Designer Steven Skaggs wanted a versatile uncial typeface that was not simply decorative. Traditionally, a true uncial is a majuscule form, entirely lacking in ascenders and descenders. However, by designing Rieven Uncial, Skaggs found a way to use the true uncial as inspiration but retained a lowercase look and feel.

Typically, uncials do not have italic forms but in order for Rieven to be a truly versatile face, it was imperative that it should be accompanied by an italic. The italic form owes much to the historical roots in the letra antigua cursiva of the 15th century humanist masters.

Rieven Roman
In order to address instances where the more familiar style of letterforms are preferred over uncials, Steven Skaggs expanded the Rieven family by creating Rieven Roman version which can be used hand-in-hand with Rieven Uncial. Rieven Roman and the accompanying italic are variants derived from Rieven Uncial and in fact share many glyphs in common.

The accompany­ing italic works perfectly well with its Roman counterpart, despite being structurally quite distinct from it. Virtually all traces of the uncial forms are removed in the lowercase. Sufficient differentiation between the italic and upright forms of the Roman has been applied to achieve a balanced contrast in text settings, which allows for more efficient reading.

Rieven Ornaments
The Rieven family includes Rieven Ornaments, a font comprised of over 180 symbols, circled numbers, arrows, and decorative ornaments.

Rieven Uncial received a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design from the Type Directors Club in the 2010 TDC2 competition.