Before anything else, I should mention that this typeface takes its name from “The Tale of the City of Stone”, a poem by the great Iranian poet Mehdi Akhavan Sales.
The typeface itself shares something with that title. It’s visually heavy, and although its forms are smooth and rounded, they also carry an unmistakable sense of solidity. The letters and dots are connected by delicate joins that create a gentle first impression. But once you see an entire sentence—or better yet, a full paragraph—the overall texture becomes much rougher and more substantial, almost as if the words themselves had been carved from stone!
In a way, that’s exactly what this typeface is: a tale of a city built from stone!
Some of its letterforms feel almost cryptic, as though they invite the viewer to decipher them rather than simply read them. That makes it especially well suited for headlines, logotypes, posters, and expressive typography—any project that calls for the same balance of softness and strength.
As you’ll notice in the examples below, despite its bold weight, the typeface remains surprisingly legible even at smaller sizes. In fact, reducing the size softens its appearance even further.
Before this post turns into poetry, let’s take a look at the typeface itself. Check out the letters, numerals, punctuation marks, and, of course, my Persian pangram in action. Pay special attention to the dots, the subtle connections between letters, and the constant interplay between softness and strength that defines the entire design.
And If you want to add more users or upgrade / change to another License, you can do that here. (The default license is the Desktop Standard License)
Shahab Siavash, the designer has done more than 47 fonts and got featured on Behance, Microsoft, McGill University research website, Hackernoon, Fontself, FontsInUse,... Astaneh and Hezareh text and headline fonts which is one of his latest designs, already got professional typographers, lay-out and book designers' attention as well as some of the most recognizable publications in Arabic/Persian communities.
