FF DIN: the famous, faithful and first revival of DIN 1451. FF DIN originates in the lettering models from the German standard DIN 1451, and is considered the perfect standard typeface due to the methodical and engineered nature of its design. The FF DIN family breathes an atmosphere of versatility and authority, FF DIN Stencil follows the same design principles with extra flair. The bridges are arranged vertically, which usually replaces the thinnest parts of the strokes — offering depth in your headlines. Go loud and scale up, as the weights get heavier, the width of the bridges skillfully expand and contract, enabling FF DIN Stencil to provide confidence in volume, and in any chosen style. Also made available as a Variable font, creatives can design hyper specific variations to thrive in any design space, and even to animate movement from one state to the next. Get innovative with the entire FF DIN family, FF DIN Stencil’s spacing and kerning is identical to FF DIN, this enables swapping between any FF DIN font without changes in word length or line breaks. For true FF DIN fans, FF DIN Slab and FF DIN Stencil designed by Albert-Jan Pool, Antonia Cornelius and Achaz Reuss, can be seen as harmonious companions to the FF DIN family, rather than alternatives. Bestowed with its parents distinctive DNA, all the FF DIN extensions open up new possibility with their own unique qualities, but stay true to the FF DIN design philosophy of engineered precision.

The courageous Russian author of the best seller Anastasia, Vladimir Megre, once said that this remarkable woman would inspire creative people around the world to produce their best work. Since I consider myself a creative person who has been deeply touched by her story, I sincerely hope that this will be true for me also. Anastasia talks a lot about God, the wonders of the natural world and how all things have been created so perfectly. This belief in universal perfection, however, is not confined to mystics alone. Many great mathematicians and scientists, including Albert Einstein, were of the same opinion. Having read Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, I became quite fascinated with the so-called Fibonacci series; "a sequence of integers in which each integer (Fibonacci number) after the second is the sum of the two preceding integers; specif., the series 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, . . ." (Webster’s Dictionary). These mysterious numbers, which are said to give divine proportions, are found throughout nature in everything from a rose to a spiral galaxy. Many believe that this reinforces the argument that there is a divine intelligence back of creation. With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to see if I could somehow create a font using these numbers in the design process. If I have succeeded - even partially - in attaining these mystical proportions, it will definitely have been worth all the hard work. And, I sincerely hope that many will enjoy using this font in producing their own best work.

FF DIN: the famous, faithful and first revival of DIN 1451. FF DIN originates in the lettering models from the German standard DIN 1451, and is considered the perfect standard typeface due to the methodical and engineered nature of its design. The FF DIN family breathes an atmosphere of versatility and authority, FF DIN Stencil follows the same design principles with extra flair. The bridges are arranged vertically, which usually replaces the thinnest parts of the strokes — offering depth in your headlines. Go loud and scale up, as the weights get heavier, the width of the bridges skillfully expand and contract, enabling FF DIN Stencil to provide confidence in volume, and in any chosen style. Also made available as a Variable font, creatives can design hyper specific variations to thrive in any design space, and even to animate movement from one state to the next. Get innovative with the entire FF DIN family, FF DIN Stencil’s spacing and kerning is identical to FF DIN, this enables swapping between any FF DIN font without changes in word length or line breaks. For true FF DIN fans, FF DIN Slab and FF DIN Stencil designed by Albert-Jan Pool, Antonia Cornelius and Achaz Reuss, can be seen as harmonious companions to the FF DIN family, rather than alternatives. Bestowed with its parents distinctive DNA, all the FF DIN extensions open up new possibility with their own unique qualities, but stay true to the FF DIN design philosophy of engineered precision.

Jeanne Moderno is a revisionary type family. A synthesis of Bodoni Italic and 19th Century Ultra-Bold "Fat Faces"—distilled with personality taken from early 20th Century Modernists; the Futurists, Dadaists, Suprematists, Constructivists. Historically, Jeanne Moderno could have appeared on the scene around 1918—after the First World War—when new cultural movements, manifestos, theories and countertheories shaped art, industry and society. Spatter in a few later influences—from De Stijl, the Bauhaus, the types of Herbert Bayer, Josef Albers, Paul Renner—plus a twist of Art Deco and High Fashion—Jeanne Moderno is a remanifestation of 19th + 20th Century Modernist thinking; traditional + revisionist, raw and elegant! Jeanne Moderno can best be used for magazines, advertising, posters, flyers, fashion reports, letterpress experiments, silkscreen endeavors, exhibitions, DMV signage, paper money, revolutionary political statements as well as formal declarations of peace or war. Jeanne Moderno is about the future, the past. The Avant-Garde. Humanist geometry + vintage footwear. Form, function, style, art and life.

Gridiot is a constructed, semi-serif, two-weight stencil family that expands an approach taken by Josef Albers. Intended for display or headline setting, it features chamfered or bevel-cut corners, used instead of curves. The individual letter components sometimes vary in depth, avoiding a strictly modular approach, while the widths are kept consistent. The lining figures provide a standard set of numbers, and the oldstyle figures align with the lowercase, encouraging lowercase-only setting. Currency and other useful numerical symbols are provided in both versions. The zero is intentionally lighter, following early Renaissance types; there are filled versions as stylistic alternates. While horizontal scaling distorts the relationship between verticals and horizontals in a typeface, since every chamfer in Gridiot is at 45°, changing the horizontal scaling of the type will affect all diagonals equally. When used at a large size, or for a just few words, Gridiot can be very tightly spaced. Remember, any idiot can design a typeface on a grid: Gridiot.

English Monarchs is a unique font collection with accurate digital replicas of 84 signatures of English and British monarchs from Richard II through Elizabeth II, including many of the royal consorts. Also included in this font are the Stuart pretenders and Mary Queen of Scots and her consort. A must-have for autograph collectors, desktop publishers, history buffs, fans, or anyone who has ever dreamed of sending a letter, card, or e-mail "signed" as if by one of these famous nobles. This font behaves exactly like any other font. Each signature is mapped to a regular character on your keyboard. Open any Windows application, select the installed font, and type a letter, and the signature will appear at that point on the page. Painstaking craftsmanship and an incredible collection of hard-to-find signatures go into this one-of-a-kind font. Comes with a character map. This font includes signatures from the following noble figures: Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Margaret of Anjou, Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville, Edward V, Richard III, Henry VII, Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr, Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I Tudor, Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I, Henrietta Maria of France, Oliver Cromwell, Richard Cromwell, Charles II, Catherine of Braganza, James II, William III, Mary II, Anne, Prince George of Denmark, George I, George II, George III, George IV, William IV, Victoria, Prince Albert, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, Wallis Warfield Simpson, George VI, Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall, Prince James Edward Stuart, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, Mary Queen of Scots, Henry Stuart Darnley, Francis II of France.

Nassim is a contemporary typeface for multilingual text-setting. With its lively texture and balanced rhythm, Nassim is a proven workhorse for a vast array of applications, from literature to the sciences, scholarly publications to contemporary news. Nassim Latin is stout in colour and resolute in its construction, standing up to the demands of long-form reading. But the heartiness that keeps it going is balanced with lively details: the asymmetric serifs and calligraphic modulation allude just enough to broad-nib flourishes to keep the reader alert and looking for what comes next. Nassim has always been ahead of the curve, bridging the distinct typographic traditions of Arabic and Latin without forcing the typographer into compromise. Nassim Latin offers upright and true italic styles across five weights, supporting more than 110 languages, and designed to pair harmoniously in multi-script settings with Nassim Arabic. Beyond that, it is equipped with smart OpenType features like small caps, case-sensitive punctuation, and a full palette of ranging numerals, fractions, and superior and inferior figures ensure that Nassim Latin is up to any task, be it print publications or delivering late-breaking online news.

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). In 2006, I found myself needing a readable sans serif. So I went to Bergsland Pro, and eliminated the serifs. I named the font Brinar. I kept a flare in place for the serifs and cupped the ends. I was stunned. People loved it. It’s remained my bestseller until very recently. So, at the end of 2016 I decided that Brinar really needed some help. The flares were basically random. The stem width and modulation variances all needed to be fixed. My old OpenType feature code was quite limited and clumsy. So, I created the 6-font Biblia family. I cleaned up or redesigned all the glyphs. I updated the fonts to 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.

The Schneidler Latein is a sharp and elegant Antiqua based on the ductus of the broad edged pen with a strong character. Running perfectly in paragraph text giving it something quite special and being effortlessly legible at the same time, Schneidler Latein works great in headings as well. Each glyph is a piece of art ready to be used in branding and blowup combining beauty and personality in a kick-ass blend. It is absolutely new to the digital world as it never has been digitized before. This new version digitized, further developed and extended by artist and graphic designer Lena Schmidt comes in nine styles from which there are four application-related ones like Subtext and Display and five weight-related ones like Bold and Heavy. Each style contains 948 glyphs, variations of numbers, three stylistic sets one preserving the historic forms of changed characters, small caps, open type features and superior and inferior characters. Designed by F. H. Ernst Schneidler the Schneidler Latein was released in 1916, the bold version in 1920 and the italics in 1921. Schneidler was born in 1882 in Berlin. He studied at the school for applied arts in Düsseldorf with professor F. H. Ehmcke and P. Behrens. He was as a painter, graphic designer and illustrator. In 1920 he was appointed as teacher in the school for applied arts Stuttgart. His students were Albert Kapr, Imre Reiner and Lilo Rasch-Naegele among others. Further well-known fonts from his hands are for example Legende, Amalthea, Schneidler Mediävel and Schneidler Antiqua. Lena Schmidt was born 1981 in Bremen. She is a german painter, graphic designer and illustrator mostly known for her huge wood carving paintings. From 2003 to 2011 she studied Fine Arts in Hamburg with professor Matt Mullican. From 2015 to 2019 she studied graphic design with a focus on type design at HAW Hamburg Department Design with professor Jovica Veljović. She lives and works in Hamburg, Germany.

Lapture is based on the Leipziger Antiqua by Albert Kapr, released in 1971 by the East German foundry Typoart. It has been extended and carefully redesigned by Tim Ahrens in 2002-05. The strong calligraphic characteristics are a result of the design process: "The size of the counters and the width of individual characters at small optical sizes were analysed with a steel pen while the letter shapes were designed in larger size with a specially trimmed reed pen. Sometimes the hand is more innovative than the head alone," says Kapr. A unique feature of this font is the introduction of gothic shapes into a latin typeface. "The basic concept is to string together narrow white hexagons as counters and inter-letter spaces, defined by vertical stems and triangular serifs. The interior spaces are at least as important as the strokes that make up the characters." Lapture is an ideal choice if a reference to gothic style is desired, as true black letter types are often too eye-catching and not as legible as latin fonts for unfamiliar readers. "The last few years have seen a number of very elegant typefaces based on the mellow and feminine renaissance model. However, sometimes we require a font that is strong and robust, harmonic yet rigid," says designer Tim Ahrens. JAF Lapture is provided in OpenType format. Each font contains more than 600 glyphs, including true small caps, nine sorts of figures, contextual and stylistic alternates and accented characters. This means that you only need to purchase one font whereas in other families you would have to buy two or three fonts in order to get the same. Technically, they follow the Adobe Pro fonts and provide the same glyph set and OpenType functionality. JAF Lapture Basic is provided in OpenType format. Each font contains the standard sets of both MacOS and Windows. In contrast to JAF Lapture they do not provide any advanced OpenType features and no extended glyph set.

Our eye is able to join missing parts of worn letters back into undisturbed shapes. We tend to see things better than they really are. Thanks to this ability we ignore faults of those close to us as we can’t accept the fact that every once in a while we convene with an impaired entity. Typography is merely a man’s invention, hence imperfection and transience, albeit overlooked, are its key features. This typeface is based on worn-out letterings on tombstones in the St. Croce basilica in Florence. For hundreds of years, microscopic particles of marble are being taken away on the soles of visitors: the embossed figures become fossilised white clouds, fragments of inscriptions are nearing the limits of legibility. First missing are thin joins and serifs, then the main strokes finally slowly diminish into nothingness over time. Unlike an archaeologist, for whom even completely featureless stele is valuable, the typographer must capture the proper moment of wear, when the type is not too “new” but also not too much decimated. Such typeface is usable for catalogue jackets, invitations and posters. Calligraphy is a natural human trait. To write is to create characters of reasonable beauty and content, according to the nature of the writer. A natural characteristic of architecture is to create an aesthetic message very similar to the alphabet. A doric column, the gabled roof, the circle of the well plan: these are the basic shapes from which all text typeface is derived.

Idiom is an extra-condensed, tightly spaced display face with congruent forms exuding a strong sense of rhythm and elevation. The basic stenciled geometric shapes are reminiscent of the decorative style found with P22 Albers and Futura Black. Careful consideration of each letter's construction, relative to all characters, lends Idiom a decided sense of cohesion and sophistication. The included non-traditional 'weights' (Medium and Bold) are completely blacked out, creating entirely new letterforms that exhibit a very stark, contemporary sense. Increasing the versatility of the Idiom family, a selection of OpenType features allow access to a set of contrasting linear punctuation forms, unconventional ligatures, case-sensitive punctuation and more. Features include: Basic Ligature set including 'f' ligatures (ae, oe, fi, fl, ff, fh, fj, ft, fa, ct, st, rt, ot, ta, sa, mi, si, vi, su, oc, oo, ru, ib) Alternate characters (M, W, T, ß, _, $, @, (), {}, [], /, \, |, -, –, —, +, -, ±, ≤, ≥, , «, », and more) Case forms (shifts various punctuation marks vertically to a position that works better with all-capital sequences, in this case the numerals or letters with ascenders) Slashed zero Full set of numerators/denominators and superscript/subscript Automatic fraction feature (supports any fraction combination) Extended language support (Latin-1 and Latin Extended-A) *Requires an application with OpenType and/or Unicode support.

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.

Over the past couple of years I received quite a number of unusual and surprising requests to modify my type designs to suit projects of personal nature, but none top the ones that asked me to typeset and modify tattoos using Burgues Script or Adios. At first the whole idea was amusing to me, kind of like an inside joke. I had worked in corporate branding for a few years before becoming a type designer, and suddenly I was being asked to get involved in personal branding, as literally “personal” and “branding” as the expression can get. After a few such requests I began pondering the whole thing from a professional perspective. It was typography, after all, no matter how unusual the method or medium. A very personal kind of typography, too. The messages being typeset were commemorating friends, family, births, deaths, loves, principles, and things that influenced people in a deep and direct way, so much so that they chose to etch that influence on their bodies and wear it forever. And when you decide to wear something forever, style is of the essence. After digging into the tattooing scene, I have a whole new respect for tattoo artists. Wielding that machine is not easy, and driving pigment into people’s skin is an enormous responsibility. Not to mention that they're some of the very few who still use a crafty, hands-on process that is all but obsolete in other ornamentation methods. Some artists go the extra mile and take the time to develop their own lettering for tattooing purposes, and some are inventive enough to create letters based on the tattoo’s concept. But they are not the norm. Generally speaking, most tattoo artists use generic type designs to typeset words. Even the popular blackletter designs have become quite generic over the past few decades. I still cringe when I see something like Bank Script embedded into people’s skin, turning them into breathing, walking shareholder invitations or government bonds. There’s been quite a few attempts at making fonts out of whatever original tattoo designer typefaces can be found out there - wavy pseudo-comical letters, or rough thick brush scripts, but as far as I could tell a stylish skin script was never attempted in the digital age. And that’s why I decided to design Piel Script. Piel is Spanish for skin. In a way, Piel Script is a removed cousin of Burgues Script. Although the initial sketches were infused with some 1930s showcard lettering ideas (particularly those of B. Boley, whose amazing work was shown in Sign of the Times magazine), most of the important decisions about letter shapes and connectivity were reached by observing whatever strengths and weaknesses can be seen in tattoos using Burgues. Tattoos using Adios also provided some minor input. In retrospect, I suppose Affair exercised some influence as well, albeit in a minor way. I guess what I'm trying to say is there is as much of me in Piel Script as there is in any of the other major scripts I designed, even though the driving vision for it is entirely different from anything else I have ever done. I hope you like Piel Script. If you decide it to use it on your skin, I'll be very flattered. If you decide to use it on your skateboard or book cover, I'll be just as happy. Scripts can't get any more personal than this. Piel Script received the Letter2 award, where they selected the best 53 typefaces of the last decade, organised by ATypI.

❧ Useful links: Luther’s Manuscripts at the UNESCO Memory of the World at Google Arts and Culture Martin Luther font on Kickstarter (with Film about the creation) Each letter of the Martin Luther font is strictly based on original samples found in Martin Luther’s 500 year old handwritten manuscripts. Letters that occur more often for example vowels have two or more different versions stored in the font. (➶ Figure 4) These alternative forms are exchanged automatically by the font as you type, and create a vivid look that comes close to actual handwriting. The font avoids that two identical letters are placed next to each other like, for example the two “o” in the word “look”. ➸ What Historic Sources is the Font based on? Two historic documents were used to base the font on. The notes Luther took before giving his speech in Worms in 1521 and a 6 page letter he wrote immediately after to Emperor Charles V., summarising his speech (➶ Figure 2). Both documents have been added to the UNESCO “Memory of the World” and can be seen at the Google Arts and Culture website. ➸ The Creation of a Handwriting Font The creation of a handwriting font is very different from the creation of a regular font. Harald Geisler has specialised in recreating handwriting in preceding projects with Albert Einstein’s, Sigmund Freud’s and his own handwriting. His experience working with Archives and Museums has gone into this project. First Geisler analyses the movement in the writing to understand how each letter is drawn. This involves partially learning how to write like a person. In this process not the outlines of the sample are reproduced but the original movement path of the handwriting (➶ Figure 3). In a second step width and contrast is added to reproduce Martin Luther’s characteristic impetus and the writing tools used at the time. (Link: Youtube Playlist showcasing the creation of individual letters) How about signs that can’t be found in archives? Some Glyphs can not be found in 500 year old manuscripts, for example the @-sign. Towards the end of the creation one collects a profund amount of details about how a writer moves on paper and addresses certain tasks moving the pen. Keeping this knowledge in mind an improvisation can be based on similar letter forms. For example the @ sign is based on of the movement of a lowercase a and parenthesis. ➸ Features of the Martin Luther font ❶ Extensive Documentation of the creation of the font, including high quality reproduction of the used manuscripts. ❷ Additional texts from Historian Dr. Henning Jürgens and Palaeographer (and Luther handwriting expert) Prof. Ulrich Bubenheimer ❸ Alternating Letters - in handwriting every word looks a bit different. To avoid that two identical letterforms are placed next to each other (for example in the word look) the font actively changes between different versions of letters as you type. ❹ Ligatures - characteristic writing forms when two letters are combined (for example “ct”) (➶ Figure 5) ❺ Terminal Letterforms - renders a special letterform when letter is at the end of a word. (➶ Figure 8) ❻ ‘’’Initial and Medial Letterforms''' - some letterforms are different when placed in the beginning or middle of a word, for example the lowercase s. ❼ Luther Rose - is a seal Luther used to authorise his correspondence. Today it is a widely recognized symbol for Luther. When you enter the numbers of Luthers year of birth and death 14831546 using the Martin Luther PRO font, it will render a stylised version of the Luther Rose. (➶ Figure 7) ❽ Historic letter-forms - letter-forms that are specific to medieval writing around 1500. For example the long-s or h with a loop at the bottom. (➶ Figure 6) ⚑ Multi language support - see the technical information tab for a full list of supported languages. (➶ Figure 11) ➸ The different Styles explained ❋ Martin Luther PRO - this includes all features listed above and is geared towards writing texts that are more readable today. It features alternating letters to create a natural handwriting look as well as two stylistic sets accessible through the OpenType menu. Historic forms are available through the glyph picker. ❋ Martin Luther Historic - this font creates a historically correct reproduction (i.e. with long-s) of Luther’s medieval latin handwriting. It features alternating letters to create a natural handwriting look as well as two stylistic sets accessible through the OpenType menu. ❋ Martin Luther Expert-1 - Dedicated access to the first set of letters only. ❋ Martin Luther Expert-2 - Dedicated access to the second set of letters only. ❈❈❈ Family Pack - recieve all fonts at a discounted price. ❈❈❈ ➸ Kickstarter The creation and development of the Martin Luther font was financed by 500 supporters on ➸Kickstarter.

An inline adaptation of a distinctive slab serif, Cesium is an unusually responsive display face that maintains its high energy across a range of different moods. The Cesium typeface was designed by Jonathan Hoefler in 2020. An energetic inline adaptation of Hoefler’s broad-shouldered Vitesse Black typeface (2000), Cesium is named for the fifty-fifth member of the periodic table of the elements, a volatile liquid metal that presents as a scintillating quicksilver. From the desk of the designer, Jonathan Hoefler: I always felt that our Vitesse typeface, an unusual species of slab serif, would take well to an inline. Vitesse is based not on the circle or the ellipse, but on a less familiar shape that has no common name, a variation on the ‘stadium’ that has two opposing flat edges, and two gently rounded sides. In place of sharp corners, Vitesse uses a continuously flowing stroke to manage the transition between upright and diagonal lines, most apparent on letters like M and N. A year of making this gesture with my wrist, both when drawing letterforms and miming their intentions during design critiques, left me thinking about a reduced version of the typeface, in which letters would be defined not by inside and outside contours, but by a single, fluid raceway. Like most straightforward ideas, this one proved challenging to execute, but its puzzles were immensely satisfying to solve. Adding an inline to a typeface is the quickest way to reveal its secrets. All the furtive adjustments in weight and size that a type designer makes — relieving congestion by thinning the center arm of a bold E, or lightening the intersecting strokes of a W — are instantly exposed with the addition of a centerline. Adapting an existing alphabet to accommodate this inline called for renovating every single character (down to the capital I, the period, and even the space), in some cases making small adjustments to reallocate weight, at other times redesigning whole parts of the character set. The longer we worked on the typeface, the more we discovered opportunities to turn these constraints into advantages, solving stubbornly complex characters like € and § by redefining how an inline should behave, and using these new patterns to reshape the rest of the alphabet. The New Typeface The outcome is a typeface we’re calling Cesium. It shares many of Vitesse’s qualities, its heartbeat an energetic thrum of motorsports and industry, and it will doubtless be welcome in both hardware stores and Hollywood. But we’ve been surprised by Cesium’s more reflective moods, its ability to be alert and softspoken at the same time. Much in the way that vibrant colors can animate a typeface, we’ve found that Cesium’s sensitivity to spacing most effectively changes its voice. Tighter leading and tracking turns up the heat, heightening Cesium’s sporty, high-tech associations, but with the addition of letterspacing it achieves an almost literary repose. This range of voices recommends Cesium not only to logos, book covers, and title sequences, but to projects that regularly must adjust their volume, such as identities, packaging, and editorial design. Read more about how to use Cesium. About the Name Cesium is a chemical element, one of only five metals that’s liquid at room temperature. Resembling quicksilver, cesium is typically stored in a glass ampule, where the tension between a sturdy outer vessel and its volatile contents is scintillating. The Cesium typeface hopes to capture this quality, its bright and insistent inline restrained by a strong and sinuous container. Cesium is one of only three H&Co typefaces whose name comes from the periodic table, a distinction it shares with Mercury and Tungsten. At a time when I considered a more sci-fi name for the typeface, I learned that these three elements have an unusual connection: they’re used together in the propulsion system of nasa’s Deep Space 1, the first interplanetary spacecraft powered by an ion drive. I found the association compelling, and adopted the name at once, with the hope that designers might employ the typeface in the same spirit of discovery, optimism, and invention. —JH Featured in: Best Fonts for Logos