When type historians look back on Jim Rimmer, they will consider him the last type designer who just couldn't let go of metal type, even though he was just as proficient in digital type. Lancelot is one definite case in point: A face designed and produced in digital as late in the game as 1999, only to spring onto the new millenium a couple of years later as a metal type cast in three sizes. That was Jim, a time traveler constantly reminding the craft of its origins. This particular time machine was originally designed as a simple set of attractive caps that emphasize the beauty of the variable conventional dialogue between the drawing tool and the intended final form, and the one exchanged within the totality of the forms themselves. Jim designed two weights, with contrast and counterspace being the main difference between them. In 2013, the Lancelot family was remastered and greatly expanded. Lancelot Pro is now a wonder of over 840 glyphs per font, including smaller versions of the caps in the minuscule slots, and alternates and ligatures that can transform the historic spirit of the original design into anything from half-uncial to outright gothic. Language support goes beyond the extended Latin stuff, to cover Cyrillic and Greek as well. 20% of the Lancelot Pro family's revenues will be donated to the Canada Type Scholarship Fund, supporting higher typography education in Canada.

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.

Originally drawn in 1985, Jovica Veljović had intended to add a few kerning pairs and make some minor refinements to the letterforms. However, his work lead him to take a fresh look at the family. Veljović recalls, … I soon realized that some characters could benefit by more refined shapes and proportions. By the time I was done, I had worked on just about every character in the original design." In fact the end result is two systems: one optimized for extended texts; the other for display settings. The original elegance of the design is not lost, but the new design brings with it letterforms that are altogether more harmonious and balanced. The roman is dynamic and spirited, just oozing character. The italic by contrast is a little more restrained, but nonetheless an elegant and fitting accompaniment. The text-optimized fonts come with a generous x-height, and slightly less contrast; though its marginally wider proportions let in the light, making it very legible even at small sizes. ITC New Esprit ® is a versatile family, brought to you in four weights from regular to black. OpenType features like small caps, alternates, and a broad character set make this a welcome addition to everyone's font library. Whether you want elegant and legible text, or dynamic and personable headlines, then you'll want to click through to see more of ITC New Esprit. "

Capitolium was designed in 1998 at the request of the Agenzia romana per la preparatione del Giubileo for the Jubilee of the Roman Catholic Church in 2000. This type design was the central part of the project for a wayfinding and information system to guide pilgrims and tourists through Rome. Capitolium also continues Rome’s almost uninterrupted two-thousand-year-old tradition of public lettering . It is a modern typeface for the twenty-first century and strongly related to the traditions of Rome. Soon after the completion of this project Unger began contemplating the possibility of bringing the atmosphere of this design to newspapers. Though Capitolium works well in most modern production processes and also on screens, it is too fragile for newsprint. For newspapers sturdier shapes were required as well as more characters to a line of text, and Capitolium News has a bigger x-height than Capitolium. Capitolium News is a thoroughly modern newsface, with classic letterforms linked to a strong tradition. Capitolium News for running text comes in the variations regular, italic, semibold, semibold italic, bold and bold italic. As is possible with most of Unger’s type designs, Capitolium News can be condensed and expanded without any harm to the letterforms. The update to this beautiful font family, Capitolium News, includes the addition of over 250 glyphs featuring full Latin A language support, new ligatures, 4 sets of numerals, arbitrary fractions and superiors/inferiors. Furthermore, kerning was added and fine tuned for better performance.

When Patricia Lillie was growing up, she thought the coolest thing in the world would be finding her own name listed in a library catalog. The fantasy came true in 1986 when her first children's book was published. Five more followed. The thrill of seeing her work on library shelves hasn't abated, but today, Lillie is just as likely to see one of her typefaces on the cover of a book. She has created several display faces and image fonts. My first typeface designs were based on lettering I'd done while working for a library, doing graphics work for the children's section," she explains. "I currently do a lot of web design, but type is my favorite thing." The Tickles (ITC Tickle and ITC Tickle Too) are Lillie's first ITC typeface releases. "I was playing around with a Sharpie marker one day and liked the way the letters looked," she recalls. "I started redoing the letters from scratch in Fontographer to see what developed, and liked those letters too." ITC Tickle is a bi-form font (with both cap and lowercase letters of the same size) that clearly breaks a typographic rule or two. ITC Tickle Too has the same basic lettershapes, but they've grown clusters of stipples that give a three-dimensional quality to the design. The result is a friendly, offbeat display family that's guaranteed to add a giggle to your work."

Lincoln Electric started its life as an in-house experimental film type Thomas Lincoln drew shortly after concluding his work as part of Herb Lubalin’s famed crew in the late 1960s,. The master alphabet was drawn on illustration boards using pen and ink and press-type lines. The typeface was initially made for use in the branding and promotional material of Lincoln’s new design outfit. This alphabet’s forms are a spin on Bifur, the all-cap deco face designed by Adolphe Mouron (known as Cassandre) in 1929, and published by the Deberny & Peignot foundry in France. Lincoln Electric evolves Cassandre’s idea further by constructing new shapes more in line with minimalist principles rather than art deco geometry — something clearly evident in Lincoln’s minuscules, which exhibit a clear connection to Bauhaus ideas More than 50 years after the typeface’s design, Thomas Lincoln found the original film alphabet tucked away in his archives and brought it over to Canada Type for digital retooling. The result is a modern and thoroughly elaborate set of fonts that belonging prominently in a 21st century designer’s toolbox. The following features are included in Lincoln Electric: • Three fonts for chromatic layering. • More than 1900 glyphs in each font. • Expanded Latin and Cyrillic character sets. • Small caps and Caps-to-small-caps. • Six different sets of stylistic alternates. • Ordinals and case-sensitive forms. For a showing of the stylistic set variations and a sample of demonstration of chromatic layering, please consult this PDF.

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 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

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."

It was the original work of fifteenth century designer Nicolas Jenson that formed the basis for this roman serif style developed by Ernst Detterer in 1923. Similar in spirit to other early twentieth century revivals such as Centaur, Cloister Old Style, and Italian Old Style, Nicolas Jenson is distinguished by its pristine and delicate nature. A gifted young apprentice to Detterer, Robert Hunter Middleton, greatly expanded the family. And by 1929, bold, italic, and open were part of the Ludlow Foundry’s beautiful Nicolas Jenson Series. It was reintroduced under a new name, Eusebius, in 1941. This digital version includes a new medium and extrabold weight with intermediate small caps and swash alternates throughout the family. There is also a regular expert version with a variety of currency symbols plus a regular petite caps (regular x-height small caps) and old style figures version. Nicolas Jenson is now available in the OpenType Std format. Small caps, old style figures, and swash alternates have all been combined into one style for ease of use. You will also find an additional regular petite caps version included with the regular style. Some new characters have been added 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.

The original Avenir typeface was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, after years of having an interest in sans serif typefaces. The word Avenir means “future” in French and hints that the typeface owes some of its interpretation to Futura. But unlike Futura , Avenir is not purely geometric; it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an “o” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These nuances aid in legibility and give Avenir a harmonious and sensible appearance for both texts and headlines. In 2012, Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next to life, as a new take on the classic Avenir. The goal of the project was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. Since then, Monotype expanded the typeface to accommodate more languages. Akira’s deep familiarity with existing iterations of the Frutiger designs, along with his understanding of the design philosophy of the man himself, made him uniquely suited to lead the creation of different language fonts. Avenir Next World family, the most recent release from Monotype, is an expansive family of fonts that offers support for more than 150 languages and scripts that include Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian and Thai. Avenir Next World contains 10 weights, from UltraLight to ExtraBlack.

Designed from the perspective of a multi-purpose font family, comprehending the slab-serif and humanist-sans subtypes, the Distéfano typefaces were specifically developed and subsequently tested considering the needs of editorial products, for both print and digital media.   Includes a comprehensive program where formal, style, thickness and slant attributes are especially indicated for the composition of text and headings in newspapers, journals and magazines. For that reason, in addition to the more traditional weights, others, ranging from Light to Black were added. The identity and systemic criteria of this font family doesn’t fall short on diversity of specific solutions, flair and quirks for each variant, especially noticeable in the contrast of the italics to the roman styles. The original drawings of Distéfano date back to 1983; embodied in pencil on paper, provided only the alphabetical characters and punctuation signs for Spanish, and the Sans Serif family. By digitalizing them, their possibilities of use were widened, the set of characters of each typeface were considerably completed considering the current requirements for the majority of the latin and germanic languages, and the slab-serif family was developed. This type family bears the name of the most notable argentinian designer, and it is a homage to his work, that influenced the youth of the 50’s decade of the 20th century, and especially to him, whom I have always recognized as a friend, and a teacher.

Designed from the perspective of a multi-purpose font family, comprehending the slab-serif and humanist-sans subtypes, the Distéfano typefaces were specifically developed and subsequently tested considering the needs of editorial products, for both print and digital media.    Includes a comprehensive program where formal, style, thickness and slant attributes are especially indicated for the composition of text and headings in newspapers, journals and magazines. For that reason, in addition to the more traditional weights, others, ranging from Light to Black were added. The identity and systemic criteria of this font family doesn’t fall short on diversity of specific solutions, flair and quirks for each variant, especially noticeable in the contrast of the italics to the roman styles. The original drawings of Distéfano date back to 1983; embodied in pencil on paper, provided only the alphabetical characters and punctuation signs for Spanish, and the Sans Serif family. By digitalizing them, their possibilities of use were widened, the set of characters of each typeface were considerably completed considering the current requirements for the majority of the latin and germanic languages, and the slab-serif family was developed. This type family bears the name of the most notable argentinian designer, and it is a homage to his work, that influenced the youth of the 50’s decade of the 20th century, and especially to him, whom I have always recognized as a friend, and a teacher.

Linotype Bengali, a revival This project by Neelakash Kshetriymayum and Fiona Ross commissioned by Monotype is at heart a revival of the now ubiquitous original Linotype Bengali typeface designed by Tim Holloway and Fiona Ross (1978-1982) based on Ross’s research for her doctoral studies in Indian Palaeography. The new Linotype Bengali is informed by more recent research by Ross and Kshetrimayum resulting in additional glyphs that serve contemporary needs in a variety of genres – the original had been specifically designed for newspaper composition and in now outdated digital formats. The new design makes use of OpenType features with the employment of contextual vowel signs for Bengali – a feature that Ross and Holloway had first introduced in Indian scripts for the Adobe Devanagari typeface – and has sophisticated contextual mark positioning. Furthermore, whereas the original design had existed in only two typestyles, extensive work has been undertaken to produce this new design in 5 weights: Light, Regular, Medium, Bold and Black. It has been an important aspect of this project to remain true to the original design concepts, and so to achieve optimal readability for sustained reading at small type-sizes, but the additional weights enable differentiation in document design, and afford users scope to produce textural variety in their outputs. This revival design is intended to widen the hitherto very limited palette of typographic choices in the field of textual communication in Bengali, Assamese and other languages that make use of the Bengali script.

The characteristic ‘French face’ was originally made in 1899 under the supervision of Joseph Pinel. Thus, what was originally French 10 pt. Nº 2, got its present name. The Frenchman Joseph Pinel called himself a "typographical engineer", but was at the time employed as a type draughtsman at the Linotype Works in Altrincham. It appears that this and some other faces that he supervised, were, except for use on the Linotype, also meant for manufacturing matrices for the Dyotype. This composing machine was an invention of Pinel. The Dyotype was a rather complicated machine and consisted, like the Monotype, of two separate contraptions, a keyboard which produced a perforated paper ribbon and a casting machine which produced justified lines of movable type. Unlike the Monotype which has a square matrix carrier, the Dyotype had the matrices on a drum (in fact two drums, hence the name of the machine). A Pinel Diotype company was founded in Paris and a machine was built with the help of the printing press manufacturer Jules Derriey. As is often the case, a lack of sufficient capital prevented the commercializing of this ingenious composing machine. Coen Hofmann digitized the font from a batch of very incomplete, damaged and musty drawings, which he dug up in Altrincham. He redrew all characters, bringing up the hairstrokes somewhat in the process. The result is a roman and italic, while the roman font also includes Small Caps

The original metal Neue Haas Grotesk™ would, in the late 1950s become Helvetica®. But, over the years, Helvetica would move away from its roots. Some of the features that made Neue Haas Grotesk so good were expunged or altered owing to comprimises dictated by technological changes. Christian Schwartz says Neue Haas Grotesk was originally produced for typesetting by hand in a range of sizes from 5 to 72 points, but digital Helvetica has always been one-size-fits-all, which leads to unfortunate compromises."""" Schwartz's digital revival sets the record straight, so to speak. What was lost in Neue Haas Grotesk's transition to the digital Helvetica of today, has been resurrected in this faithful digital revival. The Regular and Bold weights of Helvetica were redesigned for the Linotype machine; those alterations remained when Helvetica was adapted for phototypesetting. During the 1980s, the family was redrawn and released as Neue Helvetica. Schwartz's revival of the original Helvetica, his new Neue Haas Grotesk, comes complete with a number of Max Miedinger's alternates, including a flat-legged R. Eight display weights, from Thin to Black, plus a further three weights drawn specifically for text make this much more than a revival - it's a versatile, well-drawn grot with all the right ingredients. The Thin weight (originally requested by Bloomberg Businessweek) is very fine, very thin indeed, and reveals the true skeleton of these iconic letterforms. Available as a family of OpenType fonts with a very large Pro character set, Neue Haas Grotesk supports most Central European and many Eastern European languages.

Really No. 2 is a redesign and update of Linotype Really, a typeface that Gary Munch first designed in 1999. The new Really No. 2 offers seven weights (Light to Extra Bold), each with an Italic companion. Additionally, Really No. 2 offers significantly expanded language support possibilities. Customers may choose the Really No. 2 W1G fonts, which support a character set that will cover Greek and Cyrillic in addition to virtually all European languages. These are true pan-European fonts, capable of setting texts that will travel between Ireland and Russia, and from Norway to Turkey. Customers who do not require this level of language support may choose from the Really No. 2 Pro fonts (just the Latin script), the Really No. 2 Greek Pro fonts (which include both Latin and Greek), or the Really No. 2 Cyrillic Pro fonts (Latin and Cyrillic). Each weight in the Really No. 2 family includes small capitals and optional oldstyle figures, as well as several other OpenType features. Really No. 2's vertical measurements are slightly different than the old Linotype Really's; customers should not mix fonts from the two families together. As to the design of Really No. 2's letters, like Linotype Really, the characters' moderate-to-strong contrast of its strokes recalls the Transitional and Modern styles of Baskerville and Bodoni. A subtly oblique axis recalls the old-style faces of Caslon. Finally, sturdy serifs complete the typeface's realist sensibility: a clear, readable, no-nonsense text face, whose clean details offer the designer a high-impact selection.

Heller Sans JNL is based on the main letterforms of an experimental alphabet designed by Steven Heller; noted author of over 170 books on design and visual culture. Some modifications were made in turning his design into a digital font. In his own words, here is the background to this typeface: “I recently recovered this from the junk heap. It is a yellowing photostat of my first and only typeface design (1969-70). Total folly! At the time I was smitten by Art Moderne lettering. I called it “Klaus Boobala Bold” because I liked the K and B. I’ve lost the letters S through Z, which were made. The letters were drawn with compass, Techno pen (that frequently clogged). as well as a triangle and T-square. The inline and outline made no real logical sense. I based the design, in part, on Kabel, Avant Garde and it was a product of whatever I could accomplish with those tools. The caps-only alphabet was photographed and produced as a film negative that was cut in foot-long strips and spliced to fit on a Typositor reel. Sadly, the negatives made for the font were too brittle and the splice snapped apart in the Typositor. I worked on it for well over a month and used the face only once. I realized with this attempt, like so many other times I attempted different challenges, that type design — indeed mechanical drawing — was not my strong suit.” Heller Sans JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

This all started with a love for Minister. This is a font designed by Carl Albert Fahrenwaldt in 1929. In the specimen booklet there’s a scan from Linotype’s page many years ago. They no longer carry the font. I’ve gone quite a ways from the original. It was dark and a bit heavy. But I loved the look and the readability. This came to a head when I started my first book on all-digital printing written from 1994-1995, and published early in 1996. I needed fonts to show the typography I was talking about. At that point oldstyle figures, true small caps, and discretionary ligatures were rare. More than that text fonts for book design had lining OR oldstyle figures, lowercase OR small caps—never both. So, I designed the Diaconia family using the Greek word for minister. It was fairly rough. I knew very little. I later redesigned and updated Diaconia into Bergsland Pro—released in 2004. It was still rough (though I impressed myself). Now, with 4-font Biblia Serif family 13 years later, I’ve cleaned up, made the fonts more consistent internally, added more functional OpenType features, and brought the fonts into the 21st century. I used the 2017 set of features: small caps, small cap figures, oldstyle figures, fractions, lining figures, ligatures and discretionary ligatures. These are fonts designed for book production and work well for text or heads. Finally, in 2021, I went over the fonts entirely and remade them in Glyphs.

Smart Sans is a personal tribute to Leslie (Sam) Smart, the first type director to be hired by a major typesetting house in Canada. Smart was a twentieth century design pioneer who raised the standards of Canadian typography. Together with three of his peers, he established the first Type Directors Club in Toronto. After Smart's death in 1998, type designer Rod McDonald decided that something should be done to commemorate Smart's life and achievements. I had first thought of establishing a scholarship in Sam's name, but a typeface design soon replaced this idea," says McDonald. "Once I decided to design a typeface, however, it became a foregone conclusion that it would be a sans serif - for no other reason than that I loved the name Smart Sans." Two typefaces served as inspiration for McDonald's work. "Like thousands of designers, I'm keen on Matthew Carter's Helvetica Compressed series. And, when I was younger, I also loved Fred Lambert's Compacta," says McDonald. "I thought there might be a place for a small range that could take over from these 'old workhorses' and, in the process, bring a fresher look to the genre." McDonald drew three weights for the Smart Sans family, all ideally suited for setting attention-getting headlines and powerful display copy. The two-storied 'g' contributes to the design's lively personality, and the short 'r' helps maintain tight, even spacing. Smart Sans is the perfect homage to a great typographer, because it raises the bar on what to expect from condensed sans serif typefaces. Sam Smart would be pleased."

Really No. 2 is a redesign and update of Linotype Really, a typeface that Gary Munch first designed in 1999. The new Really No. 2 offers seven weights (Light to Extra Bold), each with an Italic companion. Additionally, Really No. 2 offers significantly expanded language support possibilities. Customers may choose the Really No. 2 W1G fonts, which support a character set that will cover Greek and Cyrillic in addition to virtually all European languages. These are true pan-European fonts, capable of setting texts that will travel between Ireland and Russia, and from Norway to Turkey. Customers who do not require this level of language support may choose from the Really No. 2 Pro fonts (just the Latin script), the Really No. 2 Greek Pro fonts (which include both Latin and Greek), or the Really No. 2 Cyrillic Pro fonts (Latin and Cyrillic). Each weight in the Really No. 2 family includes small capitals and optional oldstyle figures, as well as several other OpenType features. Really No. 2's vertical measurements are slightly different than the old Linotype Really's; customers should not mix fonts from the two families together. As to the design of Really No. 2's letters, like Linotype Really, the characters' moderate-to-strong contrast of its strokes recalls the Transitional and Modern styles of Baskerville and Bodoni. A subtly oblique axis recalls the old-style faces of Caslon. Finally, sturdy serifs complete the typeface's realist sensibility: a clear, readable, no-nonsense text face, whose clean details offer the designer a high-impact selection.

Wonder Brush is a display typographer's guilty pleasure. It's one of very few fonts ever made that can take intense abuse and still look natural. Partly based on a 1969 Friedrich Poppl design called Poppl Stretto, but considerably fused with ideas found in interwar magazine ad lettering and signage, Wonder Brush caters to the idea that most graphic designers would rather use design elements they can enjoy. When you spend your days being "challenged" and "creatively tested" and "communicating the message," you can definitely use a little bit of playtime. And this font gives you just that, playtime on the job. Wonder Brush appears to be a straightforward narrow upright brush script. But it really is made of malleable rubber. Take it into a program like Adobe Illustrator, set something, stretch or squeeze, shear or warp, slant or transform… just play with it like they used to do in the 70s and 80s. You will soon discover that this font really is a big old top hat, and it's up to you and your mischief to pull rabbits or geese out of it. A single font that allows you to emphasize content or manage space mechanically without affecting the integrity of the type setting. And if your playtime includes fiddling with OpenType features, you're in for a bonus treat: Wonder Brush comes with over 800 characters, including a lot of alternates and extended language support. So tweak away until your eyes cry with joy. The only rules are the ones you set, and even those are meant to be broken.

Metron is so far the most ambitious typeface made to order in the Czech Republic. Despite the fact that for a number of years it has not been used for the purpose for which it was designed, every inhabitant of Prague is still well aware of its typical features. Metron Pro was commissioned by the Transport Company of the Capital City of Prague in 1970 to be used in the information system of the Prague Metro. It was first published in the manual of the Metroprojekt company in 1973 and then used to the full, under the author’s supervision, for lines “A” and “C”. Since 1985 Rathouský's system has been disappearing from the Prague Metro; it survives only in the form of metal letters at its stations and at some stations of the Czechoslovak Railways. In 2014 we're mentioning the 90th birthday of Jiří Rathouský. It’s a good opportunity for updating and re-introducing his Metron. Extended was the choice of figures and fractions, new currency signs added, diacritics revised, etc., but above all the newly designed Cyrillics including true SmallCaps. Now we have six weights plus italics, where the tone of the basic style is even closer to the original. Ten years back we've had the feeling that this typeface should again take a part of Prague’s traffic system and today, when revisiting of all the fonts, the feeling turned to certainty. The main feature of this typeface is namely a noticeability a property above all welcomed in rush of platforms.

Since my first contact with blackletters in 1999, I became more and more fascinated by these artistic looking typefaces. It all started in the USA at the age of 16, when I took an art class. I decided to trace some blackletter typefaces because they looked very interesting. From this point on I was intrigued by blackletter fonts from all over the world. I studied their different body structures and their cultural background as well as the type designers behind it. Full of information and inspiration I started to draw my own blackletter typeface in 2006. While studying in Hamburg I got in touch with the studio of URW++, where I got skilled in type software and development. Creating a type takes an eye for detail and patience but also lots of time and so it took almost 4 years until the project was finished. And so Ruca was born. Ruca is a refined and expanded typeface. When you look at the spines, the tails or the flags you can see the detailed drawing, which makes the font also extremely good looking in very tall letters. The full character set contains over 400 characters, many ligatures, two number sets and all important currency symbols. Over 300 kerning pairs and many OTF-features make the font easy in use for professional type applications. The typeface is very well applicable for strong headlines and mastheads. Because of its unique appearance, Ruca is perfectly suitable professional graphic applications such as fashion design or branding.

Really No. 2 is a redesign and update of Linotype Really, a typeface that Gary Munch first designed in 1999. The new Really No. 2 offers seven weights (Light to Extra Bold), each with an Italic companion. Additionally, Really No. 2 offers significantly expanded language support possibilities. Customers may choose the Really No. 2 W1G fonts, which support a character set that will cover Greek and Cyrillic in addition to virtually all European languages. These are true pan-European fonts, capable of setting texts that will travel between Ireland and Russia, and from Norway to Turkey. Customers who do not require this level of language support may choose from the Really No. 2 Pro fonts (just the Latin script), the Really No. 2 Greek Pro fonts (which include both Latin and Greek), or the Really No. 2 Cyrillic Pro fonts (Latin and Cyrillic). Each weight in the Really No. 2 family includes small capitals and optional oldstyle figures, as well as several other OpenType features. Really No. 2's vertical measurements are slightly different than the old Linotype Really's; customers should not mix fonts from the two families together. As to the design of Really No. 2's letters, like Linotype Really, the characters' moderate-to-strong contrast of its strokes recalls the Transitional and Modern styles of Baskerville and Bodoni. A subtly oblique axis recalls the old-style faces of Caslon. Finally, sturdy serifs complete the typeface's realist sensibility: a clear, readable, no-nonsense text face, whose clean details offer the designer a high-impact selection.

The Neuzeit Office family is designed after the model of the original sans serif family Neuzeit S™ , which was produced by D. Stempel AG and the Linotype Design Studio in 1966. Neuzeit S itself was a redesign of D. Stempel AG’s DIN Neuzeit, created by Wilhelm Pischner between 1928 and 1939. Intended to represent its own time, DIN Neuzeit must have struck a harmonious chord. DIN Neuzeit is a constructed, geometric sans serif. It was born during the 1920s, a time of design experimentation and standardization, whose ethos has been made famous by the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements in art, architecture, and design. Upon its redesign as Neuzeit S in the 1960s, other developments in sans serif letter design were taken into account. Neuzeit S looks less geometric, and more gothic, or industrial. Separating it from typefaces like Futura, it has a double-storey a, instead of a less legible, single-storey variant. Unlike more popular grotesque sans serifs like Helvetica, Neuzeit S and especially the redesigned Neuzeit Office contain more open, legible letterforms. Neuzeit Office preserves the characteristic number forms that have been associated with its design for years. After four decades, Neuzeit has been retooled once again, and it is more a child of its age than ever before. Akira Kobayashi, Linotype’s Type Director, created the revised and updated Neuzeit Office in 2006. His greatest change was to retool the design to make its performance in text far more optimal. Additionally, he created companion oblique to help emphasize text.

Introducing Good Times, the techno-inspired typeface that will take your designs to the next level. With its wide, capsule-shaped design, Good Times is perfect for high-tech, sports, and scientific themes. The letterforms were inspired by the lettering used on Pontiac cars from 1989-1994 and is designed with straight lines, simple forms, and unconnected strokes. Whether you’re designing for a futuristic tech company or a cutting-edge sports brand, Good Times has you covered. The font comes in seven different weights, including oblique styles, so you can choose the perfect weight for your project. For a more edgy look, check out Good Times Bad Times, a rusty texture variant that adds a rugged feel to your designs. And with OpenType technology, you can automatically substitute common letter pairings with customized ones for a genuine chipped metal aesthetic. But that’s not all. If you’re looking for lowercase letters, be sure to check out Good Timing, the follow-up to Good Times. With its sleek, modern look, Good Timing is the perfect complement to Good Times, offering even more design possibilities. So whether you’re creating a high-tech ad campaign or a scientific presentation, Good Times is the font that will make your design stand out. With its distinctive capsule-shaped design and versatile weights, you can create designs that are both bold and sophisticated. So why wait? Try Good Times today and see the difference for yourself! Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

The Neue Haas Unica™ family is an extended, reimagined version of the Haas Unica® design, a Helvetica® alternative that achieved near mythical status in the type community before it virtually disappeared. Originally released in 1980 by the Haas Type Foundry and designed by Team ’77 — André Gürtler, Erich Gschwind and Christian Mengelt— for phototypesetting technology of the day, the design was never successfully updated for today’s digital environments – until now. Toshi Omagari of Monotype Studio has given this classic a fresh, digital facelift with more weights, more languages and more letters to meet today’s digital and print needs. Available in 18 styles, the Neue Haas Unica family is remarkably appropriate for a wide range of applications, possessing a delicate gradation of weights and clear character shapes. The family's lighter weights are perfect for headlines and other large settings, as well as small blocks of copy at typical text sizes. The regular, medium and bold weights know no boundaries and the heavy and black designs are ideal for when typography needs to be powerful and commanding. Like the Neue Helvetica and Univers Next typefaces, the Neue Haas Unica family can be used just about anywhere – or for any project. In addition to its 9 tailored weights and complementary italics, the Neue Haas Unica family also possesses additional characters for Eastern and Central European, Greek and Cyrillic language support, which did not exist in the original design. A cosmopolitan typeface for today's modern, discerning design needs, the Neue Haas Unica collection is a new classic in the making—one that every designer should surely have at their disposal.

ITC Greengate is the result of a time-traveling, intercontinental collaboration--one between 21st century South African designer Richard Every, and early 20th century Scottish artist Jessie Marion King. Jessie Marion King (1875-1949) began her professional career as a book designer and illustrator, but over time her creativity found its outlet in many forms, including posters, jewelry, ceramics, wallpaper, fabrics, murals, interior design and costumes. After eventually settling in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, she founded Green Gate Close, a center for women artists. Although her style is reminiscent of the Art Nouveau artist, Aubrey Beardsley, King's aesthetic was an offshoot of the “Glasgow Style,” a Scottish hybrid of the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau. Often, her illustrations included hand lettering. It was just this kind of lettering that gave Richard Every his inspiration for ITC Greengate. When he saw some children's book illustrations that King created in 1898, he knew on the spot he had to complete the hand lettering as a typographic font. He began working on the typeface in 1996, but it took six years to be released as an ITC typeface. Every simplified and harmonized King's letterforms slightly and, most importantly, added a suite of lowercase characters. The result is a somewhat earthy Art Nouveau design, with a character quite distinct from typical digital revivals. Every's career has been as diverse as King's. He was born in Durban, South Africa and studied graphic design at ML Sultan Technikon in Durban. He's been an art director, freelance designer, the owner and manager of a nightclub and co-manager of a South African band. “Through it all,” he says, “typography has always been one of my passions.”

Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813) was called the King of Printers; he was a prolific type designer, a masterful engraver of punches and the most widely admired printer of his time. His books and typefaces were created during the 45 years he was the director of the fine press and publishing house of the Duke of Parma in Italy. He produced the best of what are known as "modern" style types, basing them on the finest writing of his time. Modern types represented the ultimate typographic development of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They have characteristics quite different from the types that preceded them; such as extreme vertical stress, fine hairlines contrasted by bold main strokes, and very subtle, almost non-existent bracketing of sharply defined hairline serifs. Bodoni saw this style as beautiful and harmonious-the natural result of writing done with a well-cut pen, and the look was fashionable and admired. Other punchcutters, such as the Didot family (1689-1853) in France, and J. E. Walbaum (1768-1839) in Germany made their own versions of the modern faces. Even though some nineteenth century critics turned up their noses and called such types shattering and chilly, today the Bodoni moderns are seen in much the same light as they were in his own time. When used with care, the Bodoni types are both romantic and elegant, with a presence that adds tasteful sparkle to headlines and advertising. The Bauer Bodoni was done by Heinrich Jost for Bauer Typefoundry in 1927. This version has finer details of the original Bodoni types. It works well for headlines, logos, advertising.

Maged, a traditional-style Arabic text face, enjoyed widespread popularity as a dry-transfer typeface prior to being licensed by Letera Arabica to Linotype-Hell for font production. In consultation with the Linotype Design Studio (U.K.), the artwork was redrawn by Adrian Williams to render the typeface into a complete, unitized Arabic font with a full complement of traditional-style ligatures suitable for digitization. Maged, which has two weights, first appeared as a 202 font in 1987 before its eventual conversion to OpenType in 2005. Thus Linotype’s Maged font can be described as a trend-setting modern Naskh design that retains a sense of the fluidity of Naskh calligraphy: the letters, when composed, appear as freshly-written text characterized by rich, inky horizontals, tapering swash strokes and contrasting delicate ascenders. The Bold exploits these features of the Regular without excess, tempered by the need for clarity at smaller sizes. Maged Regular and Bold are eminently suited to text and titling in broader column work (brochures, magazines, advertising, coffee-table books etc.) and are thus able to extend the range of the Linotype Arabic library in areas of work where the more compact text and titling fonts would create a too concentrated effect. Both of the Maged fonts include Latin glyphs (from Palatino Medium and Palatino Black) inside the font files, allowing a single font to set text in both most Western European and Arabic languages. Maged incorporates the Basic Latin character set and the Arabic character set, which supports Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. They include tabular and proportional Arabic, Persian, and Urdu numerals, as well as a set of tabular European (Latin) numerals.

Evanston Alehouse is the first font in a larger collection of typefaces inspired by years leading up to the American prohibition. For the past two years I was living in Evanston, IL, a suburb of Chicago. After learning it was one of the birthplaces of the prohibition movement, I set out to learn more about it, and decided to develop a type collection that captures the dynamic era in our nation’s history. In the century that prefaced the ratification of the 18th amendment, saloons, taverns and alehouses boomed as the American working class enjoyed beer and discovered whiskey and gin. At the same time, the Temperance League was forming and gaining strength. By the turn of the century, these temperance societies were common in the culture of the country, with individual towns and states already on the move to abolish alcohol consumption. However, it was undeniable that by this time in history, America loved to drink. This font is inspired by the signage seen outside such drinking establishments. Back to the modern era, Evanston Alehouse is a 25 font family that includes 3 weights, 4 widths and 3 heights. It has special features that add depth to the font, with discretionary ligatures and stylistic alternatives. It also includes a complementary set of ornaments, including line breaks, frames, borders, and laurels. Here’s a snapshot of what you get with Evanston Alehouse: 2 Styles/Postions: Sharp (regular) and Round 3 Weights: Light, Medium and Black 4 Widths: 1826 (condensed), 1858 (narrow), 1893 (wide) and 1919 (expanded) 3 Heights: Capitals, lowercase and small caps 2 Alternatives: Discretionary Ligatures and Stylistic Alternatives 1 Ornament font with over 100 graphic extras

Originally released in 1987, Charter incorporates three important features: compact set width to give economical copyfit; generous x-height to give readability at small point sizes; and sturdy open letterforms to give reliable reproduction at both typesetter and laser printer resolutions. The design brings a clarity and freshness to everyday documents, such as newsletters, textbooks, directories and technical manuals, where the reader’s concentration must not be interrupted by unfamiliar letterforms but where typographic dullness can itself impair comprehension. The Italic has cursive letterforms - so is instantly distinguishable, while being readable enough in its own right for continuous text. The Charter BT Pro Pack features 6 fonts: roman, italic, bold, bold italic, black, and black italic. The fonts include characters originally developed for expert sets, such as ligatures, ornaments, old style figures, small caps, and superiors. The Pro Pack fonts support Western, Central European, and Eastern European languages. OpenType fonts are a cross-platform font format. The same OpenType font can be installed on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and Unix systems. Mac OS X and Windows 2000, XP, and Vista have built-in support for OpenType. OpenType fonts also work on Linux, Unix, and earlier versions of Windows, where they are recognized as TrueType fonts. OpenType includes many more features than the standard TrueType and PostScript formats, including the ability to install the same font on different platforms, crucial for document portability. OpenType fonts boost productivity because graphic designers and business professionals do not have to wrestle with many different fonts. With OpenType, customers have larger character sets to work with and fewer font files to deal with.

The design of the typeface Moskau Grotesk and Moskau Pattern is based on the signage created for the Café Moskau in Berlin by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel in the beginning of the 1960s. The Café Moskau, across from the Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin Mitte was one of the prestige edifices of the former DDR (German Democratic Republic). Built in the early 1960s, it advanced over the years and changing social developments to a trademark building of the capital. The lettering display on the roof was created by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel (October 17, 1910 – September 19, 1985). He had been Professor at the School for Applied Arts in Berlin, and, in addition to the creation of many posters, book covers and postage stamps, he was responsible for the signage of the Kino International as well as for the complete graphic treatment for the Palace of the Republik. The signage for the Café Moskau with the words »RESTAURANT«, »CAFÉ«, »KONZERT« and »MOCKBA« set in capital letters, becomes the basis for the Moskau Grotesk which was developed by Björn Gogalla in 2013. This face should not be seen as an imitation. A few shortcomings were »fixed«. In favor of maintaining the core characteristics some unique features were, however, not relinquished. Lower case letters and the missing capital letters were designed from scratch. It is not surprising that the plain, unassuming geometrical direction of the basic character style forms a bridge to the architecture of the 1960s. Inspired by the then favored, diverse possibilities inherent in the architectural example and wall reliefs, two complimentary pattern fonts emerged.

The first weights of Neue Haas Grotesk were designed in 1957-1958 by Max Miedinger for the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei in Switzerland, with art direction by the company’s principal, Eduard Hoffmann. Neue Haas Grotesk was to be the answer to the British and German grotesques that had become hugely popular thanks to the success of functionalist Swiss typography. The typeface was soon revised and released as Helvetica by Linotype AG. As Neue Haas Grotesk had to be adapted to work on Linotype’s hot metal linecasters, Linotype Helvetica was in some ways a radically transformed version of the original. For instance, the matrices for Regular and Bold had to be of equal widths, and therefore the Bold was redrawn at a considerably narrower proportion. During the transition from metal to phototypesetting, Helvetica underwent additional modifications. In the 1980s Neue Helvetica was produced as a rationalized, standardized version. For Christian Schwartz, the assignment to design a digital revival of Neue Haas Grotesk was an occasion to set history straight. “Much of the warm personality of Miedinger’s shapes was lost along the way. So rather than trying to rethink Helvetica or improve on current digital versions, this was more of a restoration project: bringing Miedinger’s original Neue Haas Grotesk back to life with as much fidelity to his original shapes and spacing as possible (albeit with the addition of kerning, an expensive luxury in handset type).” Schwartz’s revival was originally commissioned in 2004 by Mark Porter for the redesign of The Guardian, but not used. Schwartz completed the family in 2010 for Richard Turley at Bloomberg Businessweek. Its thinnest weight was designed by Berton Hasebe.

Space Armada - A Science-Fiction Font for Out of this World Designs! Space Armada is inspired by a 1980s interpretation of the future, referencing blockbuster sci-fi action movies of the period, along with the emerging video-game consoles and home computer technologies. It's nine unique fonts are designed to work together in a variety of ways, so you can layer it's different styles on top of each other to retro-futuristic effect!* Here's an example of how it works: Start by placing the Regular font on top of the Bold for a simple base outline. Add contrasting gradients to both fonts for an instant metallic or chrome effect. Take it a step further with one of the readymade Outlines for an embossed look. Overlay the Wireframe font for a glimpse inside the machine! This looks particularly good when you apply a glow effect and reduce it's opacity so the other layers show through. That's just one way to use it. Check out my visuals for more usage ideas! You can also follow my short tutorial! Space Armada is an all-caps font with unique uppercase and lowercase characters, along with a range of alternatives for experimentation with different looks. It also includes punctuation, numerals and language support, plus a selection of underlines and symbols. It's a highly customisable font, perfect for retro designs such as movie titles, posters, games, book covers and more! Every care has been taken to ensure that all fonts align perfectly when layering. Due to the variations in how different software handles text tracking, some minor tweaking may be required for pixel perfect alignment.

The design of the typeface Moskau Grotesk is based on the signage created for the Café Moskau in Berlin by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel in the beginning of the 1960s. The Café Moskau, across from the Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin Mitte was one of the prestige edifices of the former DDR (German Democratic Republic). Built in the early 1960s, it advanced over the years and changing social developments to a trademark building of the capital. The lettering display on the roof was created by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel (October 17, 1910 – September 19, 1985). He had been Professor at the School for Applied Arts in Berlin, and, in addition to the creation of many posters, book covers and postage stamps, he was responsible for the signage of the Kino International as well as for the complete graphic treatment for the Palace of the Republik. The signage for the Café Moskau with the words »RESTAURANT«, »CAFÉ«, »KONZERT« and »MOCKBA« set in capital letters, becomes the basis for the Moskau Grotesk which was developed by Björn Gogalla in 2013. This face should not be seen as an imitation. A few shortcomings were »fixed«. In favor of maintaining the core characteristics some unique features were, however, not relinquished. Lower case letters and the missing capital letters were designed from scratch. It is not surprising that the plain, unassuming geometrical direction of the basic character style forms a bridge to the architecture of the 1960s. Inspired by the then favored, diverse possibilities inherent in the architectural example and wall reliefs, two complementary pattern fonts emerged.