42 search results (0.012 seconds)
  1. Pyramus NF by Nick's Fonts, $10.00
    This engaging antique text face is based on Paragon Light, from the 1905 specimen book from Barnhart Brothers & Spindler. Although it is spaced and kerned for text work, it also is suited for headlines if you tighten the tracking. Both versions of this font contain complete Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.
  2. Pyragy by Belli Creative, $9.00
    Pyragy is a display font with a classical vibe. It has beautifully crafted nine swashes. It’s genuine, interesting, and perfectly fits different design works, such as posters, book or album covers, digital spaces, or any other media. It supports various Latin-based languages and comes with powerful open-type and true-type features.
  3. Aramus by Hackberry Font Foundry, $24.95
    Aramus is a new serif font in my continuing objective of designing book fonts that I can really use. In many ways, Aramus is a very different direction for me. It comes from a scan of an old display face that has been radically modified to a much smaller x-height than I have been using lately, plus taller ascenders. Many of the characters needed a lot of correction to bring them into my taste. In general, I have decided that many of my fonts create a type color that is too dense. Aramus is an attempt to get away from that look. Although Amitale has been a very successful book family and excellent to work with, I find I still need something more open with a lighter color. Aramus is the first look at the new direction. The original hand-cut serifs vary a lot, different for almost every character. This gives a little looseness and helps the lightness I am looking for. It will be interesting to see where this all goes. This is a normal serif for me in that it has caps, lowercase, small caps with the appropriate figures for each case. This font has all the OpenType features in the set for 2009. I didn't bother with the CE accents (though I can add them upon request. They will be in the final new book family). There are several ligatures for your fun and enjoyment: bb gg ff fi fl ffi ffl ffy fj ft tt ty Wh Th and more. Like all of my fonts, there are: caps, lowercase, small caps, proportional lining figures, proportional oldstyle figures, & small cap figures, plus numerators, denominators, superiors, inferiors, and a complete set of ordinals 1st through infinity. Enjoy!
  4. Primus by Artegra, $19.00
    Primus has been designed to express the feelings of future, science and innovativeness while being simple and clean. It’s a geometric typeface with rounded edges, carefully designed and kerned to achieve a high visual quality that would make it a perfect typeface for any kind of use. While providing a clean and enjoyable reading when it’s used for text purposes, Primus is primarily effective as a display typeface that can be used for logotypes, brand identities, advertisements and so on, to fully reflect our era and beyond.
  5. Prague by ITC, $29.00
    Prague was designed by Michael Gills, who was strongly influenced by the work of Czech designer Oldrich Menhart. It is a strong, angular roman typeface with classical overtones. The exciting vibrancy of Prague is suitable for a wide range of advertising work requiring a traditional or classical approach.
  6. Selectric Pyramid by Indian Summer Studio, $45.00
    Selectric Pyramid is a typewriter font. Egyptian slab serif · Geometric slab serif Pyramid is version of Memphis (1929) by Dr. Rudolf Wolf. The part of the large project on revival and further development (by drawing many additional glyphs, sometimes over 1000) of the 20th century’s typewriters’ fonts.
  7. Prague Metronome by 38-lineart, $16.00
    We are happy to introduce Prague Metronome, inspired by the city of Prague and the metronome in the heart of this city. Prague Metronome, a font made manually by hand that we set in such a way that everything is connected in a neat rhythm, just like metronome used by musicians to set the tempo. This font has alternate stylistic for Uppercase and Lowercase, we also complement lowercase with alternate swash and titling. No half-hearted, we added 142 ligature to get the impression of natural handwriting. Comes with two thicknesses namely hairline and monoline as well as a unique shape appearance that will attract interest when used as your brand identity. This font can be used for brands, quotes, headers, websites, and other broader graphic designs. Prague with its metronome is a symbol for everything, beauty, history and personal impression that cannot be described. If European cities were a necklace, Prague would be a diamond among the pearls. Enjoy our font. thanks.
  8. Ongunkan Bosnia Pyramid by Runic World Tamgacı, $100.00
    The signs of the Bosnian pyramids The pyramid researcher, Semir Osmanagic, began excavations in 2005 in Visoko, Bosnia, 30 km North from Sarajevo. Mr. Senad Hodocic, the curator at the local museum, pointed out at the pyramidal shape of the Visocica Mountain, which grabbed Osmanagic's attention. It is also suspected that the four adjacent hills, covered by plants and greenery, also hide the pyramids. The main sites of the excavations are called the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon, and the results achieved so far have already proved that those structures are man-made and artificial. The Pyramid of the Sun is bigger and older than the pyramid in Giza, which was built by Pharaoh Cheops 4600 years ago. Gábor Szakács, who went to the site in June 2006 for the first time, found the symbols on the megalithic blocks inside the tunnel of the Pyramid of the Sun, which correspond to the ancient Hungarian runic writings. Further information about the Bosnian Pyramids is available at the website http://www.piramidasunca.ba/. There are also researchers who do not accept the subject of the Bosnian pyramids. Time will tell the truth.
  9. Rykers Pram - Unknown license
  10. Lady Cleo by Solotype, $19.95
    This started out to be a font with an Egyptian hieroglyphic look, but took a detour just beyond the first pyramid. A young lady we know said many of the letters reminded her of the hooks on a bra strap. Whatever.
  11. Stationer JNL by Jeff Levine, $29.00
    The 1938 sheet music for the official Coast Guard Marching Song "Semper Paratus" "(Always Ready)" offered up a hand lettered title in a bold block style with rounded corners and an inline. This is now available as Stationer JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.
  12. SYSTEM HATCH - Unknown license
  13. Guglia by Leo Colalillo, $20.00
    Guglia is an extra textura typeface ispired by the gothic architecture shapes and in particular to his vertical extremization based on a rigid scheme, like the calligraphy of that period. A spire (Guglia in italian) is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, often a skyscraper or a church tower.
  14. Atomic Wedgie by Comicraft, $19.00
    Tighten up your capes, pull those cowls over your eyes and hoist your underpants over your trousers as far as they will go! Silver Age super heroes know that Men of Action can never look foolish fighting crime in their pyjamas and neither will you with the help of our latest crack-kerning offering.
  15. Deco Template JNL by Jeff Levine, $29.00
    Deco Template JNL is a font made from the inline portion of Stationer JNL, which itself was based on the hand lettered 1938 sheet music title for the official Coast Guard Marching Song "Semper Paratus" "(Always Ready)". Resembling a drafting template with a square, modular look, this type design is available in both regular and oblique versions.
  16. Metron by Storm Type Foundry, $52.00
    Metron is so far the most ambitious typeface made to order in the Czech Republic. Despite the fact that for a number of years it has not been used for the purpose for which it was designed, every inhabitant of Prague is still well aware of its typical features. Metron Pro was commissioned by the Transport Company of the Capital City of Prague in 1970 to be used in the information system of the Prague Metro. It was first published in the manual of the Metroprojekt company in 1973 and then used to the full, under the author’s supervision, for lines “A” and “C”. Since 1985 Rathouský's system has been disappearing from the Prague Metro; it survives only in the form of metal letters at its stations and at some stations of the Czechoslovak Railways. In 2014 we're mentioning the 90th birthday of Jiří Rathouský. It’s a good opportunity for updating and re-introducing his Metron. Extended was the choice of figures and fractions, new currency signs added, diacritics revised, etc., but above all the newly designed Cyrillics including true SmallCaps. Now we have six weights plus italics, where the tone of the basic style is even closer to the original. Ten years back we've had the feeling that this typeface should again take a part of Prague’s traffic system and today, when revisiting of all the fonts, the feeling turned to certainty. The main feature of this typeface is namely a noticeability a property above all welcomed in rush of platforms.
  17. Minou by Hanoded, $15.00
    Minou is a French cat’s name. There are more: you could name your cat Léo, Fripouille, Orion, Orphée or Tigrou, but I kind of like Minou. Minou font is a very cute, handmade affair, that started from some doodles I had drawn. Use it for children’s book covers, pyjama party posters, toy packaging and inspirational quotes. I am sure it’ll do the job purrfectly!
  18. ideoma SPRAY - Personal use only
  19. ideoma LINER - Personal use only
  20. ideoma PSEUDO - Personal use only
  21. P22 Mucha by IHOF, $24.95
    P22 Mucha is inspired by the free-flowing lettering styles of art Nouveau master Alfons Mucha, circa 1900. This font adapts his distinctive style into a new organic type suitable for many occasions. Mucha evokes the essence of Paris and Prague from 100 years ago, yet it is still fresh in its innovative approach to the alphabet.
  22. Praha Deco by Deniart Systems, $20.00
    Praha Deco was inspired by the Prague art deco movement at the turn of the 20th century. Spiced with our own creative blend, this is our tribute to that wonderful era in architecture. The Praha Deco typeface contains a large assortment of extended characters to support many of Europe's languages, including Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish & Welsh.
  23. Artimas by Hackberry Font Foundry, $24.95
    The Artimas family is the new book design font family developed out of Aramus. These new serif typefaces are readable and graceful — part of my development of a series of book families. Aramus was very popular for a single font release of a text font. This new book font family retains the looseness of the original with radically different font metrics and many shape “corrections”. In fact, Artimas continues a genuine new path for this foundry This new font family for book design continues a turn toward more “traditional” x-heights of around a third of the point size.The Artimas print production font family is six new OpenType Pro fonts with Caps, lowercase, small caps, & figures to go with each of those character sets. There are many ligatures, a few swashes, fractions, numerators, denominators, and ordinals to infinity. This family of fonts is a joy to read and easy to use for text or display.
  24. Oaxaca by Just My Type, $25.00
    Traveling through the central and southern parts of Mexico a number of years ago, I couldn’t help but be impressed with the amazing architecture of the indigenous peoples. From the giant pyramids of Teotihuacan to the extensive and impressive layout of Chichén Itzá to the smaller-but-spectacular Monte Alban ruins in Oaxaca, creativity abounds. One of the things I most enjoyed were the carved stone friezes that ran around many of the more complete buildings. Oaxaca calls to mind those beautiful carvings and, strangely, Chinese writing.
  25. Ossuary by Wundes, $13.00
    Ossuary is a font in which each letter is formed using a uniquely arranged pile of skulls. The font was originally designed to be caps only, but small caps were added for convenience. There is now a character for each typeable letter of the American English keyboard. The font was inspired by images from the Kostnice ossuary in Sedlec, Kutna Hora near Prague. (Google it.) Whether you are fascinated or repulsed, such images have a mystery about them. They demand your attention. That is the feel this font was intended to capture.
  26. Quandary by Winnie Tan, $39.00
    The Quandary Font is created for a horror theme in use with an illustrated book ‘The Predicament’ by Edgar Allan Poe. It is designed as a highly expressive face to accentuate a sense of mystery and the macabre. A comparatively more carefree and free-spirited face, it comes as a uni-case single weight family used exclusively as the main face for the book. The characters are developed from the numeric glyphs found on the astronomical clock-face at Prague Old Town Square, Czech Republic. http://www.behance.net/gallery/Quandary/383204
  27. Walklike by Cerulean Stimuli, $17.00
    You've searched for "Egyptian" but, thanks to a quirk of type jargon history, much of what you found is not what you had in mind for the voice of Thoth in your comic book, or the hints in your Mummy's Tomb game. And you don't want to fall back on You-Know-What. Fear not; now there's Walklike! Pyramids, reeds, the Eye of Horus, and other recognizable symbols inspire the letterforms of Walklike to create the feel of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs while remaining fully legible. The strokes are casual but careful, at home in ink or stone alike, and kept interesting and natural-looking automatically with ligatures and some contextual alternates. The air of ancient mystery is unmistakable!
  28. Overbyte by Comicraft, $19.00
    This digitally remastered high density lettering has been bitmapped out for you by Comicraft's Eric Eng Wong. Those of you harddriving through cyberspace on the information superhighway had better zap your prams and reboot your hard disk before you're dragged into your system folder while OVERBYTE makes a major withdrawal from your atm. Do not be fooled by the name, there's nothing goofy about this typeface.
  29. Patron by Vesturbær, $45.00
    Patron is a modern, mono-linear, sans-serif font family with large x-height and softened edges containing 12 fonts. This typeface was born as a corporate font design for non-profit sector and today it is available for public. At the moment Patron is offered as a PostScript-flavored OTF, but its construction is tuned to display well on screen as well. Works on a TrueType version with individual glyph hinting are being carried out. In addition, Patron has alternative family (Patron Alt) with enhanced personality, suitable mainly for headlines. Patron is graduation work of Matěj Hlaváček at AAAD in Prague, Studio Of Typography. Supervised by František Štorm, Tomáš Brousil and Karel Haloun.
  30. Patron Alt by Vesturbær, $45.00
    Patron is a modern, mono-linear, sans-serif font family with large x-height and softened edges containing 12 fonts. This typeface was born as a corporate font design for non-profit sector and today it is available for public. At the moment Patron is offered as a PostScript-flavored OTF, but its construction is tuned to display well on screen as well. Works on a TrueType version with individual glyph hinting are being carried out. In addition, Patron has alternative family (Patron Alt) with enhanced personality, suitable mainly for headlines. Patron is graduation work of Matěj Hlaváček at AAAD in Prague, Studio Of Typography. Supervised by František Štorm, Tomáš Brousil and Karel Haloun.
  31. Ancient Astronaut by Comicraft, $19.00
    Are you in search of Ancient Astronauts? Extraterrestrial beings who came from the 12th planet to influence human cultures, technologies and religions? They're here! They visited our Earth prehistorically and they didn't just make contact with humans -- they gave birth to our entire race! Some believe they are a secret group of reptiloids who still control humanity! Their agents live amongst us disguised as George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Kris Kristofferson and Lady Gaga. It's true, we read it in Weekly World News. These ancient aliens established divine status over primitive men and compelled them to build Stonehenge, Pumapunku, the Moai of Easter Island, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and the ancient Baghdad electric batteries. After all, if you're stuck on Earth, you may as well have some big heads to look at and a source of power to jump start your flying saucer. And a font. Features: Three fonts (Regular, Bold & Alien) with alternate characters.
  32. Libertatus Duas - Personal use only
  33. ITC Ironwork by ITC, $29.99
    ITC Ironwork is the work of Serge Pichii, who was inspired by a piece of decorative lettering done by Jan Tschichold in the early 1920s. Tschichold had interlocked a series of rough sans serif letters and embellished them with scattered decorative elements. The original was of only capital letters, touching and overlapping like an ironwork gate made of letters. Pichii completed the typeface with lowercase forms and smoothed the edges. The scrolls of the capitals were extended to the lowercase and Pichii based them on iron scrollwork he found in Vienna and Prague. A lot of attention was paid to the elements of the typeface in order to 'smooth out' and balance proportional relations between the elements," says Pichii. ITC Ironwork is great for signage and display but also works well in short texts."
  34. Katz Pajamas JNL by Jeff Levine, $29.00
    According to Wiktionary, "the cat's pajamas" was a slang phrase coined by Thomas A. Dorgan, the well-known journalist, cartoonist and sportswriter of that era. The phrase became popular in the U.S. in the 1920s, as the word "cat" was used as a term to describe the unconventional flappers from the jazz era. This was combined with the word pyjamas (a relatively new women's fashion during that time) to form a phrase used to describe something that is the best at what it does, thus making it highly sought and desirable. Wikipedia adds that Dorgan was the first to use the terms "twenty-three, skidoo", and "yes, we have no bananas", "apple sauce" and "solid ivory", which also became part of the slang of the "Roaring Twenties". Katz Pajamas JNL is a condensed slab serif typeface based on the title lettering for the 1944 sheet music "Pretty Kitty Blue Eyes", hence the pun-laden font name paying homage to this bit of verbal Americana as well as making the pajamas a pair owned by Mr. Katz instead of the fashionable feline. Available in both regular and oblique versions.
  35. P22 Preissig Calligraphic by P22 Type Foundry, $29.95
    P22 Preissig Calligraphic was originally designed by Czech typographer, artist, and designer Vojtěch Preissig (1873–1944). Preissig developed this type design in 1928 and has remained unpublished until recently. One can only speculate why this wonderful design was never produced into a commercially available typeface. His original designs feature an accompanying italic as well as small caps. Preissig had originally named the typeface design after his former employer in New York, Butterick Publishing Co. The ‘Butterick’ typeface retains the angularity of his previous typeface, Preissig Antiqua (AKA P22 Preissig Roman), but displays a more fluid calligraphic influence. P22 Preissig Calligraphic was started shortly after Richard Kegler saw the original drawings in an exhibit in Prague in 2004. A sympathetic security guard allowed a few photographs and the contraband images fueled a development of the typefaces. The design simmered for many years and is now ready to enter the world of contemporary design. P22 Preissig Calligraphic is a 2 font family that contains the originally designed small caps as an OpenType feature, as well as all the necessary diacritical to cover most European languages.
  36. Azbuka by Monotype, $29.99
    The Azbuka™ typeface family has its roots in a fairly pedestrian source. “The idea came in part from an old sign in London that read ‘SPRINKLER STOP VALVE’,” says Dave Farey, designer of the typeface. Like all good sign spotters, Farey took a photograph of the sign and filed it away for possible use in a lettering or typeface design project. In Prague a number of years later, the street signs reminded Farey of the London signage - and his camera came out again. Comparing the two back in his studio, he realized that the signs from London and Prague were not as similar as he initially thought. However, they were enough alike to serve as the foundation for a no-frills, 21st century sans serif typeface family. “I wanted to draw a wide range of weights, italic and condensed designs all in one go,” recalls Farey, “rather than add on to the family later.” His goal was to create a family that could be used for text and display copy, with sufficient weights to provide a broad typographic palette. Indeed, the completed design, created in collaboration with fellow type designer Richard Dawson, consists of twenty typefaces in eight weights ranging from extra light to extra black. The five mid-range designs have complementary italics. Seven condensed designs round out the family. Azbuka’s lighter weights perform remarkably well in blocks of text composition. “They’re clean and legible - and perhaps a little boring,” says Farey, “but they are perfect for copy with a down-to-earth, yet contemporary flavor.” The heavier weights are equally well suited for a variety of display uses. The designs are authoritative but not overbearing and will readily make a strong statement without calling attention to themselves. The condensed weights of Azbuka are ideal for those instances where you have a lot to say - and not much room to say it. The name Azbuka? It’s Russian for “alphabet.” And what more appropriate name could there be for this utilitarian, industrial-strength type family than alphabet? The Azbuka family is available as a suite of OpenType Pro fonts. Graphic communicators can now work with this versatile design while taking advantage of OpenType’s capabilities. The Azbuka Pro fonts also offer an extended character set that supports most Central European and many Eastern European languages
  37. Aerle by Hackberry Font Foundry, $24.95
    My first font for 2009 was Aerle. It is a new dark sans serif font in my continuing objective of designing book fonts that I can really use. It made a little ripple in the industry, but more than that I found that I loved it with Aramus and Artimas — my latest book font family with the same proportions. In many ways, Aerle is a very different direction for me built on what I have learned on Aramus and other recent developments in my style. The concept came to me while using Bitstream's Mister Earl on a site online—though there is no direct reference. I wanted a more playful heavy sans with a much smaller x-height than I have been using lately, plus taller ascenders. As I was using Aerle, I constantly needed a light and bold version. The new direction I am taking is a result of a decision that my fonts, though I loved the character shapes, produced an even type color that is too dark or a little dense. Aerle was an attempt to get away from that look even though the letterspacing is quite tight. For Aerle Thin I pushed a little further in that direction and increased the letterspacing. The hand-drawn shapes vary a lot, many pushing the boundaries of the normal character. This gives a little looseness and helps the lightness in feel I am looking for. It will be interesting to see where this all goes. Most new type around the world is far too perfect for my taste. While the shapes are exquisite, the feel is not human but digital mechanical. I find myself wanting to draw fonts that feel human — as if a person crafted them. In most ways this is a normal font for me in that it has caps, lowercase, small caps with the appropriate figures for each case. These small caps were very small (x-height as is proper). So Aerle's small caps are a little oversize because they plugged up too bad at x-height size. The bold is halfway between. These size variations seem important and work well in the text. This font has all the OpenType features in the set for 2009. There are several ligatures for your fun and enjoyment: bb gg sh sp st ch ck ff fi fl ffi ffl ffy fj ft tt ty Wh Th and more. Like all of my fonts, there are: caps, lowercase, & small caps; proportional lining figures, proportional oldstyle figures, & small cap figures; plus numerators, denominators, superiors, inferiors, and a complete set of ordinals 1st through infinity. Enjoy!
  38. Ideal Gothic by Storm Type Foundry, $44.00
    At the turn of the 20th century monolinear alphabets were often despised for their dullness. Typographers, therefore, took great pains to breathe some kind of individuality into the monotonous sans-serif scheme. They started with subtle differentiation in the thickness of vertical and horizontal strokes and finished by improving details. By this they arrived at a more decorative appearance of the type face which thus became more regardful of the eye of the bourgeoisie. Ideal Gothic is no exception. It is characterized by a correct stiffness which will improve the morals of every idea printed by this type face. The awkward curves of the italics are a little suggestive of openwork iron products or the bent iron of the decorative little railings in a Prague park. The so-called "hidden" and, furthermore, curved serifs complete the inconspicuous "charm" of this type face. All its above-mentioned features, however, suddenly turn into advantages when we need to design a magazine, a brochure or an annual report, in short whenever illustrations dominate. It is not by accident that the basic design of "Ideal Gothic" has such a light tonal value - it competes neither with fine pencil sketches, nor with sentimental landscapes. It is very suitable for business cards and corporate identity graphics.
  39. ITC Tyfa by ITC, $29.99
    Some words from the designer, Frantisek Storm... Designed by Josef Tyfa in 1959, digitalized by F. Storm in 1996. This Roman and Italic are well-known perhaps to all Czech graphic artists and typographers ever since their release. Although this type face in some details is under the sway of the period of its rise, its importance is timeless, in contradistinction to other famous types dating from the turn of the sixties which were found, after some time, to be trite. The italics live their own life, only their upper-case letters have the same expression as the basic design. Thin and fragile, they work excellently, emphasizing certain parts in the text by their perfect contrast of expression. When seen from a distance they are a little bit darker than the Roman face. Tyfa Roman was released in 1960 by Grafotechna in Prague for hot setting. Later on, Berthold produced letter matrices - "rulers" for Staromat devices, used for manual photosetting of display alphabets. In the eighties it was available on dry transfers of Transotype and today it is offered also by ITC. The meticulously executed designs of the individual letters in the 288 point size are arranged into a set of signs on a cardboard of about B2 in size. The yellowed paper reveals retouches by white paint on the ink. Blue lines mark the baseline, the capital line, the ascender and descender lines and the central verticals of the letters. With regard to the format of the flat scanner, the designs had to be reduced, with the use of a camera, to the format A4, i.e. to the upper-case letter height of about 30 mm. These were then scanned in 600 dpi resolution and read as a bitmap template to the FontStudio programme. The newly created bold type faces derive from Tyfa's designs of the letters "a", "n", "p", the darkness of which was increased further, approximately by 3%, to enhance their emphasizing function. The text designs have hairstrokes thickened by one third; the contrast between thin and thick strokes has been modified, in order to improve legibility, in sizes under 12 points. We have used electronic interpolation to produce the semi-bold designs. Josef Tyfa himself recommends to choose a somewhat darker design than the basic one for printing of books.
  40. Antique by Storm Type Foundry, $26.00
    The concept of the Baroque Roman type face is something which is remote from us. Ungrateful theorists gave Baroque type faces the ill-sounding attribute "Transitional", as if the Baroque Roman type face wilfully diverted from the tradition and at the same time did not manage to mature. This "transition" was originally meant as an intermediate stage between the Aldine/Garamond Roman face of the Renaissance, and its modern counterpart, as represented by Bodoni or Didot. Otherwise there was also a "transition" from a slanted axis of the shadow to a perpendicular one. What a petty detail led to the pejorative designation of Baroque type faces! If a bookseller were to tell his customers that they are about to choose a book which is set in some sort of transitional type face, he would probably go bust. After all, a reader, for his money, would not put up with some typographical experimentation. He wants to read a book without losing his eyesight while doing so. Nevertheless, it was Baroque typography which gave the world the most legible type faces. In those days the craft of punch-cutting was gradually separating itself from that of book-printing, but also from publishing and bookselling. Previously all these activities could be performed by a single person. The punch-cutter, who at that time was already fully occupied with the production of letters, achieved better results than he would have achieved if his creative talents were to be diffused in a printing office or a bookseller's shop. Thus it was possible that for example the printer John Baskerville did not cut a single letter in his entire lifetime, for he used the services of the accomplished punch-cutter John Handy. It became the custom that one type founder supplied type to multiple printing offices, so that the same type faces appeared in various parts of the world. The type face was losing its national character. In the Renaissance period it is still quite easy to distinguish for example a French Roman type face from a Venetian one; in the Baroque period this could be achieved only with great difficulties. Imagination and variety of shapes, which so far have been reserved only to the fine arts, now come into play. Thanks to technological progress, book printers are now able to reproduce hairstrokes and imitate calligraphic type faces. Scripts and elaborate ornaments are no longer the privilege of copper-engravers. Also the appearance of the basic, body design is slowly undergoing a change. The Renaissance canonical stiffness is now replaced with colour and contrast. The page of the book is suddenly darker, its lay-out more varied and its lines more compact. For Baroque type designers made a simple, yet ingenious discovery - they enlarged the x-height and reduced the ascenders to the cap-height. The type face thus became seemingly larger, and hence more legible, but at the same time more economical in composition; the type area was increasing to the detriment of the margins. Paper was expensive, and the aim of all the publishers was, therefore, to sell as many ideas in as small a book block as possible. A narrowed, bold majuscule, designed for use on the title page, appeared for the first time in the Late Baroque period. Also the title page was laid out with the highest possible economy. It comprised as a rule the brief contents of the book and the address of the bookseller, i.e. roughly that which is now placed on the flaps and in the imprint lines. Bold upper-case letters in the first line dramatically give way to the more subtle italics, the third line is highlighted with vermilion; a few words set in lower-case letters are scattered in-between, and then vermilion appears again. Somewhere in the middle there is an ornament, a monogram or an engraving as a kind of climax of the drama, while at the foot of the title-page all this din is quietened by a line with the name of the printer and the year expressed in Roman numerals, set in 8-point body size. Every Baroque title-page could well pass muster as a striking poster. The pride of every book printer was the publication of a type specimen book - a typographical manual. Among these manuals the one published by Fournier stands out - also as regards the selection of the texts for the specimen type matter. It reveals the scope of knowledge and education of the master typographers of that period. The same Fournier established a system of typographical measurement which, revised by Didot, is still used today. Baskerville introduced the smoothing of paper by a hot steel roller, in order that he could print astonishingly sharp letters, etc. ... In other words - Baroque typography deserves anything else but the attribute "transitional". In the first half of the 18th century, besides persons whose names are prominent and well-known up to the present, as was Caslon, there were many type founders who did not manage to publish their manuals or forgot to become famous in some other way. They often imitated the type faces of their more experienced contemporaries, but many of them arrived at a quite strange, even weird originality, which ran completely outside the mainstream of typographical art. The prints from which we have drawn inspiration for these six digital designs come from Paris, Vienna and Prague, from the period around 1750. The transcription of letters in their intact form is our firm principle. Does it mean, therefore, that the task of the digital restorer is to copy meticulously the outline of the letter with all inadequacies of the particular imprint? No. The type face should not to evoke the rustic atmosphere of letterpress after printing, but to analyze the appearance of the punches before they are imprinted. It is also necessary to take account of the size of the type face and to avoid excessive enlargement or reduction. Let us keep in mind that every size requires its own design. The longer we work on the computer where a change in size is child's play, the more we are convinced that the appearance of a letter is tied to its proportions, and therefore, to a fixed size. We are also aware of the fact that the computer is a straightjacket of the type face and that the dictate of mathematical vectors effectively kills any hint of naturalness. That is why we strive to preserve in these six alphabets the numerous anomalies to which later no type designer ever returned due to their obvious eccentricity. Please accept this PostScript study as an attempt (possibly futile, possibly inspirational) to brush up the warm magic of Baroque prints. Hopefully it will give pleasure in today's modern type designer's nihilism.
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