Rian Hughes’ 15th collection of fonts, “112 Hours”, is entirely dedicated to numbers. Culled from a myriad of sources – clock faces, tickets, watches house numbers – it is an eclectic and wide-ranging set. Each font contains only numerals and related punctuation – no letters. A new book has been designed by Hughes to show the collection, and includes sample settings, complete character sets, source material and an introduction. This is available print-to-order on Blurb in paperback and hardback: http://www.blurb.com/b/5539073-112-hours-hardback http://www.blurb.com/b/5539045-112-hours-paperback From the introduction: The idea for this, the fifteenth Device Fonts collection, began when I came across an online auction site dedicated to antique clocks. I was mesmerized by the inventive and bizarre numerals on their faces. Shorn of the need to extend the internal logic of a typeface through the entire alphabet, the designers of these treasures were free to explore interesting forms and shapes that would otherwise be denied them. Given this horological starting point, I decided to produce 12 fonts, each featuring just the numbers from 1 to 12 and, where appropriate, a small set of supporting characters — in most cases, the international currency symbols, a colon, full stop, hyphen, slash and the number sign. 10, 11 and 12 I opted to place in the capital A, B and C slots. Each font is shown in its entirety here. I soon passed 12, so the next logical finish line was 24. Like a typographic Jack Bauer, I soon passed that too -— the more I researched, the more I came across interesting and unique examples that insisted on digitization, or that inspired me to explore some new design direction. The sources broadened to include tickets, numbering machines, ecclesiastical brass plates and more. Though not derived from clock faces, I opted to keep the 1-12 conceit for consistency, which allowed me to design what are effectively numerical ligatures. I finally concluded one hundred fonts over my original estimate at 112. Even though it’s not strictly divisible by 12, the number has a certain symmetry, I reasoned, and was as good a place as any to round off the project. An overview reveals a broad range that nonetheless fall into several loose categories. There are fairly faithful revivals, only diverging from their source material to even out inconsistencies and regularize weighting or shape to make them more functional in a modern context; designs taken directly from the source material, preserving all the inky grit and character of the original; designs that are loosely based on a couple of numbers from the source material but diverge dramatically for reasons of improved aesthetics or mere whim; and entirely new designs with no historical precedent. As projects like this evolve (and, to be frank, get out of hand), they can take you in directions and to places you didn’t envisage when you first set out. Along the way, I corresponded with experts in railway livery, and now know about the history of cab side and smokebox plates; I travelled to the Musée de l’imprimerie in Nantes, France, to examine their numbering machines; I photographed house numbers in Paris, Florence, Venice, Amsterdam and here in the UK; I delved into my collection of tickets, passes and printed ephemera; I visited the Science Museum in London, the Royal Signals Museum in Dorset, and the Museum of London to source early adding machines, war-time telegraphs and post-war ration books. I photographed watches at Worthing Museum, weighing scales large enough to stand on in a Brick Lane pub, and digital station clocks at Baker Street tube station. I went to the London Under-ground archive at Acton Depot, where you can see all manner of vintage enamel signs and woodblock type; I photographed grocer’s stalls in East End street markets; I dug out old clocks I recalled from childhood at my parents’ place, examined old manual typewriters and cash tills, and crouched down with a torch to look at my electricity meter. I found out that Jane Fonda kicked a policeman, and unusually for someone with a lifelong aversion to sport, picked up some horse-racing jargon. I share some of that research here. In many cases I have not been slavish about staying close to the source material if I didn’t think it warranted it, so a close comparison will reveal differences. These changes could be made for aesthetic reasons, functional reasons (the originals didn’t need to be set in any combination, for example), or just reasons of personal taste. Where reference for the additional characters were not available — which was always the case with fonts derived from clock faces — I have endeavored to design them in a sympathetic style. I may even extend some of these to the full alphabet in the future. If I do, these number-only fonts could be considered as experimental design exercises: forays into form to probe interesting new graphic possibilities.

The Bitstream version of Monotype Rockwell, 1934. Twentieth-century design influence is revealed in strokes of more even weight than in the original nineteenth-century Egyptians or Slab Serifs. Rockwell is a prime example of this twentieth-century approach. It seems to be a simple Constructivist geometric sans with strong square slab serifs added to. Angular terminals make its sturdy design particular sparkling. It is a strong face for headlines and posters, and is legible in very short text blocks. Cyrillic version was developed at ParaType in 2000 by Isay Slutsker and Manvel Shmavonyan.

Designed as a typewriter face for IBM, Courier was redrawn by Adrian Frutiger for the IBM Selectric series. Courier is a typical fixed pitch design, monotone in weight and slab serif in concept. The Courier font is used to emulate typewriter output for reports, tabular work and technical documentation.

Limited to a single width for all characters and a rough image transferred through a ribbon to the paper, in 1953 Clayton Smith at IBM, Lexington, adapted the classical serifed letterform to this difficult medium to obtain a typewriter face of good readability and interesting texture.

This font is a collection of simple calligraphic ornaments suitable for invitations, gift tags, and anything that can benifit from a "spoonful of sugar" visually.

Roger Roberson skillfully adapted the sanserif to the monospace IBM typewriter at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1956.

The Bitstream version of Letter Gothic designed by Roger Robertson in 1956-62 for IBM electric typewriter. It is a condensed, monospaced font resembling a typewriter face, suitable for tabular material. Primarily used for slide presentations and for word processing applications, Letter Gothic is very helpful for printing out software source listing, for informal office communications and for tabular charts where alignment of columns is important. Besides, being a clear and easy-to-read font, Letter Gothic is popular now for display and advertising matters. Cyrillic version was developed for ParaType in 2000 by Gayaneh Bagdasaryan.

Basaro Typeface is all caps display sans serif with many letter combinations according to creation. This font is inspired by an elegant & classic style with various swash. Equipped with Stylistic Set: ss01 - ss12, 12 alternatives per letter. Very easy to use and perfect for headlines, logos, posters, packaging, T-shirts, postcards and much more. Font Features : - Character Set Uppercase. - Character Set Lowercase. - 312 Stylistic Alternates ( ss01 - ss12). - Numerals & Punctuation. - Multilingual Support. Recommended to use in Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop.

Clocko automatically turns the time stamp text into an analog clocks using the OpenType ligatures. Even when the ligatures are turned off, the time is still visible and readable, and it does not change or ruin the layout. Perfect for web usage and even for small sizes. For a crisp look, please use sizes divisible by 30, for example 30pt or 60pt. To make a custom analog clock, type any uppercase or lowercase letter to have a border (see previews for examples), and then type the time in 12 hour or 24 hour format with or without seconds. Use colon, comma, semicolon, hyphen, period or plus as a separator. Few examples: 12:45 9:25:46 10.50 13:30.10 The borders can be mixed together for more interesting look, please see the screenshots above. An additional background shape can be added to the clocks by typing a symbol (! # $ % & ( ) < = > ) as a first character, for example %A12:40:55. Please note that in order to keep the clocks visible, the background shape and the clocks need to have a different colors.

Altero is a font family for larger-than-life words. It supports 112 languages, features a total of 334 glyphs and includes an italicized version.

Contains over 130 symbols based on the Western astrology system - it features the 12 zodiac signs, the 12 astrology symbols, the 12 corresponding planets, along with the 30 phases of the moon and charting signs. NOTE: this font comes with an interpretation guide in pdf format.