Store Norske Eleganse - Display typeface blending ornamental calligraphic tradition with modern restraint for impactful branding and editorial work.

About

Store Norske Eleganse is a display typeface that embodies expressive artistry, refined craftsmanship, and a distinctive visual presence. Rooted in the legacy of Ehmcke’s Elzevir, a hidden gem first published by Ludwig Wagner in 1927, Eleganse reinterprets early 20th-century calligraphic traditions through a contemporary lens. By blending the ornamental richness of historic models with a measured, rational structure, Eleganse achieves a unique balance: it captures the decorative allure of classic calligraphy while maintaining a sense of modern restraint.

Eleganse’s design draws from both the geometric and the gestural, resulting in letterforms that reveal the influence of the human hand alongside carefully constructed shapes. This duality allows for monumental headlines in striking capitals as well as fluid, flowing text in lowercase, making the typeface remarkably adaptable. A range of stylistic options empowers designers to tailor its personality, tempering its exuberance for subtle sophistication or amplifying its eccentricity for dramatic effect.

With its commanding presence and unmistakable character, Eleganse is particularly well-suited for branding and editorial projects that require visual impact and individuality. Its versatility is further enhanced by its ability to evoke both the artful spirit of calligraphic tradition and the clarity of modern design.

See SN Maleri, for another Ehmcke-inspired design.

The Store Norske Eleganse Typeface font is designed by Arve Båtevik

Store Norske Eleganse is designed by Arve Båtevik.

Technical information

For full technical specifications and character overview, please see the technical section at the end of the specimen PDF.

Language support

Eleganse supports a broad Latin character set covering Western European, Central European, South European, North European, Baltic, Turkish, Celtic, South-Eastern European, Nordic and Sami language use.

Supported languages include Afrikaans, Albanian, Basque, Bemba, Bosnian, Breton, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Icelandic, Inari Sami, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lule Sami, Luxembourgeois, Maltese, Northern Sami, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Scottish, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Southern Sami, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish and Welsh.

Character sets and encodings

Eleganse supports Adobe Latin 1, Adobe Latin 2, Macintosh Roman, Macintosh Central European, Macintosh Croatian, Macintosh Icelandic, Macintosh Romanian, Macintosh Turkish, ISO/IEC 8859-1, 8859-2, 8859-3, 8859-4, 8859-9, 8859-10, 8859-13, 8859-14, 8859-15, 8859-16, Windows-1250, Windows-1252, Windows-1254 and Windows-1257.

OpenType features

Eleganse includes OpenType features for access to alternates, glyph composition and decomposition, localised forms, subscripts, scientific inferiors, superscripts, numerators, denominators, fractions, ordinals, lining figures, proportional figures, tabular figures, oldstyle figures, case-sensitive forms, discretionary ligatures and standard ligatures.

The font software has ten stylistic sets: ss01 for alternate lowercase a forms, ss02 for alternate h/i/l/m/n/r forms, ss03 for alternate lowercase r forms, ss04 for alternate lowercase y forms, ss05 for alternate uppercase G forms, ss06 for alternate uppercase U forms, ss07 for alternate uppercase Q forms, ss08 for alternate zero forms, ss09 for alternate oldstyle one forms and ss10 for lowercase multiplier forms.

Feature tags: aalt, ccmp, locl, subs, sinf, sups, numr, dnom, frac, ordn, lnum, pnum, tnum, onum, case, dlig, liga, ss01, ss02, ss03, ss04, ss05, ss06, ss07, ss08, ss09, ss10.