Show HN: Make cursed fonts like Times New Bastard
- ID
- 28373
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 24 Sep 2026, 6:53 AM
- Fetched
- 25 Sep 2026, 10:17 AM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://bastardica.mitpit.com/
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 4.0
- Created
- 25 Sep 2026, 10:17 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_coders
What happened
Bastardica is a browser-based font foundry that mixes, stretches and squishes multiple typefaces into 'cursed' hybrid fonts, inspired by Times New Bastard and Easy Pete. It runs entirely client-side via Pyodide and fontTools, exports normal TTF, OTF and WOFF2 files, and implements the swap as an OpenType liga contextual substitution registered for every script, so browsers enable it by default. The FAQ notes that mixing two fonts produces a derivative work, so both source licenses must be checked for commercial use, and suggests prime-number strides so mix-in fonts collide less often (three or more fonts intersect on common multiples, first font wins).
Why it matters
Two concrete decisions: if you ship a bastard font in a commercial product, you inherit the license terms of both source fonts because the result is a derivative work — Bastardica adds no conditions of its own but does not clear anything for you. And because the effect rides on liga substitution, any app where a user turns ligatures off will silently render the original font instead, so don't ship it as a load-bearing brand asset without a fallback check. It is also a small, readable example of shipping Python tooling (Pyodide + fontTools) with no server at all.
Discussion angle
Is client-side Pyodide + fontTools a pattern worth copying for your own browser tools, and where does the derivative-work licensing rule actually bite for commercial use?