ITC Hornpype is the work of California freelance designer Mott Jordan, a cheerful display face inspired in part by the cartoons of the 1920s and 30s. According to Jordan, the typeface's name and three-dimensional quality can be traced to an early cartoon in which a cat blows on a horn with such force that the instrument bulges out. For the three-dimensional look, Jordan added highlights to the thicker strokes to create letters that look as though they were, in his words, squeezed from a toothpaste tube". Jordan suggests his eye-catching font for shorter words in larger point sizes. ITC Hornpype is a lively font perfect for anything needing a "fun, goofy" look."

ITC Ellipse is the work of designer Jean-Renaud Cuaz, who specializes in visual identity programs combining graphic and typographic design. Cuaz contends that the ellipse has become prevalent in current design as a result of software which makes it possible to manipulat circular forms. ITC Ellipse is an excellent display typeface whose classical structure and proportions make it flexible enough for a variety of applications.

Australian designer and art director Wayne Thompson has loved typography “ever since I received a battered second-hand Letraset catalog at the age of 10.” He based ITC Django on the handwriting of an acquaintance -- “a fellow I know who writes and illustrates children's books and is also a commercial artist” -- who called himself Django, after the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. “I felt that that name Django suited the funky, lively feel of the face,” says Thompson. But he adds, “Django has a split personality: it appears loose and easy at first, but after looking at it for some time I felt an edginess come through that was slightly psychotic.” The looseness of the lowercase contrasts with the spikiness of the capitals. The “edginess” is especially apparent in words in all caps.

ITC Tremor is the work of British designer Alan Dempsey. You might think that it looks like the letters are in a seismically lively geological zone, but Dempsey had other kinds of motion in mind. Most of the faces I design come from trace 'work-outs' for advertising products. In the case of Tremor, it was to reflect a lively teenager," says Dempsey. The result is ITC Tremor, a cartoony slab serif typeface with irregular angles, straight-edged curves, and lines surrounding each character, making them look like they are jittery.

ITC Gema is the work of Brazilian graphic designer Claudio Rocha. It was first written in a small size to keep the surface irregularity of a non-coated paper when enlarged for use as a display font," says Rocha. Many strokes do not quite join, giving Gema the visual effect of a stencil typeface, the distinguishing characteristic of the font. "Some characters have my own handwriting gestures," says Rocha, like elongated endings and angular shapes. Gema comes complete with an unusual variety of ligatures and alternate characters."

Rococo Titling is a set of ornate titling caps based on work done by Jacques-Francois Rosart (1714-1777) and Pierre Simon Fournier (1712-1768) during the middle decades of the 18th century.

ITC Clover is the work of California designer Jill Bell. ITC Clover's design is even, rounded, and friendly. It has the look of the loopy cursive writing taught in grade school, although its shapes are much more controlled. Capitals are decorated with generous loops and curlicues, which combine with a lowercase alphabet that is only reserved in relation to the capitals. The letters almost dance across the page even when they are static, and they bring their own dynamism to any animation.

ITC Hedera's roots can be traced to a suite of initials intended for book design. Olivera Stojadinovic, the face's designer, made the first sketches for the initials with a handmade tool consisting of two flexible metal strips tied to a wooden handle. This makeshift pen created the distinctive uneven double strokes of the letterforms. Stojadinovic says that she tried to keep the original flavor of the sketches in the finished font. Stroke roughness has been preserved in final execution, though the characters had some cleaning and polishing," she notes. Based on Renaissance letterforms, ITC Hedera has a classical quality that complements its calligraphic exuberance. The name Hedera? According to Stojadinovic, "It's the name of a common ivy. I chose it because of the organic image of the character strokes, which, to me, resemble shapes from nature's leaves or stems of plants." Rough-hewn yet elegant, ITC Hedera is an exceptional display design."

The ITC Blair™ typeface is a revival and reimaging of an early 20th century metal typeface of the same name. Even though only available as single weights of extended and condensed proportions, metal fonts of the face were sold well into the 1950s. In 1997, Jim Spiece resurrected the original extended design for digital imaging and, in the process, added two new weights. Almost 20 years later, he collaborated with Monotype type designers to extend the basic family again. The result was a new suite of three condensed designs and italic complements for all the roman weights. The family also benefits from a large set of alternative glyphs and many OpenType® features.

ITC Chivalry is a calligraphic hybrid that honors the tradition of combining Roman capitals with italic lowercase letters. Drawn by Missouri lettering artist Rob Leuschke, who used a flat-nib pen on textured watercolor stock and then converted the drawings into a digital font, the design combines an old world" feel with "new world" legibility. A companion set of black letter caps completes the suite of characters. "I've loved drawing letters for as long as I can remember," says Leuschke. "Even in kindergarten, I tried to draw letters like my teacher." After graduating from college, Leuschke worked for a short time at a sign company in St. Louis, and in the early 1980s began working at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City. His talent as a calligrapher and lettering artist eventually brought him back to St. Louis to begin a freelance career. Since then Leuschke has created over 250 fonts, primarily for the greeting card industry, that are now being used on work for his clients all over the world. Leuschke first conceived of the face as just the black letter caps; he later added the Roman letters to give the design more versatility. The Roman caps of ITC Chivalry combined with the lowercase are well suited to blocks of copy, while the more decorative black letter caps are ideal for showcasing short text of just a few words. Both sets of capitals also make great initial letters."

Nvma is based on Roman letterforms which appeared during the period from the earliest extant examples in the sixth or seventh century BC until the end of the third century BC. For Nvma the J, U and W had to be fantasies as they did not exist until much later, similar to the G, numerals and other non-alphabetic signs in the font. Thus not all of the archaic forms are represented in Nvma. Nvma was designed to work with Magma, as it matches the weights and heights for Magma Thin and Magma Titling Thin.

ITC Zinzinnati is based on a font called Ohio, released in 1924 by Die Schriftguss A.G. Typical of the Plakatstil letterforms of the time, the original font had a rough outline, as if drawn with a brush. Nick Curtis has smoothed the rough edges, which enhances the design's playful curves and engaging charm. As for the name: it's the punchline to an old vaudeville routine that starts with the question, Name a city in Ohio that begins with a 'Z.'" Pie in the face, comin' atcha!"

The Phantom Isles: Retro Tiki Font A Textured Retro Font Inspired by Tropical Tiki Style and South Sea Adventures! The Phantom Isles is a hand-drawn font inspired by 1950s Tiki culture, tales of exotic locations and south sea adventures. It features the textured look of weathered wood and is the perfect choice for book covers, movie titles, theme parks or vintage themed events. The font includes a complete set of uppercase and lowercase characters, along with numbers, punctuation, symbols and language support. You’ll also find a set of specially illustrated underlines, shapes and icons including flora and fauna, old rope, skulls and more. A Brief History of Tiki Culture Originating from Māori mythology, a tiki is a wooden or stone carving that represents deified ancestors found in most Polynesian cultures. The mainstream and commercialised Tiki Culture that became popular across America from the 1930s to 50s was inspired by the sentimental appeal of an idealised South Pacific, particularly Hawaii, as viewed through the experiences of those who had visited such areas during World War II and cinematic depictions of beautiful scenery, forbidden love and the potential for danger. Over time it selectively incorporated more cultural elements of other regions that affected Polynesia, such as Southeast Asia. The Americanised form of Tiki Culture maintains a dedicated following today, particularly among those interested in 1950s graphic and interior design, history and the escapist lounge aesthetic it inspires. Learn more about the history of Tiki and Polynesian culture.

ITC Freddo is the work of New York designer James Montalbano and was inspired by a sign lettering manual from the 1930s. Montalbano liked the character shapes illustrated in this manual but found many of the proportions odd. So he reinterpreted them to produce capitals and lower case letters which, according to today's standards, better complement one another.

Before the Great War, there were great posters. Posters of elegance and grandeur. Posters calling people to the pleasures of sunny southern France and to the perfections of northern Italy’s dolce vita. Le Havre, based on a poster by AM Cassandre, was one of my first typefaces that took inspiration from this genre. Now, the golden memories of years past are the inspiration for insigne design’s new Gineso Titling as well. Gineso revives the retro forms of past poster design with its newly crafted sense of humanity, which is amplified by a great variety of texture options. While the new forms are perfect for posters, this titling font is also ideal for bringing the charm of pre-war Southern Europe to a new bottle of wine, to fine foods and beverages, and to high-end logotypes. For the grandeur and elegance you need in your titling, look to Gineso Titling.

Genevieve Cerasoli created the font in 1997. ITC Arnova is a calligraphy typeface with pronounced stroke contrast and rough contours. The characters have pointed strokes and sit on the baseline leaning diagonally sometimes toward and sometimes away from one another and both characteristics give ITC Arnova a lively, dynamic feel. This font remains legible in point sizes as small as 8 and is well-suited to headlines and short to middle length texts.

Eric Stevens's latest typeface, ITC Lintball, combines two unusual features: its letterforms are based on the serifless lettering inscribed in stone by the ancient Greeks, yet the wobbly edges of the strokes, and especially the slightly wider “lintballs” on the ends, suggest lettering done on paper with a modern felt-tip pen. The ball motif is carried through in the fat dot under the raised capital O, and in the similar dot used in place of a crossbar in the capital A. There's an angularity to many of the strokes, especially in the lowercase, that gives Lintball its distinctive character.

ITC Chino is a type family (Display & Text) designed by Hannes von Döhren and Livius Dietzel. ITC Chino Pro brings legibility and distinction to text copy. It is also a friendly design that will invite readers into content at large or small sizes. It is a melding of soft brush stokes and crisp edges. This is readily apparent in the bolder italic weights where the straight stems provide a counterpoint to the cursive terminals. The Typefamily is highly legible in a wide range of sizes. The text side of the family contains five weights of roman, each with an italic companion. Ranging from Light to Black, ITC Chino Pro provides a rich typographic palette. The OpenType fonts have an extended character set to support Central and Eastern European as well as Western European languages. Each font includes small caps, fractions, old style-, lining-, tabular numbers, scientific superior/inferior figures and a set of arrows.

Willow font was designed by Tony Forster, a fanciful font in the Viennese Secessionist style. The work of Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh inspired this condensed sans serif typeface with its rough edges and selection of alternate and ligature characters. Willow font revives the look of the arts and crafts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

ITC Typados is the joint effort of Roselyne and Michel Besnard and is composed of characters in two different senses of the word. First, it is of course made of letters and symbols, clean and legible with generous widths and x-heights. There is a hint of Art Nouveau style in the tapering, brush-like strokes. But the figures of ITC Typados are also made of characters in the theatrical sense: little tear-drop heads on tapering bodies that bend themselves into the shapes of an alphabet while maintaining a life of their own. The typeface is based on a recurring character in Michel's sculpture and painting, Ado. Ado is the first character who sings and repeats itself in all my creations," says Michel. "This adventure brings new forms for my painting and my sculpture: coiffed heads, bodies in the form of a cone, arms in the form of spread wings, etc." "Type" plus a number of "Ados" equals ITC Typados."

ITC Portago was designed by Luis Siquot, who admits to a tendency toward unusual typefaces that can be read in text yet also work well in display settings. ITC Portago is a robust alphabet of caps and slightly smaller caps. It is a stencil face, based on the lettering on crates and luggage. Siquot says that his intention drawing Portago was to obtain a neutral, classical, very condensed grotesque stencil shape that is readable in text sizes, showing at the same time the 'movement' produced by the nicked edges. And of course the more obvious rough effect in headline sizes." At small sizes, Portago is best set with slightly looser letterspacing, as capital combinations usually do. Portago includes numerals in both full and small caps proportions.

ITC Binary was designed by Mauricio Reyes in 1997 as a semiserif font with a pronounced stroke contrast. A distinguishing characteristic of this font is that many of the lower case letters seem to be missing a small piece of their forms, either at the base line or x-height. Setting the letters together makes an impression of waviness which draws the attention of the reader. Binary is a reserved, elegant font which should be used in point sizes of 10 or larger and only in headlines and short to middle length texts.

ITC Braganza is the work of British designer Phill Grimshaw, an elegant typeface steeped in historical inspiration. Reminiscent of the handwritten manuscript styles of the 16th century, the name Braganza refers to Catherine, Duchess of Braganza, who was a prominent figure in Portugal at the time. The vertical script style displays the elegance and refinement which distinguished the Royal Courts of the 16th century.

ITC Tabula is meant to be read. The design grew out of a study to create a font to set film subtitles. According to Julien Janiszewski, the face's Paris-based designer, “I set parameters for the design whereby the letters had to be able to hold up at very small sizes when set on film and yet must be able to be enlarged 2000 times to be read on a theatre screen.” The subtitle font was not completed, but several months later Janiszewski revisited the design and made a discovery. “I realized that the constraints I had established for the subtitling font was not that far from those people could have in creating typographic signage. Many time this calls for a font that can be used easily in very large sizes for headlines on highway billboards and quite small for text copy.” Work proceeded for two more years before Janiszewski was satisfied with the results. The final design is a somewhat squared sans serif family of four weighs with corresponding italics. Janiszewski also wanted to create what he calls a “sensitive sans-one that is not restricted to geometric shapes but has a subtle calligraphic, foundation.” ITC Tabula is not only easy to read, it is also a distinctive and handsome design.

ITC Musica is a revival of a design in the type library of Master Eagle/Photo-Lettering and released in the ITC library. For this reworking of the typeface, the thin strokes were made thicker and the weights were redrawn, reproportioned and reshaped to create a more balanced design for the ITC Musica.

Waters Titling is the work of lettering artist Julian Waters, a multiple master typeface of classical calligraphic roman capitals. This broad-tipped pen design is related to other historically-based titling alphabets but offers a wider range of weights and widths, making it extremely versatile for movie titles, book jackets, posters, banners, calendars, etc. Waters Titling is based on the timeless Roman monumental inscription forms of almost 2000 years ago, but also has a touch of contemporary vigor and flair. The design displays a strong calligraphic thick/thin stroke weight contrast and flowing, subtly bracketed serifs. In lighter weights, Waters Titling is elegant and delicate, while the bolder weights offer a more substantial sparkle.

ITC Vinyl was designed by J. Keith Moore, who was born in Germany but raised in Colorado. The typeface is a hybrid of Art Nouveau, street attitude, and 1950s design and was created with pen, ink, and French curves before being converted into digital fonts with Adobe Illustrator. ITC Vinyl is a family of four display faces in outline and solid designs with corresponding sawtooth" variants for each."

ITC Mithras was designed by Bob Anderton and finds its foundation in the worn yet elegant letters carved into stones of a Mithraic temple in Scotland. The capitals are narrow and complemented by a wide, full bodied lowercase. The proportions of the curves vary slightly between characters and this subtle contrast gives the face a mellow appearance while still attracting attention. ITC Mithras is a very legible typeface and hence applicable to a wide range of display uses.

In ITC Arecibo, Argentinean type designer Luis Siquot has created a typeface of subtle typographic turns. At first glance, ITC Arecibo has a sturdy 19th century wood type flavor, yet the delicate hairline shadow is decidedly Art Deco. Its condensed proportions and character shapes have been carefully modeled to ensure legibility. Siquot added uniqueness and versatility to the face by drawing two sets of small caps: one in which the central horizontal strokes share the same plane (ITC Arecibo) as those in the full-size letters, and another where the horizontal strokes are proportional with the small caps(ITC Arecibo Too). Another intriguing subtlety is what Siquot calls the “soul of the face,” the distinctive highlight/shadow. “This ambiguous line is an effect I have wanted to incorporate into a design for some time,” says Siquot. “Is it a black hairline that surrounds the letters, or a white line incised into the left and bottom of strokes?” ITC Arecibo and ITC Arecibo Too: distinctive, powerful and economical of space. What more could you ask from a headline face?

ITC Flatiron is a revival of an extended all cap headline font from the Photo-Lettering Collection. This hand-drawn sans serif face has uncharacteristic mono-weight letterforms. Deliberately expanded and almost absurdly wide, ITC Flatiron has an unusual style, one that is almost irreverent.""

ITC Kendo is the work of British designer Phill Grimshaw, suggesting the dash and verve of quick, sketchy calligraphy, complete with splatters of ink. Grimshaw says he worked deliberately against his own habits to create the forms, drawing the letters with slow deliberation" and a pointed pen. He overloaded the pen with ink and drew on rough paper, "applying a lot of pressure at the beginning of a stroke and easing off towards the terminals. Accidental splashes occurred frequently owing to the nib catching the 'tooth' of the paper." Those splashes were refined into features which enhance but do not overwhelm the characters and carefully worked so as not to leave an obvious white strip of unsplattered space between lines and letters. The initial capitals can be used alone or combined with the lowercase alphabet, and the font includes a full set of f-ligatures and some extra ligatures as well as decorative elements."

Abdo Title is a simple Naskh font for newspaper and magazines discriminate accurately design and clarity of reading. Abdo Title is compatible with the various operation systems and modern software. We will later add the rest of the weights. This font also suitable for books titles and advertisement.

Roswell was designed by Jim Parkinson, who acknowledges the 'spacey' ancestry of its name. Yes, Roswell, New Mexico. There was a big anniversary of 'the incident' in the news while I was designing in Roswell. "The incident" is of course the alleged UFO crash in Roswell. "I thought the name was acceptable as a serious font name, while, on another level, having a strangely humorous edge," says Parkinson. Roswell looks great in large sizes on a poster or in a magazine layout. It started out as "a variation on American gothic forms like Railroad Gothic", says the designer, but Roswell is an original design with eccentricities of its own."

ITC Fontoon was designed by Steve Zafarana of the Galápagos Design Group in 1995. Along with ITC Fontoonies and ITC Gargoonies from the same designers, it is the perfect text font for cartoons and comics. Slight irregularities in stroke contrast and basic forms distinguish ITC Fontoon and make it look like printed handwriting. It has an individual and consciously naive character and its high x-height makes it legible even in smaller point sizes. ITC Fontoon is best used for short texts and headlines.

Somewhat of a mongrel, this font combines uppercase letters from an oriental font designed by Paul Carlyle and Guy Oring in 1938, and lowercase letters based on yet another variant of Joan Truchut-Blanchard’s Super Veloz system. As its name implies, it’s quite suitable for titles of all kinds. The Opentype version of this font supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages, as well as Unicode 1252 (Latin) languages.

The drawings, for what is now Triplex Italic, were done in Iowa City in 1985 by John Downer. The italic was originally conceived as a companion for another typeface being drawn at the same time called Arcatext, which (like Triplex) could be described as a "humanist sans-serif" having simplified character shapes constructed mostly of geometric parts. At one stage, a certain customer was interested in Arcatext but wanted a different italic drawn for it, so the plan for the italic took another direction and the idea for this one was dropped. Five years later, Emigre decided to commission the abandoned italic as a digital typeface in three weights as companions to the Triplex Sans and Serif families designed by Zuzana Licko in early 1990. The ascenders and descenders have been shortened to match those of Triplex and the new capitals embody more of the features that distinguish the lower case, but otherwise the digital version closely follows the original drawings. See also Triplex OT.

Some words from the designer... The bold, playful element is everything in ITC Surfboard. West coast designer Teri Kahan was inspired by California's surfing lifestyle, and the letters of this alphabet dance along the writing line. The vitality of ITC Surfboard comes from the tension between its very free shapes and the precise edges and angles that create them. This all-capital font has deliberately tight spacing and works best in large sizes. Also included are fun, abstract surf/sail graphics.

ITC Dartangnon is a work of English designer Nick Cooke and began with the thought, It's a long shot but it might just work as a font." It started as a doodle with a chunky pencil. "So many script fonts look too stylized so I thought I'd try to produce one that looks more like handwriting." He scanned the doodles and used Fontographer to draw a set of monoline letters. "Working quickly I soon drew the whole alphabet, and without being too pedantic about the characters joining exactly, I arrived at this script." ITC Dartangnon is an energetic font which remains legible even in small point sizes. And, Cooke adds, "It is supposed to be used as upper and lowercase only, NEVER just caps.""