Letras Oldstyle was commissioned by Letras Libres, the reigning literary magazine published by Enrique Krauze in Mexico City. The series was drawn by David Berlow and inspired by the earliest typefaces cut in the Americas in the early 1600s by printer Henrico Martinez. Proofs survive in the Biblioteca Nacional. Letras Oldstyle stands as the first typeface ever cut in the Americas, the root of American type design; FB 1998