Stick No Bills Font

Stick No Bills is a stencil variable font that was created as the bespoke Libre typeface of Stick No Bills Poster Gallery in Galle, Sri Lanka. The font is designed for Latin, Sinhala and Tamil languages. Martyn Hodges was the first to draw the letters for uppercase typeface. In February 2015, Meg Baber, the co-founder of Stick No Bills gallery, asked Mooniak to work on this project and he started it in 2015. He is now working on improving and expanding a complete font with more languages support. The No Bills family has six weights from the Extra Light to the Extra Bold meant for headlines.

The stencil is the answer to how a reproducible, replicable lettering can be created. Sinhala stenciled letters are typically found in the Sri Lankan Railway cars and busses. Stencils have no set style or common agreement on the design, and that is what makes them so special. Each of these has a different stencil cut in very different places without a plan to make-up harmony.

The project is also motivated by the already existing Sinhala and Tamil stencil lettering we see around us. However, the construction of all three alphabet letters has been created through a stencil structure which is based on thinking from the ground up. Hence, it is a new face but you can still read the characters.