency and Mathematical Operators
Tabular Figures
Roman Numbers
Arrows
OpenType Features
Discretionary Ligatures
NFT LSD THC XTC
NFT LSD THC XTC
Case Sensitive Forms
[SIC] (PARENTHESES) {A,B}
RE: SUBJECT SCI-FI
« MERCI » ‹DANKE›
[SIC] (PARENTHESES) {A,B}
RE: SUBJECT SCI-FI
« MERCI » ‹DANKE›
Contextual Alternates
Tabular Figures
111 CHF
111 CHF
Fractions
Superscript and Subscript
Ordinals
Information
Technical Data
Encoding:Latin Extended
File Formats:OTF, TTF, WOFF, WOFF2,
VARIABLE
Version:1.0