I just returned from a short holiday in Japan. I stayed in hostels and small guesthouses and noticed a peculiar thing they all had in common: they love little notes, telling you where to go, what to do, how to use the microwave oven and when to check out. These notes were sometimes printed, but more often they were handwritten. I found that the Japanese way of writing roman characters is a little, well, unusual. The letters are correct, but they have that typical ‘Japanese look’ - most notably the a and A the b, d and g, the p and P and the t and T. I can’t really tell you what makes them look different, maybe it’s the proportions, but I do know that a Nippon Note is highly recognisable. So, here is Nippon Note, a highly recognisable, handmade font. You don’t really have to be in Japan to use it, but it will give your designs that extra cachet. And don’t forget Nippon Note Kawaii - the cute doodle font which is free if you download the Nippon Note family! Comes with extensive language support, but unfortunately not Japanese…

Andrade is a new typeface designed by Dino dos Santos in 2005. This typeface was inspired in the typographic work of Manoel de Andrade de Figueiredo (b.1670-d.1735), Nova Escola para Aprender a Ler, Escrever e Contar, printed in 1722 at Offcina de Bernardo da Costa de Carvalho. This is one of the most important books, and almost forgotten, about Portuguese calligraphy and typography, and the work of Andrade de Figueiredo is among the most amazing examples of type design of the Eighteenth Century. His work inspired Ventura da Silva, a Portuguese typographer, who in 1803 published a book named Regras Methodicas, where he redesigns some of Figueiredo's type specimens. But Ventura's purpose was to create a more elegant and readable typeface than Didot and Bodoni. This kind of typeface used to be called leitura and is a transition between the baroque and modern typography. Andrade is a brilliant text typeface and is available in Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Ligatures, Ligatures Italic, Swashes and Ornaments. Andrade is my tribute to Portuguese typography and to the work of Manoel de Andrade de Figueiredo in particular.

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

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