After my son was born, I found myself reading him a lot of books. A LOT of books. Some were good, some were great, but I found myself wanting to develop something using my skills and interests to make something that only I could make. In short, I realized my son needed to be indoctrinated—I mean, introduced into the wonderfully wild world of fonts. So, I set about to make a board book to teach about typography, called “The Clothes Letters Wear.” You can learn more about the book here. I’ve made the captivating illustrations bright and colorful, and the use of different letter forms makes for a fascinating read to delight ages young and young at heart. And, as an added bonus, this children’s book has a custom designed font. I’m always looking for an excuse to design a new font, and this book created the perfect alibi. Drum roll, please. I now give you … Cabrito (“little goat” en Español). This new serif typeface incorporates the latest research on typographic legibility for children, features to make it—well, extra legible. A little background: studies show that Bookman Old Style is one of the most readable typefaces, and as a consequence or perhaps the reason why, it is used thoroughly for children’s books. This font became my initial inspiration for the typeface. Then, I found more legibility research saying that (brace yourselves) Comic Sans is also very legible for beginning readers, much due to the large x-height and softer, easily recognizable forms. In addition, forms that are closer to handwriting also seem to be more legible. Once I threw all that into my cauldron and stewed it a bit, the result was a pleasantly rounded typeface that includes not-so-strictly geometric, handwriting-inspired forms for the b, d, p, and q. Es guapo! Cabrito’s slender weights are simple and fun, with extras that turn any “bah humbug” into a smile. Add lighter touches to your project with the typeface’s included sparkles or rainbows (not included). Splash a little more color on the page with the firmer look of the thicker weights. Cabrito’s upright variations across all weights are matched by optically altered italics, too, giving you even more variety with the font family. This modern typeface’s bundle of alternates can be accessed in any OpenType-enabled software. The fashionable options involve a significant team of alternates, swashes, and meticulously refined aspects with ball terminals and alternate titling caps to decorate the font. Also bundled are swash alternates, old style figures, and small caps. Peruse the PDF brochure to check out these options in motion. OpenType-enabled applications like the Adobe suite or Quark allows comprehensive control of ligatures and alternates. This font family also provides the glyphs to aid a variety of languages. Cabrito is a welcoming, everyday font family by Jeremy Dooley. Use it to convey warmth and friendliness on anything from candy and food packages to children’s toys, company IDs or run-of-the-mill promotional material. Cabrito’s unique appearance and high legibility make it equally at home in print as it is on a screen.

Father's Day, or June 17 of this year, is in the middle of Argentinian winter. And like people do on wintery Sunday mornings, I was bundled up in bed with too many covers, pillows and comforters. Feeling good and not thinking about anything in particular, Father's Day was nowhere in the vicinity of my mind. My eleven year old son, Matías, came into the room with a handmade present for me. Up to this point, my Father's Day gift history was nothing unusual. Books, socks, hand-painted wooden spoons, the kind of thing any father would expect from his pre-teen son. So you can understand when I say I was bracing myself to fake excitement at my son's present. But this Father's Day was special. I didn't have to fake excitement. I was in fact excited beyond my own belief. Matí's handmade present was a complete alphabet drawn on an A4 paper. Grungy, childish, and sweeter than a ton of honey. He'd spent days making it, three-dimensioning the letters, wiggle-shadowing them. Incredible. A common annoyance for graphic designers is explaining to people, even those close to them, what they do for a living. You have to somehow make it understandable that you are a visual communicator, not an artist. Part of the problem is the fact that "graphic designer" and "visual communicator" are just not in the dictionary of standard professions out there. If you're a plumber, you can wrap all the duties of your job with 3.5 words: I'm a plumber. If you're a graphic designer, no wrapper, 3.5 or 300 words, will ever cover it. I've spent many hours throughout the years explaining to my own family and friends what I do for a living, but most of them still come back and ask what it is exactly that I do for dough. When you're a type designer, that problem magnifies itself considerably. When someone asks you what you do for a living, you start looking for the nearest exit, but none of the ones you can find is any good. All the one-line descriptions are vague, and every single one of them queues a long, one-sided conversation that usually ends with someone getting too drunk listening, or too tired of talking. Now imagine being a type designer, with a curious eleven year old son. The kid is curious as to why daddy keeps writing huge letters on the computer screen. Let's go play some ball, dad. As soon as I finish working, son. He looks over my shoulder and sees a big twirly H on the screen. To him it looks like a game, like I'm not working. And I have to explain it to him again. This Father's Day, my son gave me the one present that tells me he finally understands what I do for a living. Perhaps he is even comfortable with it, or curious enough about that he wants to try it out himself. Either way, it was the happiest Father's Day I've ever had, and I'm prouder of my son than of everything else I've done in my life. This is Matí's font. I hope you find it useful.

A Postmodern vernacular sanserif in 8 fonts Prosaic designed by Aurélien Vret is a Postmodern typographic tribute to the french vernacular signs created by local producers in order to directly market their products visible along the roads. These signs drawn with a brush on artisanal billboards do not respect any typographic rules. The construction of these letterforms is hybrid and does not respect any ductus. Nevertheless the use of certain tools provokes a certain mechanism in the development of letter shapes. It’s after many experiments with a flat brush, that’s these letterforms have been reconstructed and perfected by Aurélien Vret. This is the starting point for the development of an easily reproducible sanserif with different contemporary writing tools. From non-typographical references of Prosaic towards readability innovation The influence of the tool is revealed in the letterforms: angular counterforms contrasting to the smoothed external shapes. This formal contrast gives to Prosaic a good legibility in small sizes. These internal angles indirectly influenced by the tool, open the counterforms. In the past, to deal with phototype limitations in typeface production, some foundries modified the final design by adding ink traps. In our high resolution digital world, these ink traps — now fashionable among some designers — have little or no effect when literally added to any design. Should one see in it a tribute to the previous limitations? Difficult to say. Meanwhile, there are typeface designers such as Ladislas Mandel, Roger Excoffon, and Gerard Unger who have long tried to push the limits of readability by opening the counters of their typefaces. Whatever the technology, such design research for a large counters have a positive impact on visual perception of typefaces in a small body text. The innovative design of counter-forms of the Prosaic appears in this second approach. Itself reinforced by an exaggerated x-height as if attempting to go beyond the formal limits of the Latin typography. It is interesting to note how the analysis of a non-typographical letters process has led to the development of a new typographic concept by improving legibility in small sizes. Disconnected to typical typographic roots in its elaboration, Prosaic is somewhat unclassifiable. The formal result could easily be described as a sturdy Postmodern humanistic sanserif! Humanistic sanserif because of its open endings. Sturdy because of its monumental x-height, featuring a “finish” mixing structured endings details. The visual interplay of angles and roundness produces a design without concessions. Finally, Prosaic is Postmodern in the sense it is a skeptical interpretation of vernacular sign paintings. Starting from a reconstruction of them in order to re-structure new forms with the objective of designing a new typeface. Referring to typographic analogy, the Prosaic Black is comparable to the Antique Olive Nord, while the thinner versions can refer to Frutiger or some versions of the Ladislas Mandel typefaces intended for telephone directories. Prosaic, a Postmodern vernacular sanserif Prosaic is radical, because it comes from a long artistic reflection of its designer, Aurélien Vret, as well a multidisciplinary artist. The Prosaic is also a dual tone typeface because it helps to serve the readability in very small sizes and brings a sturdy typographic power to large sizes. Prosaic, a Postmodern vernacular sanserif

As you consider the words you need to convey, it’s clear that you’re looking for something that feels just as precise and intentional as the message you’re promoting. Structia is a typeface that does not shy away from its influence—it leans into the hard edges and geometries that are typically associated with brutalist architecture. And yet, even as it draws inspiration from an austere and somewhat daunting aesthetic, Structia also possesses a sense of control and discipline that is undeniably alluring. At the core of Structia’s appeal is its mechanical precision. Every line, every curve, is carefully calculated and crafted to create a sense of mathematical accuracy that is difficult to resist. There is no room for error or imperfection in Structia—every stroke is sharp and precise, with chamfered corners that add an extra layer of texture and visual interest. This is not a typeface that allows for ambiguity—it demands clarity and specificity, and it delivers both with remarkable consistency. But Structia is more than just a collection of angular shapes and precise lines. It is a typeface that conveys a sense of scientific accuracy and chilly logic—a kind of elegance and refinement that is unexpected. There is a beauty in the way that Structia balances the hard-edged geometries of brutalism with a sense of control and finesse that is undeniably modern. It is a typeface that feels at once futuristic and timeless—a design that can be used in a wide variety of contexts and still feel fresh and relevant. And then there are the two effect styles—Structia Panel and Structia War—which take the basic geometry of the typeface and push it even further into the realm of science fiction. Structia Panel feels like something you might see on a spacecraft or in the architecture of an alien planet, with thin, laser-like struts that give it a futuristic edge. Structia War, meanwhile, takes the concept of Structia Panel and adds a layer of battle damage, as if the letters have been through a cosmic conflict and emerged victorious. In the end, Structia is a typeface that demands attention and respect. It is not a typeface that will fade into the background or blend in with the crowd—it is a design that is meant to be noticed and admired. And yet, even as it draws your eye with its hard-edged geometries and precise lines, it also possesses a sense of elegance and refinement that is undeniably alluring. Structia is a typeface that balances the old and the new, the hard and the soft, the mechanical and the human—and the result is something truly remarkable. Most Latin-based European, and some Cyrillic-based writing systems are supported, including the following languages. A Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, 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, Komi-Permyak, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Macedonian, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Russian, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, 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.

Varidox, a variable typeface design, allows users to connect with specific design combinations with slightly varied differences in style. These variations in design enable the user to reach a wider scope of audiences. As the name suggests, Varidox is a paradox of sorts--that is, a combination of two disparate forms with two major driving influences. In the case of type design, the conflict lies in the age-old conundrum of artistic expression versus marketplace demand. Should the focus center primarily on functionality for the customer or err on the side of advancing creativity? If both are required, where does the proper balance lie? Viewed as an art, type design selections are often guided by the pulse of the industry, usually emphasizing unique and contemporary shapes. Critics are often leading indicators of where the marketplace will move. Currently, many design mavens have an eye favoring reverse stress. However, these forms have largely failed to penetrate the marketplace, another major driving factor influencing the font world. Clients now (as well as presumably for the foreseeable future) demand the more conservative forms of monoline sans serifs. Typeface designers are left with a predicament. Variable typefaces hand a great deal of creative control to the consumers of type. The demands of type design critics, personal influences of the typeface designer and the demands of the marketplace can all now be inserted into a single font and adjusted to best suit the end user. Varidox tries to blend the extremes of critical feature demands and the bleeding edge of fashionable type with perceptive usability on a scalable spectrum. The consumer of the typeface can choose a number between one and one-thousand. Using a more conservative style would mean staying between zero and five hundred, while gradually moving higher toward one thousand at the high end of the spectrum would produce increasingly contemporary results. Essentially, variable fonts offer the ability to satisfy the needs of the many versus the needs of the few along an axis with a thousand articulations, stabilizing this delicate balance with a single number that represents a specific form between the two masters, a form specifically targeted towards the end user. Practically, a user in some cases may wish to use more conservative slab form of Varidox for a more conservative clientele. Alternatively, the same user may then choose an intermediate instance much closer to the other extreme in order to make a more emphatic statement with a non-traditional form. Parametric type offers a new options for both designers and the end users of type. In the future, type will be able to morph to target the reader, based on factors including demographics, mood or cultural influences. In the future, the ability to adjust parameters will be common. With Varidox, the level of experimentality can be gauged and then entered into the typeface. In the future, machine learning, for example, could determine the mood of an individual, their level of experimentality or their interest and then adjust the typeface to meet these calculated parameters. This ability to customize and tailor the experience exists for both for the designer and the reader. With the advent of new marketing technologies, typefaces could adjust themselves on web pages to target consumers and their desires. A large conglomerate brand could shift and adapt to appeal to a specific target customer. A typeface facing a consumer would be more friendly and approachable, whereas a typeface facing a business to business (B2B) customer would be more businesslike in its appearance. Through both experience, however, the type would still be recognizable as belonging to the conglomerate brand. The font industry has only begun to realize such potential of variable fonts beyond simple visual appearance. As variable font continues to target the user, the technology will continue to reveal new capabilities, which allow identities and layouts to adjust to the ultimate user of type: the reader.

TT Autonomous useful links: Specimen PDF | History of creation | Graphic presentation | Customization options Please note! If you need OTF versions of the fonts, just email us at commercial@typetype.org About TT Autonomous: The idea was born in Amsterdam when one of our colleagues took the official electric taxi at the Schiphol airport. At the moment we were thinking about creating a new wide sans-serif, and an interesting question emerged during the trip: what font would be associated with autonomous electric transport. Then we thought it would also be nice to expand this theme visually. This is how the font family TT Autonomous came about. It is a modern brutal technological sans-serif. The basic visual characteristic of the typeface is the noticeable squareness of the characters and angular internal space. In addition, the typeface proportions tend to appear monospaced, but they are not really monospaced. The width of the characters is inspired by automobile logotype proportions, which are mostly rather wide. We could not disregard the fact that code lines in software for autonomous cars are traditionally typed using monospaced fonts and added a special monospaced subfamily to the TT Autonomous typeface. Thanks to the squareness of the characters inherited from the main family and the real monospace properties, the character forms in the subfamily turned out very specific and interesting. This is especially true for oblique monospaced fonts, which are true italics. In addition, we created a couple of outline styles which are great for use in titles and large inscriptions and perfectly match the basic family and the monospaced family. As opposed to outlines that can be created in graphic editors, in TT Autonomous Outline we worked through the narrow and questionable spots, thanks to which the font looks professionally complete and harmonious. As from the very beginning, the font was developed with tomorrow's technologies in mind, we could not miss addressing variability and creating a variable font. TT Autonomous has variable versions for both the basic and the monospaced subfamilies. TT Autonomous is a complex font family that consists of 32 fonts intended to solve a broad range of design tasks. Overall, the font family features 14 regular styles, 6 monospaced styles, 7 reversed styles, 2 outline styles and 3 variable fonts. The number of glyphs varies from 630+ in the monospaced font to 790+ in the basic styles. The basic subfamily has alternates, ligatures, old-style figures, slashed zeroes, and many other useful features. FOLLOW US: Instagram | Facebook | Website TT Autonomous language support: Acehnese, Afar, Albanian, Aleut (lat), Alsatian, Aragonese, Arumanian, Asu, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Banjar, Basque, Belarusian (cyr), Belarusian (lat), Bemba, Bena, Betawi, Bislama, Boholano, Bosnian (cyr), Bosnian (lat), Breton, Bulgarian (cyr), Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chichewa, Chiga, Colognian, Cornish, Corsican, Cree, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Embu, English, Erzya, Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gaelic, Gagauz (lat), Galician, Ganda, German, Gusii, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiri Motu, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Innu-aimun, Interlingua, Irish, Italian, Javanese, Jola-Fonyi, Judaeo-Spanish, Kabuverdianu, Kalenjin, Karachay-Balkar (cyr), Karachay-Balkar (lat), Karaim (lat), Karakalpak (lat), Karelian, Kashubian, Kazakh (lat), Khasi, Khvarshi, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kongo, Kumyk, Kurdish (lat), Ladin, Latvian, Leonese, Lithuanian, Livvi-Karelian, Luba-Kasai, Ludic, Luganda, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Macedonian, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malagasy, Malay, Maltese, Manx, Maori, Marshallese, Mauritian Creole, Minangkabau, Moldavian (lat), Montenegrin (cyr), Montenegrin (lat), Mordvin-moksha, Morisyen, Nahuatl, Nauruan, Ndebele, Nias, Nogai, Norwegian, Number, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Palauan, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rheto-Romance, Rohingya, Romanian, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Russian, Rusyn, Rwa, Salar, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Sasak, Scots, Sena, Serbian (cyr), Serbian (lat), Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Shona, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Sundanese, Superscripts and Subscripts, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Swiss German, Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Talysh (lat), Tatar, Teso, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Tsakhur (Azerbaijan), Tsonga, Tswana, Turkish, Turkmen (lat), Ukrainian, Uyghur, Valencian, Vastese, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Walloon, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Zaza, Zulu.

Designs of characters that are almost forty years old can be already restored like a historical alphabet – by transferring them exactly into the computer with all their details. But, of course, it would not be Josef Tyfa, if he did not redesign the entire alphabet, and to such an extent that all that has remained from the original was practically the name. Tyfa published a sans-serif alphabet under the title Juvenis already in the second half of the past century. The type face had a large x-height of lower-case letters, a rather economizing design and one-sided serifs which were very daring for their time. In 1979 Tyfa returned to the idea of Juvenis, modified the letter “g” into a one-storey form, narrowed the design of the characters even further and added a bold and an inclined variant. This type face also shows the influence of Jaroslav Benda, evident in the open forms of the crotches of the diagonal strokes. Towards the end of 2001 the author presented a pile of tracing paper with dozens of variants of letter forms, but mainly with a new, more contemporary approach: the design is more open, the details softer, the figures and non-alphabetical characters in the entire set are more integral. The original intention to create a type face for printing children’s books thus became even more emphasized. Nevertheless, Juvenis with its new proportions far exceeds its original purpose. In the summer of 2002 we inserted all of this “into the machine” and designed new italics. The final computer form was completed in November 2002. All the twelve designs are divided into six variants of differing boldness with the corresponding italics. The darkness of the individual sizes does not increase linearly, but follows a curve which rises more steeply towards the boldest extreme. The human eye, on the contrary, perceives the darkening as a more fluent process, and the neighbouring designs are better graded. The x-height of lower-case letters is extraordinarily large, so that the printed type face in the size of nine points is perceived rather as “ten points” and at the same time the line spacing is not too dense. A further ingenious optical trick of Josef Tyfa is the figures, which are designed as moderately non-aligning ones. Thus an imaginary third horizontal is created in the proportional scheme of the entire type face family, which supports legibility and suitably supplements the original intention to create a children’s type face with elements of playfulness. The same applies to the overall soft expression of the alphabet. The serifs are varied; their balancing, however, is well-considered: the ascender of the lower-case “d” has no serif and the letter appears poor, while, for example, the letter “y”, or “x”, looks complicated. The only serif to be found in upper-case letters is in “J”, where it is used exclusively for the purpose of balancing the rounded descender. These anomalies, however, fit perfectly into the structure of any smoothly running text and shift Juvenis towards an original, contemporary expression. Tyfa also offers three alternative lower-case letters *. In the case of the letter “g” the designer follows the one-storey form he had contemplated in the eighties, while in “k” he returns to the Benda inspiration and in “u” adds a lower serif as a reminder of the calligraphic principle. It is above all the italics that are faithful to the tradition of handwritten lettering. The fairly complicated “k” is probably the strongest characteristic feature of Juvenis; all the diagonals in “z”, “v”, “w”, “y” are slightly flamboyant, and this also applies to the upper-case letters A, V, W, Y. Juvenis blends excellently with drawn illustrations, for it itself is modelled in a very creative way. Due to its unmistakable optical effect, however, it will find application not only in children’s literature, but also in orientation systems, on posters, in magazines and long short-stories.

AwanZaman has a three-phase story, beginning with Dr Mamoun Sakkal’s two Arabic styles and culminating with Juliet Shen’s Latin extension. AwanZaman started as simply Awan, a commission for a modern, clean, monoline typeface for writing headlines and story titles in a forward-thinking Kuwaiti newspaper. Awan was based on the geometric forms of Kufic script, while in phase two, a second typeface (Zaman) was designed to add enough calligraphic Naskh details to make it easy to read in demanding newspaper settings. Together these two phases give the typeface a warm, familiar, and progressive look, as well as an explanatory two-part name — AwanZaman. Since most editorials use typical Naskh headline fonts with an exaggerated baseline, Awan’s rational forms immediately distinguish it as a modern and progressive voice in the crowded field of Arabic editorial typefaces. As the companion Arabic typeface, Zaman has the same basic proportions and forms as Awan, but with many cursive, energetic, and playful details. And since modern monoline fonts are increasingly being used to set extended texts, more features were borrowed from Naskh calligraphy to expand the typeface’s use from headlines into text setting. When using the AwanZaman Arabic family, Awan (geometric Kufic forms) is the starting point. To add the sweeping, energetic personality of Zaman (calligraphic Naskh forms), simply activate an alternate character through the option of 20 stylistic sets available in any OpenType-savvy software. The two typefaces function as one file — the AwanZaman Arabic family — allowing users to combine features from both designs to transform the appearance of text from geometric and formal to playful and informal. The third phase of AwanZaman’s development introduced a companion Latin typeface designed by Juliet Shen to fulfil the persistent need in the Arabic fonts market for modern and geometric bilingual type families. Due to the Arabic’s monolinear strokes, AwanZaman Latin was destined to be a sans serif with a tall x-height, larger counters, and corresponding stem thickness to harmonise with the Arabic’s overall text colour and page presence. But it needed much more. One of AwanZaman’s chief assets is making the two languages look on a par when typeset side by side. Arabic and English readers will have a different sense of what that entails, but this type family defers to the Arabic — graceful and artistic with a good mix of straight stems and curved forms. Latin in general doesn’t aesthetically flow the way Arabic does, yet the tone of the Latin needed to mirror both the Arabic’s more squarish curves and formal personality of Awan and the undulating and more playful shapes of Zaman without looking outlandish. That need was met by creating some novel Latin characters, which are accessed through four stylistic sets the same way as AwanZaman Arabic. The alternates are not just clever in the way they look and how they echo the Arabic aesthetic, but also in harmonising the disparate languages and serving designers well when needing a balanced, bilingual text face with a warm and lively voice. AwanZaman is a clever, seven-weight powerhouse that makes extensive use of OpenType’s stylistic sets (20 in the Arabic and four in the Latin) so writers and designers can make the most of everything from a single glyph in display sizes down to dense text in paragraphs. As AwanZaman Arabic has no italic, neither does the Latin; contextual distinction normally handled by italics is achieved by exploiting the family’s seven weights. AwanZaman’s intricate OpenType programming supports Persian and Urdu, with features such as the returning tail of Barri Yeh treated properly. From its inception in geometry to its melding of two worlds with novel forms, AwanZaman is a personal labor by designers Dr Mamoun Sakkal and Juliet Shen, and embodies the TypeTogether ideals of serving the global community with innovative and stylish typeface solutions. The complete AwanZaman Arabic and Latin families, along with our entire catalogue, have been optimised for today’s varied screen uses.

Classic Grotesque by Rod McDonald: a traditional font with a modern face. The growing popularity of grotesque typefaces meant that many new sans serif analogues were published in the early 20th century. Setting machines were not compatible with each other but all foundries wanted to offer up-to-date fonts, and as a result numerous different typeface families appeared that seem almost identical at first glance and yet go their separate ways with regard to details. One of the first fonts created with automatic typesetting in mind was Monotype Grotesque®. Although this typeface that was designed and published by Frank Hinman Pierpont in 1926 has since been digitalised, it has never achieved the status of other grotesque fonts of this period. But Monotype Grotesque was always one of designer Rod McDonald’s favourites, and he was overjoyed when he finally got the go-ahead from Monotype in 2008 to update this “hidden treasure”. The design process lasted four years, with regular interruptions due to the need to complete projects for other clients. In retrospect, McDonald admits that he had no idea at the beginning of just how challenging and complex a task it would be to create Classic Grotesque™. It took him considerable time before he found the right approach. In his initial drafts, he tried to develop Monotype Grotesque only to find that the result was almost identical with Arial®, a typeface that is also derived in many respects from Monotype Grotesque. It was only when he went back a stage, and incorporated elements of Bauer Font’s Venus™ and Ideal Grotesk by the Julius Klinkhardt foundry into the design process, that he found the way forward. Both these typefaces had served as the original inspiration for Monotype Grotesque. The name says it all: Classic Grotesque has all the attributes of the early grotesque fonts of the 20th century: The slightly artificial nature gives the characters a formal appearance. There are very few and only minor variations in line width. The tittles of the ‘i’ and ‘j’, the umlaut diacritic and other diacritic marks are rectangular. Interestingly, it is among the uppercase letters that certain variations from the standard pattern can be found, and it is these that enliven the typeface. Hence the horizontal bars of the “E”, “F” and “L” have bevelled terminals. The chamfered terminal of the bow of the “J” has a particular flamboyance, while the slightly curved descender of the “Q” provides for additional dynamism. The character alternatives available through the OpenType option provide the designer with a wealth of opportunities. These include a closed “a”, a double-counter “g” and an “e” in which the transverse bar deviates slightly from the horizontal. The seven different weights also extend the scope of uses of Classic Grotesque. These range from the delicate Light to the super thick Extrabold. There are genuine italic versions of each weight; these are not only slightly narrower than their counterparts, but also have variant shapes. The “a” is closed, the “f” has a semi-descender while the “e” is rounded. Its neutral appearance and excellent features mean that Classic Grotesque is suitable for use in nearly all imaginable applications. Even during the design phase, McDonald used his new font to set books and in promotional projects. However, he would be pleased to learn of possible applications that he himself has not yet considered. Classic Grotesque, which has its own individual character despite its neutral and restrained appearance, is the ideal partner for your print and web project.

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.

If you want to write something sincere and genuine but not too formal then this is the font for you. It is based on real handwriting, not some artificial calligraphy made to be either too haphazard or spiky or have loads of elegant flourishes but an ordinary person's writing, and designed to look as natural and as close to the original lettering as possible. Like any person's writing it is individual and distinctive, but so easy going on the eye those differences sit comfortably with you. It is friendly and open with easy to read glyphs both as lowercase and uppercase. The letters are relatively wide with clearly shaped distinct outlines. This font may be ideal for projects where you expect a wide readership with different reading abilities from young to old. When you are using this font a slightly bigger point size usually gives a better result so for a standard letter or similar you should size up to 15 points or more. Maree has been individually crafted to the smallest detail. To create a realistic handwriting font that looks relatively simple but works in a wide variety of languages requires a complexity and attention to detail most fonts will never require. This font in any ordinary business environment would never have been made, the effort required to make it too great, the length of time too long. There have been no shortcuts in this font, no automatic scanning or tracing, no automatic generation, no class kerning. Not only is each glyph individual but the width of letters, the height, the accents and the positions of the accents are all different. Even the line weight of the letters is designed to have natural variation but yet similar enough that the font appears as though it were written effortlessly in the same pen. And in order to keep the spacing consistent even though the letters have different widths, heights, lengths of descenders and so on, there are a vast number of kerning pairs, letter to letter, number to number, letter to number... All kerning has been individually assessed with an eye to proportionality taking in character shape, size and weight. For instance if you write a telephone number the numbers all sit close together but if you write a number before a letter such as in a UK post code or before a unit of measurement an extra little bit of space has been added which makes the number more distinct and therefore readable. That space is so natural to the eye that you don’t even know it is there. However even in the spacing allowance has been made for the fact it can’t be too perfect because when you write by hand the spacing is inconsistent. There have to be some letters which are too close or far apart otherwise the font would look artificial. For similar reasons if you are going to print out this font for a letter, etc, check the print version before you make any letter spacing changes because with the zoom functions in modern applications that uneven spacing and lettering can seem more pronounced than it actually is. When this font is printed out you will find it is surprisingly neat. This font is what it is, simple clear handwriting. You will not go wow. But if you want something unique and different and looks good on the page you won’t be disappointed. This font is not a work of art but it is a work of love. This font has a soul. How many fonts can you say that about?

INTRODUCING THE GEMINI TYPE FONTPACK, an industrial-strength OpenType font bundle inspired by and optimized for dimensional type. Chank Co is proud to introduce the new “Gemini Type Fontpack,” a collection of ten fonts available for use on your desktop computer or web pages, but also optimized for use as exterior cast-metal signage in bronze or aluminum in collaboration with Gemini, a family-owned industry leader in the wholesale manufacture of dimensional letters, logo and plaques based in Cannon Falls, MN. Gemini collaborated with Chank Co to assemble a line of fonts that would work well as dimensional, cast-letter signage for use on the sides of buildings, in stores, and other public spaces. The fonts included in the “Gemini Type Fontpack” are reinterpretations of previous Chank Fonts, now optimized for dimensional signage display, but then also repackaged and presented for your use as an OpenType desktop computer font collection: GT-Adrianna DemiBold GT-Adrianna Bold GT-Adrianna ExtraBold GT-Fairbanks GT-Forward Thinking GT-Hydropower ExtraCondensed GT-Kegger GT-Shopaganda GT-Shopaganda Condensed GT-Timeless Geometric. This is a multi-purpose collection of heavy-lifting fonts to convey your message strong and clearly, full of legibility and clarity, but also displaying personality and distinction. You can purchase and download these fonts in OpenType format for your desktop computer right now via MyFonts. Get it today and you'll also get a great introductory special sale price. These exclusive typefaces are also available as dimensional letters, manufactured by Gemini in bronze or aluminum, from 6" tall up to 18" tall, with a variety of finish options, for use in public signage and wayfinding systems. Gemini manufacture their products in 20 plants through out the US, Canada and Mexico, and all their products are backed by a lifetime guarantee. Chank Co is excited to offer these ten strong, industrial font designs in durable cast metal format via Gemini. ----- More about the fonts in the Gemini Type Fontpack: GT-Adrianna DemiBold, Bold, and Adrianna ExtraBold Clear, invisible, no-nonsense, multi-purpose. A versatile sans-serif heavy-lifting font family. GT-Fairbanks Vintage, silent film, speedball, old-timey, old-fashioned, retro. Based upon the lettering in the 1914 silent film, “The Good Bad Man.” GT-Forward Thinking Futuristic, semi-serif, clean, distinctive, contemporary, idiosyncratic. A font for tomorrow and the future. GT-Hydropower ExtraCondensed Extra-condensed, compressed, strong, rigid and concise. GT-Kegger Strong, sporty, collegiate, athletic. Nothing says “GO TEAM” quite like a big, bold slab-serif font. GT-Shopaganda and GT-Shopaganda Condensed Industrial, geometric, constructivist, propaganda, oh there’s so much to love about the strength and clarity of these two fonts. Based on Chank’s Liquorstore and Nicotine fonts, which have been married and unified here, with a few new twists and turns to their letterforms. GT-Timeless Geometric Bauhaus, anyone? The geometric and minimalist alphabet here is about as clean and straight-forward as a semi-condensed sans can get. ----- All of the fonts in this package are available individually, or save money when you purchase all ten of them as a collection. Download this digital font package from MyFonts today and you'll receive both OpenType and TrueType formats in your download for your desktop computer. Webfont format is also available. (If you'd like to use these fonts as cast-metal letters for exterior, architectural purposes, visit the Gemini website to learn more about how you can find a signage retailer near you.)

To design a text typeface "at the top with, at the bottom without" serifs was an idea which crossed my mind at the end of the sixties. I started from the fact that what one reads in the Latin alphabet is mainly the upper half of the letters, where good distinguishableness of the individual signs, and therefore, also good legibility, is aided by serifs. The first tests of the design, by which I checked up whether the basic principle could be used also for the then current technology of setting - for double-sign matrices -, were carried out in 1970. During the first half of the seventies I created first the basic design, then also the slanted Roman and the medium types. These drawings were not very successful. My greatest concern during this initial phase was the upper case A. I had to design it in such a way that the basic principle should be adhered to and the new alphabet, at the same time, should not look too complicated. The necessary prerequisite for a design of a new alphabet for double-sign matrices, i.e. to draw each letter of all the three fonts to the same width, did not agree with this typeface. What came to the greatest harm were the two styles used for emphasis: the italics even more than the medium type. That is why I fundamentally remodelled the basic design in 1980. In the course of this work I tried to forget about the previous technological limitations and to respect only the requirements then placed on typefaces intended for photosetting. As a matter of fact, this was not very difficult; this typeface was from the very beginning conceived in such a way as to have a large x-height of lower-case letters and upper serifs that could be joined without any problems in condensed setting. I gave much more thought to the proportional relations of the individual letters, the continuity of their outer and inner silhouettes, than to the requirements of their production. The greatest number of problems arose in the colour balancing of the individual signs, as it was necessary to achieve that the upper half of each letter should have a visual counterbalance in its lower, simpler half. Specifically, this meant to find the correct shape and degree of thickening of the lower parts of the letters. These had to counterbalance the upper parts of the letters emphasized by serifs, yet they should not look too romantic or decorative, for otherwise the typeface might lose its sober character. Also the shape, length and thickness of the upper serifs had to be resolved differently than in the previous design. In the seventies and at the beginning of the eighties a typeface conceived in this way, let alone one intended for setting of common texts in magazines and books, was to all intents and purposes an experiment with an uncertain end. At this time, before typographic postmodernism, it was not the custom to abandon in such typefaces the clear-cut formal categories, let alone to attempt to combine the serif and sans serif principles in a single design. I had already designed the basic, starting, alphabets of lower case and upper case letters with the intention to derive further styles from them, differing in colour and proportions. These fonts were not to serve merely for emphasis in the context of the basic design, but were to function, especially the bold versions, also as independent display alphabets. At this stage of my work it was, for a change, the upper case L that presented the greatest problem. Its lower left part had to counterbalance the symmetrical two-sided serif in the upper half of the letter. The ITC Company submitted this design to text tests, which, in their view, were successful. The director of this company Aaron Burns then invited me to add further styles, in order to create an entire, extensive typeface family. At that time, without the possibility to use a computer and given my other considerable workload, this was a task I could not manage. I tried to come back to this, by then already very large project, several times, but every time some other, at the moment very urgent, work diverted me from it. At the beginning of the nineties several alphabets appeared which were based on the same principle. It seemed to me that to continue working on my semi-finished designs was pointless. They were, therefore, abandoned until the spring of 2005, when František Štorm digitalized the basic design. František gave the typeface the working title Areplos and this name stuck. Then he made me add small capitals and the entire bold type, inducing me at the same time to consider what to do with the italics in order that they might be at least a little italic in character, and not merely slanted Roman alphabets, as was my original intention. In the course of the subsequent summer holidays, when the weather was bad, we met in his little cottage in South Bohemia, between two ponds, and resuscitated this more than twenty-five-years-old typeface. It was like this: We were drinking good tea, František worked on the computer, added accents and some remaining signs, inclined and interpolated, while I was looking over his shoulder. There is hardly any typeface that originated in a more harmonious setting. Solpera, summer 2005 I first encountered this typeface at the exhibition of Contemporary Czech Type Design in 1982. It was there, in the Portheim Summer Palace in Prague, that I, at the age of sixteen, decided to become a typographer. Having no knowledge about the technologies, the rules of construction of an alphabet or about cultural connections, I perceived Jan Solpera's typeface as the acme of excellence. Now, many years after, replete with experience of revitalization of typefaces of both living and deceased Czech type designers, I am able to compare their differing approaches. Jan Solpera put up a fight against the digital technology and exerted creative pressure to counteract my rather loose approach. Jan prepared dozens of fresh pencil drawings on thin sketching paper in which he elaborated in detail all the style-creating elements of the alphabet. I can say with full responsibility that I have never worked on anything as meticulous as the design of the Areplos typeface. I did not invent this name; it is the name of Jan Solpera's miniature publishing house, in which he issued for example an enchanting series of memoirs of a certain shopkeeper of Jindrichuv Hradec. The idea that the publishing house and the typeface might have the same name crossed my mind instinctively as a symbol of the original designation of Areplos - to serve for text setting. What you can see here originated in Trebon and in a cottage outside the village of Domanín - I even wanted to rename my firm to The Trebon Type Foundry. When mists enfold the pond and gloom pervades one's soul, the so-called typographic weather sets in - the time to sit, peer at the monitor and click the mouse, as also our students who were present would attest. Areplos is reminiscent of the essential inspirational period of a whole generation of Czech type designers - of the seventies and eighties, which were, however, at the same time the incubation period of my generation. I believe that this typeface will be received favourably, for it represents the better aspect of the eighties. Today, at the time when the infection by ITC typefaces has not been quite cured yet, it does absolutely no harm to remind ourselves of the high quality and timeless typefaces designed then in this country.In technical terms, this family consists of two times four OpenType designs, with five types of figures, ligatures and small capitals as well as an extensive assortment of both eastern and western diacritics. I can see as a basic text typeface of smaller periodicals and informative job-prints, a typeface usable for posters and programmes of various events, but also for corporate identity. Štorm, summer 2005