The origin of AM Floriana is already several decades ago. At a time when there was no photo set and the choice of metal type fonts was still very manageable, Alois Menacher received an order to design a custom business logo from a flower shop. He then created a hand-drawn lettering based on the form of leaves and plants. Now Alois Menacher professionally designed and developed AM Floriana on the basis of this lettering. AM Floriana is ideally suited for packaging design, as well as for display design and logo design. AM Floriana is available as a Bold version and will soon be complemented by further cuts.

I used to live in the English Lake District, where I worked in an outdoor gear store. I bought a bright red mountain bike and each day, after work, I cycled up the mountain and hurtled down - heavy metal blasting from my MP3 player. Of course, the bike was a regular MTB, so it got some serious damage after a while, but the adrenaline rush was great! Downhill Dive is a great brush font (made with actual brushes and ink on paper - no tablets involved here!). It is an ode to that wonderful time spent in England. Downhill Dive comes with some really nice ligatures.

Arthur Baker's display script Sassafras, designed in 1995, is based on the natural inline effect created when writing with a split-metal nibbed pen. Black and white are nicely balanced, giving this calligraphic face a remarkably smooth appearance. The regular and italic versions of Sassafras include two alternate faces: one with long, tall ascenders and regular-length descenders, and one with shortened ascenders and descenders that allow it to fit where its companion might not. In both, the ascenders increase in width as they move upward, while the descenders taper to a fine point. This variety of form makes Sassafras a very flexible choice for display work.

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

PF Stamps covers a wide range of applications which require the stamp effect. This is a form of lettering which was very popular in the mid-twentieth century for product labeling. Special machinery was developed by mainly two companies, one in the United States and the other in Germany. This machinery produced paper die cuts which were later used as a base for the marking with a paintbrush. PF Stamps Paint was developed to simulate this type of lettering. Two other styles, Metal and Flex, have been very popular since its original release. The first one was developed from a metallic stamp imprint, whereas the second one with its slight 3-D look simulates letters stamped on plastic. To insure realistic results, uppercase letters are different from lowercase. This is very useful when two similar letters sit next to each other. There 3 more styles: Solid (the stencil in its regular clean form), Rough and the very interesting Blur. The all new “Pro” version comes to complete this series with what was missing: 93 matching frames and frames parts which will satisfy the most demanding designer. This is a bonus font which is available only with the purchase of the whole family. Use these frames “as is” at any size, or connect the frame parts to each other to create longer frames. Finally, this series supports more than hundred languages which are based on the Latin, Greek or Cyrillic scripts.

The lifetime of Lorenzo de Medici (1449-1492) coincides with the rise of metal type as it displaced broad pen calligraphy for the production of books. This revolution marked the end of formal Western calligraphy, as the industry employed metalworkers who designed type according to geometric measurement while calligraphers were forced to become secretaries who practiced handwriting systems. Renaissance Florence should have witnessed the marriage of calligraphy and typography, just as all the other arts and sciences flourished as classical learning was applied to technical advances; but the metalworkers and geometricians measured, dissected and recast the calligraphic letters by crude indirect methods, and in the end took all the life out of them. Here they languished until digital type has made it possible to render the precise motion of the broad pen stroke into type. Lorenzo is a confluence of many strains from the Middle Ages, brought together within the classical harmony of the capitals. It attempts to bypass metal type, using calligraphic means to achieve the precision of type while retaining the life of the stroke: a classical font that would be familiar to Lorenzo himself as well as to the modern eye. The Lorenzo family comes in four weights, ranging from light to bold. Two sets of italics, one with swashed caps and ascenders, complement each weight. The family boasts extensive language support and an offering of over fifty calligraphic ornaments/flourishes included within the character set.

STONES is a supercharged, street-wise brush font bursting with energy. With extra attention to quick strokes and sharp details, STONES is guaranteed to deliver an unapologetically loud & fast-paced message; ideal for logos, apparel, quotes, product packaging, or anything which needs a typographic turbo-boost. What you get : Numeral and Punctuation International Language Works on PC & Mac Simple installations Accessible in the Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, even works on Microsoft Word. Thank you for your purchase! Hope you enjoy with our font!

Ernie is a new animated typeface by Jim Ford, intended as a complimentary serif design to Freeman Craw’s fun retro hit, Ad Lib. The serif drawings mimic the behaviors of Ad Lib, on a Clarendon-esque structure. The application of Ad Lib’s behaviors to a serif design highlights it's quirky characteristics; notably in the added contrast, the bending of serifs and the translation to Ernie’s ball terminals. The lowercase g is probably the most extreme example of this "translation." Ernie has a savvy system of text animation built in; with dualing lowercase alphabets, 34 ligatures, and an extensive glossary of custom words, all programmed to automatically make intelligent pseudorandom wordshapes. It's called RMS, aka the Randomagic System. The glossary of “buzz” words is based on the most common and powerful words in marketing and advertising, as well as words that are specific to Ernie’s intended uses.. Additionally, Ernie Alt provides the opposite randomization effects in lowercase text, thus reversing the rhythm of the bounce. Ernie Sorts is a bonus font which includes fun printers fists, expandable banners and other graphic elements. The Ernie character and cartoons were created by Johnny Sampson, as a visualization of the typeface, it's character and it's unique features.

Carlton is based on a typeface designed by Prof. F. H. Ehmcke. In 1908, Ehmcke released his Ehmcke-Antiqua design through the Flinsch typefoundry in Germany. Ehmcke-Antiqua was later distributed by the Bauer typefoundry in Frankfurt am Main. The Caslon Letter Foundry in England discovered the design and released their own typeface based upon the model, which they named Carlton. Carlton entered the Stephenson Blake program after they acquired the Caslon Letter Foundry in the late 1930s. As hot and cold metal typesetting became outdated technologies, Carlton and Ehmcke-Antiqua fell out of general use. In the 1990s, Letraset revived this classic design, distributing it under its English name, Carlton. Carlton's clean and generous capitals, as well as its understated yet detailed lower case, have found popularity again in recent years. The elegance of Carlton is best used for displays with large letter and word spacing. Carlton shows all of the hallmarks of a delicate serif typeface design; its forms capture a distinct moment that was common within Central European type design during the first third of the 20th Century. Carlton is similar to several other expressive typefaces from the early 1900s, including Bernhard Modern, Koch Antiqua, Locarno, and Nicolas Cochin."

Hydrargyrum is the Latin form of a Greek word meaning "liquid silver" - mercury. The Hydrargyrum typefaces are designed with characteristics both of a metal and a liquid. The basic shapes of the letters are generally rigid and rectangular (particularly in style C), but the forms are enhanced by fluid curves and gently rounded corners. Hydrargyrum is not recommended for use at small sizes or in lengthy passages of text. It performs best in display-sized settings. Hydrargyrum consists of three styles, each in medium and semibold weights with matching obliques. The A style features solid, standard letterforms including the two-story a and g. Style B substitutes the a, g, M, and N (and related glyphs including numero and trademark symbols) for alternate shapes. The third subfamily takes the rectangular theme to an extreme, eliminating as many slanted strokes as possible from the letterforms. This makes some C-style letters ambiguous with one another, such as the U's and V's. As such, the C style is best used carefully even at larger sizes. The Hydrargyrum fonts are style linked within each style subfamily with, for example, Hydrargyrum A Medium as the regular style, Hydrargyrum A Medium Oblique as the italic, Hydrargyrum A SemiBold as the bold option, etc.

Crayon fonts are fantastic! I've always thought it looked so cool with fonts that simulate writing with crayons...but the fonts has always been limited in letters! But that’s where my Pigeon Wing font stands out! Using the smart techniques of the OpenType thing called “Stylistic alternates”, you get 8 different versions of each letter! Yes EIGHT different versions that cycle as you write! That means words with the same letter appearing several times, cycles through the different versions! Besides that, the font is loaded with multi language support! What’s not to like! :)

Neo Osaka is a lovely neo script with stylistic features. Neo Osaka is perfect for product packaging, branding project, megazine, social media, wedding, sport jersey design number or just used to express words above the background (interior). Built with OpenType features and includes beginning and ending swashes, alternate characters for both lowercase and uppercase letters, loads of different swash alternates for lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation, alternates, ligatures and it also supports other languages. Enjoy the font, feel free to comment or feedback, send me PM or email. Thank you!

Angelic Sonata, a modern handwritten font loaded with binders for that handwritten look. Angelic Sonata can be used for wedding invitations and wedding calligraphy, feminine or organic logos, small business branding, packaging and much more! Angelic Sonata features an alternative OpenType style, International binding and support for most Western Languages included. To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternative, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Indesign & CorelDraw X6-X7, Microsoft Word 2010 or later. Thank you very much for viewing and Enjoying it.

Fruitos is a funky font family with loads of interlocking ligatures. Fruitos is great for packaging, posters or any display use. Fruitos is divided into two families: Fruitos R (regular) is bouncy and has wider “serifs” whereas Fruitos S (straight) makes clear blocks and has straight forms. Both versions have a standard fill version, an Inline version and a Line version that can be used together with the standard version for colourful inline. Fruitos also has an underlined Titling Alternates for every basic character. Try Titling Alternates to spice up your words!

Monotype Bembo is generally regarded as one of the most handsome revivals of Aldus Manutius' 15th century roman type, but the original had no italic counterpart. The story is told that Stanley Morison commissioned Alfred Fairbank, a renowned calligrapher, to create the first italic for Bembo, which was released as metal fonts in 1929. Alfred Fairbank, however, claimed that he drew the design as an independent project and then sold his drawings to Monotype. According to him, the statement has been made that I was asked to design an italic for the Bembo roman. This is not so. Had the request been made, the italic type produced would have been different." Whichever version you believe, it was obvious that Fairbank's design - while undeniably beautiful - was not harmonious with Bembo roman. A second, more conventional italic was eventually drawn and added to the Bembo family. Fairbank's first design, which was based on the work of sixteenth-century writing master Ludovico degli Arrighi, managed to have a modest life of its own as a standalone font of metal type. It never made the leap into phototype fonts, however, and the face could have been lost, were it not for Robin Nicholas, Monotype Imaging's Head of Typography in the United Kingdom, and Carl Crossgrove, a senior designer for Monotype Imaging in the US. Nicholas and Crossgrove used the original drawings for Fairbank as the starting point for a new digital design, but this was only the beginning. They improved spacing, added subtle kerning and optimized the design for digital imaging. In addition, Nicholas created an alternative set of lowercase letters, fancy and swash capitals and enough alternate characters to personalize virtually any design project. By the time his work was complete, Nicholas and Crossgrove had created a small type family that included Fairbank, a revived version of the earlier metal font, and Fairbank Chancery, a more calligraphic rendition of the design. An additional suite of ornate caps, elegant ligatures, and beginning and ending letters accompanies both fonts, as does a full complement of lowercase swash characters. Now, instead of a failed Bembo italic, Fairbank emerges in its true glory: a sumptuous, elegant design that will lend a note of grace to holiday greetings, invitations, and any application where its Italianate beauty is called for."

All has been said, unless words change their meanings and meanings their words.

Sukothai is a traditional Thai design based on early metal type. The classic and distinct forms make it excellent for setting text at small sizes or in large passages. Originally released by Linotype for digital photocomposition, now both the Light and Bold weights are available in OpenType format. This makes it possible to dynamically and precisely position the various levels of superscript and subscript vowel signs and tonal marks. In addition to this, the complete Unicode page range for Thai is covered to ensure flawless conversion between other OpenType fonts using Unicode. The accompanying Latin design matches well in scale and texture and supports most Western European languages making it ideal for setting bilingual texts.

Madison Antiqua was original released as a metal typeface for hand-setting in 1965. The letters were produced by D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt, Germany. Their design was based heavily on an earlier German typeface named Amts-Antiqua, which had also been produced by Stempel. Amts-Antiqua is credited to Henrich Hoffmeister, and he developed it between 1909 and 1919. Madison Antiqua is an excellent selection for body text in magazines and newspapers. The typeface features a characteristic x-height, and attention-grabbing serifs. For a time, Madison Antiqua was associated with advertising design, because of its namesake: Madison Avenue in New York. Madison Avenue is a global center of advertising excellence.

This is not an historically accurate font but rather one intended capture the spirit of ancient Roman manual type. It was inspired by various patterns used in documents and books created by Latin scribes between the second and fourth centuries. They used either calamus and ink on papyrus, or a pointed metal stick on wax tablets. We have created the font for contemporary use; distinguishing between U and V, I and J, which had no meaning for ancient Latin scribes, and adding thorn, Oslash, Lslash, W, Y and common accented characters that did not exist at the time. A lot of titlings and contextual alternates complete the set. Available only in TTF and OTF format.

There are thousands of pieces of vintage sheet music available for collectors and curiosity seekers. Prior to the 1930s, a large percentage of them had wonderfully hand-lettered titles on the covers, but gradually there was a shift by music publishers to utilizing metal type for the bulk of their output. Normally set in an all-caps format, certain type faces reappeared in growing frequency and familiarity. Composer JNL is one such example of a “workhorse” font, and has been re-drawn and reinterpreted by Jeff Levine Fonts in both regular and oblique versions. It is based on the design "Glamour", released by Lanston Monotype in 1948; which in turn was based on "Corvinus", designed by Imre Reiner.

In researching historic decorative material offered by Lanston Monotype as well as other metal foundries such as Barnhart Brothers and Spindler, there were occasionally ornaments that defied description. Perhaps it was a Victorian sense of humor or someone really thought these were a good idea or perhaps popular taste has just changed so much over the last hundred years, or our forbearers were completely insane. In any case, LTC is somewhat proud to present a collection of the most bizarre, disturbing and baffling printers ornaments we could find. Along with mutant fowl-children and frolicsome amphibians, there are also Masonic and other secret fraternal symbols that may not be creepy to everyone, but just enough to be moderately disturbing.

A sheet music edition of an early 1900s song entitled "You Taught Me How to Love You, Now Teach Me to Forget" was hand lettered in a free-form Art Nouveau style that combined varying line widths and character shapes. This unrestricted style of lettering was popularly embraced and revived by the hippie counterculture of the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s through their rock concert posters, record album covers and tee shirt graphics. It is now available digitally as Nouveau Artiste JNL. As a side note, a 1940s reprint of the sheet music was done in a popular metal typeface, which was also redrawn digitally and available as Elite Resort JNL [in both regular and oblique versions].

Stucco is a construction material that is used as a decorative coating for walls, ceilings, exteriors, and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture. Stucco can be applied on construction materials such as metal, concrete, cinderblock, or clay brick and adobe for decorative and structural purposes. In similar fashion, the Stucco font is designed to be a decorative piece and is intended to support a wide variety of mediums. The font is intended to be used as a header or headline font, but a creative designer will find other uses for it. The font contains 300+ glyphs which includes uppercase letters, lowercase alternates, numbers, symbols, accented characters for multiple language support.

P22 CoDependent is a revival of the Independant typeface from 1930 created by Dutch designer Johannes Nicolaas Coenraad Collette along with Jos Dufour from Belgium. Independant was released in metal by the Belgian division of the Amsterdam Type Foundry in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the independence of Belgium from the Netherlands. Despite the name, the two fonts contained in the set, Regular and Shadow, are not codependent upon each other. They can be used alone, but together they can create a dynamic two-color option. There have been other fonts inspired by and revived directly from Independant, but this version adheres the original design with the added consideration of how the shadow version will overlap.

Splendor was originally produced and released in 1930 by Schriftgu� AG, Dresden. The typeface was designed by Berlin designer Wilhelm Berg. Ralph M. Unger, who in the last few years has created a whole series of revivals and redesigns from the hot metal era, ?retrieved? this jewel of a typeface design, redesigning, complementing and digitally remastering it for profonts. Splendor is a broad nip, non-connecting handwriting script of timeless elegance, charm and beauty. It needs tight setting with plenty of space around it. The font contains a number of alternate characters: Two uppercase As, Ss (with descender); in addition, two uppercase Ms, Ns and Zs as well as two lowercase zs.

Mecanica is an original design by Alex Kaczun. It is a display font not intended for text use. It was designed specifically for display headlines, logotype, branding and similar applications. The entire font has an original look which is strong, dynamic, machine generated and can be widely used in publications and advertising. Mecanica is a futuristic, techno-looking and expressive typeface with an appearance of metal-like parts with some very sharp edges. This attractive display comes in roman with lower case and lining figures. The font also is available with true-drawn slant italics. Other design style variations include Swash as well as Ornamental Italic Capitals along with a few Ornamental Symbols to embellish and enhance the possibilities.

This font was inspired by one of a standard French manual styles in use from the beginning of 1900s to the end of World War II, when people were writing most often with pen holders and metal nibs. This typeface is easily legible as it was used for the lithographic printing of university textbooks. All lower cases from a to z and numerals from 0 to 9 are doubled by a slightly different one to allow a varying manual aspect in texts. We have added a lot of diacritic characters, covering West (including Celtic) and North European, Icelandic, Baltic, Eastern European and Turkish language. A few special glyphs allows to make final loops or underlining.

Acklebury is a chunky, reverse contrast, slab-serif typeface available in two styles. It has heaps of personality, plenty of open type features, and a whole host of special characters and dingbats. Although it's drawn from historical sources, Acklebury is not a straight revival, rather more of an homage to the many, varied, extended lining figures of the late 1800's. Acklebury celebrates the once labelled 'hideous' combination of wide rounded forms and hard slab serifs. Only using modern type technology to fix the spacing and kerning issues that would of been impossible with metal or wooden type. Acklebury is not a French Clarendon, neither is it really an Italienne... but it is phat, wide and hella funky.

dT Jakob started as a revival by Gustavo Soares for Paul van der Laan’s class at the Type and Media Masters, in The Hague, NL – back in 2007. There are quite a few excellent geometric sans typefaces available, but we did want to make our contribution and have a fine geometric face to offer. dT Jakob was born out of Erbar, by Jakob Erbar, one of the very first geometric sans, released in metal around 1926. Our goal was to make a versatile typeface, that handles display and text typography beautifully. To achieve that we designed a complete range of weights, matching italics and lots of OpenType Features. Hope you enjoy it :D

Splendor was originally produced and released in 1930 by Schriftgu� AG, Dresden. The typeface was designed by Berlin designer Wilhelm Berg. Ralph M. Unger, who in the last few years has created a whole series of revivals and redesigns from the hot metal era, ?retrieved? this jewel of a typeface design, redesigning, complementing and digitally remastering it for profonts. Splendor is a broad nip, non-connecting handwriting script of timeless elegance, charm and beauty. It needs tight setting with plenty of space around it. The font contains a number of alternate characters: Two uppercase As, Ss (with descender); in addition, two uppercase Ms, Ns and Zs as well as two lowercase zs.

Annonce is a digitization and expansion of a 1912 Johannes Wagner Foundry classic called Aurora Grotesk, which also circulated later on in metal under the name Annonce. Bold, extended and clear as a bell, Annonce stood out as the definite big sign font long before the Helveticas of the world. With angled cuts on some of the letters, it also shows humanistic traits that make it more appealing than any other face in its genre. The Annonce set comes in two fonts, a regular and an italic, and includes a very large character set that accommodates almost all Latin-based languages, including Turkish, Baltic, Celtic, Maltese, Esperanto, and the languages of Central and Eastern Europe.

I had a really weird dream the other night, but when I woke up, I had forgotten it. I had the feeling it was about something important, but I cannot, for the life of me, recall what I dreamt about! Forgotten Dream is a horror brush font, which I made with a brushy brush and Chinese ink. It looks like something right out of a nightmare, but you can also use it for something important. Like a ‘keep your distance’ poster, or a sign about the importance of washing ones hands. But then again, if you play in a death metal band, then Forgotten Dream font could be exactly what you need for your album cover!

Omerta Blackletter Font Blackletter fonts have letters that are very bold and ornate. It is a Western calligraphy style that was used in Europe from 1100s to the 1600s. Blackletter is also known as Old English or Gothic script. During the 20th century, blackletter type styles were adopted by new audiences and came to be associated with punk, street art, and heavy metal. Omerta Blackletter Font Specifically developed to be suitable for perfect for tattoos clothing, labels and packaging, branding, or any Gothic-themed projects. Omerta Blackletter Font are great for Classic Calligraphic type projects and convey a sense of what’s to come. This font can be used with all software that can read standard fonts.

When I created Face Your Fears some years ago, it was an instant hit. I have seen it on Gangsta Rap albums, metal albums, books and on movie posters. It has been used for T-shirts, websites and, believe it or not, for a beer label as well. I have always toyed with the idea of redoing the original font, as some of the glyphs were a bit off. Face Your Fears II is similar in nature to the original font, but comes with a lot of improvements, has slightly altered glyphs and (probably) better kerning. But maybe, just maybe, it isn't your cup o' tea. In that case, you can always just go for the original!

Hotdogger is a family of cursive brush fonts, presented in two weights and completed with a sans serif font and an useful pack of graphics to play with. These fonts are specially designed for meal packaging and labels, advertising posters, lettering logos or whatever you may be looking for in expressive works.. Hotdogger contain full OpenType features and support CE languages.

Bravissima is the dynamic and spirited embodiment of the 1970s, when food was food and the wild brush ruled. It tells you to eat, and to do it right now. Another perfect blend of traditional Koziupa calligraphy and Paul tech, spiced up with OpenType features like the meal of your dreams. A personal favorite for food packaging design, especially hot stuff. Bon appetit.

FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style from between 1998 and 1908, but with much more warmth and improved legibility as well as a hint towards the warmer American grotesques. Later on, not just slanted styles, but a “proper” italic version was added inspired by the way Roman and Italic are distinguished in traditional serif faces. NEW: a specially created set of obliques were added in 2018 to give designers more design flexibility, for those looking for a less calligraphic look. In 2020 the family was extended with matching condensed weights. FF Real was originally conceived by Erik Spiekermann as one text weight and one headline weight to be used as the only faces in his biography ‘Hello I am Erik’, edited by Johannes Erler, published in 2014. While Spiekermann drew the alphabets, he passed on the font data to Ralph du Carrois and Anja Meiners who cleaned it up and completed it. In the meantime, FF Real has been extended to a family of two styles and 65 weights each. The design of FF Real is rooted in early static grotesques from the turn of the century. Several German type foundries – among them the Berlin-based foundries Theinhardt and H. Berthold AG – released such designs between 1898 and 1908. The semi-bold weight of a poster-size typeface that was lighter than most of the according semi-bolds in metal type at the time, gave the impetus to FF Real’s regular weight. In the words of Spiekermann, the historical example is “the real, non-fake version, as it were, the royal sans serif face“, thus giving his new typeface the name “Real” (which is also in keeping with his four-letter names, i.e. FF Meta, FF Unit). FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style, but with much more warmth and improved legibility. With a hint towards the warmer American grotesques, Spiekermann added those typical Anglo-American features such as a three-story ‘g’ and an ‘8’ with a more defined loop. To better distinguish characters in small text sizes, FF Real Text comes in old style figures, ‘f’ and ‘t’ are wider, the capital ‘I’ is equipped with serifs, as is the lowercase ‘l’. What’s more, i-dots and all punctuation are round.

FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style from between 1998 and 1908, but with much more warmth and improved legibility as well as a hint towards the warmer American grotesques. Later on, not just slanted styles, but a “proper” italic version was added inspired by the way Roman and Italic are distinguished in traditional serif faces. NEW: a specially created set of obliques were added in 2018 to give designers more design flexibility, for those looking for a less calligraphic look. In 2020 the family was extended with matching condensed weights. FF Real was originally conceived by Erik Spiekermann as one text weight and one headline weight to be used as the only faces in his biography ‘Hello I am Erik’, edited by Johannes Erler, published in 2014. While Spiekermann drew the alphabets, he passed on the font data to Ralph du Carrois and Anja Meiners who cleaned it up and completed it. In the meantime, FF Real has been extended to a family of two styles and 65 weights each. The design of FF Real is rooted in early static grotesques from the turn of the century. Several German type foundries – among them the Berlin-based foundries Theinhardt and H. Berthold AG – released such designs between 1898 and 1908. The semi-bold weight of a poster-size typeface that was lighter than most of the according semi-bolds in metal type at the time, gave the impetus to FF Real’s regular weight. In the words of Spiekermann, the historical example is “the real, non-fake version, as it were, the royal sans serif face“, thus giving his new typeface the name “Real” (which is also in keeping with his four-letter names, i.e. FF Meta, FF Unit). FF Real is a convincing re-interpretation of the German grotesque style, but with much more warmth and improved legibility. With a hint towards the warmer American grotesques, Spiekermann added those typical Anglo-American features such as a three-story ‘g’ and an ‘8’ with a more defined loop. To better distinguish characters in small text sizes, FF Real Text comes in old style figures, ‘f’ and ‘t’ are wider, the capital ‘I’ is equipped with serifs, as is the lowercase ‘l’. What’s more, i-dots and all punctuation are round.