In the summer of 2004, a desparatly needed element of Kryptos emerged from a barely-known niche of the web.  A replica of the sculpture's copperplate depicting two never-before-seen transparencies of its typeface and character orientation was unveiled at Realm of Twelve, offering the crypto community a new set of tools that had previously been known only by the masterpiece's designer, Jim Sanborn.

Some hundred-thousand downloads later and the transcript's debut in dozens of professional publications around the world, Gary Phillips announced to the Kryptos community yet another undergruund breakthrough in his Kryptos replica development.  Four fonts, comprised of a Morse Code typeface and authentic Kryptos Sculpture character glyph set, were procured as installable TrueType and Type 1 fonts for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems.  The Kryptos Sculpture Family of Fonts had been born.

Download the Kryptos Sculpture Family of Fonts
Test Whether or Not the Kryptos Font is Already Installed

Prior to Spring 2009, the only representation of the Kryptos Font available was from Gary Phillips' non-vector graphic transcripts at his Realm of Twelve project web site.  The only other references came primarily from two independent sources -- Jim Gillogly's Kryptos Sculpture Photos and Elonka Dunin's copperplate rubbings.  Anyone wanting to represent the Kryptos transcript or ciphers from the sculpture had to do so with existing fonts or by copying and pasting graphics from "Realm of Twelve" to suit their needs.  This provided an adequate, artificial representation of custom Kryptos lettering.

The new Kryptos Sculpture Family of Fonts provides a revolutionary way of representing the Kryptos transcript.  Now, instead of manipulating graphics, the lettering can be copy and pasted as text directly from the browser.  More importantly, custom Kryptos text can be typed directly into any word processor or software that utilizes system-installed fonts.  Entire documents can now be converted to the Kryptos Font, and Morse Code can be depicted by simply typing letters or numbers from the keyboard.  This greatly minimizes the efforts required to demonstrate classical cryptography as it relates to Kryptos and emphasizes the techniques by which these ciphers are implemented and plain texts are showcased.  For the first time ever, the CIA's Kryptos Sculpture by James Sanborn can be represented in professional publications and media lectures using the authentic Kryptos font.

In addition, "Kryptos Revisited" demonstrates Kryptos ciphers and Morse Code using the new Kryptos Font, providing a first-ever, accurate depiction of the cipher's plain English solutions of Kryptos.  The scupture's text is now clearer than ever to identify, enabling precise analysis of the effects the Kryptos lettering has in different arrangements and experimental kerning samples.  One mystery that has remained unsolved as of this writing is how the Kryptos Copperplate lettering may be arranged in such a manner as to produce an entirely new message.  Such a solution is now easier than ever to test thanks to the voluntary efforts of KryptosRevisited.com.

View the Kryptos Font User's Manual and Usage Rights

A complete history of the "Kryptos Sculpture Font" details the six months of meticulous labor required to reproduce this system typeface.  It is clear by the evidence that this exclusive TrueType font can be trusted as an authentic replication.  See for yourself the steps taken by Gary Phillips to carefully examine the available sources for a font extraction and his manipulation techniques that yielded a perfect wire frame.  His intricate knowledge of the typeface as a de facto Kryptos expert was ultimately the persuasive force in generating the new font.  His qualifications are unquestionable, and his dedication to being recognized as having provided a nearly perfect replica has remained unchallenged, even under intense public and private scrutiny.  Discover the techniques Mr. Phillips used to precisely replicate the Font and the extreme measures required to produce an authentic transcript that began as a two-and-a-half-year project in Jim Sanborn's workshop at CIA Headquarters.

A Detailed History of Kryptos TrueType Font Development

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Kryptos Font Now Available

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