The Artful Dodger is a character in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. Dickens wrote his books in the Victorian Era, which also gave birth to a beautiful and extensively used typeface called Clarendon. The typeface was developed by Robert Besley and first published in 1845. Artful Dodger was modeled on the glyphs found in a 1865 book, which was typeset in Clarendon. Artful Dodger has not been 'cleaned', so the glyphs look rough and worn, just like the book I found them in.

Gutta Percha is a font for golfers. It takers its name from a hard, resilient natural substance that comes from the sap of trees grown in southeast Asia and which was used for the hard core of golf balls well into the twentieth century, when it was gradually replaced with synthetic material. It therefore seemed an appropriate name for a font using the image of a golfer of the 1920s. The letters are from our font Besley Clarendon, reduced to 70%. That means that Gutta Percha set at 40 points will have the same size letters as Besley Clarendon set at 28 points. However, it should be noted that the two fonts have different baselines. If you use them together you will have to manually adjust the vertical alignment. Gutta Percha is obviously a very specialized font, both because of the subject matter and because the uppercase is designed for use as dropped caps. There may not be many uses for it, but when it is right, it will be really right. Whether you are publishing a book about the history of golf or a clubhouse bulletin, Gutta Percha will surely be noticed.

The first Clarendon was introduced in 1845 by R Besley & Co, The Fan Street Foundry, as a general purpose bold for use in conjunction with other faces in works such as dictionaries. In some respects, Clarendon can be regarded as a refined version of the Egyptian style and as such can be used for text settings, although headline and display work is more usual. Clarendon is a trademark of Linotype GmbH registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be registered in certain other jurisdictions.

MVB Solano Gothic Bold was originally designed as a display face for the City of Albany, California (located on the San Francisco Bay facing the Golden Gate Bridge and bordering Berkeley). Named for the City’s main street, the typeface needed to work on signage in proximity to early 20th Century buildings, and in contemporary settings. Rather than creating a neutered design to cover all bases, Mark van Bronkhorst chose to develop a simple, strong, condensed face that would offer flexibility of style by providing both retro and more contemporary forms. Solano Gothic has since been expanded to a family offering five weights from Light to Bold. The basic fonts provide upper- and lowercase forms, with figures designed to harmonize within upper- and lowercase settings (the standard figures are not full cap height). The same figures are provided with Small Caps, and align to small cap height. For all-cap settings requiring figures and monetary symbols of full-cap height, there are the “Cap” fonts. An alternate tabular “1” is provided in all fonts so that both fitted and tabular settings of figures are possible (access to alternate characters subject to system or application support).

Century Gothic™ is based on Monotype 20th Century, which was drawn by Sol Hess between 1936 and 1947. Century Gothic maintains the basic design of 20th Century but has an enlarged x-height and has been modified to ensure satisfactory output from modern digital systems. The design is influenced by the geometric style sans serif faces which were popular during the 1920s and 30s. The Century Gothic font family is useful for headlines and general display work and for small quantities of text, particularly in advertising. The Century Gothic family has been extended to 14 weights in a Pan-European character set from Thin to Black and their Italics. The already existing 4 weights of Regular and Bold with their Italics are additionally still available in the STD character set. The W1G versions featuring a Pan-European character set for international communications supports almost all the popular languages/writing systems in western, eastern, and central Europe based on the Latin alphabet including several based on Cyrillic and Greek alphabets. Looking for the perfect way to complete your project? Check out Aptifer™ Slab, ITC Berkeley Old Style®, FF Franziska™, Frutiger®, ITC Legacy® Square Serif or Plantin®.

Century Gothic™ is based on Monotype 20th Century, which was drawn by Sol Hess between 1936 and 1947. Century Gothic maintains the basic design of 20th Century but has an enlarged x-height and has been modified to ensure satisfactory output from modern digital systems. The design is influenced by the geometric style sans serif faces which were popular during the 1920s and 30s. The Century Gothic font family is useful for headlines and general display work and for small quantities of text, particularly in advertising. Century Gothic family has been extended to 14 weights in a Pan-European character set from Thin to Black and their corresponding Italics. The already existing 4 weights of Regular and Bold with their Italics are additionally still available in the STD character set. For international communication, the W1G versions offer the appropriate character set. They contain Latin, Greek and Cyrillic characters and thus support all languages and writing systems that are in official use in Western, Eastern and Central Europe. Century Gothic Variable is features two axes: Weight and Italic. The Weight axis has preset instances from Light to Black. The Italic axis is a switch between upright and italic. Looking for the perfect way to complete your project? Check out Aptifer™ Slab, ITC Berkeley Old Style®, FF Franziska™, Frutiger®, ITC Legacy® Square Serif or Plantin®.

Century Gothic™ is based on Monotype 20th Century, which was drawn by Sol Hess between 1936 and 1947. Century Gothic maintains the basic design of 20th Century but has an enlarged x-height and has been modified to ensure satisfactory output from modern digital systems. The design is influenced by the geometric style sans serif faces which were popular during the 1920s and 30s. The Century Gothic font family is useful for headlines and general display work and for small quantities of text, particularly in advertising. Century Gothic family has been extended to 14 weights in a Pan-European character set from Thin to Black and their corresponding Italics. The already existing 4 weights of Regular and Bold with their Italics are additionally still available in the STD character set. For international communication, the W1G versions offer the appropriate character set. They contain Latin, Greek and Cyrillic characters and thus support all languages and writing systems that are in official use in Western, Eastern and Central Europe. Century Gothic Variable is features two axes: Weight and Italic. The Weight axis has preset instances from Light to Black. The Italic axis is a switch between upright and italic. Looking for the perfect way to complete your project? Check out Aptifer™ Slab, ITC Berkeley Old Style®, FF Franziska™, Frutiger®, ITC Legacy® Square Serif or Plantin®.

Glyphic Neue was inspired by the Op Art style of lettering in the United States that ran rampant in many photo type houses in the 1960's and 1970's. The Glyphic Series from the Franklin Photolettering group was an influence and spring board for this family of fonts, hence it's name. But Glyphic Neue departs from its unicase Franklin influence in several ways. Firstly the designer created both upper and lower case forms. The lowercase has been designed with barley protruding ascenders and descenders and with an x-height equivalent to the cap height, so that upper and lower can be exchanged indiscriminately for a quirky effect. Some of the letters take a cue from the original Glyphic series but many have been redesigned entirely to fit the designers vision. The italic forms differ enough from the upright version making it almost an entirely different display alphabet. Glyphic Neue is a versatile family of 6 fonts -- 3 widths, each with an accompanying italic that look equally at home when used on a party flier or a sports team visual identity.

Designed for global branding and supporting 93 languages, the SST® typefaces blend the organic readability and controlled structure of modern sans serif designs. In combining these attributes, the SST family is understated, versatile – and sure to be a timeless design. The SST Pan-European family has 17 fonts in total, supporting the W1G character set. It spans six weights from ultra light to heavy, each with an italic complement. In addition, three condensed designs and two monospaced (typewriter) typefaces were drawn to further expand the family’s vast range of uses. SST’s subtle design traits provide a quietly handsome and consistently friendly typographic presence that can be used for just about any typographic application. Broad range branding applicability combined with coverage for almost a hundred languages, makes SST one of the most widely accessible and usable typefaces available. Originally designed in partnership with the global consumer brand, Sony, the SST family is one of the most comprehensive type families available. Since extensive multi-lingual support was a critical design goal from the beginning, Akira Kobayashi, Monotype type director and primary designer on the project, turned to a network of local designers around the world for their individual language expertise. As a result, the details – which could be as subtle as stroke curvature and width – are consistent across Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic and multiple Asian languages. SST performs equally well in print and on-screen and the designs can be used at very small sizes in packaging and catalogs; while massive print headlines – even complicated wayfinding projects pose no stumbling blocks to the family’s typographic dexterity. While the family is also large enough to manage complicated typographic hierarchy, SST pairs handsomely with typefaces as far reaching as ITC Berkeley Old Style®, Meta®, PMN Caecilia®, Malabar® and Neue Swift®.

Whether you call them slab serif, square serif, or Egyptian, you know them when you see them – sturdy, nearly monoweight designs with blunt, straight-edged serifs and a no-nonsense attitude. The Rockwell® Nova family is a fine example of this appealing and eminently usable type style. This is a design that is both robust and adaptable. Marked by the flat top-serifs on the cap A, unusual Q tail and high-legibility two-storied lowercase a, Rockwell has a bit of handmade charm that distinguishes it from the cool, more modern interpretations of the slab serif style. The family is excellent for branding, headlines and other display uses. The simple shapes and hearty serifs also make it a good choice for short blocks of textual content in both print and on-screen environments. The light and bold weights are perfect for setting blocks of text copy, while the extra bold and condensed designs bring authority to display copy. Throw in a little color, and you amp up Rockwell’s messaging power. The regular and italic designs perform handsomely, in the most modest of screen resolutions. With four weights of normal proportions, each with a complementary italic, and three condensed designs, two with italics, the family is a commanding and versatile graphic communicator. Rockwell’s large x-height, simple character shapes and open counters, make for an exceptionally legible design. It should not, however, be set so tight that its serifs touch, as this will erode legibility and impair readability. A benefit to Rockwell’s slab serifs, however, is that the design combines beautifully with both sans serif typefaces and a variety of serif designs. Rockwell OpenType® Pro fonts have an extended character set supporting Greek, Cyrillic, most Central European and many Eastern European languages, in addition to providing for the automatic insertion of ligatures and fractions. Looking for its perfect pairing? Look no further than ITC Berkeley Old Style, Between™, ITC Franklin Gothic®, Harmonia Sans™, Metro® Nova or Frutiger® Serif.

Typefaces, like most other works of art, provide a small window into the personalities and sensibilities of the artists who create them. ITC Panache not only provides this window, it is also aptly named. Mr. Edward Benguiat the dreator of ITC Panache, has all the dash, verve (and panache) hinted at in the design, Creative, capable and prolific, Ed Benguiat has drawn hundreds of exciting and popular typeface designs. Benguiat's design goal was to create a sans serif typestyle that is versatile, utilitarian - and distinctive. We think he has succeeded admirably. ITC Panache's three weights mix exceptionally well to complement each other or provide emphasis where necessary. Extensive testing at text sizes and design fine-tuning has produced a typeface family which is remarkably homogenous and consistent in color. Text set in ITC Panache is inviting without dissapointment. It is exceptionally easy to read, even in long text blocks of copy or small point sizes. When set in larger sizes or used for headlines, ITC Panache's character traits becomes more apparent and pronounced to the reader. They help to create graphics with distinction and style. Big or small. a little or a lot. it's hard not to use ITC Panache well. If you could pigeonhole ITC Panache, it would probably be classified as a stressed sans", but this would not completely describe, or do justiceto, the design. There is a slight contrast in stroke weight, which becomes more pronounced as the familiy weight increases; but there is a more to distinguish ITC Panache from ather sans serifs. Perhaps most obvious is its high waist and correspondingly slight condensation of the top half of the "round" capitals. Both of these traits link ITC Panache with the sensuous forms of art nouveau creations. In contrast are the typicall old style "e" found in designs like Cloister and ITC Berkeley Old Style, and the two storied "g" common to the early 20th century sans serif designs. The capital "A" even has the cupped top found in Caslon designs. Part of the beauty of ITC Panache is that all of these seemingly unrelated desig traits are melded into a design of exceptional continuity."

Say g'day to Ainslie Sans, insigne Design’s new typeface. Like its big brother, the new face incorporates a mix of influences from Oz, although Sans is pared down from the original semi-serif. The original Ainslie was inspired by Mt. Ainslie and the city of Canberra’s inner suburb of the same name. Canberra is Australia’s capital--a planned city designed by American architect Walter Burley Griffin. Griffin’s style and geometric design for the city, which include Mt. Ainslie, are now also the same structure that make up the foundation of Ainslie Sans. Unlike the original Ainslie family member, though, Ainslie Sans does away with much of the aboriginal-inspired touches by eliminating the semi-serifs, forcing the font to borrow more heavily than its predecessor from Canberra’s distinct, geometric design and style. The result’s a spiffy Australian font that’s usable within a wide array of applications. The trendy typeface incorporates a multitude of alternates. You can access these in any OpenType-enabled application. Alternates, swashes and alternate titling caps allow you to customize the look and feel. Also incorporated are capital swash alternates, old style figures, and compact caps. Check out the PDF brochure to view these options in action. OpenType enabled applications can take complete benefit of your automatic replacing ligatures and alternates. This font also presents the glyphs to help a wide array of languages. Try it for copy. Try it for a headline. Try it alongside the original Ainslie. Whichever way suits you best, give it a burl. You won't be sad you did.

“Hey, look at me!” cried the new advertising typefaces. With the nineteenth century and the industrial revolution came an esthetic revolution in type design. Brash, loud, fat display faces elbowed their way into the crowd of book faces, demanding attention. Those who admired traditional book types harumphed and complained. Robert Thorne had fired the opening round with his Fatface. With the cutting of Figgins Antique, the battle was well and truly joined. Job printing came into its own and it seemed like everything changed. The world of printing had been turned upside down and the gentile book-type aficionados recoiled in horror much as the rural landed gentry recoiled at the upstart middle class shopkeepers and manufacturers. William Savage, approvingly quoted by Daniel Berkeley Updike over a hundred years later, described the new display faces as “a barbarous extreme.” These were exciting times. According to Geoffrey Dowding in his An Introduction To The History Of Printing Types, “The types which we know by the name of Egyptian were first shown by Vincent Figgins in his specimen book of 1815, under the name Antique.” Of course, dating the design is not quite as simple as that. Nicolete Gray points out that Figgins used the same “1815” title page on his specimen books from 1815 to 1821, adding pages as needed without regard to archival issues. As a result, there are different versions of the 1815 specimen book. In those copies that include the new Antique, that specific specimen is printed on paper with an 1817 watermark. The design is dated by the 1817 watermark rather than the 1815 title page. Figgins Antique ML is an all-cap font. This typeface is for bold statements. Don't waste it on wimpy whispers of hesitant whimsies. And please don't use it for extended text -- it will only give someone a headache. Think boldly. Use it boldly. Set it tight. Go ahead and run the serifs together. Solid and stolid, this face is very, very English. FIGGINS ANTIQIE ML represents a major extension of the original release, with the following changes: 1. Added glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Added glyphs to complete standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page. Special glyphs relocated and assigned Unicode codepoints, some in Private Use area. Total of 331 glyphs. 2. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: liga and pnum. 3. Added 86 kerning pairs. 4. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. 5. Redesigned mathamatical operators. 6. Included of both tabular (standard) & proportional numbers (optional). 7. Refined various glyph outlines.

It all started with a simple idea back in 1998: do a digital version of a "lost" 70's typeface, and make up the missing letters that were not present in the only available example Jeff Levine had to work with. Jeff wasn't yet doing his own digital font creation, so he hooked up with Brad Nelson who owns a small foundry called Brain Eaters Fonts. Together, they collaborated on "Action Is"- a freeware font named after the source of the type example. This was a title page for a commemorative photo album of images from the 60's TV music show "Where the Action Is", formerly hosted by Jeff's employer at the time, singer-writer-producer Steve Alaimo. The free font took off like a rocket, being released just at the peak of the 60’s/70’s retro craze in the late 1990’s, and it was EVERYWHERE! It showed up on TV shows, packaging and web design -- and was even spotted on signage used on the side of a major amusement resort’s retro-themed hotel. From that point on, Jeff kept getting requests for a version with a lower case. Although they shared the copyright in the freeware version, Brad Nelson gave Jeff his blessing to re-work and take Action Is into the realm of commercial type. Newly improved and re-released as Groovy Happening JNL, it became one of Jeff's better selling type designs. A simplified, yet similar font was issued called Groovy Summer JNL. Now, after about a decade, Jeff had decided to clean up the 3-D (drop shadow) version that was originally freeware with many minute design flaws and re-release it commercially. Groovy 3D Caps JNL is an all-caps, limited character set font which ties in well with the previous releases, yet retains itís 1960s-1970s era charm. The font flag art is courtesy of Barbara D. Berney and is used by permission.

Get your Aussie on! The new typeface, Ainslie, with its mix of influences from Oz, makes its mark as the first semi-serif from insigne Design. Ainslie, named for Mt. Ainslie and Canberra’s inner suburb of the same name, was originally developed for the Canberra Australia Centennial Typeface Competition. Canberra is Australia’s capital, and it’s a planned city designed by American Walter Burley Griffin, a contemporary and one-time associate of Frank Lloyd Wright. Griffin’s plan involved a distinctly geometric design with several focal points--one of which was Mt. Ainslie. This same purely geometric scheme is now the basis for insigne’s new release. Similar to the Chatype project in its scope, its challenge, and the way its concept was developed, Ainslie incorporates influences from Canberra and surrounding areas to form a font that is uniquely Australian. In comparison, Chatype was developed for the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee by insigne in conjunction with designer Robbie de Villiers. Chatype took elements from Chattanooga’s industrial character and Cherokee past and merged them with the area’s technological influences. Likewise, Ainslie takes Canberra’s distinct, geometric design and blends it with the organic, flowing effect of aboriginal art. Add in touches from the smooth, aerodynamic design of the boomerang and Ainslie gives you a look uniquely Australian yet usable in a wide range of applications. The fashionable typeface includes a multitude of alternates that can be accessed in any OpenType-enabled application. These stylish alternates along with a number of swashes as well as meticulously refined details with ball terminals and alternate titling caps keep the font well accessorized. Also included are capital swash alternates, old style figures, and small caps. Peruse the PDF brochure to see these features in action. OpenType enabled applications such as the Adobe suite or Quark can take full advantage of the automatic replacing ligatures and alternates. This family also offers the glyphs to support a wide range of languages. While Ainslie wasn't selected as the final font in the Canberra competition, the outcome allowed for additional adjustments to the typeface. Several approaches were attempted for the final product including a technological hexagonal concept, which may still be developed to another form later. Some of the organic forms were removed and substituted with more abrupt endings, leaving the face looking pretty spiffy and a fair bit more legible. In the end, Ainslie was pulled back to the basic forms from which it was started. Give it a go for your next project. It’s guaranteed to be anything but a barbeque stopper.

Originally designed in 1996, Mrs Eaves was Zuzana Licko’s first attempt at the design of a traditional typeface. It was styled after Baskerville, the famous transitional serif typeface designed in 1757 by John Baskerville in Birmingham, England. Mrs Eaves was named after Baskerville’s live in housekeeper, Sarah Eaves, whom he later married. One of Baskerville’s intents was to develop typefaces that pushed the contrast between thick and thin strokes, partially to show off the new printing and paper making techniques of his time. As a result his types were often criticized for being too perfect, stark, and difficult to read. Licko noticed that subsequent interpretations and revivals of Baskerville had continued along the same path of perfection, using as a model the qualities of the lead type itself, not the printed specimens. Upon studying books printed by Baskerville at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, Licko decided to base her design on the printed samples which were heavier and had more character due to the imprint of lead type into paper and the resulting ink spread. She reduced the contrast while retaining the overall openness and lightness of Baskerville by giving the lower case characters a wider proportion. She then reduced the x-height relative to the cap height to avoid increasing the set width. There is something unique about Mrs Eaves and it’s difficult to define. Its individual characters are at times awkward looking—the W being narrow, the L uncommonly wide, the flare of the strokes leading into the serifs unusually pronounced. Taken individually, at first sight some of the characters don’t seem to fit together. The spacing is generally too loose for large bodies of text, it sort of rambles along. Yet when used in the right circumstance it imparts a very particular feel that sets it clearly apart from many likeminded types. It has an undefined quality that resonates with people. This paradox (imperfect yet pleasing) is perhaps best illustrated by design critic and historian Robin Kinross who has pointed out the limitation of the “loose” spacing that Licko employed, among other things, yet simultaneously designated the Mrs Eaves type specimen with an honorable mention in the 1999 American Center for Design competition. Proof, perhaps, that type is best judged in the context of its usage. Even with all its shortcomings, Mrs Eaves has outsold all Emigre fonts by twofold. On MyFonts, one of the largest on-line type sellers, Mrs Eaves has been among the 20 best selling types for years, listed among such classics as Helvetica, Univers, Bodoni and Franklin Gothic. Due to its commercial and popular success it has come to define the Emigre type foundry. While Licko initially set out to design a traditional text face, we never specified how Mrs Eaves could be best used. Typefaces will find their own way. But if there’s one particular common usage that stands out, it must be literary—Mrs Eaves loves to adorn book covers and relishes short blurbs on the flaps and backs of dust covers. Trips to bookstores are always a treat for us as we find our Mrs Eaves staring out at us from dozens of book covers in the most elegant compositions, each time surprising us with her many talents. And Mrs Eaves feels just as comfortable in a wide variety of other locales such as CD covers (Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief being our favorite), restaurant menus, logos, and poetry books, where it gives elegant presence to short texts. One area where Mrs Eaves seems less comfortable is in the setting of long texts, particularly in environments such as the interiors of books, magazines, and newspapers. It seems to handle long texts well only if there is ample space. A good example is the book /CD/DVD release The Band: A Musical History published by Capitol Records. Here, Mrs Eaves was given appropriate set width and generous line spacing. In such cases its wide proportions provide a luxurious feel which invites reading. Economy of space was not one of the goals behind the original Mrs Eaves design. With the introduction of Mrs Eaves XL, Licko addresses this issue. Since Mrs Eaves is one of our most popular typefaces, it’s not surprising that over the years we've received many suggestions for additions to the family. The predominant top three wishes are: greater space economy; the addition of a bold italic style; and the desire to pair it with a sans design. The XL series answers these requests with a comprehensive set of new fonts including a narrow, and a companion series of Mrs Eaves Sans styles to be released soon. The main distinguishing features of Mrs Eaves XL are its larger x-height with shorter ascenders and descenders and overall tighter spacing. These additional fonts expand the Mrs Eaves family for a larger variety of uses, specifically those requiring space economy. The larger x-height also allows a smaller point size to be used while maintaining readability. Mrs Eaves XL also has a narrow counterpart to the regular, with a set width of about 92 percent which fulfills even more compact uses. At first, this may not seem particularly narrow, but the goal was to provide an alternative to the regular that would work well as a compact text face while maintaining the full characteristics of the regular, rather than an extreme narrow which would be more suitable for headline use. Four years in the making, we're excited to finally let Mrs Eaves XL find its way into the world and see where and how it will pop up next.