Aurek Besh

Font Specimen

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 . , ! ?

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About this Font

These Star Wars fonts are based upon the imperial lettering seen in Return of the Jedi, the Droids cartoons, Dark Forces, the RPG Gundark guide, and the Behind the Magic CD. The charset follows the one established by Peter Schuster in his New Aurabesh font, but this one has been completely redesigned. The Aurebesh (from the first two letters: Aurek and Besh) is an imperial alphabet used throughout the Star Wars galaxy during the times of the Galactic Empire to write the basic language.

The Aurebesh font is commonly used in the Star Wars universe to depict the fictional language of Aurebesh, the writing system used to transcribe the language of the Galactic Empire: Galactic Basic. Galactic Basic is one of the most common languages across the Star Wars galaxy. Other prevalent languages include Boccee, Huttese, and Mando’a. Within Galactic Basic there are various written scripts used, including Aurebesh, Outer Rim Basic and High Galactic. The writing system of Aurebesh comes from the first two letters of its alphabet: Aurek and Besh.

The script itself is monocase with 26 letters that correspond with the English alphabet along with eight additional letters that correspond to Latin-script digraphs. The alphabet was further expanded in 1996 to include punctuation marks.

The Aurebesh font was inspired by the early depictions of the Aurebesh language seen in Return of the Jedi (1983). The original shapes showed up on monitor readouts on the second Death Star and was designed by Joe Johnston, graphic designer on the Star Wars films. In the early 1990s, Stephen Crane of West End Games was inspired by those depictions and after gaining permission from Lucasfilm, he developed the alphabet for the role-playing game companion Star Wars Miniature Battles Companion (1983). The game itself was a tabletop mini wargame system where players control 6-60 soldiers in various squads. Players can buy troops and equipment and deploy their squads on the tabletop. Within the game, the font was mainly used to allow players to render their characters’ names.

The Aurebesh font was subsequently adopted in many Star Wars works starting with Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999). Within that film, the font appeared on a readout screen of Anakin Skywalker’s Naboo fighter, reading “Anakin turn the ship around and go back home right away.” Within Star Wars: The Clone Wars, you can see the font appear on the armor of clone troopers or in the form of tattoos. It was also seen on wanted posters in the Jedi Archives or in technical readouts used by the Galactic Republic. There are also several instances where Aurebesh has appeared in non-canon series such as Star Wars Legends.

Several iterations of this font can be found online though there is no official designer of the publicly available versions. One example includes Aurebesh AF by Aurek Fonts.