In a not-too-distant future, humanity was ruled by a powerful, technologically advanced empire known as the Synod. The Synod controlled all forms of communication, and through this, they controlled the minds of the people. But a small group of rebels, known as the Resistance, had managed to evade the Synod's surveillance and formed a secret underground movement. They were determined to overthrow the Synod and restore freedom to the people. One of the Resistance's key members was a young artist named Trystån. He had a unique talent for creating powerful, visually striking posters that captured the spirit of the Resistance's message and spread it to the masses. Trystån had just completed a new poster, one that would be critical to the Resistance's plans. It depicted a single, outstretched hand holding a traditional Kimarii laser staff, with the words "Libertat!" emblazoned across the top. The poster featured a striking and powerful font that perfectly captured the spirit of the Resistance's message. The font was a combination of bold lines, elegant confident curves, and strong angles, giving it a sense of strength and determination. The lettering was large and prominent, filling up much of the poster, making it hard to miss. The letters seemed to be almost carved into the surface, giving the impression of something that was permanent and unshakable. The font was colored in dark shades, and was a sans serif typeface, that gives the message a very modern and current feel yet also feels vintage and retro, connecting the present with the struggles of the past. And with multilingual support, the typeface ensured that the message of the Resistance could be disseminated in every language on the planet. The background was minimalistic and in contrast, with a neutral palette, with just a hint of a sand-like color, representing the harsh conditions of the land that the people were fighting for their rights. The focus was all on the lettering, and how it conveyed the message. The poster was indeed a moving piece of graphic design, with its strong, striking font, and powerful imagery. It was clear that Trystån had put a lot of thought and care into its design. The poster, he hoped, would connect with people on an emotional level and inspire them to rise up against the oppression of the Synod Empire. The poster was set to be distributed at a major rally in the capital, where the Resistance was hoping to gain the support of thousands of citizens. But the Synod was not about to let this happen. They had long suspected the existence of the Resistance and had been working to infiltrate their ranks and discover their plans. The night before the rally, the Synod launched a surprise raid on the Resistance's hideout, capturing Trystån and several other members of the Resistance. Trystån was thrown into sand pits and interrogated by the Synod's top agents. They wanted to know everything about the Resistance's plans, including the details of the poster and the rally. Trystån, knowing the importance of the poster, refused to give in, even under the harshest of conditions. Meanwhile, the rally was drawing near, and the Resistance was desperate to get the poster out to the public. They knew that it was their only hope of gaining the support they needed to overthrow the Synod. They came up with a plan to smuggle the poster out of the hideout, but it would be a risky endeavor. As the rally began, the Resistance made their move, slipping the poster into the hands of the crowd. Trystån's poster had made a big impact in the rallies, and soon it became the symbol of hope for the resistance, and the visual representation of their struggle for freedom. The poster had become the catalyst for the revolution, and it would be remembered for many years to come as the symbol of the fight for freedom and democracy. The image of the outstretched hand holding the Kimarii laser staff struck a chord with the people, and they began to rise up against the Synod's oppression. Trystån, still locked away in the sand pits behind a stasis feild, could only imagine the scene unfolding outside. But he knew that his work had helped to spark a revolution, and he felt a sense of pride and accomplishment. The Resistance, with the help of the rally, was able to overthrow the empire, and Trystån was released, celebrated as a hero and hailed as the artist who helped to bring about the new era of freedom and democracy. The poster Trystån had designed had become the symbol of a new era, and it would hang in museums and public places as a reminder of the power of resistance and art, in the face of oppression. Features: regular and light weights numbers and punctuation multilingual characters

PRISMATIC SPIRALS PRO FONT! The Prismatic Spirals PRO is a Decorative Type-System and ‘Assembling Game’, itself. Settled in squared pieces modules or tiles, embedded by unprecedented Intertwined Prismatic Structures Design, or intricate interlaced bars that may seem quite “impossible” to shape. Although it originated from the ‘Penrose Square’, it may not look totally as an Impossible Figures Type of Optical Illusions. More an “improbable” Effect in its intertwined Design, that even static can seem like a source of Kinetical Sculptures, or drive eyes into a kind of hypnosis. Prismatic Spirals Pro has two related Typefaces both more basic or easier to use versions, the Default Family plus its “bold” braided version Prismatic Interlaces… PRO provides a more advanced, complex, and twisted Design, plus requires to be typed alternating caps. Instructions: Use the Map Font Reference PDF as a guide to learn the 'tiles' position on the keyboard, then easily type and compose puzzle designs with this font! All alphanumeric keys are intuitive or easy to induce, you may easily memorize it all! Plus, often also need to consult it! *Find the Prismatic Spirals Pro Font Map Reference PDF Here! (!) Is recommended Print it to have the Reference or open the PDF to also copy and paste, when consulting is required or when it may be difficult to access, depending on the keyboard script or language. The 2 glyphs sets are separated in colors for facilitating. Also use the Map Font with key captions or switch to it for ensure that the characters are alternating between both uppercase and lowercase letters as other Keys as numbers, marks, and punctuation along the strings, holding Shift one by one or actually two by two. As a Tiles Type-System, the line gap space value is 0, this means that tiles line gaps are invisibly grouted, so the user can compose designs, row by row, descending to each following row by clicking Enter, same as line break, while advances on assembling characters. Background History: The first sketches of my Prismatic Knots or Spirals Designs dates back then from 2010, while started developing hand-drawn Celtic Knots and Geometric Drawings in grid paper, while engage to Typography, Sacred Geometry and the “Impossible Figures” genre… I started doing modulation tests from 2013, until around 2018, I got to unravel it in square modules or tiles from the grid, then idealized it as fonts, along with other Type projects. This took 13 years to come out since the first sketches and 6 months in edition. During the production process some additional tiles or missing pieces were thought of and added to the basic set, which firstly had only the borders, corners, crossings, nets, Trivets connectors or T parts and ends, then added with nets and borders integrations. Usage Suggestions: This type-system enables the user to ornate and generate endless decorative patterns, borders, labyrinthine designs, Mosaics, motifs, etc. It can seem just like a puzzle, but a much greater tool instead for higher purposes as to compose Enigmas and use seriously. As like also to write Real Text by assembling the key characters or pieces, this way you can literarily reproduce any Pixel Design or font to its Prismatic Spirals correspondent form, as Kufic Arabic script and further languages and compose messages easily… This Typeface was made to be contemplated, applied, and manufactured on Infinite Decorative Designs as Pavements, Tapestry, Frames, Prints, Fabrics, Bookplates, Coloring Books, Cards, covers or architectonic frontispieces, storefronts, and Jewelry, for example. Usage Tips: Notice that the line-height must be fixed to 100% or 1,0. In some cases, as on Microsoft Word for example, the line-height default is set to 1,15. So you’ll need to change to 1,0 plus remove space after paragraph, in the same dropdown menu on Paragraph section. Considering Word files too, since the text used for mapping the Designs, won't make any literal orthographical sense, the user must select to ignore the Spellcheck underlined in red, by clicking over each misspelled error or in revision, so it can be better appreciated. Also unfolding environments as Adobe Software’s, the Designer will use the character menu to set body size and line gap to same value, as a calculator to fit a layout for example of 1,000 pts high with 9 tiles high, both body size and line gap will be 111.1111 pts. Further Tips: Whenever an architect picks this decorative system to design pavements floor or walls, a printed instruction version of the layout using the ‘map’ font may be helpful and required to the masons that will lay the tiles, to place the pieces and its directions in the right way. Regarding to export PNGs images in Software’s for layered Typesetting as Adobe Illustrator a final procedure may be required, once the designs are done and can be backup it, expanding and applying merge filter, will remove a few possible line glitches and be perfected. Technical Specifications: With 8 styles and 4 subfamilies with 2 complementary weights each (Regular and Bold) therefore, Original Contour, Filled, Decor, with reticle’s decorations and 2 Map fonts with key captions. *All fonts match perfectly when central pasted for layered typesetting. All fonts have 106 glyphs, in which 96 are different keys with 2 versions of each of both caps and shift keys, plus a few repeated for facilitating. It was settled this way in order for exchanging with its Prismatic relative fonts which has only 48 different keys repeated twice. Concerning tiles manufacturing and Printed Products as stickers or Stencils, any of its repeated pieces was measured and just rotated in different directions in each key, so when sided by other pieces in any direction will fit perfectly without mispatching errors. Copyright Disclaimer: The Font Software’s are protected by Copyright and its licenses grant the user the right to design, apply contours, plus print and manufacture in flat 2D planes only. In case of the advent of the same structures and set of pieces built in 3D Solid form, Font licenses will not be valid or authorized for casting it. © 2023 André T. A. Corrêa “Dr. Andréground” & MMC-TypEngine.

I love geometric sans serifs, their crispness and rationality. Le Havre taps into this style, but for a while, I've wanted to create a font recalling the printed Futura of the 1940s, which seems to have an elusive quality all its own. After seeing an old manual on a World War II ship, I developed a plan for "Le Havre Metal" but chose to shelve the project due to Le Havre's small x-height. That's where Steagal comes in. When Robbie de Villiers and I began the Chatype project in early 2012 (a project which led one publication to label me the Edward Johnston of Chattanooga!), we started closely studying the vernacular lettering of Chattanooga. During that time, I also visited Switzerland, where I saw how designers were using a new, handmade aesthetic with a geometric base. I was motivated to make a new face combining some of these same influences. The primary inspiration for the new design came from the hand-lettering of sign painters in the United States, circa 1930s through 1950s. My Chatype research turned up a poster from the Tennessee Valley Authority in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which exhibited a number of quirks from the unique hand and style of one of these sign artists. Completing the first draft of Steagal, however, I found that the face appeared somewhat European in character. I turned then to the work of Morris Fuller Benton for a distinctly American take and discovered a number of features that would help define Steagal as a "1930s American" vernacular typeface--features I later learned also inspired Morris Fuller Benton's Eagle. The overall development of Steagal was surprisingly difficult, knowing when to deliberately distort optical artifacts and when to keep them in place. Part of type design is correcting optical illusions, and I found myself absentmindedly adjusting the optical effects. In the end, though, I was able to draw inspiration from period signs, inscriptions, period posters, and architecture while retaining just enough of the naive sensibility. Steagal has softened edges, which simulate brush strokes and retain the feeling of the human hand. The standard version has unique quirks that are not too intrusive. Overshoots have almost been eliminated, and joins have minimal corrections. The rounded forms are mathematically perfect, geometric figures without optical corrections. As a variation to the standard, the “Rough” version stands as the "bad signpainter" version with plenty of character. Steagal Regular comes in five weights and is packed with OpenType features. Steagal includes three Art Deco Alternate sets, optically compensated rounded forms, a monospaced variant, and numerous other features. In all, there are over 200 alternate characters. To see these features in action, please see the informative .pdf brochure. OpenType capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe Creative suite can take full advantage of the automatically replacing ligatures and alternates. Steagal also includes support for all Western European languages. Steagal is a great way to subtly draw attention to your work. Its unique quirks grab the eye with a authority that few typefaces possess. Embrace its vernacular, hand-brushed look, and see what this geometric sans serif can do for you.

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.

Out of a lifelong inner struggle, Philip Bouwsma unleashes a masterpiece that reconciles classic calligraphy with type in a way never before attempted. Maestro takes its cue from the Italian chancery cursive of the early sixteenth century. By this time type ruled the publishing world, but official court documents were still presented in calligraphy, in a new formal style of the high Renaissance that was integrated with Roman letters and matched the refined order of type. The copybooks of Arrighi and others, printed from engraved wood blocks, spread the Italian cancellaresca across Europe, but the medium was too clumsy and the size too small to show what was really happening in the stroke. Arrighi and others also made metal fonts that pushed type in the direction of calligraphy, but again the medium did not support the superb artistry of these masters or sustain the vitality in their work. As the elegant sensitive moving stroke of the broad pen was reduced to a static outline, the human quality, the variety and the excitement of a living act were lost. Because the high level of skill could not be reproduced, the broad pen was largely replaced by the pointed tool. The modern italic handwriting revival is based on a simplified model and does not approach the level of this formal calligraphy with its relationship to the Roman forms. Maestro is the font that Arrighi and his colleagues would have made if they had had digital technology. Like the calligraphic system of the papal chancery on which it is modelled, it was not drawn as a single finished alphabet, but evolved from a confluence of script and Roman; the script is formalized by the Roman to stand proudly in a world of type. Maestro came together on screen over the course of several years, through many versions ranging widely in style, formality, width, slant, weight and other parameters. On one end of the spectrum, looking back to tradition it embodies the formal harmony of the Roman capitals and the minuscule which became the lower case. On the other it is a flowing script letter drawing on the spirit of later pointed pen and engravers scripts. As its original designers intended, it works with simple Roman capitals and serifs or swash capitals and baroque flourishes. The broad pen supplies weight and substance to the stroke which carries energy through tension in balanced s-curves. Above all it is meant to convey the life and motion of formal calligraphy as a worthy counterbalance to the stolid gravity of metal type. The Maestro family consists of forty fonts distributed over two weights. The OpenType version compresses the family considerably down to two fonts, regular and bold, each containing the entire character set of twenty fonts, for a total of more than 3350 characters per font. These include a wide variety of stylistic alternates, ligatures, beginning and ending letters, flourishes, borders, rules, and other extras. The Pro version also includes extended linguistic support for Latin-based scripts (Western, Central and Eastern European, Baltic, Turkish, Welsh/Celtic, Maltese) as well as Greek. For more thoughts on Maestro, its background and character sets, please read the PDF accompanying the family.

The Novera family is a sharp geometric sans in ten weights plus matching italics, available in two versions – Modern and Classic. It has a contemporary, approachable and multifunctional yet characteristic design, that comes with an extensive glyphs set of 1000+ glyphs per font, meeting all typographic demands. The Design Vertical terminals, circular shapes and angular apexes – Novera truely breathes geometry! But the concept goes beyond the application of rational geometry. The intension was to create a highly legible family suitable for every day usage inspired by the work of Paul Renner, Eric Gill or Jakob Erbar, combining the geometric with the human and the functional with the unconventional. Although Novera is inspired by the past, its appearance is unmistakingly modern. Modern vs Classic Novera is available in two versions - Modern and Classic - born from the same source file but with different characters set as default. This creates subtle but effective distinctions such as the double-storey a (Novera Modern) which is optimized for legibility in longer text paragraphs, as opposed to the single-storey a (Novera Classic) which allows a purely geometric appearance. Another distinguishing feature are the ascenders on Novera Mondern, which extend above the cap height for an elegant presence, compared to the ascenders on Novera Classic, ending at the cap height, for a compact and helvetica-flavored look. Novera Modern was intended for usage in body copy, whereas Novera Classic was planned for headlines, short paragraphs or logos, but both versions can be used vice versa too, of course. Alternate Characters To maintain neutrality and a modern appearance, the standard character set largely dispenses with idiosyncratic forms. This is in contrast to the alternative forms with the gill-like lowercase letters g and t as well as a traditional shape of S and the German ligature t/z, which traces back to old German spellings. Also inspired by German poster designs from the early 20th century are the elongated i-dots and dieresis-dots that can create eye-catchers in headlines or logos. By the way, both versions, Novera Modern and Classic, can be created via stylistic set 1, 17 and 18. Opentype Features and Symbols The family comes with many opentype features to support modern typesetting. This includes ligatures, different number sets or alternative shapes for texts set in all caps. If you like arrows and other shapes, you will love Novera! The family has a built-in extensive symbols-set including 48 different arrows and various geometric shapes or icons. Weights With its 40 styles and 1000+ glyphs per font, the Novera family covers all thinkable design scenarios from branding to web, app or editorial usage. It blends in perfectly in text heavy paragraphs with its mid-weights like Light, Regular, Medium or Bold or stands out like a monument in headlines and posters with its extreme weights like Thin, ExtraLight, Black or Ultra. Testfonts If you like to test the fonts before buying the full version, please follow the link below. Please note, all test fonts are available for evaluation purposes only and contain a limited character set! A commercial license for the full version must be purchased separately. Please send a mail to contact@renebieder.com for more information. Download the test fonts here: https://www.renebieder.com/test-fonts

Maestrale is a paradigm-breaking new take on calligraphy, built around a compact, serif-style core and outrageously long, flamboyant extenders. At large sizes, its confident, charismatic lettershapes are ideally suited for branding and decorative uses, whereas longer texts at smaller sizes naturally weave themselves into a flowing texture. The font comprises 1299 glyphs, including many stylistic alternates, ligatures, small capitals, and initial, terminal, and linking forms, and offers extensive OpenType programming to support them. The calligraphic form of Maestrale is complemented by a matching text font (Maestrale Text) with short extenders, available in three cuts (a serif-style Roman, an upright Cursive, and a tilted Italic). Maestrale is all about the lowercase; its capitals are deliberately understated so as not to steal the limelight. In fact, the font works very well when set exclusively in lowercase. Maestrale�s small capitals are fitted into the core space of the lowercase, allowing them to be freely interspersed with lowercase characters. Alternately, an OpenType feature is available to replace a and e in small-caps text with their lowercase equivalents for a fresh unicase look. Since alternates and ligatures play such an important role, Maestrale offers three different modes of use. The most straightforward approach is simply to start typing using Maestrale Pro � the extensive OpenType programming will ensure that collisions between extenders are avoided and attractive ligatures are substituted for common glyph combinations. A more interactive approach is provided by the font Maestrale Manual, which allows the user to manually select alternate forms and ligatures even in typographically unsavvy applications, such as PowerPoint (as long as standard ligatures are supported). Stylistic alternates are simply represented as ligatures of their base forms with one or more instances of the rarely-used by easily-accessed characters "~" (ASCII tilde) and "`" (spacing grave accent); linking forms are built with �_� (underscore), multi-character ligatures with "|" (pipe), and initial and terminal forms with the �less than� and �greater than� characters. For instance, the Maestrale wordmark in the posters above was simply typeset with the string (`ma`est|r_a```l```e)| in Maestrale Manual (The parentheses represent �less than� and �greater than� characters here.) Feel free to type this string into the test line below and see what happens! Make sure Standard Ligatures are enabled. An instruction sheet listing all alternate forms and their accessibility is available from the Gallery tab on this page. The third mode of usage is aimed at professional designers, who make use of sophisticated software with extensive OpenType support. These power users are advised to use the font Maestrale Pro again, where all glyphs are accessible as stylistic alternates. Maestrale Text is a less extravagant but more versatile variation on the design of Maestrale, replacing Maestrale�s swashes with efficiently compact extenders. It is intended to serve as a perfectly matching text companion to Maestrale calligraphy, but constitutes a full-fledged typeface in its own right. It is equally at home at display sizes as it is in pull quotes, titles, and high-impact blocks of text. Maestrale Text comes in three complementary faces: A serif-style Roman, an upright Cursive, and a tilted Italic. Maestrale is the Italian word for �masterful�. It is also the traditional Italian name for the northwesterly mediterranean wind, better known by its French name, Mistral. Acknowledgements: I am grateful to the helpful souls on the Typophile forums for extensive feedback and encouragement on Maestrale, and to the TypeDrawers forum for feedback on Maestrale Text. This font is dedicated to Simone.

Auchentaller was inspired by a travel poster by Josef Maria Auchentaller in 1906. To our knowledge, it was never cast in type. Grado lies on the northern Adriatic, between Venice and Trieste. At one time the port for the important Roman town of Aquileia. With the decline of the Roman Empire, the upper Adriatic region came under the rule of the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Lombards, the Franks, the Germans, the Venetians and finally, in 1796, the Austrian Hapsburgs. So it remained until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1919, following World War I, when the seaport of Trieste was awarded to Italy. With Trieste came Montefalcone, Aquileia and Grado. The area was marked by years of political tension between Italy and Yugoslavia, exemplified by the d'Annunzio expedition to capture Fiume (Rijeka) in September, 1919. Some basic discussion of the period from 1919 to 1939 may be found in Seton-Watson’s Eastern Europe Between The Wars (Cambridge 1945) and Rothschild’s East Central Europe Between The Two World Wars (Seattle 1974). In 1965 I was traveling by train from Venice to Vienna. Crossing the Alps, the train stopped for customs inspection at the rural Italian-Austrian border, just above Slovenia. We were warned not to get off the train because there were still shooting skirmishes in the area. Through all this, Grado remained literally an island of tranquility, connected to the mainland by a only causeway and lines on a map. Auchentaller not only painted the beach scene at Grado, he moved there, living out the rest of his life in this comfortable little island town. His travel illustration contains the text from which the design of our font Auchentaller is drawn. The text translates: "Seaside resort : Grado / Austrian coastal land". Please see our gallery images to see a map locating Grado, as well as Auchentaller’s painting of the resort. Auchentaller is a monoline all-cap font, light and open in design , with a lot of typically art nouveau letter forms. Included in our font are a number of ligatures. As is frequently seen in designs by German speakers, the umlaut is embedded in the O & U below the tops of the letters. This approach led to two whimsies: a happy umlauted O and a sad umlauted U. This font has a clean, crisp look that is very appealing and very distinctive. Auchentaller ML represents a major extension of the original release, with the following changes: 1. Added glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Add glyphs to complete standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page. Special glyphs relocated and assigned Unicode codepoints, some in Private Use area. Total of 336 glyphs. 2. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: pnum, liga, salt & ornm. 3. Added 116 kerning pairs. 4. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. 5. Revised ‘J’. 6. Minor refinements to various glyph outlines. 7. Inclusion of both tabular & proportional numbers. 8. Inclusion of both standard acute and Polish kreska with choice of alternate accented glyphs for c,n,r,s & z. Please note that some older applications may only be able to access the Western Europe character set (approximately 221 glyphs). The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS (Post Script Type 1) format and a TTF version which is in Open TT (True Type)format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

Times with a Human Face: In my article of the same name which appeared in the magazine Font, volume 2000 I described the long and trying story of an order for a typeface for the Czech periodical Lidové noviny (People’s Newspaper). My task was to design a modification of the existing Times. The work, however, finally resulted in the complete re-drawing of the typeface. The assignment, which was on the whole wisely formulated, was to design a typeface which would enable “a smooth flow of information in the reader’s eye”, therefore a typeface without any artistic ambitions, from which everything which obstructs legibility would be eliminated. A year later Lidové noviny had a different manager who in the spring of 2001 decided to resume the cooperation. The typeface itself definitely profited from this; I simplified everything which could be simplified, but it still was not “it”, because the other, and obviously more important, requirement of the investor held: “the typeface must look like Times”. And that is why the above-mentioned daily will continue to be printed by a system version of Times, negligently adjusted to local conditions, which is unfortunately a far cry from the original Times New Roman of Stanley Morison. When I was designing Lido, the cooperation with the head of production of Lidové noviny was of great use to me. Many tests were carried out directly on the newspaper rotary press during which numerous weak points of the earliest versions were revealed. The printing tests have proved that the basic design of this typeface is even more legible and economical than that of Times. The final appearance of Lido STF was, however, tuned up without regard to the original assignment – the merrier-looking italics and the more daring modelling of bold lower case letters have been retained. The typeface is suitable for all periodicals wishing to abandon inconspicuously the hideous system typefaces with their even more hideous accents and to change over to the contemporary level of graphic design. It is also most convenient for everyday work in text editors and office applications. It has a fairly large x-height of lower case letters, shortened serifs and simplified endings of rounded strokes. This is typical of the typefaces designed for use in small sizes. Our typeface, however, can sustain enlargement even to the size appropriate for a poster, an information table or a billboard, as it is not trite and at the same time is moderate in expression. Its three supplementary condensed designs correspond to approximately 80% compression and have been, of course, drawn quite separately. The intention to create condensed italics was abandoned; in the case of serif typefaces they always seem to be slightly strained. I named the typeface dutifully "Lido" (after the name of the newspaper) and included it in the retail catalog of my type foundry. In order to prevent being suspected of additionally turning a rejected work into cash, Lido STF in six designs is available free of charge. I should not like it if the issuing of this typeface were understood as an “act out of spite” aimed against the venerable Times. It is rather meant as a reminder that there really are now alternatives to all fonts in all price categories.

A friend of mine says that sports are the ultimate popular drug. One of his favorite things to say is, “The sun’s always shining on a game somewhere.” It’s hard to argue with that. But that perspective is now the privilege of a society where technology is so high and mighty that it all but shapes such perspectives. These days I can, if I so choose, subscribe to nothing but sports on over a hundred TV channels and a thousand browser bookmarks. But it wasn't always like that. When I was growing up, long before the super-commercialization of the sport, I and other kids spent more than every spare minute of our time memorizing the names and positions of players, collecting team shirts and paraphernalia, making up game scenarios, and just being our generation’s entirely devoted fans. Argentina is one of the nations most obsessed with sports, especially "fútbol" (or soccer to North Americans). The running American joke was that we're all born with a football. When the national team is playing a game, stores actually close their doors, and Buenos Aires looks like a ghost town. Even on the local level, River Plate, my favorite team where I grew up, didn't normally have to worry about empty seats in its home stadium, even though attendance is charged at a high premium. There are things our senses absorb when we are children, yet we don't notice them until much later on in life. A sport’s collage of aesthetics is one of those things. When I was a kid I loved the teams and players that I loved, but I never really stopped to think what solidified them in my memory and made them instantly recognizable to me. Now, thirty-some years later, and after having had the fortune to experience many cultures other than my own, I can safely deduce that a sport’s aesthetic depends on the local or national culture as much as it depends on the sport itself. And the way all that gets molded in a single team’s identity becomes so intricate it is difficult to see where each part comes from to shape the whole. Although “futbol” is still in my blood as an Argentinean, I'm old enough to afford a little cynicism about how extremely corporate most popular sports are. Of course, nothing can now take away the joy I got from football in my childhood and early teens. But over the past few years I've been trying to perceive the sport itself in a global context, even alongside other popular sports in different areas of the world. Being a type designer, I naturally focus in my comparisons on the alphabets used in designing different sports experiences. And from that I've come to a few conclusions about my own taste in sports aesthetic, some of which surprised me. I think I like the baseball and basketball aesthetic better than football, hockey, volleyball, tennis, golf, cricket, rugby, and other sports. This of course is a biased opinion. I'm a lettering guy, and hand lettering is seen much more in baseball and basketball. But there’s a bit more to it than that. Even though all sports can be reduced to a bare-bones series of purposes and goals to reach, the rules and arrangements of baseball and basketball, in spite of their obvious tempo differences, are more suited for overall artistic motion than other sports. So when an application of swashed handlettering is used as part of a team’s identity in baseball or basketball, it becomes a natural fit. The swashes can almost be visual representation of a basketball curving in the air on its way to the hoop, or a baseball on its way out of the park. This expression is invariably backed by and connected to bold, sleak lettering, representing the driving force and precision (arms, bat) behind the artistic motion. It’s a simple and natural connective analysis to a designer, but the normal naked eye still marvels inexplicably at the beauty of such logos and wordmarks. That analytical simplicity was the divining rod behind Fan Script. My own ambitious brief was to build a readable yet very artistic sports script that can be a perfect fit for baseball or basketball identities, but which can also be implemented for other sports. The result turned out to be quite beautiful to my eyes, and I hope you find it satisfactory in your own work. Sports scripts like this one are rooted in showcard lettering models from the late 19th and early 20th century, like Detroit’s lettering teacher C. Strong’s — the same models that continue to influence book designers and sign painters for more than a century now. So as you can see, American turn-of-the-century calligraphy and its long-term influences still remain a subject of fascination to me. This fascination has been the engine of most of my work, and it shows clearly in Fan Script. Fan Script is a lively heavy brush face suitable for sports identities. It includes a variety of swashes of different shapes, both connective and non-connective, and contains a whole range of letter alternates. Users of this font will find a lot of casual freedom in playing with different combinations - a freedom backed by a solid technological undercurrent, where OpenType features provide immediate and logical solutions to problems common to this kind of script. One final thing bears mentioning: After the font design and production were completed, it was surprisingly delightful for me to notice, in the testing stage, that my background as a packaging designer seems to have left a mark on the way the font works overall. The modern improvements I applied to the letter forms have managed to induce a somewhat retro packaging appearance to the totality of the typeface. So I expect Fan Script will be just as useful in packaging as it would be in sports identity, logotype and merchandizing. Ale Paul

Sterling Script was initially meant to a be digitization/reinterpretation of a copperplate script widely used during what effectively became the last decade of metal type: Stephenson Blake's Youthline, from 1952. The years from 1945 to 1960 saw a heightened demand for copperplate faces, due to post-war market optimism, as well as the banking and insurance industries booming like never before, which triggered the need for design elements that express formal elegance and luxury. The name Sterling Script is a tip of our hat to England, the Stephenson Blake foundry's country of origin. It is also a historical hint about copperplate scripts having been used mainly for banking and bonds in the 19th century. Originally we just wanted to resurrect a gorgeous metal type from the ashes of forgotten history. But after the main font was done we saw that the original s really needed an alternate. We made one. But we felt sorry for the original s and didn't want to see it dropped from use altogether, so we saved it by building a set of ligatures that solve the minor connection problem with the s at large sizes. Before the completion of the ligatures, a few different alternates were also drawn, and we were faced by the fact that the single font we set out to do was now a much larger set than we anticipated. While thinking about how to split up our unexpected bundle of large characters, we drew a few more alternates and some swashes. This abundance "problem" reached a certain point where there was no looking back, so we just decided to go all the way with this font. We added many more alternates, swashes, ligatures, and two full sets of each beginning and ending lowercase letter. The result is over 750 characters of sheer elegance. Sterling Script has many features that set it above and beyond other copperplate scripts: - It has 2 beginning and 2 ending alternates for every single lowercase character. The beginning and ending variants on the vowels are also available in accented form in the appropriate cells of the character map. - Sterling Script is the ultimate elegant font choice for luxury design. Very elegant, but not too soft. Its strong and confident shapes convey a message that is real, comforting and assuring. - One of the eventual purposes of expanding Sterling Script this extensively was to create a script that finds the middle ground between formal and informal without compromising either trait, a script where the degree of formality can be gauged, tweaked, cranked up or toned down depending on the layout's needs. Aside from beginnings and endings, there are multiple variations for the majority of the basic characters. This is a formal script on steroids, where twirls and swashes can be set to come out unexpectedly from any place in the word, which is great for reducing the inherent rigidity of words set in copperplate scripts and "humanizing" them whenever needed. This is especially useful for wedding, postcard and invitation design, where not every viewer of the collateral material has something to do with banking or insurance. - With such an extensive character set, a designer can easily set a word or a sentence in 10 or more different ways, and choose the perfect one for the task at hand. This is particularly useful for work where details are of utmost importance, like logos, slogans, or elegant engravings that consist of one to three words. Let those swashes and twirls intertwine for maximum elegance. The Sterling Script complete package consists of 7 fonts: Sterling Script, Alternates, Beginnings, Endings, Swashes, Swash Alternates, and Ligatures. Sterling Script is available in five different purchase options and price ranges. But with such a massive offering of variation, the Sterling Script complete package is definitely the most value-laden set in its class. Once you use Sterling Script, you will never want to go back to other copperplates.

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.

Zebramatic - A Lettering Safari Zebramatic is a font for editorial design use, to create headlines and titles in eye-catching stripes. Constructed to offer flexible and a variety of graphical possibilities, Zebramatic type is easy to use. The font is offered in three styles: POW, SLAM and WHAM. These styles work both as ready-made fonts and as patterns to create unique, individualized type. The font design’s full potential is unleashed by layering glyphs from two or all three styles in different colors or shades. Working with the different styles I was reminded of the late Jackson Pollock poured paintings—in particular the documentation of his painting process by Hanz Namuth and Paul Falkernburg in the film Jackson Pollock 51. In Pollock’s pictures the complex allure arises from how he layered the poured and dripped paint onto the canvas. Similar joyful experience and exciting results emerge by layering the different styles of Zebramatic type. Texture In the heart of the Design is Zebramatics unique texture. It is based on an analog distorted stripe pattern. The distortion is applied to a grade that makes the pattern complex but still consistent and legible. You can view some of the initial stripe patterns in the background of examples in the Gallery. Zebramatic POW, SLAM and WHAM each offer a distinct pallet of stripes—a unique zebra hide. POW and WHAM use different distortions of the same line width. SLAM is cut from a wider pattern with thicker stripes. The letter cut and kerning is consistent throughout styles. Design Concept Attention-grabbing textured or weathered fonts are ideal for headlines, ads, magazines and posters. In these situations rugged individuality, letter flow, and outline features are magnified and exposed. Textured fonts also immediately raise the design questions of how to create alignment across a word and deal with repeated letters. Zebramatic was conceived as an especially flexible font, one that could be used conveniently in a single style or by superimposing, interchanging and layering styles to create a unique type. The different styles are completely interchangeable (identical metrics and kerning). This architecture gives the typographer the freedom to decide which form or forms fit best to the specific project. Alignment and repetition were special concerns in the design process. The striped patterns in Zebramatic are carefully conceived to align horizontally but not to match. Matching patterns would create strong letter-pairs that would “stick out” of the word. For example, take the problematic word “stuff”. If Zebramatic aligned alphabetically, the texture of S T and U would align perfectly. The repeated F is also a problem. Imagine a headline that says »LOOK HERE«. If the letters OO and EE have copied »unique« glyphs - the headline suggests mass production, perhaps even that the designer does not care. Some OpenType features can work automatically around such disenchanting situations by accessing different glyphs from the extended glyph-table. However these automations are also repeated; the generated solutions become patterns themselves. Flip and stack To master the situation described above, Zebramatic offers a different programmatic practice. To eliminate alphabetic alignment, the letters in Zebramatic are developed individually. To avoid repetition, the designer can flip between the three styles (POW, SLAM, WHAM) providing three choices per glyph. Stacking layers in different sequences provides theoretical 27 (3*3*3) unique letterforms. A last variable to play with is color (i.e. red, blue, black). Images illustrating the layering potential of Zebramatic are provided in the Gallery. The design is robust and convenient. The font is easily operated through the main font panel (vs. the hidden sub-sub-menu for OpenType related features). The process of accessing different glyphs is also applicable in programs that do not support OpenType extensively (i.e. Word or older Versions of Illustrator). International Specs Zebramatic is ready for your international typographic safari. The font contains an international character set and additional symbols – useful in editorial and graphic design. The font comes in OpenType PostScript flavored and TrueType Format.

The famous roman type cut in Venice by Nicolas Jenson, and used in 1470 for his printing of the tract, De Evangelica Praeparatione, Eusebius, has usually been declared the seminal and definitive representative of a class of types known as Venetian Old Style. The Jenson type is thought to have been the primary model for types that immediately followed. Subsequent 15th-century Venetian Old Style types, cut by other punchcutters in Venice and elsewhere in Italy, are also worthy of study, but have been largely neglected by 20th-century type designers. There were many versions of Venetian Old Style types produced in the final quarter of the quattrocento. The exact number is unknown, but numerous printed examples survive, though the actual types, matrices, and punches are long gone. All these types are not, however, conspicuously Jensonian in character. Each shows a liberal amount of individuality, inconsistency, and eccentricity. My fascination with these historical types began in the 1970s and eventually led to the production of my first text typeface, Iowan Old Style (Bitstream, 1991). Sometime in the early 1990s, I started doodling letters for another Venetian typeface. The letters were pieced together from sections of circles and squares. The n, a standard lowercase control character in a text typeface, came first. Its most unusual feature was its head serif, a bisected quadrant of a circle. My aim was to see if its sharp beak would work with blunt, rectangular, foot serifs. Next, I wanted to see if I could construct a set of capital letters by following a similar design system. Rectangular serifs, or what we today call "slab serifs," were common in early roman printing types, particularly text types cut in Italy before 1500. Slab serifs are evident on both lowercase and uppercase characters in roman types of the Incunabula period, but they are seen mainly at the feet of the lowercase letters. The head serifs on lowercase letters of early roman types were usually angled. They were not arched, like mine. Oddly, there seems to be no actual historical precedent for my approach. Another characteristic of my arched serif is that the side opposite the arch is flat, not concave. Arched, concave serifs were used extensively in early italic types, a genre which first appeared more than a quarter century after roman types. Their forms followed humanistic cursive writing, common in Italy since before movable type was used there. Initially, italic characters were all lowercase, set with upright capitals (a practice I much admire and would like to see revived). Sloped italic capitals were not introduced until the middle of the sixteenth century, and they have very little to do with the evolution of humanist scripts. In contrast to the cursive writing on which italic types were based, formal book hands used by humanist scholars to transcribe classical texts served as a source of inspiration for the lowercase letters of the first roman types cut in Italy. While book hands were not as informal as cursive scripts, they still had features which could be said to be more calligraphic than geometric in detail. Over time, though, the copied vestiges of calligraphy virtually disappeared from roman fonts, and type became more rational. This profound change in the way type developed was also due in part to popular interest in the classical inscriptions of Roman antiquity. Imperial Roman letters, or majuscules, became models for the capital letters in nearly all early roman printing types. So it was, that the first letters in my typeface arose from pondering how shapes of lowercase letters and capital letters relate to one another in terms of classical ideals and geometric proportions, two pinnacles in a range of artistic notions which emerged during the Italian Renaissance. Indeed, such ideas are interesting to explore, but in the field of type design they often lead to dead ends. It is generally acknowledged, for instance, that pure geometry, as a strict approach to type design, has limitations. No roman alphabet, based solely on the circle and square, has ever been ideal for continuous reading. This much, I knew from the start. In the course of developing my typeface for text, innumerable compromises were made. Even though the finished letterforms retain a measure of geometric structure, they were modified again and again to improve their performance en masse. Each modification caused further deviation from my original scheme, and gave every font a slightly different direction. In the lower case letters especially, I made countless variations, and diverged significantly from my original plan. For example, not all the arcs remained radial, and they were designed to vary from font to font. Such variety added to the individuality of each style. The counters of many letters are described by intersecting arcs or angled facets, and the bowls are not round. In the capitals, angular bracketing was used practically everywhere stems and serifs meet, accentuating the terseness of the characters. As a result of all my tinkering, the entire family took on a kind of rich, familiar, coarseness - akin to roman types of the late 1400s. In his book, Printing Types D. B. Updike wrote: "Almost all Italian roman fonts in the last half of the fifteenth century had an air of "security" and generous ease extremely agreeable to the eye. Indeed, there is nothing better than fine Italian roman type in the whole history of typography." It does seem a shame that only in the 20th century have revivals of these beautiful types found acceptance in the English language. For four centuries (circa 1500 - circa 1900) Venetian Old Style faces were definitely not in favor in any living language. Recently, though, reinterpretations of early Italian printing types have been returning with a vengeance. The name Vendetta, which as an Italian sound I like, struck me as being a word that could be taken to signifiy a comeback of types designed in the Venetian style. In closing, I should add that a large measure of Vendetta's overall character comes from a synthesis of ideas, old and new. Hallmarks of roman type design from the Incunabula period are blended with contemporary concerns for the optimal display of letterforms on computer screens. Vendetta is thus not a historical revival. It is instead an indirect but personal digital homage to the roman types of punchcutters whose work was influenced by the example Jenson set in 1470. John Downer.

The concept of the Baroque Roman type face is something which is remote from us. Ungrateful theorists gave Baroque type faces the ill-sounding attribute "Transitional", as if the Baroque Roman type face wilfully diverted from the tradition and at the same time did not manage to mature. This "transition" was originally meant as an intermediate stage between the Aldine/Garamond Roman face of the Renaissance, and its modern counterpart, as represented by Bodoni or Didot. Otherwise there was also a "transition" from a slanted axis of the shadow to a perpendicular one. What a petty detail led to the pejorative designation of Baroque type faces! If a bookseller were to tell his customers that they are about to choose a book which is set in some sort of transitional type face, he would probably go bust. After all, a reader, for his money, would not put up with some typographical experimentation. He wants to read a book without losing his eyesight while doing so. Nevertheless, it was Baroque typography which gave the world the most legible type faces. In those days the craft of punch-cutting was gradually separating itself from that of book-printing, but also from publishing and bookselling. Previously all these activities could be performed by a single person. The punch-cutter, who at that time was already fully occupied with the production of letters, achieved better results than he would have achieved if his creative talents were to be diffused in a printing office or a bookseller's shop. Thus it was possible that for example the printer John Baskerville did not cut a single letter in his entire lifetime, for he used the services of the accomplished punch-cutter John Handy. It became the custom that one type founder supplied type to multiple printing offices, so that the same type faces appeared in various parts of the world. The type face was losing its national character. In the Renaissance period it is still quite easy to distinguish for example a French Roman type face from a Venetian one; in the Baroque period this could be achieved only with great difficulties. Imagination and variety of shapes, which so far have been reserved only to the fine arts, now come into play. Thanks to technological progress, book printers are now able to reproduce hairstrokes and imitate calligraphic type faces. Scripts and elaborate ornaments are no longer the privilege of copper-engravers. Also the appearance of the basic, body design is slowly undergoing a change. The Renaissance canonical stiffness is now replaced with colour and contrast. The page of the book is suddenly darker, its lay-out more varied and its lines more compact. For Baroque type designers made a simple, yet ingenious discovery - they enlarged the x-height and reduced the ascenders to the cap-height. The type face thus became seemingly larger, and hence more legible, but at the same time more economical in composition; the type area was increasing to the detriment of the margins. Paper was expensive, and the aim of all the publishers was, therefore, to sell as many ideas in as small a book block as possible. A narrowed, bold majuscule, designed for use on the title page, appeared for the first time in the Late Baroque period. Also the title page was laid out with the highest possible economy. It comprised as a rule the brief contents of the book and the address of the bookseller, i.e. roughly that which is now placed on the flaps and in the imprint lines. Bold upper-case letters in the first line dramatically give way to the more subtle italics, the third line is highlighted with vermilion; a few words set in lower-case letters are scattered in-between, and then vermilion appears again. Somewhere in the middle there is an ornament, a monogram or an engraving as a kind of climax of the drama, while at the foot of the title-page all this din is quietened by a line with the name of the printer and the year expressed in Roman numerals, set in 8-point body size. Every Baroque title-page could well pass muster as a striking poster. The pride of every book printer was the publication of a type specimen book - a typographical manual. Among these manuals the one published by Fournier stands out - also as regards the selection of the texts for the specimen type matter. It reveals the scope of knowledge and education of the master typographers of that period. The same Fournier established a system of typographical measurement which, revised by Didot, is still used today. Baskerville introduced the smoothing of paper by a hot steel roller, in order that he could print astonishingly sharp letters, etc. ... In other words - Baroque typography deserves anything else but the attribute "transitional". In the first half of the 18th century, besides persons whose names are prominent and well-known up to the present, as was Caslon, there were many type founders who did not manage to publish their manuals or forgot to become famous in some other way. They often imitated the type faces of their more experienced contemporaries, but many of them arrived at a quite strange, even weird originality, which ran completely outside the mainstream of typographical art. The prints from which we have drawn inspiration for these six digital designs come from Paris, Vienna and Prague, from the period around 1750. The transcription of letters in their intact form is our firm principle. Does it mean, therefore, that the task of the digital restorer is to copy meticulously the outline of the letter with all inadequacies of the particular imprint? No. The type face should not to evoke the rustic atmosphere of letterpress after printing, but to analyze the appearance of the punches before they are imprinted. It is also necessary to take account of the size of the type face and to avoid excessive enlargement or reduction. Let us keep in mind that every size requires its own design. The longer we work on the computer where a change in size is child's play, the more we are convinced that the appearance of a letter is tied to its proportions, and therefore, to a fixed size. We are also aware of the fact that the computer is a straightjacket of the type face and that the dictate of mathematical vectors effectively kills any hint of naturalness. That is why we strive to preserve in these six alphabets the numerous anomalies to which later no type designer ever returned due to their obvious eccentricity. Please accept this PostScript study as an attempt (possibly futile, possibly inspirational) to brush up the warm magic of Baroque prints. Hopefully it will give pleasure in today's modern type designer's nihilism.

Breaking the cycle of homelessness We are partnered with The House of St. Barnabas, a private members club in Soho Square, whose work as a not for profit charity aims to break the cycle of homelessness in London. Each purchase (of the family pack) comes with a one month membership to The House and 100% of the proceeds from sales of fonts go directly to the charity to help their essential work. This unique collection of 7 typefaces is based on the disappearing signs of Soho, at risk of being lost forever due to the ever changing landscape of the area. By re-imaging the signage as complete fonts, we have rescued this rich visual history from the streets and present the typefaces into a contemporary context for a bright optimistic future. FS Berwick Thanks to its humble tiled origins, this Egyptian serif type maintains a uniform character width, creating the irregular letter proportions found in the final alphabet. Broad-shouldered, the bracketed serifs firmly ground the font, whilst its extreme hairlines become a necessity due to the uniform width. Of note is the upside down ‘S’, to be found on the original sign on Berwick Street. Perhaps due to its ceramic origins, there is a surprising ‘slippiness’ to its final appearance. FS Cattle Cattle & Son is best described as a wide, but not overly extended, grotesque-style sans serif, showing a uniform width and carrying a robust strength to its form. Whilst lightly functional overall, the purposeful diagonal legs of the ‘K’, ‘R’ and the tail of the ‘Q’ add an urgency to its appearance. The reduced size of the ampersand gives away Cattle & Son’s hand-painted origins, and the oblique compacted ‘LTD’ found on the original sign is also included in the final set. This beautiful sign is tucked away under an arch in Portland Mews, sheltering from the weather. Perhaps this is why it has lasted so long. FS Century This somewhat elongated set of Roman capitals was originally rendered in paint circa 1940, but its roots trace back to the Trajan Column in Rome. Witness the slightly unbalanced ‘W’ and the painter’s hand is revealed. Century’s flared serif style is extremely short, sharp and bracketed. The ‘M’ is splayed and has no top serifs. Century has a uniform appearance of width, probably due to its sign-written origins. Yet is elegant, classic and exudes sophistication. FS Charity A true Tuscan letterform, the original is located on The House of St. Barnabas in ceramic tiles and was revealed in all its broken glory in 2014. FS Charity retains the option of using these incorrect characters (try typing lowercase in the test drive above and compare with the more uniform uppercase characters). FS Charity features fishtailed terminals on its strokes, a curious branched ‘T’ and the ‘S’ displays tear-drop ends to its serifs. Almost uniform in width, the ‘A’, ‘M’ and ‘W’ are the widest characters in this set. FS Marlborough The elongated Marlborough features diagonal terminals to some characters and numerals. Also retained is the space-saving contracted ‘T’ glyph from the original sign, while the ‘R’ features a distinctive wedge-shaped leg. Highly individual in this form, similar signage appears around Soho, but featuring a variety of widths in their design. FS Portland The sister type to Cattle & Son, Portland is oblique rather than italic. The serifs are not overly long, yet still enhance its rather rigid cap height and baseline appearance. Its ‘A’ has a top serif, the ‘M’ is square and the ‘G’ foregoes any spur. Particularly delightful is the open ampersand. Numerals align to encourage the horizontal flavour of the oblique style. Overall, Portland is both confident and graceful. FS St James A lineal Continental style, St James also displays a true sense of ‘Londoness’ in its titling form, perhaps influenced by early Underground signage. Irregular letterforms display a continental flavour, particularly evident in its Deco style ‘W’, ampersand and numerals. The rather high cross bar in the ‘A’ is also reflected in the raised middle strokes of the ‘M’. Noteworthy are the distinctive unions found on all of the characters and the additional small caps. The original lettering is still located on Greek St.

Type designers are crazy people. Not crazy in the sense that they think we are Napoleon, but in the sense that the sky can be falling, wars tearing the world apart, disasters splitting the very ground we walk on, plagues circling continents to pick victims randomly, yet we will still perform our ever optimistic task of making some little spot of the world more appealing to the human eye. We ought to be proud of ourselves, I believe. Optimism is hard to come by these days. Regardless of our own personal reasons for doing what we do, the very thing we do is in itself an act of optimism and belief in the inherent beauty that exists within humanity. As recently as ten years ago, I wouldn't have been able to choose the amazing obscure profession I now have, wouldn't have been able to be humbled by the history that falls into my hands and slides in front of my eyes every day, wouldn't have been able to live and work across previously impenetrable cultural lines as I do now, and wouldn't have been able to raise my glass of Malbeck wine to toast every type designer who was before me, is with me, and will be after me. As recently as ten years ago, I wouldn't have been able to mean these words as I wrote them: It’s a small world. Yes, it is a small world, and a wonderfully complex one too. With so much information drowning our senses by the minute, it has become difficult to find clear meaning in almost anything. Something throughout the day is bound to make us feel even smaller in this small world. Most of us find comfort in a routine. Some of us find extended families. But in the end we are all Eleanor Rigbys, lonely on the inside and waiting for a miracle to come. If a miracle can make the world small, another one can perhaps give us meaning. And sometimes a miracle happens for a split second, then gets buried until a crazy type designer finds it. I was on my honeymoon in New York City when I first stumbled upon the letters that eventually started this Affair. A simple, content tourist walking down the streets formerly unknown to me except through pop music and film references. Browsing the shops of the city that made Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, and a thousand other artists. Trying to chase away the tourist mentality, wondering what it would be like to actually live in the city of a billion tiny lights. Tourists don't go to libraries in foreign cities. So I walked into one. Two hours later I wasn't in New York anymore. I wasn't anywhere substantial. I was the crazy type designer at the apex of insanity. La La Land, alphabet heaven, curves and twirls and loops and swashes, ribbons and bows and naked letters. I'm probably not the very first person on this planet to be seduced into starting an Affair while on his honeymoon, but it is something to tease my better half about once in a while. To this day I can't decide if I actually found the worn book, or if the book itself called for me. Its spine was nothing special, sitting on a shelf, tightly flanked by similar spines on either side. Yet it was the only one I picked off that shelf. And I looked at only one page in it before walking to the photocopier and cheating it with an Argentine coin, since I didn't have the American quarter it wanted. That was the beginning. I am now writing this after the Affair is over. And it was an Affair to remember, to pull a phrase. Right now, long after I have drawn and digitized and tested this alphabet, and long after I saw what some of this generation’s type designers saw in it, I have the luxury to speculate on what Affair really is, what made me begin and finish it, what cultural expressions it has, and so on. But in all honesty it wasn't like that. Much like in my Ministry Script experience, I was a driven man, a lover walking the ledge, an infatuated student following the instructions of his teacher while seeing her as a perfect angel. I am not exaggerating when I say that the letters themselves told me how to extend them. I was exploited by an alphabet, and it felt great. Unlike my experience with Ministry Script, where the objective was to push the technology to its limits, this Affair felt like the most natural and casual sequence of processions in the world – my hand following the grid, the grid following what my hand had already done – a circle of creation contained in one square computer cell, then doing it all over again. By contrast, it was the lousiest feeling in the world when I finally reached the conclusion that the Affair was done. What would I do now? Would any commitment I make from now on constitute a betrayal of these past precious months? I'm largely over all that now, of course. I like to think I'm a better man now because of the experience. Affair is an enormous, intricately calligraphic OpenType font based on a 9x9 photocopy of a page from a 1950s lettering book. In any calligraphic font, the global parameters for developing the characters are usually quite volatile and hard to pin down, but in this case it was particularly difficult because the photocopy was too gray and the letters were of different sizes, very intertwined and scan-impossible. So finishing the first few characters in order to establish the global rhythm was quite a long process, after which the work became a unique soothing, numbing routine by which I will always remember this Affair. The result of all the work, at least to the eyes of this crazy designer, is 1950s American lettering with a very Argentine wrapper. My Affair is infused with the spirit of filete, dulce de leche, yerba mate, and Carlos Gardel. Upon finishing the font I was fortunate enough that a few of my colleagues, great type designers and probably much saner than I am, agreed to show me how they envision my Affair in action. The beauty they showed me makes me feel small and yearn for the world to be even smaller now – at least small enough so that my international colleagues and I can meet and exchange stories over a good parrilla. These people, whose kindness is very deserving of my gratitude, and whose beautiful art is very deserving of your appreciation, are in no particular order: Corey Holms, Mariano Lopez Hiriart, Xavier Dupré, Alejandro Ros, Rebecca Alaccari, Laura Meseguer, Neil Summerour, Eduardo Manso, and the Doma group. You can see how they envisioned using Affair in the section of this booklet entitled A Foreign Affair. The rest of this booklet contains all the obligatory technical details that should come with a font this massive. I hope this Affair can bring you as much peace and satisfaction as it brought me, and I hope it can help your imagination soar like mine did when I was doing my duty for beauty.

Unleash your inner street artist with Rocket Queen! The definitive font for urban self-expression. Inspired by the bold strokes of tagging graffiti markers found on city walls, this font encapsulates the raw energy of the streets. Its uppercase and lowercase characters ensure versatility, while support for foreign languages guarantees global appeal. Graffiti artists worldwide adore its iconic rounded tip marker style for its unique and entertaining aesthetics. Rocket Queen's "Urban Tags" font is more than just a typeface; it's an urban art form. Designed with a nod to the vibrant world of graffiti scenes, this font embodies the spirit of tagging graffiti markers, creating a gritty, authentic experience. With full support for foreign languages and both uppercase and lowercase characters, Rocket Queen empowers your creativity. Its iconic rounded tip marker style, favored by graffiti artists globally, offers a unique and entertaining touch to your designs. Plus, it's enriched with street graffiti ornaments for that added urban flair. Rocket Queen is more than a font; it's the language of rebellion and urban creativity. Drawing inspiration from the bustling streets and tagging graffiti markers, this font captures the raw spirit of street art. Its iconic rounded tip marker style, beloved by graffiti artists worldwide, sets your designs apart with a unique and captivating aesthetic. Supporting foreign languages and featuring a complete set of uppercase and lowercase characters, Rocket Queen is your canvas for bold, edgy statements. Step into the world of street art with Rocket Queen, a font that embodies the raw spirit of urban graffiti. Inspired by the legendary rounded tip marker style, this font captures the essence of tagging in the streets. Its captivating, one-of-a-kind design is favored by graffiti artists across the globe. With support for foreign languages and a full set of uppercase and lowercase characters, Rocket Queen is the ultimate choice for artists who want their work to resonate with the vibrant, rebellious energy of the graffiti scene. And, don't forget to explore the collection of street graffiti ornaments to take your designs to the next level! "Rocket Queen" font is perfect for a wide range of creative and artistic applications. Here are some ideal uses for this unique and edgy font: Graffiti Artwork: Use "Rocket Queen" to create authentic graffiti-style artwork on canvas, walls, or digital platforms. Its street-inspired design will add an urban, edgy vibe to your work. Streetwear Brand Logos: Design logos and branding materials for streetwear clothing lines or urban fashion brands. The font's bold and expressive style is a great match for this niche. Event Posters and Flyers: Create eye-catching event posters and flyers for music concerts, art exhibitions, or street festivals. "Rocket Queen" will help your event materials stand out and evoke a gritty, streetwise feel. Album Covers: Design album covers for music genres like hip-hop, rap, punk, or any style that demands a rebellious and energetic look. The font can give your cover artwork an authentic street vibe. Tattoo Lettering: Tattoo artists and enthusiasts can use "Rocket Queen" for lettering in tattoos. Its unique graffiti-inspired characters can create distinct and personalized tattoos. Skateboard Deck Graphics: Use the font to design custom graphics for skateboard decks, reflecting the rebellious and urban culture of skateboarding. Street Art Installations: If you're creating street art installations, "Rocket Queen" can be used for text elements within the artwork, giving it an authentic urban graffiti feel. Urban Magazine Titles: "Rocket Queen" can be an ideal choice for magazine titles and headlines in publications that focus on urban culture, street art, or graffiti. Video Game Titles and Graphics: Design video game titles, logos, or in-game graphics for games with an urban or street culture theme. The font's distinctive style can enhance the game's visual appeal. YouTube Channel Branding: Content creators with a street art or urban lifestyle focus can use "Rocket Queen" for their channel logos, banners, and thumbnails. Product Packaging: For products targeting a youthful, urban audience, the font can be used in product packaging design, making the brand and product look fresh and exciting. Digital and Print Advertisements: Incorporate "Rocket Queen" in advertising campaigns that aim to connect with a young, rebellious, or urban demographic. The "Rocket Queen" font is versatile and can be adapted to a wide range of applications where a bold, streetwise, and artistic look is desired. It's all about bringing an authentic graffiti vibe to your creative projects. ——— Rocket Queen features: A full set of uppercase and lowercase Numbers and punctuation Multilingual language support PUA Encoded Characters OpenType Features Layered Style +345 Total Glyphs +100 Graffiti Swashes and Ornaments included!

Aphrodite Slim Pro is not just a lighter version of its sister Aphrodite Pro. Aphrodite Slim Pro has duplicated the quantity of characters of its partner, and that means more than 500 new glyphs, reaching a total of more than 1000. More delicate and meticulous, Aphrodite Slim Pro is once more a new typography with deep calligraphic ideals: We immersed ourselves into the world of each calligraphy ductus and each calligraphy masters by studying from decoration to lettering books. This was the key for the logic of Aphrodite Slim’s behavior. The new concept of Aphrodite Slim Pro was to join diverse styles of calligraphy in one in order to achieve an autonomous expressiveness, in fact, this is what calligraphy aims to, and we agreed to bring those ideals to the world of typography: It is justifiable to be inspired in hundred-year-old calligraphies, but it is even better if the results you obtain have a plus. A personal plus. During the creation process we were wondering whether it was possible to mix certain strokes of such rigid styles as uncial, (Li·n’s favourite style), with strokes of the copperplate, (Sav’s favourite style), and also to take and mix cualities of cancelleresca cursiva, formata and moderna; finally giving our creation a roman-transition italic look. So Aphrodite Slim takes ideals and aspects from those formal styles, following its own logic though, and emphasizing the fact of being a decorative typography. Calligraphy masters of our past are who we are in debt with. They are the cause we have lovely letters now. They have been spontaneous at the moment of creation, what differs from the type-designers of nowadays, whose spontaneity is more limited. Digital faces that we are used to see these days are a result of long hours of optical adjustments, grids, macros and inspirations of other existing typography, but without personal contributions. Aphrodite Slim wants to refute this. Its mission is to rescue de spontaneity of the artesanal lettering in order to obtain unique words; those which only calligraphy masters of our past or lettering artists of our present could give us. We have worked hard to achieve this, making Aphrodite the most universal font we could: It was necessary to study the most common words, focalizing more in the ones referring to “sensitivity”, of four of the most spoken languages in the world. Aphrodite Slim has an enormous quantity of decorative characters and special ligatures for phrases and words in English, French, Spanish and German. (See English, Français, Español, Deutsch PDF in the gallery section). We promise there is no existing type that decorates/ligates glyphs and words like Aphrodite Slim does: It is the first time a font like this really considers its purpose. -The way glyphs are ligated is insane- : Aphrodite Slim rescues some ideals of persons like Jan van den Velde (Italian cancilleresca writing of XVI Century) who understands ascenders and descenders as possibilities to beautify the lines of writing with curved strokes that seem to be dancing above and below of the words. This master also creates ascenders and descenders even where they are not necessary, on letters that do not actually need them: Aphrodite Slim takes this ideal. The font counts with a wide range of glyphs that seem not to be satisfied with its more primitive form and prefer to extreme their parts to be decorative. It also existed masters of calligraphy like José de Casanova of XVII Century, who, with a magnificant skill and a really personal mark, had the particularity of ligating words that were actually separated with spaces. This is another innovative feature in Aphrodite Slim. An investigation of the most common beginnings and endings words of the English language was done. Having that feature activated (discretionary ligatures), common words will start to ligate or to be decorated even when they are separated by spaces. Impossible to forget Francesco Periccioli of XVII Century and our experience us designers to face with works of him: His letters, that today are included in the group of cancellerescas modernas, have been a direct inspiration to the oldstyle figures and historical forms variables in Aphrodite Slim. Giovanni Antonio Tagliente (XVI Century) and his particular way of making tails and diagonals longer than usual, qualities that our creation reflects too. Finally, our adventures in Biblioteca Nacional and Barrio San Telmo, Buenos Aires, were essential for us to make Aphrodite Slim more complete and interesting: Sav did an excellent work when studying how the decorative miscellanea and swirls of early XX century were. She also investigated what particularities made those roman titling characters look antique so she could rescue some ideals for the oldstyle figures and historical forms variables. This also leaded her to create the ornaments variable in Aphrodite Slim. We are really proud of presenting Aphrodite Slim Pro, a typography that was the result of days and nights of working hard, because we do love what we do; and we are glad we are living in a present that gives us the possibility to spread this kind of art, because that is the way we consider our job: Aphrodite Slim Pro is Art. Hope you can appreciate the enormous work this type has. Features. Aphrodite Slim Pro is the most complete variable. It includes more than 1000 glyphs. Thanks to the Open-Type programming, it counts with a easy way to change/alternate glyphs if the application in which the font is used supports this. The variables contained in Aphrodite Slim Pro are also offered separately. Aphrodite Slim Text: It is the variable for lines and paragraphs. Thus it is the least ornamental and the most accurate to achieve a satisfying legibility. It has the Standard Ligatures feature in order to improve the possible conflicts some glyphs could have by others. Aphrodite Slim Contextual: It is the one that makes emphasis in decorating. It has the particularity of ligating/decorating words of common use in English, French, Spanish and German. It also has the quality of ligating common beginnings and endings of the common words in English. Aphrodite Slim Stylistic: With similar features of Slim Contextual. It includes a set of decorative numbers for a display use. Aphrodite Slim Swash: This one has special beginnings and endings to decorate words. Aphrodite Slim Endings: It makes words look as a signature. Aphrodite Slim Historical: It adds an antique look to the written word. It also has the special historical ligature function. Aphrodite Slim Titling: This one is the most decorative. Its copperplate inspired ornaments give words a special color, in order to handle the quantity of decoration, it comes with the standard ligature feature, which has the most common ligatures plus others that make decorative swirls not to be conflictive. Aphrodite Slim Ornaments: A set of 52 ornaments. Aphrodite Slim Pro includes all this features plus the Stylistic Set 1; Stylistic Set 2 and the possibility of Slashed Zero. We recommend you to check out the gallery in order to see all these features in action.