I released Got No Heart on July 19, 1997, as an attempt to capture the look of mid-century atomic age design. The letterforms drew on the kidney-shaped motifs of 1950s furniture and the streamlined curves of that period. I produced it in two versions, solid and outline, and from the beginning both were available under a free commercial use license. The name came from a lyric in Elvis Costello’s song “Watching the Detectives.”
In hindsight, the typeface never worked as well as I hoped. Several of the letterforms didn’t harmonize with the kidney-shaped theme, leaving the overall design inconsistent. I had intended it for display use, but its uneven character limited its appeal, and it was never widely adopted.
On May 9, 2012, I issued a major update that refined the curves, replaced accented characters, added punctuation, and redid the spacing and kerning. That brought the technical standard up to date, though the basic structural problems remained. In August 2020, I placed Got No Heart into the public domain without further changes. I’m not aware of it being used in any notable projects, and I regard it as a flawed experiment in adapting mid-century design language to a digital typeface.