01
The hero
The name in brushed silver over orange speed lines, with a red underline and the weights, HUD features and coverage listed below.
A wide, clean racing italic in three weights · v1.000
NITROVEX
Nitrovex is a wide italic for racing games, liveries, leaderboards and motorsport graphics. It leans at 12 degrees and rounds only the trailing corners of each letter, so a title looks fast standing still, and it comes with the figures and marks a race HUD needs.
Type tester
Try it with your own words
Set here in the hero's brushed chrome. Switch weights, try the other colours, or turn Effects off for flat type. Turn on Race ordinals and type 1st or 2nd to see the letters rise.
20 px
Apex Rush ▲ 1st
30 px
Apex Rush ▲ 1st
50 px
Apex Rush ▲ 1st
80 px
Apex Rush ▲ 1st
This preview covers Basic Latin and the race symbols. The full font adds every accented letter.
Features
Made for game interfaces
A wide racing italic in Regular, Bold and Black, built for race HUDs: tabular lap times, raised race ordinals, position triangles, primes and a numero sign.
01
Three weights
Regular and Bold are style-linked for menus and readouts; Black is the heavy cut for titles, logos and liveries.
02
The aero corner
Each round letter has two long, soft curves trailing behind and two tight corners pointing ahead, set on opposite diagonals of the slant.
03
Lap times that hold still
Tabular figures give every digit the same width, so a running clock or a gap to the leader never shuffles sideways.
04
Race ordinals
Type 1st, 2nd or 3rd and the letters after the figure rise into small superiors, as on a position board.
05
HUD marks
Up, down, left and right triangles for position changes, four arrows, prime and double prime for lap times, and a numero sign for car numbers.
06
A full lowercase
Capitals and a true lowercase, 376 characters per weight, for Western and Central European languages.
Built-in icons
Eleven icons you can type
Each icon is a character in the font. Click one to copy it, then paste it into anything set in Nitrovex.
Positions and arrows
Lap and car marks
Case study
How Nitrovex was designed
Why I made it
Racing games ask a lot of one typeface. The same letters have to work as a big title on the start screen, on the side of a car, and as tiny lap times and gaps that change many times a second.
Most racing fonts are built for the poster and break down in the HUD. I wanted one that is wide and quick for the title but stays calm and readable in a leaderboard, with the race-specific details already inside.
The aero corner
Every letter leans forward at 12 degrees. On round letters such as O, C, D and G, the two corners on one diagonal of the slant get long, soft curves and the two on the other diagonal stay tight. The soft corners trail behind and the sharp ones point ahead.
That one rule runs through capitals, lowercase and figures, so the whole set looks shaped by the same wind tunnel rather than stretched or skewed after the fact.
Made for the HUD
The figures come in two sets. Proportional figures are the default for text and titles, and tabular figures line up a lap time such as 1:11.111 so it doesn't shift as it counts. Race ordinals turn 1st, 2nd and 3rd into raised letters after the figure, which is how position boards set them.
The extras are small but specific: triangles for gaining and losing places, arrows, prime and double prime for minutes and seconds, and a numero sign for car numbers.
In use
02
The Photoshop template
The editable hero layout from the download: the name in a chrome gradient with an orange glow, above a Racing Italic plate.
03
As a title screen
Apex Rush on a night road, with a season line, a subtitle and a row of menu buttons set in Nitrovex.
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The aero corner
The O in outline view at a 12° slant, with its soft and tight corners marked, and the same rule across other round letters.
05
Race HUD
Position with a raised ordinal, lap count, lap time and delta, a leaderboard with gaps, a track map, gear and speed.
06
Three weights
Regular, Bold and Black on slanted plates, with a large Rg in each weight.
07
OpenType features
Tabular against proportional lap times, race ordinals, position triangles, arrows and lap marks, and accented sample words.
08
Character set
The full Bold character set on a grid: capitals, lowercase, figures, symbols, triangles, arrows and accented letters.
What you get
Everything in the download
- Desktop fontsOTF for design apps, TTF for game engines and Windows, all three weights.
- Web fontsWOFF2 for all three weights, with unlimited web use.
- Game engine packBMFont bitmap fonts (.fnt, .xml and .png atlas) at 32, 64 and 128 px, for Godot, Unity, GameMaker, LibGDX, Phaser, MonoGame and Love2D.
- Photoshop templateAn editable hero layout with live type layers, layer effects and textures.
- README and licenseSetup tips for design apps, websites and game engines, and the full license.
License
Included with every purchase
- Games and apps, embedded for unlimited copies sold
- Logos, merch, videos, streams and print, with no limit on sales
- Installed on unlimited computers: yours, your team's and your company's
- Websites, with unlimited page views and traffic
Ask me first
- Products where customers type their own text in the font
- Resale in asset packs, templates or font collections
Please don't share or resell the font files. For anything the license doesn't cover, email me. idris.hadjoudj@gmail.com
FAQ
Before you buy
Which weights are included?
Three: Regular, Bold and Black. Regular and Bold are style-linked, and Black is meant for titles.
How do I turn on the race ordinals and tabular figures?
Both are OpenType features. Turn on Ordinals (ordn) and type 1st, 2nd or 3rd to raise the letters, and Tabular figures (tnum) for timers and scores. On the web, use font-feature-settings "ordn" and "tnum".
How do I get the chrome look from the images?
It's a colour finish, not part of the font: fill the letters with a light-to-grey gradient running from the top of the capitals to the baseline, and add a little noise if you want the brushed feel.
Can I use Nitrovex in a game I sell, or for its logo?
Yes. Commercial use is included for games, apps, logos, merch, videos, streams and print, with no limit on sales, and you can embed the fonts and bitmap fonts in games and apps for unlimited copies. Products where your customers type their own text, and resale in asset packs, need an extended license: just ask.
Does Nitrovex work in Unity, Godot and GameMaker?
Yes. Use the TTF files in any engine that imports fonts, or the included game engine pack: BMFont bitmap fonts at 32, 64 and 128 px for Godot, Unity, GameMaker, LibGDX, Phaser, MonoGame and Love2D.
Can I use Nitrovex on my website?
Yes. WOFF2 web fonts are included, and web use is unlimited, with no cap on page views or traffic.
Which languages does it support?
Each font has 376 characters, covering Western and Central European languages.
Is Nitrovex part of a bundle?
Yes. Nitrovex is in The Complete Font Collection, every font I've made in one download.
Give your game a voice in Nitrovex.
Related reading
The thinking behind this
Longer write-ups on the craft this font draws on.
Typography for game UI: the part players read under pressure
Interface type is read in half a second, at speed, over moving artwork, by somebody who did not come to your game to read. Almost every rule that applies to a book works against you here, and the fixes are specific.
Read the article
Seven HUD mistakes that make players quit
Players rarely say "the HUD is bad". They say the game feels cluttered, or confusing, or cheap, and then they refund it. These are the seven causes I find most often, what each one is really costing you, and how to check your own game against them.
Read the articleMore fonts
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