Type | Zostel Brand System

The scale

Twelve roles, one for every level of text, each set here exactly as the tokens say. Sizes grow from a phone (390 px) to a wide screen (1440 px) in steps that reach √3 — tan 60°, the angle the symbol turns by — every two steps on a wide screen, every three on a phone.

Hero

Futura Bold · capitals

81–218 px · leading 0.95 · tracking +10

Measured from the Brand Manual (p7–9): the tagline is Futura Bold, tracked +10. Stacked, the gap between the lines is one stroke of Futura Bold.

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LIVE IT.NOW

Facts

Futura Bold

39–73 px · leading 1.05 · tracking 0

The public facts, and only these.

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111 Zostels
80+ destinations
5M+ travellers
2013 since

Heading 1

Futura Bold · sentence case

32–55 px · leading 1.05 · tracking −10

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Six Zs, one centre

Theme line

Futura Book · lower case

32–55 px · leading 1.15 · tracking 0

The Brand Manual's communication theme line — “travel india with us.” (p8, p9, p51): lower case, a full stop.

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travel like a local.

Heading 2

Futura Bold · sentence case

27–42 px · leading 1.15 · tracking −10

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Every place, its own icon

Heading 3

Futura Bold · sentence case

23–32 px · leading 1.25 · tracking 0

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Characters that grew up with us

Accent

Mrs Eaves Italic · sentence case

27–42 px · leading 1.25 · tracking 0

One quote or one line at a time.

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Travellers from every direction, meeting in one place.

Lead

Gotham Narrow Book · sentence case

19–24 px · leading 1.45 · tracking 0

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A friend in every corner: 111 Zostels in 80+ destinations across India, Nepal and Thailand, since 2013.

Body

Gotham Narrow Book · sentence case

16–18 px · leading 1.6 · tracking 0

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Every place Zostel is live has its own icon, colour and story, drawn the way the Brand Manual draws the Taj Mahal, Charminar and India Gate. Its words are short: one line and three verbs.

Verb line

Futura Bold · capitals

16–18 px · leading 1.45 · tracking +200

Verbs, present tense, joined by a spaced middle dot. As a headline the book sets them like the tagline: RUN. CLIMB. CHASE. LAUGH. (p81).

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RUN · CLIMB · CHASE · LAUGH

Caption

Gotham Narrow Book · sentence case

13–14 px · leading 1.45 · tracking 0

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Hampi, Karnataka — the Stone Chariot of the Vittala temple.

Label

Futura Medium · capitals

11 px · leading 1.25 · tracking +200

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Sunny Days · Tangerine

In code: font.scale.<role> in zo-tokens.json · --zo-type-<role>-size, -weight, -leading, -tracking, -case in zo-tokens.css · text-<role> in tailwind-theme.css.

Three typefaces

The Brand Manual names three, one for each level of text: Futura for the brand’s voice, Gotham Narrow for body text, Mrs Eaves for highlights.

Futura

The brand’s voice: the tagline, headings, verbs, figures and labels.

“The use of Futura Light, Book, Medium, Bold & Heavy and their Obliques is suggested for the ZOSTEL brand typography usage.” Brand Manual, p30

Open fallback · Jost Licences · Linotype

Light Light Oblique — no file on the site 300
stem 48
Book Book Oblique — no file on the site 400
stem 84
Medium Medium Oblique 500
stem 94
Heavy Heavy Oblique — no file on the site 600
stem 147
Bold Bold Oblique 700
stem 196

Heavy is the weight between Medium and Bold — strokes of 94, 147 and 196 thousandths of an em — so it is 600, below Bold’s 700.

The obliques on the site are Bitstream’s Medium and Bold (its Medium runs a little heavy). The dimmed ones have no file, and the page never slants a face to fake one. Condensed, Extra Bold, Black and Display are Futura, but not the brand.

Gotham Narrow

Body text: leads, paragraphs, captions.

Light Light Italic
Book Book Italic
Medium Medium Italic
Bold Bold Italic

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789

“The families of Gotham Narrow and Mrs Eaves can be used as additional fonts for the body text and highlights respectively.” Brand Manual, p31

Open fallback · Barlow Semi Condensed Licences · Hoefler&Co.

Mrs Eaves

Highlights: one quote, one line, at a time.

Italic & only italic

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

“Simultaneous use of these three typographies makes it possible to create different levels of text.” Brand Manual, p31

Open fallback · Libre Baskerville Italic Licences · Emigre

The rules

Three that never bend.

The drawing

ZOSTEL

Typed in Futura — never

Drawn, never typed

The wordmark’s letters and kerning are fixed — “do not attempt to recreate the brand logotype” (Brand Manual, p30). Close is not the same: use the files on Logo, never ZOSTEL set in a font.

Symbols first

Where a symbol, a colour or a place icon can say it, don’t write it. Zo ❤️ Zo 🔥 Zo 🌍 read the same in Hindi, Thai and English, and the stone chariot says Hampi without a word. Type is for what only words can say.

LIVE IT. NOW

LIVE IT. NOW — always like this

Capitals, a full stop after IT and none after NOW, in Futura Bold at +10. On the band it sits as the Brand Manual draws it (p7–9): the band is 2.64 times the height of the letters, the line centred and set in by one band height. As the hero, NOW may take Warm Orange.

When the fonts can’t load

Every stack falls back the same way: the brand face, then its open twin (self-hosted here, free under the OFL), then the system font the Brand Manual names for the web — Verdana. The Zo dialect speaks Gotham Rounded; this site has no files for it, so it shows its open twin, Nunito.

Display

Brand Futura Bold

LIVE IT. NOW
Open Jost Bold

LIVE IT. NOW
System Verdana Bold

LIVE IT. NOW

Futura, Jost, Verdana, sans-serif

Body

Brand Gotham Narrow Book

Travel like a local — a friend in every corner.
Open Barlow Semi Condensed

Travel like a local — a friend in every corner.
System Verdana

Travel like a local — a friend in every corner.

Gotham Narrow, Barlow Semi Condensed, Verdana, sans-serif

Accent

Brand Mrs Eaves Italic

Meeting in one place.
Open Libre Baskerville Italic

Meeting in one place.
System Georgia Italic

Meeting in one place.

Mrs Eaves, Libre Baskerville, Georgia, serif

Zo dialect

Brand Gotham Rounded Bold

No Gotham Rounded files on this site — its web fonts come from Hoefler&Co.
Open Nunito Bold

Friends. Safe & secure.
System Verdana Bold

Friends. Safe & secure.

Gotham Rounded, Nunito, Verdana, sans-serif

System: Verdana and Georgia where the device has them (Windows, macOS, iOS); elsewhere its own sans or serif.

When words need another script

Symbols cross borders first: Zo ❤️ Zo 🔥 Zo 🌍, a place icon and a colour read the same in Jaipur, Pokhara and Phuket. When words must travel too, these open typefaces carry them. LIVE IT. NOW stays in English.

Anek

Zostel dialect

Ek Type · OFL

Devanagari (Hindi, Marathi, Nepali), Bangla, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Tamil, Telugu

हर कोने में एक दोस्त।

Hindi — a friend in every corner

One design across ten Indian scripts, with a weight axis for Futura’s headings and a width axis (87.5) that sits with Gotham Narrow.

Baloo 2 family

Zo dialect

Ek Type · OFL

Baloo 2 (Devanagari), Baloo Da 2 (Bangla), Baloo Bhai 2, Baloo Paaji 2, Baloo Tamma 2, Baloo Chettan 2, Baloo Bhaina 2, Baloo Thambi 2, Baloo Tammudu 2

दौड़ो · चढ़ो · हँसो

Hindi — run · climb · laugh

Rounded, like Gotham Rounded — one voice with a sibling for every Indian script.

Prompt

Zostel dialect

Cadson Demak · OFL

Thai

วิ่ง · ปีน · หัวเราะ

Thai — run · climb · laugh

Loopless, geometric Thai with Futura’s circles and straight lines.

มิตร Thai — friend. For the Zo dialect: Mitr, Prompt’s rounded sibling from the same foundry — named for this word. Baloo has no Thai.

Noto Sans

Both dialects · the fallback

Google · OFL

Every script — the family behind each pairing, so nothing ever shows as empty boxes

नमस्ते · নমস্কার · வணக்கம் · ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ · നമസ്കാരം · สวัสดี

Hindi and Nepali · Bangla · Tamil · Kannada · Malayalam · Thai — hello, in six scripts where Zostel is live

The safety net: when a pairing is missing a script, Noto Sans has it.

When a line mixes scripts, name the dialect’s own face first and the pairing after it — Latin stays Futura (or Gotham Rounded), the script falls through to its pairing, and Noto Sans catches anything else. Words, verbs and greetings are checked; longer lines are drafts until a native speaker has read them. In code: font.zostel.scripts.* and font.zo.scripts.*.