America’s most famous carver of inscriptions, including those at the John F. Kennedy Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, John Benson began Caliban by writing with a blunt-point pen on rough paper. He focused on the overall pattern and motion of the characters in text, rather than on individual letterforms.

Named after Shakespeare’s beast slave in The Tempest, Caliban represents Benson’s attempt to tame crudely written letters into service.

The weight distribution and letter heights of this 1995 Adobe Originals release vary, but the active, sloping shapes keep the lines cohesive in informal text. Caliban also provides a dynamic appearance when set in casual headlines.