ATF Franklin Gothic® A new take on an old favorite Franklin Gothic has been the quintessential American sans for more than a century. Designed by Morris Fuller Benton and released in 1905 by American Type Founders, Franklin Gothic quickly stood out in the crowded field of sans-serif types, gaining an enduring popularity. Benton’s original design was a display face in a single weight. It had a bold, direct solidity, yet conveyed plenty of character. A modern typeface in the tradition of 19th-century grotesques, Franklin Gothic was drawn with a distinctive contrast in stroke weight, giving it a unique personality among the more mono-linear appearance of later geometric and neo-grotesque sans-serif types. Franklin Gothic has been interpreted into a series of weights before, most notably with ITC Franklin Gothic. But as the original type was just a bold display face (later accompanied by a few similarly bold widths and italics), how Benton’s design is expanded to multiple weights and styles as a digital type family can vary significantly. Benton designed several gothic faces that harmonize with one another, including Franklin Gothic, News Gothic, and Monotone Gothic, that can serve as models for new interpretations of his work. With ATF Franklin Gothic, Mark van Bronkhorst looked to Benton’s Monotone Gothic—originally a single typeface in a regular weight, and similar to Franklin Gothic in its forms—as the basis for lighter styles. ATF Franklin Gothic may appear familiar given its heritage, but is a new design offering a fresh take on Benton’s work. The text weights are wider and more open than some previous Franklin Gothic interpretations, and as a result are quite legible as text, at very small sizes, and on screen. ATF Franklin Gothic maintains the warmth and the spirit of a Benton classic while offering a suite of fonts tuned precisely for contemporary appeal and utility. The 18-font family offers nine weights with true italics, a Latin-extended character set, and a suite of OpenType features. Download the PDF specimen for ATF Franklin Gothic.

Albertina was a typeface ahead of its time. It was in the early 1960s when designer Chris Brand, an accomplished calligrapher, aspired to draw a typeface based on the principles of calligraphy. Unfortunately, typesetting machines of that era put many restrictions on designers. Characters had to be drawn within a very coarse grid, which also defined their spacing. Technological limitations meant that italic designs often had to share the same character widths as the romans. Designers were forced to draw italic faces much wider and with more open spacing than what would be typical in calligraphic lettering or hand-set type. Not surprisingly, production of the first Albertina fonts went very slowly. Brand would submit his character drawings, and the Monotype Drawing Office would modify them to be compatible with the company's typesetting equipment. The new drawings would then be sent back to Brand for approval or rework. Most were reworked. The process took so long, in fact, that by the time the face was completed it was once again out of phase with the times: instead of being released as metal type for the Monotype composing machines it had been tailored for, Albertina debuted as phototype fonts for the Monophoto typesetter. The design's first use was for a catalog of the work of Stanley Morison, exhibited at the Albertina Library in Brussels in 1966. Sales of the design were not remarkable. With the advent of digital type technology, Albertina's story took a far happier turn. Frank E. Blokland, of the Dutch Type Library, used Brand's original, uncompromised drawings as the foundation of a digital revival. The Monophoto version had taken a considerable battering from the limitations of Monotype's unit system," recalls Blokland, "but there was no need for me to incorporate these restrictions in the digital version." With the full backing of Monotype and original designer Brand looking over Blokland's shoulder, a new design for Albertina emerged, displaying all the grace and verve of Brand's original drawings. The basic family drawn by Brand also grew into three weights, each with an italic complement and a suite of small caps and old style figures."

The letterforms of this face represent a "subtraction" of two different faces by weight, style, and shape -- one from another. The shapes of TM Miniature Italic are subtracted from FreeSet Bold with subsequent deconstruction. Though the spots may look amorphous they create images of both external and internal. At the same time none of them is explicit. The alphabet is lower case only. Designed by Boris Popov and licensed by ParaType in 2002 .

The distinguishing characteristics of this typeface were suggested by cover artwork for the May 1930 issue of Inland Printer: a combination of caps based on Breda Gotisch, released by H. Berthold AG in 1928, and a lowercase based on Goudy Text. The result is a remarkably elegant and retro-stylish blackletter face. Both versions of the font contain the complete Latin 1252 character set plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Chank claims to have the fastest type design, we think we have the youngest. Samuel was merely four years old when he wrote out his first face. We are expecting many more brilliant typefaces from this upcoming designer. Please note that this font has no numbers or punctuation symbols; Samuel just did letters at that time.

Venecian Old Face fonts had a strong influence on typeface design in the 1930s and 1940s in England. Such influence is evident in the font Electra, designed by William A. Dwiggins for Linotype in 1935. Electra combines its classic roots with the Zeitgeist of the 1930s, also displaying characteristics of the Bauhaus and Art Deco styles.

Here's a great old face from the H. W. Caslon foundry in London; a real workhorse. The lowercase is eminently readable, so you can set entire paragraphs to good effect. We don't recommend it for setting all caps, but we did take time to kern it well; so you won't get a jumble of ovelapping letters if you do.

In one of our yearly type hunts, we came across the ancestor of this font, much wider and more decorative, with fine outside shading. Condition was poor so we did the obvious, cutting out the excess decoration and condensing the face optically. It reeks of dancing girls and drunken sailors and other colorful attributes of Old San Francisco.

Petrarka may be described as a Condensed, Sans-Serif, Semi-Fatface Roman. Huh? Bear with me on this. The Fatface is a name given to the popular nineteenth-century romans that where characterized by an extremity of contrast between the thick and thin stroke. The earliest example that is generally familiar is Thorowgood, believed to have been designed by Robert Thorne and released by Thorowgood Foundry in 1820 as "Five-line Pica No. 5." Copied by many foundries, it became one of the more popular advertising types of the day. Later, in the period from about 1890 to 1950, you find a number of typeface designs with the thin stroke beefed up a bit, not quite so extreme. What you might call Semi-Fatfaced Romans begin to replace the extreme Fatfaces. Serifed designs like Bauer’s Bernard Roman Extra Bold and ATF’s Bold Antique appear. In addition, we see the development of semi-fatface lineals or Sans-Serif Semi-Fatfaces. Examples include Britannic (Stephenson Blake), Chambord Bold (Olive), Koloss (Ludwig & Mayer), Matthews (ATF) and Radiant Heavy (Ludlow). Petrarka has much in common with this latter group, but is distinguished by two salient features: it is condensed and it shows a strong blackletter influence, as seen in the ‘H’ particularly. Petrark was released about 1900 by the German foundry of Schelter & Giesecke of Leipzig and is one of the designs of the period that attempts to reconcile roman and blackletter traditions. Making a cameo appearance in this Multi-Lingual font is the Anglo-Saxon letter yogh (#729), which, along with the thorn and the eth, is always useful for preparing flyers in Old English. There are still pockets of resistance to the Norman French influence that washed up on England’s shores in 1066. This font stands with King Canute, seeking to hold back the tide (ignoring the fact that Canute was a Dane). Support the fight to preserve Anglo-Saxon culture. Buy Petrarka ML today. Petrarka Initials brings together the Petrarka upper case letters with a very sympatico Art Nouveau rendering of a female face.

When ITC Officina was first released in 1990, as a paired family of serif and sans serif faces in two weights with italics, it was intended as a workhorse typeface for business correspondence. But the typeface proved popular in many more areas than correspondence. Erik Spiekermann, ITC Officina's designer: Once ITC Officina got picked up by the trendsetters to denote 'coolness,' it had lost its innocence. No pretending anymore that it only needed two weights for office correspondence. As a face used in magazines and advertising, it needed proper headline weights and one more weight in between the original Book and Bold."" To add the new weights and small caps, Spiekermann collaborated with Ole Schaefer, director of typography and type design at MetaDesign. The extended ITC Officina family now includes Medium, Extra Bold, and Black weights with matching italics-all in both Sans and Serif -- as well as new small caps fonts for the original Book and Bold weights.

When ITC Officina was first released in 1990, as a paired family of serif and sans serif faces in two weights with italics, it was intended as a workhorse typeface for business correspondence. But the typeface proved popular in many more areas than correspondence. Erik Spiekermann, ITC Officina's designer: Once ITC Officina got picked up by the trendsetters to denote 'coolness,' it had lost its innocence. No pretending anymore that it only needed two weights for office correspondence. As a face used in magazines and advertising, it needed proper headline weights and one more weight in between the original Book and Bold."" To add the new weights and small caps, Spiekermann collaborated with Ole Schaefer, director of typography and type design at MetaDesign. The extended ITC Officina family now includes Medium, Extra Bold, and Black weights with matching italics-all in both Sans and Serif -- as well as new small caps fonts for the original Book and Bold weights.

When ITC Officina was first released in 1990, as a paired family of serif and sans serif faces in two weights with italics, it was intended as a workhorse typeface for business correspondence. But the typeface proved popular in many more areas than correspondence. Erik Spiekermann, ITC Officina's designer: Once ITC Officina got picked up by the trendsetters to denote 'coolness,' it had lost its innocence. No pretending anymore that it only needed two weights for office correspondence. As a face used in magazines and advertising, it needed proper headline weights and one more weight in between the original Book and Bold." To add the new weights and small caps, Spiekermann collaborated with Ole Schaefer, director of typography and type design at MetaDesign. The extended ITC Officina family now includes Medium, Extra Bold, and Black weights with matching italics-all in both Sans and Serif -- as well as new small caps fonts for the original Book and Bold weights."

Hadrian Bold pushes the limits for an extra-condensed titling face. Though remaining in the tradition of the 20th-century 'grotesque' designs, its heavy verticality and tight spacing demand attention for headlines at virtually any size.

Created as a Headline Face Alons Antique works amazingly well as a text face.

Yonkers a classic gothic face a very legible face. Very suitable for various applications.

Xylo is a rugged, no-nonsense typeface that was originally designed in 1924 by the Benjamin Krebs type foundry in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Even back then, Xylo must have been very popular; the design made it at least as far as England. In 1995, after finding its design in an old London printer's reference book, the Letraset Type Studio faithfully converted Xylo into digital format. A time-proven display face, Xylo will convey a feeling of power and strength in any application. Best used big in headlines or logos; Xylo exudes an expressionistic and art deco spirit that just as much at home today as it was during the roaring 20s!

Interboro JNL is based on the serif lettering found on an old E-Z Letter lettering guide.

FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style from between 1998 and 1908, but with much more warmth and improved legibility as well as a hint towards the warmer American grotesques. Later on, not just slanted styles, but a “proper” italic version was added inspired by the way Roman and Italic are distinguished in traditional serif faces. NEW: a specially created set of obliques were added in 2018 to give designers more design flexibility, for those looking for a less calligraphic look. In 2020 the family was extended with matching condensed weights. FF Real was originally conceived by Erik Spiekermann as one text weight and one headline weight to be used as the only faces in his biography ‘Hello I am Erik’, edited by Johannes Erler, published in 2014. While Spiekermann drew the alphabets, he passed on the font data to Ralph du Carrois and Anja Meiners who cleaned it up and completed it. In the meantime, FF Real has been extended to a family of two styles and 65 weights each. The design of FF Real is rooted in early static grotesques from the turn of the century. Several German type foundries – among them the Berlin-based foundries Theinhardt and H. Berthold AG – released such designs between 1898 and 1908. The semi-bold weight of a poster-size typeface that was lighter than most of the according semi-bolds in metal type at the time, gave the impetus to FF Real’s regular weight. In the words of Spiekermann, the historical example is “the real, non-fake version, as it were, the royal sans serif face“, thus giving his new typeface the name “Real” (which is also in keeping with his four-letter names, i.e. FF Meta, FF Unit). FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style, but with much more warmth and improved legibility. With a hint towards the warmer American grotesques, Spiekermann added those typical Anglo-American features such as a three-story ‘g’ and an ‘8’ with a more defined loop. To better distinguish characters in small text sizes, FF Real Text comes in old style figures, ‘f’ and ‘t’ are wider, the capital ‘I’ is equipped with serifs, as is the lowercase ‘l’. What’s more, i-dots and all punctuation are round.

FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style from between 1998 and 1908, but with much more warmth and improved legibility as well as a hint towards the warmer American grotesques. Later on, not just slanted styles, but a “proper” italic version was added inspired by the way Roman and Italic are distinguished in traditional serif faces. NEW: a specially created set of obliques were added in 2018 to give designers more design flexibility, for those looking for a less calligraphic look. In 2020 the family was extended with matching condensed weights. FF Real was originally conceived by Erik Spiekermann as one text weight and one headline weight to be used as the only faces in his biography ‘Hello I am Erik’, edited by Johannes Erler, published in 2014. While Spiekermann drew the alphabets, he passed on the font data to Ralph du Carrois and Anja Meiners who cleaned it up and completed it. In the meantime, FF Real has been extended to a family of two styles and 65 weights each. The design of FF Real is rooted in early static grotesques from the turn of the century. Several German type foundries – among them the Berlin-based foundries Theinhardt and H. Berthold AG – released such designs between 1898 and 1908. The semi-bold weight of a poster-size typeface that was lighter than most of the according semi-bolds in metal type at the time, gave the impetus to FF Real’s regular weight. In the words of Spiekermann, the historical example is “the real, non-fake version, as it were, the royal sans serif face“, thus giving his new typeface the name “Real” (which is also in keeping with his four-letter names, i.e. FF Meta, FF Unit). FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style, but with much more warmth and improved legibility. With a hint towards the warmer American grotesques, Spiekermann added those typical Anglo-American features such as a three-story ‘g’ and an ‘8’ with a more defined loop. To better distinguish characters in small text sizes, FF Real Text comes in old style figures, ‘f’ and ‘t’ are wider, the capital ‘I’ is equipped with serifs, as is the lowercase ‘l’. What’s more, i-dots and all punctuation are round.

This classic face is based on Kleukens Scriptura, designed by Friedrich Wilhelm Kleukens in 1926 for D Stempel AG. It served as an alternative to Lucien Bernhard's Cursive and an inspiration for Oswald Cooper's Pompeian Script. Both versions of the font contain the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

Choc font is the work of French designer Roger Excoffon, based on the traditions of Japanese brush calligraphy, thick yet graceful. Choc light font was designed by Phil Grimshaw, who had to redraw many times in different weights before finding one that worked as a text face and remained true to the original.

Mellin takes us to the simple designs of the Streamline era. It is based on heavy vertical strokes with a slight taper. Mellin is offered in a solid form as well as an open outline face, and is ideally suited for posters that aim at the elegant functionality of the 40s and 50s.

Zebra was originally designed by Karlgeorg Hoefer in 1965 for the Stempel foundry in Germany. This unique font was designed as a two-color script face and is now available digitally for the first time. The P22/IHOF release presents six separate fonts based on the original painted drawings and Stempel proofs.

This Art Deco-inspired face is based on the Baltimore Type Foundry’s Tourist Extra Condensed. Graceful and elegant, this typeface’s compact design also packs a lot of information into very little space. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

This engaging headline face is based on a rather pudgy typeface named "Bullion Shadow", which was originally released somewhere on the cusp between the hippie and disco eras, and was equally at home in both. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets.

A rollicking fun face based on lettering on a poster for Britain's LNER steamship lines, which featured a piano-playing mouse and a dancing goose. The Postscript and Truetype versions contain a complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252); in addition, the Opentype version supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages as well.

At first glance, Burgstaedt Antiqua looks like an old typewriter face, or rather like a typeface from a typewriter that has gone hopelessly wrong! Only after your second glance will you see this font for what it really is - a thoroughly new text face. Several features of Burgstaedt Antiqua, and its companion italic face, are worth special attention: First, the terminal styles of the letters vary throughout the alphabet. This gives text set in Burgstaedt Antiqua a slightly jittery feeling. A second interesting feature is the lowercase q", which takes the form of a shrunken-down uppercase "Q". Burgstaedt Antiqua Regular and Burgstaedt Antiqua Italic may be used in both text and headlines. For use in text, we recommend employing a slightly larger point size (12 pt or 14 pt and above). British designer Richard Yeend designed this family in 2002.

Driver Gothic is based on the typeface used for Ontario license plates. Although unique among Canadian provincial license plates, this face is very similar to, if not outright identical with, the face used on car plates in 22 American states: Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. Driver Gothic is available in all popular font formats, and is comprised of a very extended character set (over 750 characters) covering a wide range of languages, including Central and Eastern European languages, Greek, Cyrillic, Esperanto, Turkish, Baltic and Celtic/Welsh. Driver Gothic Pro, the OpenType version, contains class-based kerning and push-button stylistic alternates for use with apps that support advanced typography. Buckle up!

Night Train is a new font built from the ground up; while Night Train may resemble an old classic wood type there are a few lines that make this font a little more modern setting it apart from other wood type revivals. If you're a railroad enthusiast you're sure to enjoy the steam locomotive graphic located on the less than and greater than keys on all versions of this font, due to the fine detail of this train illustration the best printing results will be at 600dpi or higher on a laser printer. An alternate K and R are within the Night Train fonts, for Win Type1 these alternates are on the left and right bracket keys, for Truetype and OpenType you may access the alternates by using the Character Map in Windows or Adobe Illustrator, for OpenType you may also find them on the stylistic alternates page of the glyph map in Illustrator. There's something new with Night Train that the sign making people will love, for the first time FontMesa is pleased to offer a block shadowed version in four directions. One fill font is all that is needed for all four open faced fonts, you'll need an application that works in layers in order to use the fill font with the open faced fonts, simply place the fill font in its own layer then move it behind one of the open faced fonts of Night Train. The Night Train name has been on my list to use as a font name for a few years, a friend from years ago used to sail his boat in the Mackinac race from Chicago to Mackinac Island, the name of that boat was the Night Train. Watching the 2010 Olympic four man U.S. bobsled team win gold with their sled also called Night Train has inspired me to complete this font.

Avenir Next Pro is a new take on a classic face—it’s the result of a project whose goal was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. This family is not only an update though; in fact it is the expansion of the original concept that takes the Avenir Next design to the next level. In addition to the standard styles ranging from ultralight to heavy, this 32-font collection offers condensed faces that rival any other sans on the market in on and off—screen readability at any size alongside heavy weights that would make excellent display faces in their own right and have the ability to pair well with so many contemporary serif body types. Overall, the family’s design is clean, straightforward and works brilliantly for blocks of copy and headlines alike. Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next Pro to life. It was Akira’s ability to bring his own finesse and ideas for expansion into the project while remaining true to Frutiger’s original intent, that makes this not just a modern typeface, but one ahead of its time. Avenir Next Variables are font files which are featuring two axis, weight and width. They have a preset instance from UltraLight to Heavy and Condensed to Roman width. The preset instances are: Condensed UltraLight, Condensed UltraLight Italic, Condensed Thin, Condensed Thin Italic, Condensed Light, Condensed Light Italic, Condensed, Condensed Italic, Condensed Demi, Condensed Demi Italic, Condensed Medium, Condensed Medium Italic, Condensed Bold, Condensed Bold Italic, Condensed Heavy, Condensed Heavy Italic, UltraLight, UltraLight Italic, Thin, Thin Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, Italic, Demi, Demi Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Heavy, Heavy Italic.

Avenir Next Pro is a new take on a classic face—it’s the result of a project whose goal was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. This family is not only an update though; in fact it is the expansion of the original concept that takes the Avenir Next design to the next level. In addition to the standard styles ranging from ultralight to heavy, this 32-font collection offers condensed faces that rival any other sans on the market in on and off—screen readability at any size alongside heavy weights that would make excellent display faces in their own right and have the ability to pair well with so many contemporary serif body types. Overall, the family’s design is clean, straightforward and works brilliantly for blocks of copy and headlines alike. Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next Pro to life. It was Akira’s ability to bring his own finesse and ideas for expansion into the project while remaining true to Frutiger’s original intent, that makes this not just a modern typeface, but one ahead of its time. Avenir Next Variables are font files which are featuring two axis, weight and width. They have a preset instance from UltraLight to Heavy and Condensed to Roman width. The preset instances are: Condensed UltraLight, Condensed UltraLight Italic, Condensed Thin, Condensed Thin Italic, Condensed Light, Condensed Light Italic, Condensed, Condensed Italic, Condensed Demi, Condensed Demi Italic, Condensed Medium, Condensed Medium Italic, Condensed Bold, Condensed Bold Italic, Condensed Heavy, Condensed Heavy Italic, UltraLight, UltraLight Italic, Thin, Thin Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, Italic, Demi, Demi Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Heavy, Heavy Italic.

Fleete is a modern homage to the many late 19th century typefaces; often used for book titles, posters and newspaper headlines; which have an extreme contrast between hairline horizontal stems and serifs and heavy vertical stems. Greater Albion Typefounders have taken this basic idea, to be found across very many faces of the period and used just that one concept as the basis of a new typeface design, which manages to be elegant yet modern all at once. IF you need something for a section heading which stands out from body text, this is the font family for you. If you need headings on a poster or large scale web-page headings, this is the face you should try. If you need several weights of heading-no problem; Fleete comes in Regular, Bold and Shadowed, as well as a newly designed Sans Serif form.

This font is based on the popular and timeless Caslon design and was carefully digitized from the pages of an early 19th century book. I was excited to see some unique design treatments of characters such as the lower case italic 'p', the question mark, and various swash caps that I had never seen before. During the conversion process, I made sure to preserve the worn look of faded ink on old paper by maintaining a subtle level of decay and opacity with each character. For missing characters not found in the book, I created new characters that were faithful to the style of the rest of the family. Used as a text font, The Letterpress Text Family successfully reproduces the appearance of old letterpress lithography.

Take a bit of Brooklyn attitude, add a dash of hand-lettered appeal and mix in a slightly Art Deco flair... Your result is Canarsie JNL; a bold sans serif face that would make any New Yorker proud!

Campan, is a new semi-linear face which unites mono-line and classic elements. It is very strong in headlines and its tall x-height lends itself to comfortable reading in text applications. The Campan family comprises 12 styles and is well suited for ambitious typography. It comes in OpenType format with extended language support. All weights contain ligatures, small caps, proportional lining figures, tabular lining figures, proportional old style figures, lining old style figures, matching currency symbols, fraction- and scientific numerals and matching arrows.