Cotorra is a birdie font with a full character set ideal to write feathered messages. Part of the official selection of Tipos Latinos 2016, Latin American Biennale of type design. Published by Letter INC.

An image of a vintage, hand-cut metal stencil with just a set of bold numerals inspired the design of Bold Metal Stencil JNL. The typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Gently rounded in shape, Kassena is reminiscent of the round thatched huts of the Zulu people. The triangular motif is inspired by the designs used in the decorative crafts of the Nguni African tribes.

Berthold Wolpe’s innovative design undertaken for Monotype in 1932 suggests the texture of letters cut in wood. Albertus can be seen as Morison’s improvement of Othello, Monotype’s 1928 copy of Neuland, executed by Pierpont.

Nevins Hand is our first release of a new collection of fonts based on the designs of Peter Nevins, a San Francisco poster artist who does hand-lettered fonts in the Art Nouveau tradition.

Chyletoon, a hand crafted cartoon font consisting of 24 styles. Crafted from childish mind, the cartoonish characters of this font are suitable for many uses, the limit being the boundaries of your own imagination.

Another in a series of typefaces (Joost a Gigolo and Modern Art) based on the works of comic-book artist Joost Swarte, which continues in a long-standing Dutch tradition of unconventional lettering design.

Apice is a font family made for precise bursts of data. It supports 111 languages, features a total of 310 glyphs and includes an italicized and outline version for each of the 3 weights.

Although being made of geometric shapes, Meloneads is a playful and funny set of drawings.

The Timeless Letterforms of Rennie Mackintosh inspired by the graceful lines and textures of Papyrus.

Fifties-style beauty parlor signage is the main influence of this series of hairstyle silhouettes.

Before Bodoni, there was Didot. With the publication by Francois Ambroise Didot of Paris in 1784 of his prospectus for Tasso’s La Gerusalemme Liberata, the rococo typographical style of Fournier de Jeune was replaced with a spartan, neo-classical style that John Baskerville pioneered. The typeface Didot used for this work was of Didot’s own creation and is considered by both G. Dowding and P. Meggs to be the first modern face. Three years later, Bodoni of Parma is using a very similar face. Just as Bodoni’s typeface evolved over time, so did that of the Didot family. The eldest son of Francois Ambroise Didot, Pierre, ran the printing office; and Firmin ran the typefoundry. Pierre used the flattened, wove paper, again pioneered by Baskerville, to permit a more accurate impression and allow the use of more delicate letterforms. Firmin took full advantage of the improved paper by further refining the typeface introduced by his father. The printing of Racine’s Oeuvres in 1801 (seen in our gallery image #2) shows the symbiotic results of their efforts, especially in the marked increase in the sharpness of the serifs when compared to their owns works of only six years earlier. It has been suggested that one reason Bodoni achieved greater popularity than Didot is the thinner hairlines of Didot were more fragile when cast in metal type and thus more expensive for printers to use than Bodoni. This ceased to be a problem with the advent of phototypesetting, opening the door for a renewed interest in the work of the Didot family and especially that of Firmin Didot. Although further refinements in the Didot typeface were to come (notably the lower case ‘g’ shown in 1819), we have chosen 1801 as the nominal basis for our presentation of HiH Firmin Didot. We like the thick-thin circumflex that replaced the evenly-stroked version of 1795, possible only with the flatter wove paper. We like the unusual coat-hanger cedilla. We like the organic, leaf-like tail of the ‘Q.’ We like the strange, little number ‘2’ and the wonderfully assertive ‘4.’ And we like the distinctive and delightful awkwardness of the double-v (w). Please note that we have provided alternative versions of the upper and lower case w that are slightly more conventional than the original designs. Personally, I find the moderns (often called Didones) hard on the eyes in extended blocks of text. That does not stop me from enjoying their cold, crisp clarity. They represent the Age of Reason and the power of man’s intellect, while reflecting also its limitations. In the title pages set by Bodoni, Bulmer and Didot, I see the spare beauty of a winter landscape. That appeals to a New Englander like myself. Another aspect that appeals to me is setting a page in HiH Firmin Didot and watching people try to figure out what typeface it is. It looks a lot like Bodoni, but it isn't!