Castellar is a very elegant display typeface, perfect for drop caps or very short titles at large sizes, where the fine details of the inline can be appreciated. It loses its effect at any size smaller than 30 point. Since it is a typeface with capital letters only, a word set in Castellar will be more comfortably readable if it’s given a bit of extra tracking, i.e., spacing between the letters.
Castellar is strictly a display typeface, in one weight only; it has no italic, bold, or bold italic, and it has no lowercase.
Castellar was originally drawn for Monotype in 1957 by John Peters as a titling face for phototypesetting. Its letter forms are classic Roman capitals, inspired by Trajan’s column in Rome, and given a subtle inline for an added bit of elegance.
