The Brāhmī alphabet is the ancestor of most of the 40 or so modern Indian alphabets, and of a number of other alphabets, such as Khmer and Tibetan. It is thought to have been modelled on the Aramaic or Phoenician alphabets, and appeared in India sometime before 500 BC. Another theory is that Brāhmī developed from the Indus or Harappa script, which was used in the Indus valley until about 2,000 BC. The earliest known inscriptions in the Brāhmī alphabet are those of King Asoka (c.270-232 BC), third monarch of the Mauryan dynasty. Brāhmī was used to write a variety of languages, including Sanskrit and Prakrit.

Here in the heart of Santa Monica, in the disused 1940s aircraft hangar we like to call the Comicraft Studios, we know that times are tough. As we were driving to “work” in the back of our chauffeur driven Humvee limo, sipping martinis out of the navels of Playboy bunnies and wondering what font we should release next, we decided it was time to reach out to the poor people. Yes, we felt it was time to create a font for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, for the wretched refuse of our teeming shores. A font, if you will, for the tempest-tossed. It’s a little skinny and might be described as pinched and starved, but it’s guaranteed to see you through this current economic crisis as only the 26 letters of the alphabet can. It was a tall order, but Jazzy JG Roshell created this one while he was in line at the bank, waiting for his personal bailout. Meticulously crafted using one of those ballpoint pens attached to the cashier’s station by elastic, Credit Crunch is the Hamburger Helper of comic book fonts. It’s kind of a hybrid -- just like the Priuses our trophy wives drive to their personal plastic surgeons -- and it’s solar powered and also comes with a tank full of good old fashioned Biro ink. The Recession, Climate Change AND Global Hunger will probably end mere minutes after you crack open your life’s savings to buy this font. How can you afford NOT to...? See the families related to Credit Crunch: Credit Extension.

LaFarge is a typeface primarily inspired by the historic mosaic titling capitals found in the New York City Subway, designed by architect Squire J. Vickers and his staff between 1915-1927. These elegant but industrial signs are characteristic of early-20th century American architectural lettering, and show an evolution of the classical Roman capitals to lower contrast, bolder serifs, and more regular character widths. The majority of this lettering still remains in subway stations today, and though elements of the style vary from sign to sign, many carry the unique features that are reflected in LaFarge: high-waisted crossbars with angled serifs, elegantly curved “R” leg, and distinctive trapezoidal serifs. LaFarge expands this style into a lower case, taking cues from contemporary typefaces like Bookman, Cheltenham, and Della Robbia. A number of typographic features are included, such as small caps, ordinal indicators / superscript letters, arrows, and a set of borders inspired by early subway tile. The result is a fashionable, architecturally-minded typeface that is just as at home on the façade of a grand public building as it is on packaging, magazines, or the web. LaFarge works well in both text and display settings, remaining readable at small sizes but showing off its elegant details in larger uses. LaFarge has received the Communication Arts Typography Award, the ADC Annual Merit Award, is included in the 2020 STA 100, and was part of designer Greg Shutters’ winning portfolio in the 2019 Type Directors Club Ascender Awards. You can download a PDF specimen of LaFarge, and also view a video of LaFarge in action.

Designed for Linotype Library GMBH and the International Typeface Corporation in 1997 by Phil Grimshaw. Based on bold script Banco designed by French graphic and poster designer Roger Excoffon and released in 1952 by the Fonderie Olive. Originally Banco was an all-caps bold typeface, and the lower case and the corresponding light weight were created for ITC. The tapering slightly slanted strokes of Banco made by sharp-edged flat brush. The face has the effect of being quickly sketched by a powerful hand. For use in advertising and display typography. Cyrillic version developed for ParaType in 2000 by Tagir Safayev.

German type designers Henning Wagenbreth and Steffen Sauerteig created this display and serif FontFont in 2000. The family contains 2 weights: Regular and Bold and is ideally suited for advertising and packaging, festive occasions, film and tv, editorial and publishing as well as poster and billboards. FF Prater Serif provides advanced typographical support with features such as ligatures, alternate characters, and case-sensitive forms. It comes with tabular lining and proportional lining figures. This FontFont is a member of the FF Prater super family, which also includes FF Prater Block, FF Prater Sans, and FF Prater Script.

Japanese type designer Akira Kobayashi created this serif FontFont in 1999. The family has 6 weights, (including italics) and is ideally suited for book text, editorial and publishing as well as small text. FF Clifford provides advanced typographical support with features such as ligatures, small capitals, case-sensitive forms, fractions, super- and subscript characters, and stylistic alternates. It comes with a complete range of figure set options – oldstyle and lining figures, each in tabular and proportional widths. FF Clifford received several awards: the U&lc Type Design NY award in 1998 and the TDC2 award in 2000.

German type designer Ole Schäfer created this sans FontFont in 2000. The family contains 4 weights: Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic and is ideally suited for advertising and packaging, editorial and publishing, logo, branding and creative industries, small text as well as wayfinding and signage. FF Fago Correspondence Serif provides advanced typographical support with features such as ligatures, alternate characters, case-sensitive forms, fractions, super- and subscript characters, and stylistic alternates. It comes with tabular lining figures. This FontFont is a member of the FF Fago super family, which also includes FF Fago, FF Fago Correspondence Sans, and FF Fago Monospaced.

Legible and dynamic shape, tons of OpenType options, different scripts – that’s Mato Sans. Difficult small size, long text in Vietnamese, huge heading in Russian or table full of figures to create? It’s not a problem with this family. There are over 2000 glyphs in every weight with such features: superscript and subscript characters, tabular lining and old style figures, small caps, fractions, arrows or even case sensitive parenthesis. Mato Sans was designed for use in Latin as well as in Cyrillic script. Every font contains an extended set of Cyrillic characters including special, local glyphs for Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian.

German type designers Henning Wagenbreth and Steffen Sauerteig created this display and sans FontFont in 2000. The family contains 2 weights: Regular and Bold and is ideally suited for advertising and packaging, festive occasions, film and tv, editorial and publishing as well as poster and billboards. FF Prater Sans provides advanced typographical support with features such as ligatures, alternate characters, and case-sensitive forms. It comes with tabular lining and proportional lining figures. This FontFont is a member of the FF Prater super family, which also includes FF Prater Block, FF Prater Script, and FF Prater Serif.

Praho Pro is a part of Warsaw Types – a project based on Warsaw’s local typographic heritage. The project, presented at the Museum of Praga, is a collaboration of 12 young Polish typographers. Praho Pro is a multilingual family inspired by the unique, historical character of Praga district of Poland's capital - Warsaw. High contrast, thin serifs, sharp terminals and large x-height are key features for distinctive headlines. The whole family consist of 9 weights and real italics, small caps, superscript and subscript letters, oldstyle, tabular figures and fractions. It covers latin and cyrillic script. Every weight has almost 2000 glyphs.

The Bitstream version of Letter Gothic designed by Roger Robertson in 1956-62 for IBM electric typewriter. It is a condensed, monospaced font resembling a typewriter face, suitable for tabular material. Primarily used for slide presentations and for word processing applications, Letter Gothic is very helpful for printing out software source listing, for informal office communications and for tabular charts where alignment of columns is important. Besides, being a clear and easy-to-read font, Letter Gothic is popular now for display and advertising matters. Cyrillic version was developed for ParaType in 2000 by Gayaneh Bagdasaryan.

The type family in four basic styles was designed in ParaType (ParaGraph) in 1992 by Tagir Safayev. Based on Frutiger, of Mergenthaler Linotype, 1976 by Adrian Frutiger. Frutiger font was originally designed for use on signs at the new Charles de Gaulle Airport at Roissy. The straightforward sans serif shapes are suited well for both text and display setting. Six additional styles were added in 1998-2000. Multilingual versions of 6 styles (Light, Demi and Extrabold) include Armenian alphabet designed by Manvel Shmavonyan in 1997. Two condensed Cyrillic styles (Demi Condensed and Bold Condensed) designed by Manvel Shmavonyan in 2005.

Linotype Syntax™ Serif is the serif typeface that complements Linotype Syntax™, both created by Swiss type designer Hans Eduard Meier in 2000. With this new design, Meier has at last given shape and structure to the invisible muse that inspired him in the 1950s when he conceived his monoline sans serif based on humanist or Oldstyle letterforms. The calm legibility of this workhorse text family is accented by Meier’s signature of subtle dynamic movement, making it ideal for longer texts in books and magazines. It combines harmoniously with the other Syntax typefaces, Linotype Syntax™ and Linotype Syntax™ Letter.

German type designer Ole Schäfer created this sans FontFont in 2000. The family contains 4 weights: Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic and is ideally suited for advertising and packaging, editorial and publishing, logo, branding and creative industries as well as software and gaming. FF Fago Correspondence Sans provides advanced typographical support with features such as ligatures, alternate characters, case-sensitive forms, fractions, super- and subscript characters, and stylistic alternates. It comes with tabular lining figures. This FontFont is a member of the FF Fago super family, which also includes FF Fago, FF Fago Correspondence Serif, and FF Fago Monospaced.