Trajan The original template for this one-weight, all-caps font was the inscription on Trajan’s Column, carved in AD 113 to celebrate the emperor Trajan’s victory in the Dacian Wars. College student Jason Smith copied the stone lettering from the cast on display in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. In Roman times, the signmaker would paint letters onto stone with a wide brush for the stone mason to chisel out later. The signwriter would end each stroke with a flick of his brush, which the mason would also carve into the stone. Ecce (as they would have said in Rome): the serif was born. Hand-crafted “I first drew this typeface when I was 17,” says Jason. “I drew it with a very sharp 9H pencil on polydraw film. “Then, using a Rotring pen, I inked the letters in and scraped back the serifs so they were perfectly sharp. These letters were then reduced on a PMT camera. I’d designed my first typeface, although it wasn’t digitised till much later.” Digitised Years after Jason had drawn the original typeface, its transfer into digital form made further refinements necessary. The serifs and weights needed thickening slightly, creating a crisp, new version whose delicate elegance is best appreciated in larger sizes. A classically-inspired font, timeless and perfectly-proportioned, to reflect the refinement of premium brands.

It's cool to be square. Among the many strange attempts to conceal writing, these two systems allegedly used by the Masons have a wonderful simplicity and relative ease of use. Both systems, the Rosicrucian and Free Mason, (also called the Pigpen cypher) as simple replacement ciphers never offered very great cryptographic security, but certainly would ensure that the casual observer would not be able to read documents written in such scripts.

In 1912 Gerard Meynell, with J.H. Mason, Ernest Jackson and Edward Johnston, commissioned this large x-height typeface modelled on Caslon’s designs from Pierpont and the Monotype Corporation as the text face for The Imprint, a short-lived magazine about fine printing and typography.

After the popular successes of Exocet and Mason, Emigre has once again teamed up with Jonathan Barnbrook to bring you his latest venture into type land. Priori is a logical progression from Mason, a typeface he designed around ten years ago. Where Mason was designed purely for display purposes and featured only caps, Priori includes lower case, companion serif and sans serif versions, alternates and, according to its creator, is shooting for text face status - a bold claim from a designer who loves to wear his influences on his sleeve and who has little use for typography that aspires to be "neutral" or "transparent." Like many of Barnbrook's typeface designs, Priori is based on his interest in British typography of the early 20th century. It is inspired by the work of famous British typographers, such as Eric Gill and Edward Johnston. But it also embraces all of the signage and lettering that Barnbrook observes in the streets, cathedrals, and public buildings of his London neighborhood. This mixing of native influences with a contemporary pop culture intent is what gives Barnbrook's types a distinct and unique flavor. Like its creator, Priori is a one of a kind.

After the popular successes of Exocet and Mason, Emigre has once again teamed up with Jonathan Barnbrook to bring you his latest venture into type land. Priori is a logical progression from Mason, a typeface he designed around ten years ago. Where Mason was designed purely for display purposes and featured only caps, Priori includes lower case, companion serif and sans serif versions, alternates and, according to its creator, is shooting for text face status - a bold claim from a designer who loves to wear his influences on his sleeve and who has little use for typography that aspires to be "neutral" or "transparent." Like many of Barnbrook's typeface designs, Priori is based on his interest in British typography of the early 20th century. It is inspired by the work of famous British typographers, such as Eric Gill and Edward Johnston. But it also embraces all of the signage and lettering that Barnbrook observes in the streets, cathedrals, and public buildings of his London neighborhood. This mixing of native influences with a contemporary pop culture intent is what gives Barnbrook's types a distinct and unique flavor. Like its creator, Priori is a one of a kind.

This casually elegant script, similar to the logotype lettering found on Mason jars (hence the name), is patterned after an offering from the 1930s chapbook 60 Alphabets by The Hunt Brothers. The Opentype version of this font supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages, as well as Unicode 1252 (Latin) languages.

a, g, k and y It was a forensic examination by Jason Smith of his existing designs that laid the groundwork for FS Jack. Jason made a list of unique characteristics that would give the sans serif font its typographic thumbprint, which included an unusually large x-height and slightly off-the-wall letters like the lower-case “a”, “g”, “k” and “y”. “I wanted to make something that was slightly uncomfortable,” says Jason, “and in doing so simplify the quirkiness down to a few letters.” Fernando Mello did “the rest of the cooking”, filling the design out and making the additional weights. Tipos Latinos Upon its release in 2010, FS Jack was submitted by Fernando, who is Brazilian, for the esteemed type design biennial, Tipos Latinos, where it was selected as a winner in the Families category. It went on to be selected for type exhibitions throughout Latin America and around the world. “FS Jack is a workhorse,” says Fernando, “but also very ownable and distinctive, and available in a good range of weights, crafted by Jason and I.” Corporate “FS Jack took a couple of years to get noticed and is still fairly underused,” says Jason, “which is good in a way, for our Brandfont clients that have adopted it.” FS Jack was chosen as the signature font for The Shard in London, from its signage down to business cards. Fontsmith also worked with Lloyds Bank to customise FS Jack into a bespoke font for the bank’s updated brand identity – part of Fontsmith’s Brandfont service, which you can read about here. Fat Jack Included in the FS Jack family – just – is FS Jack Poster, the super-heavy weight of the range. “That was a last minute addition,” says Fernando, “after Jason and I started talking about how much we liked Gill KO, a typeface that is almost comically fat.”

Erle Stanley Gardner’s beloved lawyer “Perry Mason” first appeared on screen in a series of six films with Warren Williams starring in four of them. The hand lettered opening title for 1935’s “The Case of the Lucky Legs” is a classic Art Deco sans serif design, and is now available as Courtroom JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Domani from CounterPoint is a faithful digital revival of an old photo-typositing face called ITC Didi. Originally designed by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, Domani brings to life a font that has been somewhat neglected by the digital era until now. Brought to the attention of Jason Walcott by graphic designer Rob King, this font immediately captured Jason with its 1970s high contrast Didone style, typical of that time period. It has some unique design details that set it apart from other didone style typefaces. “Domani” is the Italian word for “tomorrow”. The name was suggested by Rob King, and Jason felt it was perfect for this revitalized design. Walcott has created a professional quality digital version that is both faithful to the original design while expanding the character set to make use of OpenType features. A full set of swash capitals and several swash lowercase, designed by Walcott, has been added, as well as support for Latin-based and Eastern European languages.