Primer

I released Primer on September 18, 1997, with teachers in mind. It was originally called Primer Print, after the oversized pencils used in early schooling. The design was meant for worksheets where children trace and print letters, not for continuous reading. From the start, it included uppercase and lowercase forms, since the aim was to mirror the alphabet children were learning.

After its release, teachers often asked me for customizations. Their requests usually focused on the I, J, q, 1, and 9. Some wanted a serifless I, others wanted the J and 1 to include serifs. The q was sometimes redrawn with a straight descender or angled hook, and the 9 was occasionally altered to a ball-and-stick form resembling a rotated 6. These adaptations reflected the different teaching conventions in use at the time.

I later experimented with a dashed version based on a German handwriting style, though it was eventually dropped. As Primer evolved, it laid the groundwork for the Report family, which I conceived as an extension and an improvement. While Primer was meant specifically for worksheets to teach printing, Report was designed to be more suitable for reading while still evoking the practice-sheet style.

On May 12, 2021, I updated Primer with technical refinements. The stylistic alternates feature was improved for better access in InDesign, fractions were expanded to handle longer numerators and denominators, primes were added, and deprecated characters removed. Primer remained available under a free commercial use license until April 2024, when I placed it in the public domain.