Slab-like sibling Why stop at sans? Rather than leave FS Silas Sans as an only child, the team wanted to extend the family, and create a complete system for brands and editorial. Unsure what the result would be, the team started experimenting with a slab serif version. ‘We didn’t know how it would turn out, but we really liked it and wanted to take it further. A fresh angle ‘We stuck with the angular theme of the sans by drawing angled slab serifs,’ says Phil Garnham, ‘as opposed to the square serifs that slab fonts usually have. That created an inner dynamism in words and sentences on the page, and a very distinctive, crafted character, like a Victorian soul in a contemporary body.’ These crafted touches include details such as the angled ascenders on the ‘i’ and ‘l’, while characters such as the ‘y’, with its abruptly-ending descender, add a mark of distinction. A perfect pair Silas Slab, like its sibling, offers a clear-cut range of five weights, from the elegant Thin to the monumental ExtraBold. Put it together with Silas Sans and you have the full complement, capable of performing the full range of tasks, above the line and below, in headlines, body copy and logotypes, B2B and B2C. Keep them together; they don’t like it when they’re apart.

MVB Embarcadero lies in a space between grotesque sans serifs and the vernacular signage lettering drawn by engineers. It’s a style that happens to convey credibility and forthrightness without pretense—it’s anti-style, actually. All of this makes for the most versatile of typefaces, capable of delivering any kind of message while staying out of the way. As is often the case with a type design that develops over several years, Embarcadero isn’t the realization of a specific concept. In the ’90s Mark van Bronkhorst began digitizing a blocky slab serif from the Victorian era, which was then set aside for many years. He later revisited the design, paring it down to its bare essentials, and as more time passed, it evolved from a grid-based outline to curves that echoed the rigid skeleton of the original. Eventually it became a complete family with all the readability requirements of a text sans serif, yet maintaining the subtle eccentricities of its inspiration. Functionally, the Embarcadero family is as adaptable as its design. The OpenType Pro set of 20 fonts contains two widths and five weights, each with italics, small caps, a full set of figures, bullets and arrows, and support for most Latin-based languages. In all, Embarcadero is suitable for headlines or text. And—thanks to its simple, square form—it’s ideal for type on screen too.

Wakerobin takes its charming swagger from the hand-painted billboard, poster and signage lettering of the mid-19th century. These showy styles did everything they could to stand out from the background cacophony of advertising, with signwriters using sharp and high contrast serif letters, squared block shapes, or art nouveau forms to grab the attention of passersby. Wakerobin embraces the spirit of these letterforms, bringing these various styles together in one typeface - as if users had their own sign painter on hand. Just as lettering artists had to adapt to a variety of sizes - from wide streetcar lettering to compressed forms that squeezed into narrow Victorian windows - the variable version of Wakerobin scales up and down in width to fit whatever environment the user’s working in. The static fonts come in three widths and five weights. As well as its adaptability, Wakerobin is bursting with vintage flavour, making it hard to ignore. Its distinctive, spiky serifs would be right at home on food and drinks packaging, as well as shop windows, adverts, and any other place that calls for some typographic showmanship. It performs particularly well in busy environments, or anywhere with a lot of visual noise - just as its historic predecessors did. And while Wakerobin is first and foremost a display typeface, it’s surprisingly elegant when used at text size, or in the lighter end of the weight spectrum.

Designed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Andrea Tartarelli with Maria Chiara Fantini, Lovelace is Zetafonts homage to the tradition of nineteenth century “Old Style” typography - a revival of Renaissance hand-lettered shapes driven by the desire to create a less formal and more friendly alternative to Bodonian serifs. While taking inspiration from the letter shapes created by Pheimester or Alexander Kay - with their calligraphic curves and heavy angled serifs that influenced Benguiat and Goudy’s typefaces in the 70s - we also tried to add elegance and contrast by following another 19th century revival style: the Elzevir. This digital homage to victorian typography, aptly named after the algorist daughter of lord Byron, is developed in two optical sizes, both in a six weights range from extralight to extrabold. The text variant offers maximum readability thanks to the generous x-height and screen-friendly design, while the display variant excels in the sharp contrast and thin details needed for editorial and large-size titling use. The italics, strongly influenced by calligraphy, have been complemented with a display script family, including luscious swashes and connected lowercase letters, lovingly designed by Zetafont in-house calligrapher. All the thirty weights of Lovelace cover over 200 languages that use latin, cyrillic and greek alphabets, and include advanced Open Type features as Stylistic Alternates, Standard and Discretionary Ligatures, Positional Numerals, Small Caps and Case Sensitive Forms.

Some time ago I bought my smallest book ever: Kate Greenaway’s Alphabet* 57 x 72 mm. I thought it was the sweetest little book I had ever seen. Not knowing about the fame of the designer Kate Greenaway (1846-1901), I put it in some dark drawer and looked at it from time to time. Kate’s books were all outstanding successes in English publishing history; she was an icon of the Victorian era. Some of those books are still being reprinted today. This little gem I had accidentally acquired has become very rare and I have not found any reprints yet. So I thought maybe I could adapt her drawings for use on today’s computers. I ventured to redraw her delicate illustrations, blowing them up 300 percent, being forced to simplify them without losing her touch. It took quite some time! While redrawing them, I discovered that she most certainly drew them in at least three different sessions as well. Then I scanned my drawings and put them in a font. To make the font more usable, I added the ten numerals in Kate’s style; the original does not have those. I hope she would have liked my adaptations. Yours in a very preserving mood, Gert Wiescher. * Kate Greenaway’s Alphabet, edited by George Rutledge & Sons, London and New York, ca. 1885.

Wakerobin takes its charming swagger from the hand-painted billboard, poster and signage lettering of the mid-19th century. These showy styles did everything they could to stand out from the background cacophony of advertising, with signwriters using sharp and high contrast serif letters, squared block shapes, or art nouveau forms to grab the attention of passersby. Wakerobin embraces the spirit of these letterforms, bringing these various styles together in one typeface - as if users had their own sign painter on hand. Just as lettering artists had to adapt to a variety of sizes - from wide streetcar lettering to compressed forms that squeezed into narrow Victorian windows - the variable version of Wakerobin scales up and down in width to fit whatever environment the user’s working in. The static fonts come in three widths and five weights. As well as its adaptability, Wakerobin is bursting with vintage flavour, making it hard to ignore. Its distinctive, spiky serifs would be right at home on food and drinks packaging, as well as shop windows, adverts, and any other place that calls for some typographic showmanship. It performs particularly well in busy environments, or anywhere with a lot of visual noise - just as its historic predecessors did. And while Wakerobin is first and foremost a display typeface, it’s surprisingly elegant when used at text size, or in the lighter end of the weight spectrum.

First introduced by the American Type Founders Company in 1906, Railroad Gothic was the quintessential typographic expression of turn-of-the-century industrial spirit—bold and brash in tone, and a little rough around the edges. A favorite for the plain speak of big headlines, Railroad Gothic quickly gained popularity among printers. Its condensed but robust forms were likely a source of inspiration for later families of industrial sans serifs. The design feels like a cleaned-up version of some earlier Victorian gothics, notable for their uneven proportions and awkward letterforms. ATF offered a number of sizes of Railroad Gothic as metal type, with cuts varying in design considerably from size to size. Creating this new digital version involved interpreting the characteristics of different sizes and making some aesthetic choices: where to retain the design’s familiar unstudied gawkiness, and where to make improvements. The new ATF® Railroad Gothic features a measured, harmonious interpretation of the original, and has been extended with four new weights (each bolder than the last). The heaviest weights are carefully designed to keep counters open, no matter how dense the overall effect may be, maintaining legibility at any display size. This contemporary rendition of a historic American design boasts a full Latin character set, including glyphs undreamed-of in the heyday of railroads.

One menorah that I have long found particularly appealing was named The Tree of Life Menorah, a replica of which I gave as a gift one holiday to a kindly old couple who were neighbors and became friends. It had a simple, organic elegance that I see in the best of Art Nouveau sculpture. To me personally, Judeism is a celebration of life, like the triumph of the flower that blossoms in the crack of the city sidewalk. Just as Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the temple and the miracle of the oil, it celebrates the victorious quest for freedom of the Hebrew people led by Judah Maccabee. Hanukkah represents determination and courage and faith — and it represents the presence of God in the lives of His people. It is interesting to note that the founding of the Albanian nation in the early twentieth century grew out of the resistance of the Albanian people to the imposition of Greek language and culture in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The typeface, HADASSAH, designed by Henri Friedlander (1904-1996), is my favorite Hebrew typeface. Thirty years in the crafting, I believe it is unsurpassed for its shear beauty, combining a subtle modulation of stroke with a simplicity and clarity of form. No doubt, that is why it has become so popular. For me, the Sîyn/Shîyn characters are especially satisfying. For a Hanukkah message in Hebrew, I would choose HADASSAH LIGHT for a headline and print it as large as I could. If, however, you are looking for a friendly, warm face for a seasonal message in a roman-letter based language, may I suggest BETHLEHEM EPHRATH. It will be as comfortable as a bulky, hand-knit sweater on a frosty afternoon and reflects the solid, encompassing, family orientation of this holiday. It was on the way to Ephrath that Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel gave birth to Benjamin and then died from her labor. It was to Ephrath that Naomi and Ruth returned and in Ephrath that we have the wonderful, heart-warming story of the marriage between Ruth and her Redeemer-Kinsman, Boaz. And it was to Ephrath that prophet, Samuel, went to find a new king and there in Ephrath that the prophet annointed a small shepherd boy named David. The Proverbs tell us to seek wisdom. Never underestimate the impact you have on others. Words of kindness can change people’s lives. The Talmud says that the highest form of wisdom is kindness. Be wise this holiday season. The font BETHLEHEM EPHRATH is based on the typeface Accent with the permission of URW++ of Hamburg, Germany. Like most display fonts, it is most effective at 18 points and larger. Like most script fonts, it is most effective when set with both upper and lower case. Although this font is readable in all caps (many scripts are not), that does not make it a good idea. Do so only with caution.