Simpliciter Sans is a typeface based on the lettering used in the 20th century on technical drawings, either written by free hand or using templates. The lettering was made with a round pen, therefore all lines got rounded ends. All lines had the same thickness in uppercase, lowercase and small caps. The upright style was used on construction drawings and the italic style on machine drawings. The backslant style was used on maps for names of water bodies — seas, lakes, rivers etc. — and for water depth. Simpliciter Sans is primarily intended for texts on drawings, diagrams, charts and maps, but it can also be used for signs and labels. It also works surprisingly well as a body type in smaller sizes.

Rock Painting is based on ancient Northern rock paintings and I edited the glyphs to resemble latin letters, runelike. So it's quite writable and the characters can also be used separately in bigger shape. Some of the glyphs are idols of old Finnish gods and spirits: A - Ahti, god of (usually) water element or a spirit that lives in a pond, a lake or a river etc. I - Ilmarinen, god of the air K - Kaleva, ancient giant blacksmith, the great ancestor of Finns L - Luonnotar, the spirit of all nature, gives birth to creatures T - Tapio, god of the forest or the forest itself N - Nyyrikki/Nyrki, son of Tapio, a great hunter and so on. The font also includes glyphs resembling animals and things like moose, beaver, swan, fish, sickle, boat and more.

Electrostatic JNL was inspired by the 1930s lettering for radio station WMCA in New York City. It was found as part of an ad for the station in a 1932 radio broadcasting trade magazine. WMCA went on the air Feb. 6, 1925. According to Wikipedia, the "MCA" call letters stood for the Hotel McAlpin, where the station's original studio and transmitter were located. "W" is the call sign prefix for all broadcast stations East of the Mississippi River; with the exception of KDKA (Pittsburgh), which was the nation's first commercial radio station. This bold novelty typeface with lightning bolds intersecting the characters can be used to represent anything from electricity to stormy days; power generators to brute force and so forth. Electrostatic JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Lagos was created because of the lack of African-inspired fonts that are truly modern without being partly art-deco in origin. I wanted to make a vigorous, sharp-edged font that reflects the energy and dynamism of modern Africa. The lines of the font combine the sharp angularity of African rocks and mountains with the smooth fluidity of Africa's snake-black rivers. The font is supplied in two styles, Lagos Regular and Lagos Light. Lagos Light is not a simple, mechanical modification of Lagos Regular. The outlines and proportions have been subtly modified to accommodate the lighter weight. Lagos contains a full 256 character set (upper and lower case, punctuation, diacritical characters, special symbols and numerals), in which all characters have been fully kerned and letter-spaced.

Rhein is named after the German river that runs through the western border valley. Rhein is a sans-serif typeface family for titles, editorials and graphic design pieces with high impact needs. Rhein was not only conceived as a font design with rounded corners, but its intersection points have been also smoothed. In addition, the wide range of 8 weights that vary from Thin to Black allow relatively long continuous reading (Regular, Medium, Semibold), and short reading designs (Black, Bold, Thin). On the other hand, the "Inline" variant is extremely provocative to fit into any branding project. To add dynamism and to expand the typeface range of use, it was designed as a family of alternatives. Together, the 18 styles of "Rhein" provide a range of options that adjust to the needs and current design and advertising trends.

Brda originally designed by the Polish designer Franciszek Otto for the Powiat weekly newspaper. Powiat needed a new, dynamically drawn sans serif for its headlines, and Otto's Brda fit the bill. Combining traditional Grotesk letterforms with witty subtleties, like the notched-joint seen in the capital G, Brda displays a novel design that works best when set large. The typeface is named after the Brda river, which runs through Bydgoszcz, Poland, the city where Powiat is published. The Brda family includes three weights, each with a companion italic: Regular, Bold, and Extra Bold. The Brda family's Extra Bold weight was one of the winners selected in the 2003 International Type Design Contest, sponsored by Linotype GmbH. Franciszek Otto also teaches graphic design at the Secondary Art School in Bydgoszcz, where his typefaces rank among the students' favorites.

Trolls are lurking under each and every river crossing. The earth is shaking as Ogres stomp across the land, spiked clubs in hand. Swordsmen and Sorcerers are waging war on one another even as the pure and young and stout of heart search for the talisman which will restore harmony once more. Are you under the spell of some wizard's magickal incantation or are you just looking for exactly the right typestyle for your J.R.R. Tolkien Convention newsletter? Regardless, an ancient curse has been lifted and the Talmudic Legend of the Clay Beast they call GOLEM has been restored to his former majesty. The shapeless mass is no longer one of unfinished substance, no longer a body without a soul. The Homunculus that was once Comicraft's Golem has had a spiritual awakening and is now available with the crinkly bits smoothed off.

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "It's easy to complain... and so much FUN, too! Woo-HOO!" Now your characters can grumble, mumble and mutter in barely audible tones as they dredge up some bit of misery from their lives, unleash a rambling river of criticism and complaints about the state of their health, or the government, garbling as much graphic detail as time and your imagination will allow! Or perhaps your creations are issuing drunken slurs as they wake up outside their own fricka-frackin' houses cuddling wheelie bins, covered in glitter, wearing a shiny hat and budgie smugglers over their jeans while holding the reins to a miniature horse. So moan, groan, gossip incoherently or swear under your whiskey-soaked breath like a trooper... courtesy of those Rassum Frassum font lovers at Comicraft. >Hic!

Salish is a sans-serif typeface inspired by the art of the Salishan tribes in the Northwest Americas. It draws heavily on the concept of the ‘ovoid’, a wide ovular shape that is flat on the bottom and top heavy, that is central to the art style known as ‘Formline’. Designed by Aaron Bell of Saja Typeworks, Salish comes in 5 weights, from Thin to UltraBold. Language support includes some 200 Latin-based languages as well as the necessary orthographies for all Salishan languages, including: Comox, Sliammon, Klahoose, Pentlach, Sechelt, Squamish, Halkomelem, Nooksack, Straights Salish (Saanich), Lushootseed, S'Klallam, Quinault, Upper Chehalis, Lower Chehalis, Cowlitz, Bella Coola, Ditidaht, Tseshaht, Nuu-chah-nulth, Ehattesaht-Nuchatlaht, Kwak'wala, Shuswap, Lillooet, Thompson River Salish, Coeur d'Alene, Columbia-Moses, Colville, Okanagan, and Montana Salish. Haida (a non-Salishan language) is also supported.

The Duero is one of the major rivers of the Iberian Peninsula, flowing from its source across northern-central Spain and Portugal to its outlet at Porto. The "Duero viñatero", is an area of the Duero Valley where its famous wines are produced. "Duero", a new script font designed by Olcar Alcaide. Its slight bounce and intentional irregularity gives your words a wonderful flow. The thick and thin strokes in this typeface combine balance and harmony. "Duero" has OpenType features such as Stylistics and Contextual alternates, Swashes, Ligatures, that allow you to mix and match pairs of letters and a Central European language support to fit your design. This will help your creativity and make it easier to make the impressive and elegant typographic work.  "Duero" looks good on food packaging, logo design, business-cards, fashion, magazines, menus, book covers and much more!

Named after the Florentine river which runs through the heart of the Italian Renaissance, Arno draws on the warmth and readability of early humanist typefaces of the 15th and 16th centuries. While inspired by the past, Arno is distinctly contemporary in both appearance and function. Designed by Adobe Principal Designer Robert Slimbach, Arno is a meticulously-crafted face in the tradition of early Venetian and Aldine book typefaces. Embodying themes Slimbach has explored in typefaces such as Minion and Brioso, Arno represents a distillation of his design ideals and a refinement of his craft. As a multi-featured OpenType family, with the most extensive Latin-based glyph complement Adobe has yet offered, Arno offers extensive pan-European language support, including Cyrillic and polytonic Greek. The family also offers such typographic niceties as five optical size ranges, extensive swash italic sets, and small capitals for all covered languages.

Gothic Round was first introduced as wood type by the George Nesbitt Co. in 1838. The font is a softened variation of a standard heavy Gothic typeface. The style evokes a much more recent history of the 1960s and 70s and can be seen in such places as donut shops and on children's toys as well as inspiration for such fonts as VAG Rounded. Gothic Round has not previously been available as a digital font until now. The font was digitized by Miguel Sousa from a wide variety of historical sources, including visits to the Cary Collection at RIT (Rochester, NY), WNY Book Arts Center (Buffalo, NY) and the Hamilton Wood Type Museum (Two Rivers, WI). The result is a very solid and contemporary font with a 175 year history. For more information about this release, check out the Hamilton Wood Type Foundry website .

Cowboya is a typography with concave Tuscan serif very contrasted and modernist inspiration with letters in small caps, includes 4 versions of the font that can be used by superimposed layers which results in multicolored typographic titles. For the design of this typeface I was inspired by the credit titles used in the black film directed by Frizt Lang in 1950 called "The House of the River", to the drawing of the original forms of the letters i added decorative elements to give the fonts a festive character, traditionally this type of decorative fonts that emerged in Italy in the nineteenth century were used in large headlines and posters that were closely related to circus shows, carnival or environments of the Far West American. I have also rounded the sharper joints of the antlers and counterforms to create a contrast with the sharp Tuscan serifs which brings a modern background of retro inspiration and soft shapes.

Beardstown is solid, hardworking & no-nonsense. It may be a little gritty & rough around the edges, but it can also be open, warm and welcoming. Beardstown is a little Midwestern town on a river with a town square where you can buy comic books from a spinner rack at the front of the drugstore and read 'em with a root beer float from the soda counter in the back. The Beardstown font is perfect for t-shirts, sports graphics, beer cans, trading cards, carnival posters and record albums. But that’s it. I mean, you could use it on foofy hipster stuff like organic produce, vegan meat substitutes, electric car accessories or mountain bike parts, but you risk Beardstown coming over there to kick your butt. Features: three versions of each letter and two versions of each number automatically rotate for authentic print texture thirteen catchwords (like "and" "of" "for" & "the") accessible in Discretionary Ligatures support for 223 languages including Western & Central Europe, Vietnamese & Cyrillic

VLNL Berlagebrug Designer Donald DBXL Beekman daily crosses the Berlage bridge spanning the Amstel river in Amsterdam. The Berlagebrug was built as part of the city planning project ‘Plan Zuid’ by H.P.Berlage and opened in May 1932. Its name, carved out of two granite headstones, sparked the design of this font family. The original lettering is attributed to Anton Kurvers in the early 19th century, and can be seen on many Amsterdam buildings and bridges. It’s typical lettering of the Amsterdamse School, the Dutch equivalent of the expressionist art deco architectural style, and mostly known for its extravagant brick work. VLNL Berlagebrug is a rounded display font that comes in three outline styles matching the building materials used in the bridge. Gietijzer (cast iron) is smooth, Zandsteen (sandstone) has a softly distressed outline, and Graniet (granite) is outspoken rough and crumbled. The capital letters in VLNL Berlagebrug are in the Amsterdamse school style, the lowercases are more straight alternate capitals, giving you more design options.

Makiritare is a display font for headlines that originates from a research work on pure geometry of great simplicity from a Venezuelan ethnicity artisanal form from men called Makiritare or Yecuana. These rivers sailors and architects of the jungle live in the village of Santa Maria de Erebato on the border with Brazil. Despite having a prodigious symbolism in their art, they didn't have until recently a font that is tailored to your expression. It all started with a trip to the Amazon in 1976 with the notion of creating my thesis as a graphic design student. In 1992 I created the first letterform that was evolving to a more elaborate version being presented and selected at the International Typography Biennial Letras Latinas in 2006. Today JMTF presents Makiritare with a more complete and mature family of three weights, alternative characters, small caps, ordinals and ligatures. Makiritare fits any application that have an innovative and modernist purposes. Recommended for titles or short phrases, with striking large-scale use.

Serway is a captivating typeface that seamlessly blends elegance with a touch of playfulness. This font's defining characteristic is its wavy stems, which give each character a dynamic and fluid appearance. The wavy stems gracefully meander, creating a harmonious rhythm that adds a unique visual appeal to any design. The wavy stems in Serway mimic the graceful movement of gentle waves, the bending of tall grasses in the wind, or the meandering path of a flowing river. These organic shapes infuse each character with a sense of fluidity and harmony. The sans serif structure of Serway maintains a contemporary and modern aesthetic. The clean lines and smooth curves of the letterforms offer a sense of simplicity and sophistication, perfectly complementing the nature-inspired wavy stems. Serway is an ideal choice for various design projects, including editorial design, packaging, headlines, web design, logo creation, and branding. Its wavy stems add a distinct touch that sets it apart from traditional sans serif fonts, making it perfect for designs that seek to capture attention and create a memorable visual impact.

Lepontic is an ancient Alpine Celtic language that was spoken in parts of Rhaetia and Cisalpine Gaul (now Northern Italy) between 550 and 100 BC. Lepontic is attested in inscriptions found in an area centered on Lugano, Switzerland, and including the Lake Como and Lake Maggiore areas of Italy. While some recent scholarship (e.g. Eska 1998) has tended to consider Lepontic simply as an early outlying form of Gaulish and closely akin to other, later attestations of Gaulish in Italy (Cisalpine Gaulish), some scholars (notably Lejeune 1971) continue to view it as a distinct Continental Celtic language. In this latter view, the earlier inscriptions found within a 50 km radius of Lugano are considered Lepontic, while the later ones, to the immediate south of this area, are considered Cisalpine Gaulish. Lepontic was assimilated first by Gaulish, with the settlement of Gallic tribes north of the River Po, and then by Latin, after the Roman Republic gained control over Gallia Cisalpina during the late 2nd and 1st century BC

Norwich Aldine ML is a all-cap typeface with enlarged serifs, designed and produced in wood by William Hamilton Page of Norwich, Connecticut in 1872. Norwich Aldine ML is a fine example of the strength of decorative wood types: large, simple type forms that provide the visual boldness sought by advertisers of the Victorian period. While our marketing has gotten so very sophisticated, there is always a place for a simple, visually strong typeface. Although about 14 miles inland, Norwich, Connecticut lies at the head of the Thames River. The river is both wide and deep, and therefore was not bridged in the early 20th century. Until then, if you wanted to get from Groton on the west bank to the whaling port of New London on the east bank by land, you had to go by way of Norwich. Because of its size, the Thames is navigable all the way from Norwich to New London. Docks were built in Norwich around 1685 and the city became Connecticut’s 2nd largest port by 1800. With the construction of the Norwich & Worcester Railroad in 1835, Page could easily ship his wood type north by rail or south by coastal schooner. Included with our font, Norwich Aldine ML, are two 19th century printer’s ornaments of sailing ships similar to those that sailed up the Thames to Norwich. Reference: Moon’s Handbooks, Connecticut 2nd Edition (Emeryville CA 2004) The family has expanded from one to four fonts: 1. Norwich Aldine ML: the concept font, computer-sharp corners and smooth curves, as we imagine it was designed. 336 Glyphs including some reduced-width alternatives for better letter spacing. 2. Norwich Aldine Worn ML: the way actual wooden type would look after have been used for a while. 332 Glyphs 3. Norwich Aldine Distressed ML: the way the wooden type would look after it had really been used, perhaps abused. Alternatives to the more popular letters reflect the damage that typically occurs on a well-wormn font, with nicks, cuts and scratches and the overall wear that reduces the overall height and leads to uneven inking due to varying heights in the chase. A couple of bullets look like bullet holes. 345 glyphs. 4. Norwich Aldine Cyrillic: Cyrillic includes alll English and Cyrillic letters for MS Windows Code Page 1251, ISO 8859-5 and MacOS Cyrillic. 235 glyphs. We did Cyrillic because is was fun and we felt the basic design cried out for Cyrillic. While obviously subjective, we hope you will agree.

Phrygia is the Greek name of an ancient state in western-central Anatolia (modern Turkey), extending from the Eskişehir area east to (perhaps) Boğazköy and Alishar Hüyük within the Halys River bend. The Assyrians, a powerful state in northern Mesopotamia to the south, called the state Mushki; what its own people called it is unknown. We know from their inscriptions that the Phrygians spoke an Indo-European language. Judging from historical records supported by ceramic evidence, settlers migrating from the Balkans in Europe first settled here a hundred or more years following the destruction of the Hittite empire (ca. 1200 B.C.). Most of what is known about Phrygian archaeology and its language derives from excavations at the capital city Gordion, located about 60 miles southwest of the modern Turkish capital of Ankara (also a Phrygian site). Gustav and Alfred Körte first excavated Gordion in 1900. The excavators did not reach Phrygian levels, but they did reveal burials dated to the late eighth century B.C. with Phrygian ceramic, metal, and wooden artifacts. From 1950 to 1973, Rodney S. Young of the University of Pennsylvania led excavations at Gordion. Archaeological work at the site resumed in 1988 and continues to the present.

Gothic Tuscan One is a all-cap condensed gothic with round terminals and decorative “tuscan” center spurs. It was first shown by William H. Page of Norwich, Connecticut among his wood type specimen pages of 1859. Gothic Tuscan One exemplifies the strength of decorative wood types: large, simple type forms that provide the visual boldness sought by advertisers of the Victorian period. While our marketing has gotten so very sophisticated, there is always a place for simple, visually strong typeface. Although about 14 miles inland, Norwich lies at the head of the Thames River. The river is both wide and deep, and therefore was not bridged in the early 20th century. From the 17th century until then, if you wanted to get from Groton on the west bank to the whaling port of New London on the east bank by land, you had to had to go by way of Norwich. Because of its size, the Thames is navigable all the way from Norwich to New London. Docks were built in Norwich around 1685 and the city became Connecticut’s 2nd largest port by 1800. With the construction of the Norwich & Worcester Railroad in 1835, Page could easily ship his wood type north by rail or south by coastal schooner. Included with our font, Gothic Tuscan One, are two 19th century printer’s ornaments of sailing ships similar to those that sailed up the Thames to Norwich. There is also a more contemporary glyph of a whale, looking quite pleased that the only whaling ship left in Connecticut is the Charles W. Morgan, permanently moored at Mystic Seaport. Reference: Moon’s Handbooks, Connecticut 2nd Edition (Emeryville CA 2004). Gothic Tuscan One 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 332 glyphs. 2. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: pnum, ornm and dlig. 3. Added 330 kerning pairs. 4. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. 5. Redesigned mathamatical operators 6. Included of both tabular (std) & proportional numbers (optional). 7. Refined various glyph outlines. Please note that some older applications may only be able to access the Western Europe character set (approximately 221 glyphs). The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS (Post Script Type 1) format and a TTF version which is in Open TT (True Type)format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

This font has a charming mix of the organic forms of the Art Nouveau style and the geometric forms of the Art Deco style - and it makes it work! Nick Curtis says: "A general-purpose Art Nouveau font that has been kicking around for a while under various names. As usual, redrawn for consistency and economy of line. Named, for no good reason, after the river that flows near Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello." ALL fonts from CheapProFonts have very extensive language support: They contain some unusual diacritic letters (some of which are contained in the Latin Extended-B Unicode block) supporting: Cornish, Filipino (Tagalog), Guarani, Luxembourgian, Malagasy, Romanian, Ulithian and Welsh. They also contain all glyphs in the Latin Extended-A Unicode block (which among others cover the Central European and Baltic areas) supporting: Afrikaans, Belarusian (Lacinka), Bosnian, Catalan, Chichewa, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Kashubian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Maori, Polish, Saami (Inari), Saami (North), Serbian (latin), Slovak(ian), Slovene, Sorbian (Lower), Sorbian (Upper), Turkish and Turkmen. And they of course contain all the usual "western" glyphs supporting: Albanian, Basque, Breton, Chamorro, Danish, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galican, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish (Gaelic), Italian, Northern Sotho, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romance, Sami (Lule), Sami (South), Scots (Gaelic), Spanish, Swedish, Tswana, Walloon and Yapese.

As good as Nylon is, there’s nothing better than a nice woolly blanket. The smell and coarse, uneven texture are relaxing and feel reassuring. More comfortable. In a world where technology can reach millimetric precision, sometimes it’s good to connect with the imperfect and controlled impurity that is nature. Font design in particular has matured through software that can generate the most perfect letters in the world. But most of them don’t have soul. Landa is a glimpse from the cutting edge into the past. Inspired by Venetian lettering from the 15th century, whilst giving them new meaning, its letters become expressionist and have a modern touch. A rendez-vous between Nicolas Jenson, Oldřich Menhart, and nature itself. In Landa you can feel the texture of trunks and branches, from full fertile splendour to dried-out frailty. It takes the reader for a stroll through the woods on a late autumn evening, or on an adventure through the Amazonian rainforest, depending on the weight chosen. In the lighter and italic options, Landa text is organic and rustic, and very comfortable to read. What’s more, while it’s discreet on smaller screens, when enlarged it reveals brittle and expressive calligraphic shapes. This also makes it ideal for packaging or display elements. Landa provides advanced typographical support in several languages and OpenType features including case-sensitive forms, small caps, contextual alternatives, stylistic alternates, fractions, proportional and tabular figures. In this case it is technology that serves lettering, not the latter being technology dependent. Let’s not forget, as Erik Spiekermann said “we are still analogical beings. Our brains and eyes are analogical.” Perhaps that’s why to disconnect we always need to go back to forests, rivers, nature. Perhaps that’s why we still prefer wood to steel or wool to nylon.

HWT Konop is a monospaced (fixed-width) typeface that is also square! Designed by Mark Simonson (Proxima Nova) as square characters that can be arranged vertically or horizontally and in any orientation. To a traditional letterpress job printer, a font like this wouldn’t make much sense. But to a modern letterpress printer it is an unusual and creative design toolkit. The bold gothic style is reminiscent of gothic wood types but more geometric. Since the characters are meant to be used in any orientation, the usual optical adjustments, such as making verticals thicker than horizontals and making tops smaller than bottoms are set aside. This results in a quirky but charming design. To provide more design options, Simonson came up with a modular system consisting of three sizes: 12-line, 8-line, and 6-line. These three sizes can be used together like Lego® bricks, with endless arrangements possible. And the sidebearing match so that characters always align when different sizes are used together. The digital version of Konop replicates the wood type version as much as possible, including the three different size designs. It includes OpenType stylistic sets that allow most characters to be rotated in place, 90° left, 90° right, or 180°, just like the wood type version. Extra characters not available in the wood type version are included with the digital fonts. The set of 3 is priced just $5 more than one single font, so order via "Package Options" HWT Konop is named for Don Konop, a retired Hamilton Manufacturing employee, who worked from 1959 to 2003. In addition to serving on the Two Rivers Historical Society Board from 2004 to present-day, he was also instrumental as a volunteer in helping with the museum’s move to its current home in 2013.

Introducing Madawaska, the rugged slab-serif typeface that commands attention and exudes an air of authority. Born in Canada, this classic font packs a powerful punch with its stocky, weighty design and distinguished personality. With a total of eight hefty weights and italics, Madawaska offers the versatility you need to convey your message with the utmost impact. And for those who require easy web or application deployment, the font also includes sturdy small-cap styles that are sure to impress. But that’s not all—Madawaska offers even more character with two scuzzy effect styles, Madawaska Jeans and Madawaska River. These unique styles feature custom textured OpenType ligatures that add an extra layer of personality to your designs. So if you’re looking for a typeface that embodies strength, reliability, and a touch of grit, look no further than Madawaska. Let it add a rugged edge to your next project and make a lasting impression on your audience. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Jugendstil Initials were designed by Heinrich Vogeler around 1905, based on the German blackletter tradition. A similar set of initials by Vogeler, but based on roman letters was released by Rudhardsche Geisserei of Offenbach at about this time. I believe the originals were woodcuts. The backgrounds to the letterforms may be seen as examples of Heimatkunst, an art movement within Germany that drew deliberate inspiration from the rural countryside. Like the Arts and Crafts Movement in England a little earlier, Heimatkunst may be seen, in part, as a romantic rejection of urban industrialization, while at the same time representing a back-to-roots nationalism. Like any river, it was fed by many streams. Jugendstil Initials is an experiment with which I am most pleased. It is far and away the most complex font HiH has produced and I was uncertain whether or not it could be done successfully. To oversimplify, a font is produced by creating outlines of each character, using points along the outline to define the contour. A simple sans-serif letter A with crossbar can be created using as few as 10 points. We decided to make a comparison of the number of points we used to define the uppercase A in various fonts. Cori, Gaiety Girl and Page No 508 all use 12 points. Patent Reclame uses 39 and Publicity Headline uses 43. All the rest of the A’s, except the decorative initials, fall somewhere in between. The initial letters run from 48 points for Schnorr Initials to 255 for Morris Initials Two, with 150 being about average. Then there is a jump to 418 points for Morris Initials One and, finally, to 1626 points for Jugendstil Initials. And this was only after we selectively simplified the designs so our font creation software (Fontographer) could render them. The average was 1678, not including X and Y. There was no X and Y in the original design and we have provided simple stand-ins to fill out the alphabet, without trying to imitate the style of the orginal design. We did a lot of looking to find a compatible lower case. We decided that Morris Gothic from the same period was the best match in color, design and historical context. We felt so strongly about the choice that we decided to produce our Morris Gothic font for the purpose of providing a lower case for Jugendstil Initials. The long s, as well as the ligatures ch and ck are provided. at 181, 123 (leftbrace) and 125 (rightbrace) respectively. This font was a lot of work, but I think it was worth it. I hope you agree.

Worldly Even though it’s a new arrival, FS Brabo has seen the world. Designed by a Brazilian working in London and studying in Belgium under a Dutchman, it’s certainly well-travelled. And it was inspired by the extraordinary archive of early book typefaces at the world-renowned Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, while Fernando Mello was attending Frank Blokland’s Expert class Type Design course at the Plantin Institute of Typography. It was there that Fernando became engrossed in the collection of early metal type, matrices, punches and type samples by figures such as Garamond and Granjon. So much so that he took on the mighty task of developing ‘a beautiful, functional, serifed text font’ of his own. Heroic FS Brabo’s journey from sketch to font family took an epic three years, starting in Antwerp, continuing at Fontsmith in London, and reaching its conclusion back in Fernando’s home city of São Paulo. No wonder Fernando was reminded of another titanic face-off: that of Antwerp’s Roman hero of legend, Silvius Brabo, and the evil ogre, Antigoon. Brabo came to the town’s rescue after the tyrannical giant had been charging ships’ captains extortionate taxes and chopping off the hands of those who refused to pay up. Having finally downed Antigoon after a long and terrible duel, Brabo cut off the giant’s own hand and threw it into the river Scheldt, unwittingly giving the town its name: the Dutch for ‘hand-throw’ is hand werpen. What better way for Fernando to name his literary typeface than after the hero of Antwerp’s oldest tale? The garalde factor FS Brabo is not a revival, but a very much a contemporary, personal interpretation of a garalde – a class of typeface originating in the 16th century that includes Bembo, Garamond and Plantin, with characteristically rounded serifs and moderate contrast between strokes. Brabo’s ‘ct’ and ‘st’ ligatures, upper-case italic swashes and contextual ending ligatures – ‘as’, ‘is’, ‘us’ – all preserve the beauty and character of traditional typefaces, but its serifs are chunkier than a garalde. Their sharp cuts and squared edges give them a crispness at text sizes, helping to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. A workhorse with pedigree It may give the appearance of a simple, four-weight typeface, but FS Brabo has hidden depths beneath its simplicity and beauty. OpenType features such as cap italic swashes, contextual ending swashes – programmed only to appear at the end of words – and stylistic alternatives make this a complete and well-equipped typeface. Comprehensive testing was carried out at text and display sizes, too, to prevent counters from filling in. All of which makes FS Brabo a very modern take on a traditional workhorse serif typeface: colourful and versatile enough to adorn not just editorial projects but also signage, advertising and logotypes.

Worldly Even though it’s a new arrival, FS Brabo has seen the world. Designed by a Brazilian working in London and studying in Belgium under a Dutchman, it’s certainly well-travelled. And it was inspired by the extraordinary archive of early book typefaces at the world-renowned Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, while Fernando Mello was attending Frank Blokland’s Expert class Type Design course at the Plantin Institute of Typography. It was there that Fernando became engrossed in the collection of early metal type, matrices, punches and type samples by figures such as Garamond and Granjon. So much so that he took on the mighty task of developing ‘a beautiful, functional, serifed text font’ of his own. Heroic FS Brabo’s journey from sketch to font family took an epic three years, starting in Antwerp, continuing at Fontsmith in London, and reaching its conclusion back in Fernando’s home city of São Paulo. No wonder Fernando was reminded of another titanic face-off: that of Antwerp’s Roman hero of legend, Silvius Brabo, and the evil ogre, Antigoon. Brabo came to the town’s rescue after the tyrannical giant had been charging ships’ captains extortionate taxes and chopping off the hands of those who refused to pay up. Having finally downed Antigoon after a long and terrible duel, Brabo cut off the giant’s own hand and threw it into the river Scheldt, unwittingly giving the town its name: the Dutch for ‘hand-throw’ is hand werpen. What better way for Fernando to name his literary typeface than after the hero of Antwerp’s oldest tale? The garalde factor FS Brabo is not a revival, but a very much a contemporary, personal interpretation of a garalde – a class of typeface originating in the 16th century that includes Bembo, Garamond and Plantin, with characteristically rounded serifs and moderate contrast between strokes. Brabo’s ‘ct’ and ‘st’ ligatures, upper-case italic swashes and contextual ending ligatures – ‘as’, ‘is’, ‘us’ – all preserve the beauty and character of traditional typefaces, but its serifs are chunkier than a garalde. Their sharp cuts and squared edges give them a crispness at text sizes, helping to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. A workhorse with pedigree It may give the appearance of a simple, four-weight typeface, but FS Brabo has hidden depths beneath its simplicity and beauty. OpenType features such as cap italic swashes, contextual ending swashes – programmed only to appear at the end of words – and stylistic alternatives make this a complete and well-equipped typeface. Comprehensive testing was carried out at text and display sizes, too, to prevent counters from filling in. All of which makes FS Brabo a very modern take on a traditional workhorse serif typeface: colourful and versatile enough to adorn not just editorial projects but also signage, advertising and logotypes.