Typography of Star Wars CCG cards

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Working documentation of the typefaces on Star Wars CCG cards. Started 2026-10-12 by Holocron Claude from Bardez's template notes and measurements of printed cards, PC Holotable images and the PC Remaster slip sheets. Nothing here is an official Decipher or Players Committee statement; corrections welcome.

The typefaces of the Star Wars CCG were never documented by Decipher. Known identifications come from the printed cards, the Players Committee's Holotable card images and the font notes Bardez made for his 600 DPI card templates (2021, see Making Custom SWCCG Cards). The Holotable images re-typeset the virtual sets in the same faces. The open-source swccg-cardmaker[1] program behind the Original Virtual Set remasters follows these faces; its own font files are listed below.

The faces

Element Typeface Notes
Card title Fiorello Condensed (AT/PL Fiorello Condensed) Decipher 1995–2001 and the PC alike; the PC's Defensive Shields sheet embeds it as ATFiorello-Condensed.[2] Bardez's template pack has the digital copy Fiorello CG Condensed. Also used for the deploy and forfeit numbers in the small boxes left of the game text.
Lore Akzidenz-Grotesk BQ Light Condensed Left-aligned, first line indented, on every printed card checked (Premiere–Endor). Bold is used for a characteristic word in lore (e.g. leader, smuggler, spy).
Game text Akzidenz-Grotesk BQ Condensed (regular weight) The PC's Holotable cards print game text at 62 px / 65 px line in 600 DPI terms (measured on Chewbacca (V), Virtual Set 13). Bardez's notes name BE Medium Condensed, which is narrower and heavier than what the PC prints.
Stat labels (POWER, ABILITY …), type banners (EFFECT, LOST INTERRUPT …), bottom-strip captions, © line Akzidenz-Grotesk BQ Bold Condensed Banners are letter-spaced (wide on Effects/Interrupts, tight on starship type lines).
Destiny, stat values, slip numbers Akzidenz-Grotesk Medium Extended Bold for values; slip numbers on the Remaster sheets are zero-padded italic ("01").
Parsec number (systems) Craft Gothic Heavy Extended Per Bardez's notes.

Sizes (600 DPI, 1632×2220 card with bleed)

Sizes from Bardez's Card Fonts and dimensions notes and the cardmaker standard:

  • title 80 px; destiny 80
  • lore 58 (line 60, first-line indent 60)
  • game text 62 (line 65)
  • stat labels 56; values 60
  • deploy/forfeit 70; banners 60
  • bottom strip 48; © line 24

The Holotable image (745×1039) is the 600 DPI card at half scale.

Decipher vs. the Players Committee

  • Decipher's printed lore face is slightly narrower than the Akzidenz-Grotesk BQ Light Condensed used by Bardez and the PC. Re-typeset lore therefore occasionally runs one line longer than the printed card.
  • The PC's Holotable game text is larger than the text on the 2006 Remaster slip sheets, which were sized to fit a printed sleeve insert. The remaster program follows the Holotable size.
  • Special Edition and later sets changed the © line wording ("© LUCASFILM LTD. & TM. TM, ® & © 1998 DECIPHER INC.") but not the face.

Faces in swccg-cardmaker

The remaster program ships only free fonts: anyone may use, copy, modify and redistribute them with its code. Each stands in for one of the faces above, fitted to the PC's own cards.[3]

Element Font in swccg-cardmaker Made from Licence
Card title, deploy and forfeit numbers, bottom-strip bullet Holotable Title Traced from the PC's card titles SIL Open Font License 1.1
Lore Holotable Text Light Barlow Condensed Light SIL Open Font License 1.1
Game text Holotable Text Regular Barlow Condensed Medium SIL Open Font License 1.1
Stat labels, type banners, © line Holotable Text Bold Barlow Condensed SemiBold SIL Open Font License 1.1
Destiny, stat values, parsec, slip numbers Holotable Numbers Extended TeX Gyre Heros Bold, digits traced from the PC's destiny numbers GUST Font License (LPPL 1.3c)
Bottom-strip card number Holotable Numbers Bold Italic TeX Gyre Heros Bold Italic GUST Font License (LPPL 1.3c)
Bottom-strip caption Liberation Sans Narrow Bold (metric twin of the PC's Arial Narrow Bold) — GNU GPL v2 with the font exception

Until 3 November 2026 the program used commercial copies of the original faces from Bardez's template pack: Fiorello CG Condensed, Akzidenz-Grotesk and Craft Gothic.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ swccg-cardmaker. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
  2. ↑ Defensive Shields, Players Committee (PDF; the embedded fonts list ATFiorello-Condensed, AkzidenzGroteskBE-Cn, AkzidenzGroteskBE-BoldCn, AkzidenzGroteskBE-BoldIt and Arial Narrow). Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Fonts, swccg-cardmaker on GitHub (revision 67, 3 November 2026). Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
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