The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

Storefront is what the prolific and talented American sign painters of the 1920s and 1930s would have created if they had access to the advanced lettering and type technologies we have today. Rooted in an incomplete Alf Becker alphabet sample, Storefront is my usual overdose on alternates and swashes, my eternal attempt at giving typesetting that ever-elusive handmade impression. Though the main shapes, especially the majuscules, are almost a standard recitation of the natural evolution of nineteenth century scripts, the additional variants available within the font provide a leap in time to what sign makers and packagers are doing today. I can honestly say that Storefront’s influences are probably less historic and more in line with my recent travels and frequent supermarket visits. It’s difficult to avoid current visual culture when you're constantly bombarded with it. Not that I try. I certainly welcome the overflow. I'm probably addicted to it by now. With a very cool aesthetic, plenty of alternates and swashes, extended Latin language support, Storefront is over a thousand glyphs for your branding, packaging, and sign making pleasure.

If there was an American Typeface Hall of Fame, Bank Gothic, designed by the great Morris Fuller Benton would hold a place of special distinction considering this design has survived so many trends in typographic fashion since being introduced in 1930. It's just as desirable today as it was over eighty years ago; arguably more. Today, Bank Gothic is a very popular choice as a titling face for science fiction books, posters and countless television and movie titles. It is also a popular typeface for use in computer games and digital graphics. GroupType’s 2010 revival of this American classic is true to the design, the period, and Benton’s aesthetic. GroupType worked with some of the most talented and experienced type designers that were historically grounded and sensitive to this design project. Fortunately, Mr. Benton has left us a large selection of other great typefaces for insight and guidance. GroupType’s new revival includes the original three weights in regular and condensed style but also a new small cap and lowercase in each font necessary for 21st century typography.

Gerard Unger developed this newspaper font between 1984 and 1987 for Dr.-Ing. Rudolf Hell GmbH, Kiel. He was mainly influenced by William A. Dwiggins (1880-1956), the typographic consultant of Mergenthaler Linotype, who started to develop more legible, alternative fonts for newspaper printing as early as 1930. Swift was named after the fast flying bird. Austere and concise, firm and original, Swift is suited for almost any purpose. Swift has been specially developed to sustain a maximum of quality and readability when used in unfavorable print and display processes, e.g. newspapers, laser printing and low resolution screens. Its robust, yet elegant serifs and its large x-height provide an undeniable distinction to the typeface, making it suitable for corporate ID and advertising purposes as well. Swift 2.0 family was designed in 1995. It's an improved version with technical and aesthetic enhancements and new family members. The Cyrillic version was developed for ParaType in 2003 by Tagir Safayev. Please note that this family includes only basic latin characters; it does not include accented characters required for western and central Europe.

Varietta is the result of my fascination with photographing the type designs of some marquees in Spanish markets. In them you can see many letter designs with reversed contrast and in different widths, probably based on the possibilities of photocomposition. At the same time I was working on the expansion of the Hastile typeface designed by Alessandro Butti for the Nebiolo foundry in Italy in the late 1930s, of which I had not seen any digitization. As I am not a fan of perfect revivals, I thought it could be interesting to connect Spain and Italy in a single typeface. The first step was to expand Butti's design to 27 styles, ranging from thin condensed to black expanded. To look for the Spanish connection and its characteristic inverse contrast I took advantage of the current technology that allows variable typefaces with many axes. From this, three scenarios of horizontal contrast were incorporated (top, bottom and mixed) which allows infinite possibilities of use. The final result is a collection of 108 static typefaces or a single variable file.

If there was an American Typeface Hall of Fame, Bank Gothic, designed by the great Morris Fuller Benton would hold a place of special distinction considering this design has survived so many trends in typographic fashion since being introduced in 1930. Its just as desirable today as it was over eighty years ago; arguably more. Today, Bank Gothic is a very popular choice as a titling face for science fiction books, posters and countless television and movie titles. It is also a popular typeface for use in computer games and digital graphics. GroupType’s 2010 revival of this American classic is true to the design, the period, and Benton’s aesthetic. GroupType worked with some of the most talented and experienced type designers that were historically grounded and sensitive to this design project. Fortunately, Mr. Benton has left us a large selection of other great typefaces for insight and guidance. GroupType’s new revival includes the original three weights in regular and condensed style plus two new distressed fonts. All have a new small cap and lowercase in each font necessary for 21st century typography.

There is no doubt that the 1941 version of “The Maltese Falcon” was superior to the prior two attempts by Warner Brothers at filming Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel. Sam Spade was perfectly portrayed by Humphrey Bogart, and the supporting cast of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet and Elisha Cook, Jr. rounded out the main players in a great suspense film that is considered to be the first (if not one of the first) of the film noir genre. The title cards for the production and cast credits were hand-lettered in a spurred serif type style strongly reminiscent of the Art Nouveau period, so instead of naming the digital version with some “tough guy detective” moniker, it was decided that Detective Client JNL was more appropriate. After all, this is a reasonably attractive font, and in this kind of film it’s usually the “attractive damsel in distress” [be she the victim or the actual perpetrator] that gets the story rolling… Detective Client JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

This design is one of the true gems to come out of the 1930s typeface era. Even though the face was originally designed to counter the invasion of European sans-serifs, it remains faithful to the principles found in its creator's poster work. Lucian Bernhard's lettering creation for American Type Founders is to this day a favorite among font connoisseurs worldwide. It has a unique personality. This deluxe version is packed with extras including the original oldstyle figures, alternates, and ligatures. A number of styles and alternate characters have been added to the family such as heavy italics, extra heavy italics, and capital figures. And an easier-to-identify "flagged" figure one and the new euro symbol are now located in each individual style. Bernhard Gothic is also available in the OpenType Std format. Lining and oldstyle figures, stylistic alternates, and additional discretionary ligatures are now combined in each style. These advanced features currently work in Adobe Creative Suite InDesign, Creative Suite Illustrator, and Quark XPress 7. Check for OpenType advanced feature support in other applications as it gradually becomes available with upgrades.

The original Jessen typeface, named in reminiscence of the great supporter of the printing art at the end of the 19th century, Peter Jessen, was designed in the years of 1924 until 1930. Bible Gothic was created by the famous German designer Rudolf Koch. Ralph M. Unger digitized this font exclusively for profonts in 2005, keeping his digitization as close as possible to the original design of Koch in order to preserve the distinguished character and the partly unconventional, original forms. The concept of a Bible Gothic was developing for years in Koch's mind and drove the direction of his work, but only after the experience with his Neuland design could he start the creation of his Peter Jessen typeface. Produced quite like Neuland, Jessen, however, is much more refined and more accurate in detail than Neuland. At first glance, it seems to look plain and simple, but if you look closer, the richness of its distinguished upper case forms unfold to a perfectly clear flow of text

Pacific Clipper has its roots in an old 1930s showcard lettering style. An extra bold version of this sign painter’s relic is shown in Carl Holmes' wonderful book on lettering. It may be described as what happens when Rudolf Koch's Kabel Heavy meets ATF's Novel Gothic. Also known as Sam’s Tune, Pacific Clipper’s noteworthy features include wedged crossbars in the capital A, E, F, and H. Overcurving is present in the capital B, D, P, and R while vertical strokes in the lowercase b, d, h, k, l, and t are chopped off obliquely. Figures in Pacific Clipper are also refreshingly different, particularly the number 4. This lettering favorite turned retro typeface has been extended to include a variety of weights. Pacific Clipper is now available in the OpenType format. Some new characters have been added to this OpenType version as Stylistic Alternates and Historical Forms. These advanced features work in current versions of Adobe Creative Suite InDesign, Creative Suite Illustrator, and Quark XPress. Check for OpenType advanced feature support in other applications as it gradually becomes available with upgrades.

Tweed is a journey into the 1930s world of hand-lettering. The design looks very much like the personal scribblings of an old-fashioned cartoon animator. It’s the sort of sketch-style you might find describing a goofy caterpillar or laughing willyworm. Tweed is fun and light-hearted with open and rounded letters of a somewhat musical quality. Derived from old letterforms popularized by Carl Holmes in his wonderful book on the subject, Tweed is basically friendly in nature. This typeface is great for personal greeting cards and stationery - any kind of casual correspondence. It works well in display situations, too. And yes, there is an alternate to the funny-looking “w” character. Just press option l (el) on Mac. Or Alt 0172 on Windows. Tweed is now available in the OpenType Std format. Some new stylistic alternates have been added to this OpenType version. Advanced features work in current versions of Adobe Creative Suite InDesign, Creative Suite Illustrator, and Quark XPress. Check for OpenType advanced feature support in other applications as it gradually becomes available with upgrades.

Houschka was named after Georg Houschka, a sadly defunct confectioner’s shop in Salzburg, Austria, which had a wonderful 1930’s frontage and distinctively rounded letterforms in the sign above the door. Houschka Pro is the follow up to the original Houschka type family which first appeared back in 1999. Character shapes have been improved, kerning and spacing refined, and OpenType features include CE, Baltic, Turkish & Cyrillic language support plus small caps, 3 stylistic sets, contextual alternates, ligatures and 4 sets of numerals. Houschka is a clean and legible modern sans serif typeface which shares the humanist qualities of Gill Sans and Johnston but retains a uniquely charming character of its own (particularly in signature glyphs A, G, Q, W, u & w). The monolinear structure, rounded corners and rolling curves give Houschka a soft and friendly appearance. Houschka Alt Pro is a carbon copy of the Houschka Pro family with one key difference: the rounded signature glyphs A & W on the default positions swap places with their straight alternates.

Gerard Unger developed this newspaper font between 1984 and 1987 for Dr.-Ing. Rudolf Hell GmbH, Kiel. He was mainly influenced by William A. Dwiggins (1880-1956), the typographic consultant of Mergenthaler Linotype, who started to develop more legible, alternative fonts for newspaper printing as early as 1930. Swift was named after the fast flying bird. Austere and concise, firm and original, Swift is suited for almost any purpose. Swift has been specially developed to sustain a maximum of quality and readability when used in unfavorable print and display processes, e.g. newspapers, laser printing and low resolution screens. Its robust, yet elegant serifs and its large x-height provide an undeniable distinction to the typeface, making it suitable for corporate ID and advertising purposes as well. Swift 2.0 family was designed in 1995. It's an improved version with technical and aesthetic enhancements and new family members. The Cyrillic version was developed for ParaType in 2003 by Tagir Safayev. Please note that this family includes only basic latin characters; it does not include accented characters required for western and central Europe.

Savigny began as an offshoot of Le Havre. Le Havre met my design objective of a geometric sans serif with a strong art deco touch. Le Havre’s primary inspiration came from the art deco titling of the 1930’s, and the lower case was just icing. The art of the 1930’s is of particular interest to me, and I love the art deco era and its art, and the simplicity of geometric shapes. I am mostly interested in designing display typefaces. In many ways Le Havre was the exact opposite of another popular insigne offering, Aviano Sans. Le Havre has very high ascenders, a lower case and is very condensed. Aviano Sans has no lowercase and extremely extended capitals. With the rise of webfonts I began to see Le Havre being used frequently online. It’s short x-height and very tall ascenders made it difficult to read in on screen text settings as it was intended as display type. With this observation, I felt that there is more room for a geometric sans in the insigne catalog. So I set about to design a new geometric sans using the successful skeleton of the Le Havre family. Although I planned to extend the Le Havre line, the new family is so drastically different I decided on a new name: Savigny. The face evolved and began to take on a few humanist touches. Designed from the very beginning as a webfont, the design is open and pleasing to the eye, with a tall x-height. To optimize it for onscreen settings, the spacing is generous. In addition, it includes extended and condensed members, making it insigne’s first superfamily. The family includes over 100 OpenType alternate characters. These include several style sets. Some are stemless, others are purely geometric, and in a nod to Savigny’s origins, Art Deco titling alternates. Please see the informative .pdf brochure to see these features in action. OpenType capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe suite can take full advantage of the automatically replacing ligatures and alternates. This family also includes the glyphs to support a wide range of languages. Savigny is a great choice for a professional designer who wants a well rounded typeface family that is ready for the web.

handwritten decorative variable font A few fonts already exist which have been drawn in accordance with the exact same principles. But these are just drawn - only drawn. The ANATOLE FRANCE retains the hand script character in spite of its stringent composition. An old portfolio of script patterns from the 1920s or 1930s, which appeared in the Georg D. W. Callwey Publishing House in Munich, includes among its pages one with a handwritten poster script, as was very typical for the 1920s. To begin with, there is the emphasized decorative character, which stands out due to stressing the stems. Next, the attempt to portray the character forms with the help of a few but always recurring basic elements is driven to the limits. Theoretically speaking, that which should have led to a contrived, geometrically determined type, obtains a likeable and pleasant look through the ductus of the manually guided brush. The classic version of ANATOLE FRANCE includes 5 fonts: Light, SemiLight, Normal, SemiBold, Bold. The variable font allows seamless font weights from 300 (Light) to 700 (Bold). Alternate letterforms are available through the appropriate OpenType features: style set 1 (O Q V) style set 2 (v w)

“Liebelei” – dalliance, flirtation, hanky-panky; kind of diminutive of “Liebe” (German for love) The typeface Liebelei has its roots back in 1932, when Vienna-based painter Rudolf Vogl created the poster for a movie called Liebelei after the popular play by Arthur Schnitzler. Only the title letters existed of that typeface. I loved the letters from first sight and proceeded by adventurously interpreting the missing characters. The goal was to create letterforms that fit to the original from the 1930s and represent a modern multi-purpose font. It should be an easy-to-use italic font with warm and friendly details and a huge variety of alternates and languages. The characteristic curled ends of most letters provide a script touch to the Liebelei. The first font entirely designed was the bold one which corresponds to the original poster lettering, although I tweaked the proportions a tiny bit to a more contemporary shape. Liebelei covers Western, Central European, and Central Eastern European Languages and contains also complete Greek and Cyrillic character sets. Liebelei is best for poster design as well as detailed usage, for example handsome tables, since it supports small caps, different kinds of numerals and fractions.

At first glance, »Angulosa M.8« is one of those fonts that a technician or engineer would probably draw. And yet it differs fundamentally from typefaces constructed in this way. The right angle forms the basic element of the »Angulosa M.8«, but that's about it with the pure mathematics. Serif-like upstrokes and downstrokes on some letters improve readability, and carefully used slants makes the appearance a little friendlier. The proportions are not based on any mathematical principle, but are derived from freehand writing of the letterforms with a broad quill. In terms of style, »Angulosa M.8« belongs most closely to the modernist, constructivist typeface attempts, such as those undertaken at the Bauhaus in the 1930s. The styles of »Angulosa M.8« range from "Condensed" to "Expanded", from "Light" to "Black", plus the respective oblique form, which in this font is slanted to the left. All variants can be adjusted continuously in the variable font: the font width ranges from 50 to 150, font weight from 300 to 900, upright [0] and italic [1]. The »Angulosa M.8« supports all European languages including Eastern and Central European, Turkish, Greek and Cyrillic.

Humanist 521 is a Bitstream digitized version of Gill Sans typeface. The font was designed by Eric Gill and released by Monotype circa 1928-1930. Gill’s design is based on the typeface of Edward Johnston, the innovative British letterer and teacher, designed in 1916 for the signage of the London Underground. However, it has more classical proportions close to those of old style serifs, and thus is more suitable for text setting. With distinct roots in handwritten scripts, Gill’s typeface is classified as a humanist sans serif and is very legible and readable in text and display work. Having been released more than 80 years ago, it’s still very popular and in fact is an icon of British typographic style. The Cyrillic version of Ultra Bold weight was designed by Tagir Safaev in 1997. Six text styles and Extra Bold style in Cyrillic were designed later by Vladimir Yefimov and Isabella Chaeva. The Cyrillic version, in addition to the original Bitstream implementation of Humanist 521, has an alternative numeral 1 with the traditional shape and a set of old-style figures. Rereleased by ParaType in 2013.

Here’s an intriguing mixture of 1930s deco and modern tech fashion. Travel Kit Medium is a sturdy semi-serif hybrid with one foot in the past and another in the present. It is slightly low-waisted with extended crossbars on the capital A, E, F, H, K, and P. But the capital B, M, R and X are distinctively contemporary with the E and M repeated as unicase letters in the lowercase. Optional retro characters (notably the unicase e and m) have been provided if you prefer a more traditional overall look - and your software allows access to these characters. Simply find and replace the more modern letters with the older ones. In addition, small caps with even more alternate characters have been included for greater flexibility and convenience. Travel Kit Medium with Alternates is now available in the OpenType format. In addition to small caps, lining figures, oldstyle figures, and petite figures, this expanded OpenType version contains additional stylistic alternates and historical forms. These advanced features work in current versions of Adobe Creative Suite InDesign, Creative Suite Illustrator, and Quark XPress. Check for OpenType advanced feature support in other applications as it gradually becomes available with upgrades.

Chikita greets you with big, happy eyes, and all the energy in the world. She wants to skip the talking and get to the dance floor, where she owns the beat and sways like a tongue of fire. She doesn't settle for anything less than everyone in the room fixating on her, and every pair of eyes is indeed happy to oblige. Being both the noumenon and phenomenon of the party, she remains in your mind long after closing time. And you just know the next time you see her your heart will skip a beat and a welcome wave of contentedness will wash over you. The Chikita design is rooted in the work of 1930s Dutch lettering artist Martin Meÿer, whose little-known work concerned itself with the beauty of letters mostly as individual forms, rather than part of a flowing alphabet. Chikita was reconceptualized to strike a great balance between singular and flowing beauties, resulting in a cheerful and very memorable expression. Chikita is available in all popular font formats, and the character sets cover a wide range of codepages, including Central and Eastern European languages, Esperanto, Turkish, Baltic, Celtic/Welsh and Vietnamese.

Isabelle is the closest thing to a metal type revival Jim Rimmer ever did. The original metal face was designed and cut in late 1930s Germany, but its propspects were cut short by the arrival of the war. This was one of Jim's favourite faces, most likely because of the refined art deco elements that reminded him of his youthful enthusiasm about everything press-related, and the face's intricately thought balance between calligraphy and typography. Not to mention one of the most beautiful italics ever made. Jim's early 2000s digitization included mathematical corrections to the original metal cut, as well as some functional improvements for digital use. In 2013, during the remastering of the entire Rimmer collection, Isabelle underwent a considerable rethinking/expansion and was rechristened Isabelle Pro. The new revisions include small caps, ligatures, seven types of figures, automatic fractions, extended Latin language support, stylistic alternates that include lowercase serif angle options in the roman and looped ascenders/descenders in the italic, and plenty of extra OpenType features like caps-to-small-caps substitution, case-sensitive positioning, ordinals, and extended class-based kerning. Now each of the Isabelle Pro fonts includes over 680 glyphs. 20% of this font's revenues will be donated to the Canada Type Scholarship Fund, supporting higher typography education in Canada.

Carlton is based on a typeface designed by Prof. F. H. Ehmcke. In 1908, Ehmcke released his Ehmcke-Antiqua design through the Flinsch typefoundry in Germany. Ehmcke-Antiqua was later distributed by the Bauer typefoundry in Frankfurt am Main. The Caslon Letter Foundry in England discovered the design and released their own typeface based upon the model, which they named Carlton. Carlton entered the Stephenson Blake program after they acquired the Caslon Letter Foundry in the late 1930s. As hot and cold metal typesetting became outdated technologies, Carlton and Ehmcke-Antiqua fell out of general use. In the 1990s, Letraset revived this classic design, distributing it under its English name, Carlton. Carlton's clean and generous capitals, as well as its understated yet detailed lower case, have found popularity again in recent years. The elegance of Carlton is best used for displays with large letter and word spacing. Carlton shows all of the hallmarks of a delicate serif typeface design; its forms capture a distinct moment that was common within Central European type design during the first third of the 20th Century. Carlton is similar to several other expressive typefaces from the early 1900s, including Bernhard Modern, Koch Antiqua, Locarno, and Nicolas Cochin."

Art deco The inspiration for FS Blake’s elegant, lightly geometric forms can be traced back to design of the 1930s; designer Emanuela Conidi was influenced by the typography of cool, European, art deco posters. FS Blake bears traits of the art deco style, from its thin weights to its heavy weights, giving a set of faces each with their own distinct character, but still with a strong family resemblance. Mechanical type Mechanical and organic shapes combine in FS Blake to create a harmonious whole of generous curves and cursive spikes. A strong, punchy contender in display sizes, it’s also got a gentle touch with small text in lighter weights. Lively, versatile and with plenty of character contrast between weights, the FS Blake family offers impact in whatever task it’s given.faces each with their own distinct character, but still with a strong family resemblance. Sketch book Great fonts still emerge from a combination of hand, paper and pencil. After filling her sketch book with ideas, Emanuela and Jason extracted the elements that both felt could work in a font. The process yielded a whole crop of starting points for future designs as well as a focus for FS Blake as a striking, characterful, almost industrial font.

A couple of years before the second World War, Marcel Jacno, the popular French graphic designer who in the 1930s designed iconic posters for Gaumont and Paramount and famously illustrated the Gaulish helmet that first adorned the Gauloises cigarette packs in 1936, was asked by Deberny & Peignot to design a calligraphic typeface for the advertising market. Jacno's Scribe design, billed by D&P as a "virile ad writing" typeface, was released to some great fanfare in 1937, enjoyed some time of French spotlight, and was ready to make waves in the rest of Europe before the war broke out and snuffed its chances at international recognition. However, samples of it can still be found in some specialty post-war publications as an example of a trend that lasted a couple of decades, when Western European type manufacturers commissioned famous visual artists to design typefaces in order to capitalize on the artists' fame - the trend that brought us standards like Futura and the long list of Lucien Bernhard and Imre Reiner faces. This exclusive digital version of Jacno's design expands on the original concept with a large character set that includes plenty of alternates, a couple of different ways for seamless lowercase connections, three sets of figures, and extended Latin language support, adding up to over 540 characters in a one big, contextually-programmed font.

Varese Outlined is the perfect font for giving content a retro, dimensional, and playful feel. Use it for headlines or short body text for an optimistic or nostalgic tone. It comes in two variations, outlined and shadow. It has standard uncolored and colored options. Please see the slides to know what each color font is named. This geometric and modular typeface was inspired by Italian posters of the 1920s and 1930s. Its design playfully explores the boundaries between unity and variety. The blocky characteristics lend it well to tightly composed text either horizontally or vertically. The lowercase is similar in form to the uppercase, yet many of the lowercase letters have interior spaces (counterforms). It comes with standard ligatures; ff, fi, fl, ffl and three alternate glyphs for number 1. The color fonts in Varese Outlined are vector-based and in the fully scalable SVG OpenType format. Color fonts are supported by Photoshop 2017, Illustrator and InDesign 2018, and QuarkXPress 2018 (and later versions). Those who do not want a color font should purchase the files simply named “Regular” and “Outlined”. These will not have any color words in the names. Varese Outlined has two siblings; Varese and Varese Soft. The designer suggests pairing Varese Outlined with his ornamental fonts FormPattern or FormPattern Color Two, Three, or Six.

Pauline Script is a Vintage inspired Monoline script. It's a contemporary script inspired by the past, now available to the Instagram era. Pauline Script is a follow up to the popular Pauline typeface. Pauline was one of my first typefaces, all the way back in 2008. Inspired by a variety of influences, from Art Deco signage, to a simple spice label, Pauline Script has very little stroke contrast and was inspired by Retro connected scripts. Over the course of its evolution, it started to take on more influence from geometric sans serif typefaces and lost the connectors. There's a strong geometric streak, derived from 1930s sans serifs like Futura. Tall ascenders and descenders give it a unique look. Now, this script version has now come full circle, utilizing the original sans serif face design and adding connectors back in, with an optically corrected dynamic slant. For invitations, signage, logos or other applications, Pauline Script is there when you need something that stands out with a touch of class and a sense of uniqueness. Turning on Contextual Alternates (non connecting ending forms) and Discretionary Ligatures (better letter connections) is highly recommended. There's a wide range of weights available. It's a playful typeface with options to either have everything connected, or alternate forms which allow for letter connections that still maintain the sense of flow of a script. Includes plenty of ligatures!

The Flintlock Font Family has a Bold personality. The 'Rough' version of the Flintlock Font has a hand-carved or hand-etched edge, carefully crafted for each of over 300 glyphs. Caps, lower case, all numbers, fractions, accents and European characters that work in over 70 languages. 'Classically Built with a Vintage Flair'. Vintage in the American West Tradition that might have been forged and implemented from the 1860s through the 1930s and consequently fresh again. Flintlock Rough can be envisioned on many things dated from 1860 to present day. The font is available in 3 basic weights as of this release date. There are other versions on the drawing board... Flintlock Rough works extremely well with Posters, Branding, Movie Titles, Invites, Stationary, Signage, Embroidery, Letterpress, Ads, Logos and anything that feels Industrial or Hand-Crafted, eg. Coffee, Breweries, Antiques, Woodcuts, Western Styles, Sports Styles, Holidays, Menus, and more. Flintlock Flat & Flintlock Flat Italic are the siblings to Flintlock Rough without the hand-carved edge but rather clean with slightly rounded corners and edges. Extremely Legible, Bold and best used in all the same application descriptions mentioned above and more, specifically contemporary uses and settings, eg. Sports, Titles, Branding, Headlines, Logos and more. Curiously the Flat & Italic versions of Flintlock work extremely well in 1960s and 1970s settings.

AW Conqueror Sans was born out of this desire to fuse geometric and humanistic sans. It remains a typeface fundamentally influenced by both Bauhaus spirit — with its simplified geometric forms — and Jan Tschichold’s attempts to link this modular spirit to Eric Gill’s humanist sans serif. AW Conqueror Sans is a claimed French synthesis of Germanic Modernism and English classical tradition. Spheres of influence The core set of capitals are based on the proportions of the Roman capitals like Futura, Erbar, Nobel, Johnston, Gill Sans. During the 1930s, the Futura was a true success. Since then, Monotype offered a geometric version of the Gill Sans, and Linotype added Futura-like variants to WA Dwiggins’ Metro. AW Conqueror Sans is kind of a “fusion” of this approach. The lower case “b, d, p, q” are also directly influenced by Eric Gill’s, while the “y” is influenced by some of Jan Tschichold’s alphabets. In italics, drawn narrower, AW Conqueror Sans reinterprets Gill’s idea: a rigorous italic like a roman but which sometimes reveals some aspects of a Renaissance italic. AW Conqueror Sans and its extensions AW Conqueror Sans is the initial reference point for an extended family, including AW Conqueror Inline, Slab, Carved, Didot. The potential of these mixed families is powerful. Because AW Conqueror typefaces are based on an identical structure, and compatible proportions.

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.