Est. 1847 · Gate A · Mind the kerning
Kern County Fair
A typography theme park
Twelve rides, one alphabet. Nothing here describes a ride. The words get strapped in and go round themselves, so read at your own pace and hold onto your ascenders.
Open all hours
Descenders ride free
This way in
Mind the kerning · Keep all descenders inside the ride · No ligatures beyond this point · Mind the kerning · Keep all descenders inside the ride · No ligatures beyond this point · Mind the kerning · Keep all descenders inside the ride · No ligatures beyond this point ·
The park map
Twelve rides, one alphabet
Hover any ride and its name will show you what it does. The four headliners get their own stage further down the midway.
1
rain · char
The Drop Tower
Letters let go from the top and land on their own springs.
2
explode · word
The Cannonball
A sentence leaves the barrel in eleven directions at once.
3
wave · char
The Wave Machine
A ribbon of type rolling end to end, all day, never spilling.
4
rotation · char
The Carousel
Names go round. One gets off, the next one climbs on.
5
type in · char
The Typewriter
The oldest ride in the park. One character per ticket.
6
rotation · word
The Kaleidoscope
Words turn a full circle and come back facing you.
7
split · 60ms
The Zipper
The letters go up in ones and come down in a stagger.
8
explode · char
Hall of Mirrors
Every letter leaves in a different direction and finds its way back.
9
wave · word
The Funhouse
The floor is perfectly level. It is the words that will not settle.
10
split · 25ms
The Rattler
The same ride as the Zipper, run at more than twice the speed.
11
highlight
The Big Top
Every word gets a moment under the spotlight, then hands it on.
12
type in · word
The Ghost Train
The words arrive one at a time, out of the dark, without warning.
Headliner · Ride 01 · rain
Hold on to
your hats
The tallest ride on the midway. Each letter is released 55 milliseconds after the one before it and lands on its own spring, so the word arrives in pieces and settles as a word. Scroll back up and the whole car goes again.
Ride plate
Queue
12 min
Minimum height
48 pt
Drop
1.5 s
Riders per car
One letter
Headliner · Ride 02 · explode
Every word leaves the barrel at once
Seven words, seven trajectories, one landing. The park has never lost a word, though a comma went missing in 1974 and has not been seen since.
Split by
Word
Whole words ride together. Switch to characters and the queue gets considerably longer.
Distance
260 px
How far each word travels before it remembers where the sentence was.
Spin
360 deg
A full turn on the way out, which is why the landing always reads the right way up.
Headliner · Ride 03 · wave
The swell runs all day
Wave machine · wave machine
mind the undertow · mind the undertow · mind the undertow
Two swells, two speeds. The upper deck runs a long wavelength at a lazy one hertz. The lower deck is quicker and choppier, which is where the operator recommends you sit.
Headliner · Ride 04 · text rotation
4
Round again, and again
The Drop Tower · The Cannonball · The Wave Machine · The Typewriter · The Kaleidoscope · The Zipper · Hall of Mirrors · The Funhouse · The Rattler · The Big Top · The Ghost Train · The Carousel · The Drop Tower · The Cannonball · The Wave Machine · The Typewriter · The Kaleidoscope · The Zipper · Hall of Mirrors · The Funhouse · The Rattler · The Big Top · The Ghost Train · The Carousel ·
Every character turns on its own pin while the whole roster files past below. Nobody has ever successfully got off at the letter they got on at.
The ticket booth
At the turnstiles today
The counter runs on the honour system and the figures are, frankly, made up. They tick over as you arrive all the same.
Kern County Fair
418
Admit one
Gate A · one alphabet · valid until the letters stop moving
Not transferable between typefaces.
18,402
Through the gates today
1,196
Letters dropped and recovered
9
Kerning complaints upheld
The queue
One phrase, three staggers
Three lanes, same ride, different gap between letters. Click any phrase to send it round again.
Lane A · 30 ms · click to run
Please keep the line moving
Lane B · 80 ms · click to run
Please keep the line moving
Lane C · 160 ms · click to run
Please keep the line moving
Lost property
Loose letters, awaiting collection
Every one of these came off a ride. None of them will sit still long enough to be filed. Describe your glyph at Gate A and we will do what we can.
K
E
R
N
g
y
j
p
Q
&
7
Park rules
Six notices, lit as you pass
1
No ligatures beyond the ticket barrier.
2
Descenders must stay inside the car at all times.
3
Please do not feed the serifs.
4
Riders under twelve point must be accompanied by a capital.
5
Complaints about tracking go to the booth at Gate C.
6
The park accepts no liability for words left on the Ghost Train.
Headliner · Ride 05 · highlight
The Spotlight Walk
A single lamp on a rail runs the length of the sentence, lighting one word at a time and leaving the rest in the dark. Slowest ride in the park. Nobody has ever complained.
Ride 06 · scroll speed
The Glide
the glide · the glide · the glide · the glide
mind the gap · mind the gap · mind the gap
Two tracks on the same hill, running at different speeds against your scroll. The upper track overtakes you. The lower one lags behind and arrives late, every time.
Notice at the gate
This park runs on text animations only
Every ride you have been on splits words or characters apart and moves them independently. That is the whole remit here. Flex has a second family of animations that move an element as one piece, and none of them are installed on this site. They have their own playground, next door, staffed entirely by donuts.
Not installed at this park · 18 rides
fade
move
scale
spin
bounce
flip
blur
bob
shake
vibrate
tada
jello
wobble
ken burns
flash
pulse
slide
roll
These move an element as a single piece rather than splitting its letters, so they work on any shape or image, not just type. The easing lab next door is worth the queue.