I released Colourbars on January 28, 2001. It was an experiment in modular italic design, and the result was unconventional. The typeface came in two styles, Regular and Bold, both drawn with a pronounced slant. Its most distinctive feature was a peculiar rhythm, with stroke endings that bent back and forth, creating an uneasy flow across words.

I built Colourbars in FontLab. I first drew the components in an upright position so I could more easily measure stem widths and establish spacing. Once the basic structure was complete, I skewed the characters back to the intended slant, added extreme points to the curves, and finished the cleanup. The family included both uppercase and lowercase, but no additional variants beyond the initial two styles.

Colourbars was always released free for commercial use. In August 2020, I placed it fully into the public domain. I never saw it used in any projects, and in hindsight I didn’t see enough potential in the design to expand it further.