During development of Colophon 30, the base font of the typeface family, two requirements emerged, namely, that it should demonstrate good legibility and robustness when used for text composition, and where individual characters become more apparent, as in much larger sizes, these should appear well formed.

Colophon 60 and 90 progressively increase in x-height to allow the counters to retain openness. The italics lean towards informality, this being apparent in the descender tails.

On account of its neutrality there are few instances where the use of Colophon would be inappropriate.