CA Normal is a typeface aiming for beauty without ostensible effects, merely relying on clarity and well balanced proportions. It merges influences from European grotesques and American gothics, breeding an experimental mongrel. The underlying concept stays in the background, giving the design a great self-evidence. Although it is doubtful if there can be such thing as neutrality, CA Normal comes pretty close to what people mean when speaking of a neutral font.
As good text typefaces must not be too smooth nor too agitated, CA Normal is smuggling little uneven details into the typographic image, that keep the reader’s eye awake. The well crafted oblique follows the grotesque tradition which knows no individually drawn italics. A rather unexpected addition is the reverse oblique, a style mainly used for maps. Under the classic surface lies a modern well equipped font, featuring small caps, a central European character set and many numerals. Numerous ligatures round up the overall impression. By default CA Normal will set numbers as proportional lining figures. But if you prefer old-style figures, or tabular figures, just use the OpenType functions of your layout program.
