Helvetica’s 50-year anniversary celebrations in 2007 were overwhelming and contagious. We saw the movie. Twice. We bought the shirts and the buttons. We dug out the homage books and re-read the hate articles. We mourned the fading non-color of an old black shirt proudly exclaiming that “HELVETICA IS NOT AN ADOBE FONT”. We took part in long conversations discussing the merits of the Swiss classic, that most sacred of typographic dreamboats, outlasting its builder and tenants to go on alone and saturate the world with the fundamental truth of its perfect logarithm. We swooned again over its subtleties (“Ah, that mermaid of an R!”). We rehashed decades-old debates about “Hakzidenz,” “improvement in mind” and “less is more.” We dutifully cursed every single one of Helvetica’s knockoffs. We breathed deeply and closed our eyes on perfect Shakti Gawain-style visualizations of David Carson hack'n'slashing Arial — using a Swiss Army knife, no less — with all the infernal post-brutality of his creative disturbance and disturbed creativity. We then sailed without hesitation into the absurdities of analyzing Helvetica’s role in globalization and upcoming world blandness (China beware! Helvetica will invade you as silently and transparently as a sheet of rice paper!). And at the end of a perfect celebratory day, we positively affirmed à la Shakti, and solemnly whispered the energy of our affirmation unto the universal mind: “We appreciate Helvetica for getting us this far. We are now ready for release and await the arrival of the next head snatcher.” The great hype of Swisspalooza '07 prompted a look at Max Miedinger, the designer of Neue Haas Grotesk (later renamed to Helvetica). Surprisingly, what little biographical information available about Miedinger indicates that he was a typography consultant and type sales rep for the Haas foundry until 1956, after which time he was a freelance graphic designer — rather than the full-time type designer most Helvetica enthusiasts presume him to have been. It was under that freelance capacity that he was commissioned to design the regular and bold weights of Neue Haas Grotesk typeface. His role in designing Helvetica was never really trumpeted until long after the typeface attained global popularity. And, again surprisingly, Miedinger designed two more typefaces that seem to have been lost to the dust of film type history. One is called Pro Arte (1954), a very condensed Playbill-like slab serif that is similar to many of its genre. The other, made in 1964, is much more interesting. Its original name was Horizontal. Here it is, lest it becomes a Haas-been, presented to you in digital form by Canada Type under the name of its original designer, Miedinger, the Helvetica King. The original film face was a simple set of bold, panoramically wide caps and figures that give off a first impression of being an ultra wide Gothic incarnation of Microgramma. Upon a second look, they are clearly more than that. This face is a quirky, very non-Akzidental take on the vernacular, mostly an exercise in geometric modularity, but also includes some unconventional solutions to typical problems (like thinning the midline strokes across the board to minimize clogging in three-storey forms). This digital version introduces four new weights, ranging from Thin to Medium, alongside the bold original. The Miedinger package comes in all popular font formats, and supports Western, Central and Eastern European languages, as well as Esperanto, Maltese, Turkish and Celtic/Welsh. A few counter-less alternates are included in the fonts.

Creatives understand the compulsion to make something of worth. And each creative person has a toolbox they grab from often. Letterboard Lite is the narrow geometric sans that can headline or support whatever project is next on your list — the one unfussy tool you’ll use time and again. ‍ With its geometric shapes, Letterboard is a ground-floor sans that stabilizes the foundation upon which everything else will be built. It cements the context unobtrusively without begging to be acknowledged. Pair Letterboard with any script typeface and it will highlight that script’s qualities, whether capricious or elegant. Pair it with a serif or slab serif for an obvious change of tone: With a modern slab, trends will be respected, but it will act more coy with an old-school chunky slab. Letterboard’s geometry is easily subsumed as a partner to a range of serifs, from classics to the latest releases. These qualities and its narrowness make it easy for Letterboard to be used as a large display font in headlines or branding applications. ‍ Letterboard comes with 270 characters necessary for setting over 150 Latin-based languages: A–Z with diacritics, lining numerals, and the most common punctuation and symbols.

Charlot is a decorative display font with dozens of beautiful ligatures and ornaments. The vast selection of ligatures and stylistic alternates makes this font extremely customizable. Charlot is perfect for unique branding and title treatments, personal monograms, and vintage-inspired layouts. Charlot has over 150 ligatures in Latin and Greek consisting of: the complete Latin alphabet (with all accent marks), the complete Modern Greek alphabet, 60 ligatures, 33 stylistic alternates, 15 decorative ornaments, borders, and frames, numerals and math symbols, extensive punctuation and diacritical markings. The OpenType ligatures are the fun part. To get the most out of Charlot, use software that supports Open Type fonts (Adobe programs, Corel Draw, Affinity Designer, etc). This type family has tons of built-in OpenType ligatures and alternates, which are what make it so customizable and decorative. You can always access the ligatures, alternates, and dingbats through your software's glyphs panel. For a complete preview of all the ligatures, please look at the 4th image in this product listing. Languages Charlot includes the Latin and Greek alphabets with all accent markings. The most common languages it supports are: English, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

In 1458, Charles VII sent the Frenchman Nicolas Jenson to learn the craft of movable type in Mainz, the city where Gutenberg was working. Jenson was supposed to return to France with his newly learned skills, but instead he traveled to Italy, as did other itinerant printers of the time. From 1468 on, he was in Venice, where he flourished as a punchcutter, printer and publisher. He was probably the first non-German printer of movable type, and he produced about 150 editions. Though his punches have vanished, his books have not, and those produced from about 1470 until his death in 1480 have served as a source of inspiration for type designers over centuries. His Roman type is often called the first true Roman." Notable in almost all Jensonian Romans is the angled crossbar on the lowercase e, which is known as the "Venetian Oldstyle e." Jenson Old Style™ was designed by Freda Sack and Colin Brignall for Letraset in 1982. Because of its darkness, this version is best used for display designs that call for a sense of old-world elegance and solidity."

This is a decorative and steganographic Braille font based on Lorraine Cross pattern. As the Lorraine cross splits space into six areas, it may be used to represent Braille glyphs. Provided Glyphs * Lowercase letters (a..z): a White cross and Black square dots * Uppercasecase letters (A..Z): a Black cross and White square dots * Special characters (e.g. !#$%*+<>{}()[]...) * Decorative glyphs (provided in black and white as well) Glyph code intervals - Codes 48..57: Bullets (0..9 digits) - Codes 130..150: 'White Stars' - Codes 192..233: 'Black Stars', Black border glyphs and other black patterns. - Codes 214..233: Border/Decorative glyphs (Black) - Codes 235..255: Border/Decorative glyphs (White) - Codes for Cross w/o dots: Black (192), White (235) - Codes for Cross and 6 dots: Black (191), White (234) - Code for 'Half-width space' (166) Posters 1. Logo: illustrates usage of border glyphs 2. Meta: Two big Lorraine Braille glyphs drawn with pattern glyphs 3. Stars: illustrates usage of 'Star' and pattern glyphs 4. Bullets: illustrates usage of bullet glyphs (0..9) 5. Human rights - Article 1 NB: - Encoding is: Windows Latin ("ANSI") - Published in two versions: Commercial and Free for personal use

Introducing Hoax – a pre-worn sans serif with spirit, personality and distinction. This bold and semi-condensed sans serif is inspired by old copy machines and vintage prints. It is lively and eye-catching, ideal for where and when you want to make a lasting impression. Hoax is a celebration of character, a tribute to curiosity. Use this typeface and let everyone know that you mean business. OPENTYPE FEATURES: This font includes over 40 discretionary ligatures of prepositions and common words in English. These OpenType features can be accessed using OpenType friendly applications that allow the use of discretionary ligatures and stylistic sets. MULTILINGUAL SUPPORT: With over 700 glyphs, it has support for more than 150 languages, including Cyrillic script. List of discretionary ligatures: AND, ARE, AT, BY, FOR, EST, FEAT., FROM, IN, IS, OF, ON, OR, OUR, THAN, THAT, THE, TO, WITH, YOUR, CO. Each word is available in both upright and slanted versions. How to use: Activate the discretionary ligatures as you normally do in your OpenType friendly application. When activated, the words are in upright versions. To access the slanted versions, activate the first stylistic set (“Slanted Ligatures”). Happy typing!

Low stroke contrast, generous spacing, and fine-grained weights from Light to Extra Bold make FF Hertz a workhorse text typeface which holds up well under today’s widely varying output conditions from print to screen. The quite dark Book style works well on e-ink displays which usually tend to thin out letters, as well as in print when you want to evoke the solid letter image of the hot-metal type era. Two sizes of Small Caps are included: A larger size for abbreviations and acronyms, and a smaller size matching the height of the lowercase letters. FF Hertz is a uniwidth design, that means each letter occupies the same space in all weights. This feature allows the user to switch between weights (but not between Roman and Italic styles) without text reflow. Jens Kutilek began work on FF Hertz in 2012. From a drawing exercise on a low-resolution grid (a technique proposed by Tim Ahrens to avoid fiddling with details too early), it soon evolved into a bigger project combining a multitude of influences which up until that point had only been floating around in his head, including his mother’s 1970s typewriter with its wonderful numbers, Hermann Zapf’s Melior as well as his forgotten Mergenthaler Antiqua (an interpretation of the Modern genre), and old German cartographic lettering styles. Jens likes to imagine FF Hertz used in scientific books or for an edition of Lovecraftian horror stories.

Montage has played a weighty role in some of the most influential and enduring typography of the past few decades, from book jackets and album covers, to posters and logos…you name it. Exhibiting an uncommon ability to wield immense power while demonstrating extraordinary finesse, Montage’s commanding profile packs a hefty punch which is softened only by its lithe yet durable serifs. Originally designed for Photo-Lettering in the mid-1960s by type legend, Ed Benguiat, the fonts were given a jump start by Jess Collins before ultimately being shaped into five compatible widths by longtime House co-conspirator, Mitja Miklavčič. Under the guidance of Ben Kiel, along with some additional chin-stroking by Ken Barber, Montage has been fully developed into a robust family ready to tackle any challenge you can throw at it. FEATURES LIGATURES: In order to ensure that Montage maintains its bold presence in tricky text settings, we’ve added a handy set of pre-drawn letter combinations. When enabled, the Ligature feature identifies problem pairs like—fl, fi, ff, ffl, and of course, fyi—and substitutes them with glyphs optimized to enhance font performance. ALTERNATES: For fickle typographers, we’ve also added a handful of alternate characters to allow Montage to suit any number of mood Like all good subversives, House Industries hides in plain sight while amplifying the look, feel and style of the world’s most interesting brands, products and people. Based in Delaware, visually influencing the world.

Amherst is a family of blackletter-inspired typefaces. This family, created by British designer Richard Yeend in 2002, is unique in that it mains the feel of blackletter/medieval type without relying directly on historical forms. Amherst is split into two different sub-families, Amherst and Amherst Gothic. Amherst is very geometric interpretation of Fraktur. Fraktur was a style of German type very popular in central Europe from 1517 until the early 20th Century. Its letters appear "broken" at certain angles and joints. Still, we recommend using it primarily for display purposes. Amherst is available in three weights: Regular, Bold, and Heavy. Amherst Gothic is very loosely inspired by late medieval letterforms, often called Texturas or Gothics. However, the letterforms of Amherst Gothic seem just as inspired by the Art Deco movements of the 1920s and by contemporary sans serif type design as anything else. Nevertheless, certain letters in this typeface do appear more "gothic" than others, especially A, D, M, Y, d, r, and x. Amherst Gothic is made up of three fonts, Amherst Gothic Split, Amherst Gothic Split Alternate, and Amherst Gothic Italic. Amherst Gothic Split has in-lined characters, and appears very ornamented. The alternate characters in Amherst Gothic Split Alternate are quite medieval in their appearance. Amherst Gothic Italic is the least medieval-looking of the set; its characters are very round, and more geometric. All six styles of the Amherst Family are OpenType format fonts, and include old style figures.

Ornaments family with four different sets plus a decorative capitals font from the rare, valuable and amazing Allerlei Zierat book from Schelter & Gieseck (1902). A research and free interpretation by Intellecta Design. This encyclopedic specimen book of the Leipzig, Germany type foundry and printing supply house J.G. Schelter & Giesecke features, as the title indicates, all kinds of decoration for supplying printing of every type. On the title page, the firm boasts winning grand prize in 1900 in Paris (presumably at the Exposition Universelle). It is hard to do justice in a short description to the variety of styles (traditional, Jugenstil, etc.) and categories (certificates, letterheads, borders, ornaments, exotic motifs, flowers, animals, silhouettes, menus, greeting cards, vignettes humorous and otherwise, images of bicyclists, occupational symbols, portraits, Classical figures, religious art, heraldry, ships, trains, athletes, etc., etc.) offered in this volume. Some of the examples are printed in color, most are in black-and-white. The Jugenstil cover of this copy shows minor wear and soiling. The plate of “Gust. Carlsson & Co., Stockholm” is attached to the front pastedown. A small fraction of pages show minor soiling, a pencil notation or a short closed tear. Two of the fold-outs at the back have a little more damage-one is missing a 1x2 inch piece along the margin, the other has a 3-inch closed tear and an edge which is crumpled. A rare specimen from the Intellecta rare books library.

The first versions of Nimbus Sans have been designed and digitized in the 1980s for the URW SIGNUS sign-making system. Highest precision of all characters (1/100 mm accuracy) as well as spacing and kerning were required because the fonts should be cut in any size in vinyl or other material used for sign-making. During this period three size ranges were created for text (T), the display (D) and poster (P) for small, medium and very large font sizes. In addition, we produced a so-called L-version that was compatible to Adobe’s PostScript version of Helvetica. Nimbus was also the product name of a URW-proprietary renderer for high quality and fast rasterization of outline fonts, a software provided to the developers of PostScript clone RIPs (Hyphen, Harlequin, etc.) back then. Also in the 80s, a new, improved version of the Nimbus Sans, namely Nimbus Sans Novus was designed. Nimbus Sans Novus was conceptually developed entirely with URW’s IKARUS system, i.e. all styles harmonize perfectly with each other in terms of line width, weight, proportions, etc. On top of that, Nimbus Sans Novus contains more styles than Nimbus Sans. Now, Nimbus Sans is also available as Round (like the popular URW fonts Futura Round and Eurostile Round). The Round versions are intended to facilitate the work of designers and typographers. The fonts can be used directly, without further preparatory work in graphic programs as finished, high-quality Rounds.

Lydia Sans™ is an elegant geometric sans serif with a charming profile and organic flow. Inspired by the clean typography of the 1920s, it's character and legibility make it suitable for any kind of text applications, from brand design to extensive text layouts. Lydia Sans™ has 22 styles, variable font technology and its weight range spreads from hairline to ultra bold forms. Flexible and adaptable, it covers 230+ languages, including extended Latin, Cyrillic and Greek writing systems. With over 1300 glyphs per style, its Opentype features include alternative shapes, small caps, standard and discretionary ligatures, localised forms in Latin and Cyrillic, case sensitive forms, numerators and denominators, proportional and tabular figures, slashed zero, fractions and more. As a workhorse type system, Lydia Sans™ is a sans serif for everyday use and a great choice for a wide range of applications. • Suggested uses: perfect for brand design, editorial design, web design and packaging design; • 22 styles: 11 weights + 11 italics. • 2 variable fonts; • 1315 glyphs in each weight; • OpenType features: Access All Alternates, Small Capitals From Capitals, Contextual Alternates, Case-Sensitive forms, Glyph Composition, Discretionary Ligatures, Denominators, Fractions, Standard Ligatures, Lining Figures, Localised forms, Numerators, Oldstyle Figures, Scientific Inferiors, Small Capitals, Stylistic Alternates, Stylistic Set 1, Stylistic Set 2, Stylistic Set 3, Stylistic Set 4, Stylistic Set 5, Stylistic Set 6, Stylistic Set 7, Stylistic Set 8, Subscript, Superscript, Tabular Figures, Slashed Zero; • 220 languages supported (extended Latin, Cyrillic, Greek alphabets).

An exquisite Didot font in 18 series Ambroise is a contemporary interpretation of various typefaces belonging to Didot’s late style, conceived circa 1830, including the original forms of g, y, &; and to a lesser extent, k. These unique glyphs are found in Gras Vibert, cut by Michel Vibert. Vibert was the appointed punchcutter of the Didot family during this period. It is the Heavy, whom sources were surest that Jean François Porchez has been used as the basis for the design of the typeface family. In the second half of the 19th century, it was usual to find fat Didots in several widths in the catalogs of French type foundries. These same typefaces continued to be offered until the demise of the big French foundries in the 1960s. Ambroise attempts to reproduce more of what we see printed on paper in the 19th century; a more accurate representation of Didot punches. So, the unbracketed serifs are not truly square straight-line forms but use tiny transitional curves instead. The result on the page appears softer and less straight, particularly in larger sizes. The illustrious Didot family of type founders and printers Every variation of the typeface carries a name in homage to a member of the illustrious Didot family of type founders and printers. The condensed variant is called Ambroise Firmin. The extra-condensed is called Ambroise François. Ambroise Pro brought back to life: fifteen years in the making! Club des directeurs artistiques, 48e palmarès Bukva:raz 2001

Aeonian, designed by Emilia Adorno, was mostly inspired by the iconic morphology adopted by the arts of the 1920s. One hundred years later we can still see the resemblance between the wants and the needs of now and then to reach for the sky, to look ahead and enter the future in style. Now as then, we seek the right tools to do so, then once again, we embrace the rational, yet elegant and stylish forms of simplicity, geometry and symmetry. At the same time, there is a strong and growing need for a warmer approach to creating lovemarks. For that, Aeonian’s alternates hold attractive, soft and inviting shapes to an emotional appeal. Aeonian is a combination of all of them. A rational side entwined with an emotional one. Born a geometric sans, Aeonian ended up being a 2 in 1 font with a sans serif set and alternates reaching over 1200 glyphs. The entire family contains 6 weights, from thin to black, with its matching italics. It features a variety of ligatures to be used as connectors, specially for display. It also offers multilingual support, even for certain display ligatures. Later, Aeonian kept growing, with stylistic alternate sets of initial, mid and final glyphs. These are its arms to reach for infinity with a warm heart. The wide range of possibilities that Aeonian offers, makes it the best font for creating vast design systems with a rich visual language.

The Trump Mediaeval Office family is designed after the model of the original serif family produced by Georg Trump in 1954. Trump released this typeface through the C.E. Weber type foundry in Stuttgart, and Linotype quickly cut the face for mechanical composition. Thereafter it became popular around the world. One of the most prolific German type designers of the 20th century, Trump created numerous typefaces in several different styles, but Trump Mediaeval is often regarded as his best work. Trump Mediaeval is an old style serif typeface, with new inherent quality that could only have come about after centuries of variation on this theme. It bears some resemblance to the classic Garamond typefaces, yet its characteristic letters set it apart in a positive way. Akira Kobayashi, Linotype’s Type Director, released his own revived design, Trump Mediaeval Office, in 2006. Trump Mediaeval Office has two weights, each with an italic companion. Unlike the original design, Kobayashi has harmonized the varying letterforms across the two weights, allowing Regular and Bold text to stand side by side harmoniously. Trump Mediaeval’s numbers now match across weights as well, optimizing their legibility in sizes large and small. Decades ago, Trump Mediaeval was a popular choice for setting book texts, because of its robust serifs. These are exactly what make the face a good choice for office application today; on lower-resolution printers, these serifs will still remain a strong feature on the letterform, increasing legibility along the line of text.

Ghost Sign JNL is a spurred serif type design based on the faded lettering of an antique brick wall sign for Homer Hardware [located in Homer, NY] and is available in both regular and oblique versions. From Wikipedia: “A ghost sign is an old hand-painted advertising sign that has been preserved on a building for an extended period of time. The sign may be kept for its nostalgic appeal, or simply indifference by the owner. Ghost signs are found across the world with the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada having many surviving examples. Ghost signs are also called fading ads or brickads. In many cases these are advertisements painted on brick that remained over time. Old painted advertisements are occasionally discovered upon demolition of later-built adjoining structures. Throughout rural areas, old barn advertisements continue to promote defunct brands and quaint roadside attractions. Many ghost signs from the 1890s to 1960s are still visible. Such signs were most commonly used in the decades before the Great Depression. Ghost signs were originally painted with oil-based house paints. The paint that has survived the test of time most likely contains lead, which keeps it strongly adhered to the masonry surface. Ghost signs were often preserved through repainting the entire sign since the colors often fade over time. When ownership changed, a new sign would be painted over the old one.”

The first versions of Nimbus Sans have been designed and digitized in the 1980s for the URW SIGNUS sign-making system. Highest precision of all characters (1/100 mm accuracy) as well as spacing and kerning were required because the fonts should be cut in any size in vinyl or other material used for sign-making. During this period three size ranges were created for text (T), the display (D) and poster (P) for small, medium and very large font sizes. In addition, we produced a so-called L-version that was compatible to Adobe’s PostScript version of Helvetica. Nimbus was also the product name of a URW-proprietary renderer for high quality and fast rasterization of outline fonts, a software provided to the developers of PostScript clone RIPs (Hyphen, Harlequin, etc.) back then. Also in the 80s, a new, improved version of the Nimbus Sans, namely Nimbus Sans Novus was designed. Nimbus Sans Novus was conceptually developed entirely with URW’s IKARUS system, i.e. all styles harmonize perfectly with each other in terms of line width, weight, proportions, etc. On top of that, Nimbus Sans Novus contains more styles than Nimbus Sans. Now, Nimbus Sans is also available as Round (like the popular URW fonts Futura Round and Eurostile Round). The Round versions are intended to facilitate the work of designers and typographers. The fonts can be used directly, without further preparatory work in graphic programs as finished, high-quality Rounds.

The Englishman William Caslon punchcut many roman, italic, and non-Latin typefaces from 1720 until his death in 1766. At that time most types were being imported to England from Dutch sources, so Caslon was influenced by the characteristics of Dutch types. He did, however, achieve a level of craft that enabled his recognition as the first great English punchcutter. Caslon's roman became so popular that it was known as the script of kings, although on the other side of the political spectrum (and the ocean), the Americans used it for their Declaration of Independence in 1776. The original Caslon specimen sheets and punches have long provided a fertile source for the range of types bearing his name. Identifying characteristics of most Caslons include a cap A with a scooped-out apex; a cap C with two full serifs; and in the italic, a swashed lowercase v and w. Caslon's types have achieved legendary status among printers and typographers, and are considered safe, solid, and dependable. Carol Twombly designed this Caslon revival for Adobe in 1990, after studying Caslon's own specimen sheets from the mid-eighteenth century. This elegant version is quite true to the source, and has been optimized for the demands of digital design and printing. Adobe Caslon? makes an excellent text font and includes just about everything needed by the discriminating typographer: small caps, Old style Figures, swash letters, alternates, ligatures, expert characters, central European characters, and a plethora of period ornaments.

The original Frutiger typeface was designed in the early 1970s by Adrian Frutiger and his studio for the way finding system of the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Soon after the airport was opened, a huge demand for the typeface arose from companies wanting to employ it in other signage systems, as well as in printed matter. The Frutiger typeface came out as part of the Linotype library in 1977. Epitomizing functionality and clarity both in signage and as a bread-and-butter typeface in print, Frutiger became a modern classic. Neue Frutiger® is the 2009 version of the Frutiger typeface family. It was revised and improved by Akira Kobayashi in close collaboration with Adrian Frutiger. While Frutiger Next, the 1999 revision, introduced a new concept (including a larger x-height, a more pronounced ascender height, narrower letter-spacing and, most notably, an italic with calligraphic traits), Neue Frutiger returns to the original 1977 design. The result is a well-balanced range of 10 finely-graded weights. Despite the various changes, the ‘New Frutiger’ still fits perfectly with Frutiger and serves to harmoniously enhance the styles already in existence. Neue Frutiger Variable are font files which are featuring two axis and have a preset instance from UltraLight to ExtraBlack and Condensed to Extended. Featured in: Best Fonts for Resumes, Best Fonts for Websites, Best Fonts for PowerPoints, Best Fonts for Tattoos

Jim Rimmer’s first typeface was originally published in 1970 as a basic film type alphabet through a small, independent type house in central California. Its sources of influence (now calligraphic type standards by Dair, Goudy and Zapf) are ones that remained with Jim for the rest of his career. If you squint at Totemic in just the right way, you can see some recognizable themes Jim would later flesh out and make his own in later works throughout his career as a type designer and printer. Totemic is now available for the first time as a digital font, of the refined and expanded kind now expected from Canada Type. It comes with quite a few standard advanced typography features: Small caps, caps-to-small-caps, automatic fractions and standard ligatures, stylistic alternate sets, six kinds of figures, case-sensitive forms, and extended Latin language support. It also comes with a very unique and unprecedented feature: Variably stackable totem poles. Simply enable the discretionary ligatures feature, type any unique three-digit combination using numbers between 1 and 4, and watch the magic happens. With a name like Totemic, we just couldn't help ourselves. Many thanks to Andrew Steeves of Gaspereau Press for finding Jim’s lost gem in a most unexpected place, and for helping us bring it back to life 45 years after its analog birth. 20% of Totemic’s revenues will be donated to the Canada Type Scholarship Fund, supporting higher typography education in Canada.

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."

FS Rosa is a free-spirited and optimistic serif typeface – reminiscent of those used on fanzines, film sequences and book covers of the 1970s, such as Cooper and Windsor, it has a laid-back nature with a touch of rebellion. It also reminds of type used in colourful protest graphics by nun-turned-designer Corita Kent, and its personality is akin with brands like Whole Foods - positive rather than preachy. While unconventional, it’s sensible enough to work perfectly for socially conscious brands, magazines, websites and campaigns that want a fairer and more responsible world. Hand-drawn digitally, FS Rosa is warm and open-minded – its irregular letterforms are rounded, with soft terminals, a large x-height and wide apertures. But it is also quirky and eclectic, with irregular shapes – its short ascenders and descenders have slanted serifs, its uppercase forms have unusually low crossbars and the letters are filled with oddities and surprises. The typeface looks to stand out against a sea of homogenous, geometric sans serifs, and celebrates beauty through imperfection. It comes in five weights of Thin, Light, Regular, Bold and Black. The heavier weights make an impact and are great for loud, headline statements. The Regular weight is functional, balanced and robust for text, and the lighter weights have an elegance and contemporary beauty. FS Rosa is eclectic yet with its soft roundness, also positive and progressive. Its name, inspired by the phrase “rose-tinted glasses”, reflects its optimism.

The story of Serena is a unique one among revivals. Serena was neither a metal face nor a film one. In fact it never went anywhere beyond Stefan Schlesinger’s 1940-41 initial sketches (which he called Saranna). A year later, while working with Dick Dooijes on the Rondo typeface, Schlesinger was sent to a concentration camp where he died, along with any material prospects for the gorgeous letters he'd drawn. The only sketches left of Schlesinger’s Saranna work are found in the archives of the Drukkerij Trio (the owner of which was Schlesinger’s brother-in-law). The sketches were done in pencil and ink over pencil on four sheets of paper. And now Hans van Maanen revives Schlesinger’s spirit as closely as the drawings permit, and elaborately expands the work to cover a multitude of codepages and languages. It took more than 65 years for Schlesinger’s drawings to see the light, so van Maanen made sure to bring them to life stylishly and respectfully. Serena embodies the peace and calm rarely ever found in mainstream calligraphy or other genres of display type. With upright elegance and a slight Eastern touch, this typeface expertly bridges the gracefully casual with the deeply spiritual. The light and soft letter forms add a pleasant, breezy element to anything they touch. When used sparingly in titling or display, Serena is like a sigh of desire, rare but quite memorable and very appreciated.

Fantastic ML is an exuberant Art Nouveau font. It was originally released as “Modern Style” by Fonderie G. Peignot & Fils, Paris, France sometime before 1903. Since “Le style moderne” was the generic French name for Art Nouveau, it is possible that someone decided a less generic name was needed. The typeface became known as Fantastic. Compared to conventional text letters, it is just that. Fantastic has a whimsical, architectural feel. The typeface reminds me of a cross between Hoffmann’s Palais Stoclet in Brussels and Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona. The letterforms themselves are similar to those by Ludwig von Zumbusch on the cover of “Jugend” in March, 1896, but with the addition of serifs. Fantastic ML is a decorative, all-cap font intended for display use and functions best at 18 points or larger. There are a total of 306 glyphs. In addition to the standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page with character slots up to decimal position 255, there are glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. However, some older applications may only be able to access the Western Europe character set (1252). The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS format and a TTF version which is in Open TT format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

Milton Glaser on designing Babyfat: “This is the first alphabet I ever designed. For some inexplicable reason I called it Babyfat. Because I’m not a type designer, most of my alphabets are actually novelties or graphic ideas expressed typographically. Here the idea was to take a gothic letter and view it simultaneously from two sides. It started out as a rather esoteric letterform; it ended up being used in supermarkets for ‘Sale’ signs.” This forced perspective 3-D font has appeared on many LP covers and posters from the mid 1960s onward. This revival includes the original lowercase for the first time in digital form. Besides the three original styles (Outline, Shaded, and Black) made for photo typesetting, the new P22 Glaser Babyfat introduces six additional variations to allow the user to easily colorize the type as Glaser envisioned. The Keyline, Fill, Glyph, Left, Right, and Down font styles give the user nearly infinite options to create dynamic chromatic effects. P22 Glaser Babyfat was based on original drawings and phototype proofs from the Milton Glaser Studios archives. Typographic punctuation and sorts were imagined by James Grieshaber to work with Glaser’s design, as well as diacritics to accommodate most European languages. Over the years there have been many typefaces that borrowed heavily from the Glaser designs, but these are the only official fonts approved by Milton Glaser Studio and the Estate of Milton Glaser.

P22 Brass Script is a new font from an old source. This script font was discovered in a booklet from Dornemann & Co. of Magdeburg Germany, circa 1910. The book was titled Messingschriften fur Handvergoldung, which roughly translates to “Brass types for hand foil stamping.” The mini catalog called this type simply “Script.” It has not been previously digitized or seen in standard metal type form. The antique specimen book featured most of the characters needed for a full alphabet, but a number of letters were not shown. Since no other examples of this style could be found, P22 enlisted the assistance of master calligrapher Michael Clark to draw the missing characters in the same style as the original. The style is very loosely based on the secretarial hands and reminiscent of “French Hand” with a very early 20th century, pre-modern feel. It has an unusual flow that is neither too casual nor too formal. The font would be useful for wedding invitations or packaging and advertising. P22 Brass Script Pro features include: automatic ligatures for common pairs such as ll, tt, qu and a variety of f ligatures, full CE language support including Turkish and Romanian and a variety of swash underscores for different length words that can be added manually in OpenType ready applications with the glyph palette or with the contextual alternates. The length of the word will automatically select the best length of swash for the work.

Jazz Gothic is a digitization and expansion of an early 1970s film type from Franklin Photolettering called Pinto Flare. This type became an instant titling classic with jazz and soul album designers; then it caught on wildly with film and television designers. Blue Note and Motown would not have been the same without this face. Jazz Gothic is a simple geometric idea, quite likely originally inspired by the heavier display weights of Futura. The resulting product is a versatile message-driver that stands quite strong and cherishes the limelight, yet shows a playful and artistic side within its curvy thick swashes and rebellious unicase forms. In the hands of a good designer, Jazz Gothic eliminates any doubt about the delivery of the message or the attractive purposeful way it is delivered. It is the kind of typeface that loves a design program's bells and whistles. Knock it out of dark or light backgrounds, shade it, mask-alize it, roughen it, stretch it, squeeze it, and the message will still stand larger than life. Jazz Gothic comes in two fonts, a main one with a full character set to accommodate the majority of Latin-based languages, and a second one that contains about 50 alternates and swashed forms. The OpenType version is a single font that has all the alternates and swashes at the disposal of the buttons of OT-savvy program palettes.

This is the redrawn and expanded version of an alphabet Rebecca Alaccari made back in 2009 as a bespoke font for a tourism agency looking to recapture the appeal of New Orleans after the hurricane Katrina disaster robbed it of its core industries. The brief back then was to "revive the unique spirit of what always made Nola great for new adults, which is the excellent combination of history, romance, food and music." No word of a lie, the brief actually contained "new adults." Storyville contains two interchangeable sets of forms drawn in the doodly, loose and organic way now conspicuously popular with today's young designers, almost every one of whom thinks they will get to design something for a boutique coffee bar somewhere. Well, this whole thing perhaps means freedom, youth, fun, happiness, good stuff like that. But just in case, a little caution doesn't hurt: Use this font only if you know what you're doing. We don't want to go back to the 1990s. Please. We were nearly done for by that exposure the first time around. The ligatures feature in this font does some pseudo-randomization, so the forms in doubled letters don't repeat. Serious fun can be had by also applying the stylistic alternates feature, or picking a letter in the middle of a setting and disabling the ligatures feature. Or various sequences of all that. If you don't like any of that stuff, just forget about it. Uh, wutever.