‘Thwaites’ typeface is fully dedicated to one of my best Canadian friends who I do cherish and value highly. This great and industrious Canadian friend is ‘James Douglas Thwaites’ who lives along with his good-natured family in British Columbia, Canada. For me, James is like a source of inspiration and I do consider him as an ideal in my life. Our strong friendship has started since 1999 and I hope that it will endure just to the last moment of my life. Sometimes I see him as the writer and poet that I learn a lot from, sometimes I see him as a devoted religious minister that I try to understand more about his teachings, and other times I see him as the educator that I strive to imitate verbatim in my life. When I want to talk more about this Canadian friend, I will not be able to give him his due in full. Thus, I will instead mention some excerpts of his biography that he wrote himself saying that: “James D. Thwaites is a self-accomplished man. Having worked in various fields including restaurant management and cleaning, he has achieved his goals of being a full-time teacher, past-time writer, and volunteer religious minister for the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. His personal and academic pursuits have led him to be published in various magazines, newspapers, self-published books, and websites, including his now defunct ‘poetryofthemonth.com’ website. He continues to learn and augment the craft of writing while working primarily in early literacy and delayed literacy learners, teaching reading and literature to a wide age range of students. He views his religious endeavors as an extension of his academic ones. He teaches others both as a public speaker and in one-on-one situations, teaching about the benefits of submission to God and to His teachings. His future goals include expanding his ministry and continuing his writing.” The name ‘Thwaites’ itself comes from Great Britain and originated from the last Viking raids upon England, being an Anglicized version of a Scandinavian term meaning—depending on the source material—either "a place that is difficult to approach" or "a small thicket of trees." Another recitation mentions that ‘Thwaites’ can be described also as an English surname but one of pre 7th century Norse-Viking origins. It may be either topographical or locational, and is derived from the word "thveit", meaning a clearing or farm. As a locational surname it originates from any one of the various places called "Thwaite", found in several parts of Northern England and East Anglia to the south. The various modern spelling forms include Thwaite, Thwaites, Thwaytes, Thoytes, Twaite, Twatt, Twaites, Tweats and Twite. The name, although often appearing unique to outsiders, can often be found within other famous names like Braithwaite, Goldthwaites, or Misslethwaites. With various spellings, some families not including the ‘e’ or the ‘s’ at the end, Thwaites and its derivations—although not exceedingly common—is a name found worldwide. ‘Thwaites’ typeface is simply a sans-serif streamlined, stylish, and versatile font. It is designed using a combination of thick and thin strokes for its +585 characters. Its character set supports nearly most of the Central, Eastern, and Western European languages using Latin scripts including the Irish language. The typeface is appropriate for any type of typographic and graphic designs in web, print, and other media. It is also absolutely preferable to be used in the wide fields related to publication, press, services, and production industries. It can create a very impressive impact when used in headlines, posters, titles, products’ surfaces, logos, medical packages, product and corporate branding, and also signage. It has also both of lining and old-style numerals which makes it more suitable for any printing or designing purposes. ‘Thwaites’ typeface is really the cannot-miss choice for anyone who wants to possess unique artistic and modern designs produced using this streamlined typeface.

Klothilde is a handwriting font which came to life in one of my doodling sessions (I must admit I still doodle with pen and paper). The idea was to create a font which resembles writing with a quill on paper with exaggerated ball terminals. Sometimes there is too much ink which makes the letters fat and the strokes uneven. The paper soaks the ink resulting in blurred line crossings. The form gets blurry. On the other hand, when the quill runs out of ink the stroke gets thinner looking like the light version of Klothilde. In order to emulate the different looks, I created six fonts with a common skeleton but different appearance which can be altered seamlessly by using the Variable Fonts technology (e.g. in latest Adobe apps or CorelDRAW Graphics Suite) along the Weight and Blurred sliders. But even without, Klothilde can be used even in longer copy. Use it from 18 pt upwards, flush left with tight leading and intersecting ascenders and descenders. Due to extensive manual kerning, it gives your text an even colour. To my knowledge, Klothilde is one of the first script Variable fonts in different weights. No, Klothilde’s letters are not connecting. But I added a whole bunch of connecting ligatures which are simply activated by the ligature feature of your app. Even Microsoft Word can do that. Thus Klothilde comes to life, as it should be expected from a handwriting font. In order to add to variety there are additional glyphs for some critical initial and standalone letters. Repeating letter combinations like nn, mm or rr are avoided by replacing the second letter by an alternative form. All features are activated by the standard ligature feature. Ligatures are available for most European languages, some even in Cyrillic (some special Serbo-Croat letters included and accessible through localization or Style Set 08 features). Romanian comma-accent characters and ligatures are accessible through the OpenType locl feature. For the topping on the cake, I added an alternate ampersand (stylistic set 1) and asterisk (ss04), an alternate Cyrillic b (ss02) and t (ss03), a few fleurons, arrows and a skull (OpenType feature ornm), fractions (frac feature), circled numbers (ss06) and an interrobang (ss07) which result in exactly 900 glyphs in each of the six fonts. There should be enough to play with. Should you be missing a special character, do give me a hint.

Kisba Nova – A character actor that turns heads. Spiky serifs, soft ball terminals. All eyes on Kisba Nova: enter a typeface designed to arouse attention. Kisba Nova is that one guest who joins a party, and a murmur goes through the crowd. Kisba Nova is pure charisma. Opposites attract: Kisba Nova combines sharp wedge serifs and spiky spurs with round and soft ball terminals. Infuse this with a neoclassical stroke contrast and you get a thrilling typeface driven by visual extremes. Sure: Kisba Nova is a diva. But it’s a pro, after all. That’s why it comes in two optical sizes: Headline and Text. This makes sure it looks gorgeous in any situation. The Kisba Nova Headline subfamily is flaunts the trademark flamboyant looks and extravagant letters like f and k. They bring you all of the excitement of the showbiz in large applications—use it for sizes of 24 Pt. and more. The extraordinarily designed, thin and monolinear diacritics, punctuation marks, and symbols of Kisba Nova Headline add to this modern and elegant character. Kisba Nova Headline consists of seven weights from Thin to Black, offering plenty of possibilities to set headlines and titles. With about 600 characters per weight, it contains enough functionality for the demands of a skilled typographer. OpenType features, such as a large set of ligatures, extended language support, case-sensitive forms, different sets of figures, and arrows, enable sensational designs both in web & print layouts. The Kisba Nova Text subfamily comes with decreased contrast, more generous letter proportions, and wider spacing. Instead of employing flashy thin and monolinear diacritics, punctuation marks, and symbols, Kisba Nova Text aims for a more even texture on the page. It retains the true, elegant Kisba DNA while allowing you to set legible copy in sizes between 9 and 18 Pt. Nothing will distract your reader–Kisba Nova Text aims to please. Kisba Nova Text consists of seven weights from Thin to Black, offering plenty of possibilities to set body copy and subheadlines. With about 600 characters per weight, it contains enough functionality for the demands of a skilled typographer. OpenType features, such as a large set of ligatures, extended language support, case-sensitive forms, different sets of figures, and arrows, enable sensational designs both in web & print layouts. Kisba Nova celebrates the dual nature of softness and sharpness in a single typeface. It’s a character actor that turns heads.

Here is another design by jewelry designer Max Joseph Gradl. Zier is a verb, meaning to decorate, adorn or ornament; zierlich means decorative, elegant, fine, neat. Schrift means type. Zierschrift, therefore, means decorative type. Gradl Zierschriften is a decorative type in the Art Nouveau style, rather than the more ornate Victorian style. Very modern, very young, with an elegant simplicity of form. Maria Makela, in her book The Munich Secession (Princeton 1990) suggests that the frequent use of simple, flowing, organic forms that was so characteristic of Art Nouveau was a reaction against the growing complexity and rapid urbanization that resulted from 19th century industrialization. In keeping with that reaction is the hand-drawn quality that intentionally rejects a mechanistic mathematic precision of line rendering. Gradl Zierschriften preserves that hand-drawn quality. Designed with upper case only, this face was obviously intended for short headlines only and is best set at 18 points or larger. However, I don't think you really get to experience the grace of this design until you get to 36 points or more. In the larger sizes, it is simply stunning. Please note that while most of the uppercase letterforms are repeated in the lower case for convenience, the ‘F’,‘L’ and ‘T’ are rendered a little narrower than in the uppercase to provide for visual variety. The font also includes a generous supply of ligatures for just the right fit ... and just for the fun of using them. Three common ways of inserting a ligature, accented letter or other special character are: 1) Key in “ALT”+“0”+[ascii #]; for example ALT+0233 for the e-acute, 2) From within your application program, go to the INSERT menu and look for something like “Insert Symbol,” (this function is NOT available in all application programs) & 3) Cut & Paste from the CHARACTER MAP display that has been supplied by every generation of Windows Operating System that I can recall (All Programs>Accessories>System Tools). Isn't it amazing what you can do? Don't be afraid to experiment. If you back up your work, you have very little to lose and a lot to gain. Not only do you acquire a new tool, but by the very process you have learned how to continually expand your knowledge and skill base.

TT Octosquares useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options TT Octosquares is a fresh, revised, expanded, and significantly improved version of our first commercial typeface TT Squares and its narrow version TT Squares Condensed. With all our love for the original font family, it felt there was a lack of functionality, character composition, features, and design freshness, which prompted us to the idea of a complete restart. Now TT Octosquares can be safely called a superfamily consisting of 4 widths (Compressed, Condensed, Standard, Expanded), 72 faces (18 in each width), and 1 incredible variable font in which variability works jointly on three axes. In addition to working on the contours themselves and their design, we completely revised the composition of the typeface. First, we added two completely new widths: Compressed and Expanded. Secondly, we increased the number of weights in each of the subfamilies—while in the old versions there were 5 weights, now in each of the subfamilies there are 9 weights. At the stage of working with the contours of characters, we revised the roundings, changed the forms of shoulder and stem crossings, added noticeable shelves at the letters, removed the sharpness from the triangular characters and cut off all sharp endings. From the very beginning of work on TT Octosquares, we planned to make a variable 3-axis version of it sewn into 1 font file. This means that by installing just one variable font file, you get access to three axial adjustment of the font: by thickness, width and inclination. Thanks to this flexibility in settings, you can always choose a custom combination of thickness, width or inclination that best suits your tasks. Due to the increased language support and the appearance of a bunch of useful OpenType features, the number of glyphs in the typeface has increased from 480 to 825 in each style. Now you can use stylistic alternates, standard and discretionary ligatures, or use old-style figures, numbers in circles and even slashed zeros in your design. Full list of features: aalt, mark, mkmk, ccmp, subs, sinf, sups, numr, dnom, frac, ordn, lnum, pnum, tnum, onum, case, zero, dlig, liga, salt, ss01, ss02, ss03, ss04, ss05, ss06, ss07, ss08, ss09, ss10, ss11, ss12, calt, locl. To use the variable font with three variable axes on Mac you will need MacOS 10.14 or higher. For other software and browsers, you can check the support status here: v-fonts.com/support/.

The purpose of the original DIN 1451 standard was to lay down a style of lettering which is timeless and easily legible. Unfortunately, these early letters lacked elegance and were not properly designed for typographic applications. Ever since its first publication in the 1930’s, several type foundries adopted the original designs for digital photocomposition. By early 2000, it became apparent that the existing DIN-based fonts did not fulfil the ever-increasing demand for a diverse set of weights and additional support for non-Latin languages. Parachute® was set out to fill this gap by introducing the PF DIN series which has become ever since the most comprehensive and sophisticated set of DIN typefaces. It was based on the original standards but was specifically designed to fit typographic requirements. Its letterforms divert from the stiff geometric structure of the original and introduce instead elements which are familiar, softer and easier to read. The first set of fonts was completed in 2002 as a group of 3 families which included condensed and compressed versions. With its vast array of weights, the extended language support, but most of all its meticulous and elaborate design, it has proved itself valuable to numerous design agencies around the world. Ever since its first release, it has been used in diverse editorials, packaging, branding and advertising campaigns as well as a great number of websites. It was quoted by Publish magazine as being “an overkill series for complex corporate identity projects”. The whole PF DIN Text type system (with normal, condensed and compressed styles) includes 45 weights from Hairline to Extra Black including true-italics. Additionally, every font in the Pro series is powered by 270 very useful symbols for packaging, environmental graphics, signage, transportation, computing, fabric care. There are 2 versions to choose from: The PRO version is the most powerful. All weights support Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Central/Eastern European, Romanian, Baltic and Turkish, with 20 advanced opentype features including small caps. The standard STD version is more economic. All weights support Latin, Central/Eastern European, Romanian, Baltic and Turkish, with 18 advanced opentype features including small caps. In 2010 Parachute® released 4 new families DIN Monospace, DIN Stencil, DIN Text Arabic and DIN Text Universal. All these are complemented by the popular DIN Display version. Altogether the Parachute DIN series is a set of 8 superfamilies with a total of 96 weights.