I released Yellow Pills on October 29, 1997. It was influenced by magnetic ink character recognition fonts from the 1960s such as Westminster and Data 70. I reinterpreted the style by drawing the letterforms by hand, giving it a rough, irregular quality rather than the precise shapes associated with those earlier designs.

The name came from a song by the power pop band 20/20, which matched the slightly psychedelic character of the typeface. Yellow Pills was first released with a free commercial desktop license. In August 2020, I placed it into the public domain.