Introducing Meritocracy, a full-featured handwritten font with tons of alternate characters and OpenType features. My goal with this font was to make you a typeface that will look as much like hand lettering as possible. Using the built-in OpenType pseudo-random contextual alternates and over 300 individually drawn ligatures, you can infuse your typography with personality and variety.** OpenType Features Meritocracy comes with more than 900 glyphs! Specific OpenType features include contextual alternates, stylistic alternates, a second stylistic set for variety, multiple alternate glyphs for many letters (accessed through the glyphs panel), multilingual support (including multiple currency symbols), standard numbers, and seven ampersand styles. It also includes 325+ standard and discretionary ligatures, all of them individually hand-drawn to be different from all other glyphs in the font. These ligatures allow you to give a super-realistic hand-lettered look to your typography. You can write the same word in so many different ways if you combine the default set, stylistic set 01, and standard and discretionary ligatures in different ways. SPECIAL OPENTYPE FEATURE: If you are using OpenType-capable software like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, or CorelDraw and you have contextual alternates turned on, you can see the letters randomize themselves as you type, mixing from the default character set and stylistic set 01. (You can always turn on contextual alternates after you have already typed your passage and it will randomize all at once, or you can choose to turn off contextual alternates and substitute specific glyphs yourself - I find that if I'm typing a word or two, I prefer to control the individual glyphs myself; if I'm typing a paragraph, I like to use the built-in randomness of the contextual alternates feature). Note that this pseudo-randomization (aka contextual alternate feature) is ON by default in Apple's Pages app and OFF by default in Microsoft Word, but it can be turned on. The OpenType features can be very easily accessed by using OpenType-savvy programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign. (To access most of these awesome features in Microsoft Word, you'll need to get comfortable with the advanced tab of Word's font menu. If you have questions about this, ask me!) Files included: Meritocracy-Regular.otf Please note: there is only one file for this font. That's the magic of OpenType - all of the alternates, ligatures, etc. are built right into the .otf file! Mail support : julie@upupcreative.com --- Find inspiration (and sneak peeks at my next font-in-progress) on - Instagram: http://instagram.com/julieatupupcreative - Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/upupcreative - Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/upupcreative - My website: http://upupcreative.com --- **PLEASE ENJOY! I can't wait to see what you make with Meritocracy! Feel free to use the #upupcreative and #meritocracyfont tags to show me what you've been up to!**

From the beginning “Esmeralda” was born with a strong influence of the classical “capitalis monumentalis”, carved in stone. In the same way, the origin of this majuscule writing emerged from the brush, from a way of writing made merely by hand. For this reason, these two universes were intended to lie beneath the shape of each letter, redefining them. And this combination of styles should also be reflected in a lower case set that also allows to open up the spectrum of usage possibilities. Foundational calligraphy represented a solid base for the development of lower case glyphs, ensuring proper interaction with the upper case letters. “Esmeralda” features a great number of ligatures that mix classic structures with a more contemporary impression. With more than eleven hundred glyphs, it provides a multiplicity of uses across a wide combinatory of ligatures, alternative signs, initial caps, miscellaneous and connectors; each one of them accessible through Open Type. “Esmeralda” is perfect to speak with a classical yet fresh, modern – and a little bit bold – tone of voice. Designed by Guille Vizzari, together with the tough and remarkable work of Ale Paul, in use “Esmeralda” stands out in a subtle and unexpected way that’s almost unnoticeable. Its delicate yet solid curves, serifs and endings give each composition a fine, elegant and exquisite feeling, along with a firm and sturdy look. “Esmeralda” was initially born as a typographic project developed by Guillermo Vizzari – tutored by Ale Paul and Ana Sanfelippo – under completion of the Specialization in Typography Design at University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the years 2011 and 2012.

Bold, rounded and super cool. Those are the attributes of my latest font “Vinyle”, french for vinyl. In this epoque where all fields of Design are giving a lot of importance and attention to Typography and Lettering, I felt it was my duty to contribute with something that could really stand alone and ‘say something else’ that just words to be read. I've found that lately in the world, regarding a finished piece of design, the role of Typography (and of letters in general) went from being secondary, (like a minor player or a supporting actor) to the most important one. People are starting to understand the beauty of a well-done letter: they want their storefronts with unique scripts, they want to drink coffee surrounded by lettered blackboards, they want to buy books with astonishing covers with swashes ‘por doquier’. I'm more than happy to be alive in a present where even the most unimaginable friends of mine, (who couldn't spot differences between comic sans and helvetica before) are now conscious of the importance of a letter, or let’s say: Of the ‘voice’ of Typography. With Vinyle I tried to make a font with power. Following the nowadays trend of, let me say, “the vintage sans renaissance”. This time I put my brushes and nibs aside and experimented with something new. It wasn't easy, if you will pardon, for me to see swashes all over the place withouth the classic calligraphic ‘thick and thins’, but with after some weeks of work I started to love them. Like I already showed you in other creations (1) let me finish with the phrase: GEOMETRY IS SEXY! TIPS Vinyle has a lot of attitude, it shouts “here I am!” it really can ‘design an entire piece’ for you with just a word or two: It was designed with a 10 degree slant on purpose so the user may rotate it (like on the posters) that amount of degrees in order to see better results. Use Vinyle with the ‘fi’ standard ligatures activates for better kerning and ligatures! NOTES (1) See my font Selfie , the ‘little sister’ of Vinyle.

Irish Penny is based on the lettering from Percy Metcalfe's beautiful and influential pre-decimal coinage of Ireland, the Barnyard Collection. The font is more monoline than is conventional for Irish insular styles, almost giving the feel of a modern soft sans, and perfect for small and large scale display purposes. Irish Penny contains a full complement of Latin Extended-A accented characters, Irish lenited consonants with the dot accent, and the tironian et which is commonly used in Ireland instead of an ampersand. Lowercase characters are provided small caps style, slightly reduced in size and subtly thickened in weight. The licensed font comes with a faux italic, and although obliques are not common among insular typefaces, Irish Penny Italic is a useful smart and sporty extra. Although the insular G/g is usually understood, Irish Penny also includes a more latinised option as an alternate G/g. The supplemental 'Irish Penny Alternate G' font places the latinised G and g characters at the normal G/g keystrokes, and makes the original insular glyphs the alternates. An alternate E/e with an angled crossbar is also included. The font contains a selection of discretionary ligatures, these include the ligatures that were used for pre-decimal coins: AC/ac, AE/ae, AL/al, AO/ao, AU/au, AT/at (halfpenny, half crown), AX/ax, AY/ay CA/ca, CC/cc, CE/ce, CO/co (half crown), CU/cu, CY/cy EA/ea (halfpenny, half crown), EC/ec, EE/ee, ET/et, EU/eu (sixpence), EY/ey FE/fe (farthing), FF/ff, FL/fl (florin) GI/gi (penny), GU/gu KA/ka, KE/ke, KI/ki, KO/ko, KT/kt, KU/ku LA/la, LE/le (halfpenny, half crown), LL/ll (shilling), LO/lo, LT/lt, LU/lu, LY/ly RA/ra, RC/rc, RE/re (three/sixpence), RH/rh, RI/ri (florin), RK/rk, RN/rn, RM/rm, RO/ro (half crown), RR/rr, RT/rt, RU/ru, RY/ry TA/ta, TE/te, TO/to, TU/tu NOTE - Irish Penny contains some characters that are not accessible directly from your keyboard, but which may be copied from a font viewer such as Character Map, Font Book or FontExplorer, and pasted into documents. They can also be accessed from the Glyphs browsers within OpenType-aware applications like Adobe InDesign and Illustrator, and Affinity Photo and Publisher.

Rabigail is an unique and very elegant font for brand and logo design. Based on our experience as a graphic designer who works for a lot of companies, we often are requested to design a logo in a unique style but with an elegant shape. So, we try to brainstorming and create this font to make the idea is going out. This is perfect for BRANDING and LOGO DESIGN. You will get classy, elegant, and certainly unique logos with this font. To make it look more unique, here we prepared some ligatures: ab ah am an ar ak ap at oo cb ch ck cm cn cr ct eb eh ek em en ep er ub uh uk um un up ur st tb th tk tm tn tp tr tu ty fl fi ff ft oo cra ee ga gi it UPDATE v2 - New Additional Ligatures: ob oh om on op or Wish You enjoy it. :) Rabigail is also included full set of: uppercase and lowercase letters multilingual symbols numerals punctuation Wish you enjoy our font and if you have a question, don't hesitate to drop message & I'm happy to help :)

Rapor is a powerful and elegant combination, built from a combination of sans serifs with strong gemometric foundations such as Futura, and grotesque fonts based on the equal-width system. Its slightly softened evenly converging diagonal corners add distinctiveness to it. It has 10 weights ranging from Thin to Black. It consists of twenty styles with matching italics. Rapor is equipped for professional typography with rich opentype features. Rapor OpenType features: aalt, locl (Romanian, Moldovian, Dutch, Catalan, Turkish, Azeri, Crimen Tatar, Kazakh), ordn, locl, case, frac, sinf, subs, sups, numr, dnom, tnum, onum, lnum, pnum, ss01 (Alternative a), ss02 (Alternative g), ss03 (Alternative r), ss04 (Alternative M), ss05 (Circled Figures), ss06 (Apostrophe), ss07 (Dingbats Ligature), dlig, liga, salt, cpsp, calt. Rapor Language Support: Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian Aragonese, Arapaho, Aromanian, Arrernte, Asturian, Aymara, Basque, Belarusian (Lacinka), Bislama, Bosnian, Breton, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Cheyenne, Chichewa (Nyanja), Cimbrian, Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Finnish, French, French Creole (Saint Lucia), Frisian, Friulian, Galician, Genoese, German, Gilbertese (Kiribati), Greenlandic, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, HiligaynonHmong, Hopi, Hungarian, Ibanag, Icelandic, Iloko (Ilokano), Indonesian, Interglossa (Glosa), Interlingua, Irish (Gaelic), Istro-Romanian, Italian, Jèrriais, Kashubian, Kurdish (Latinized Kurmanji), Ladin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lojban, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgian, Malagasy, Malay (Latinized), Maltese, Manx, Maori, Megleno-Romanian, Mohawk, Nahuatl, Norfolk/Pitcairnese, Northern Sotho (Pedi), Norwegian, Occitan, Oromo, Pangasinan, Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Potawatomi, Quechua, Rhaeto-Romance, Romanian, Romansh (Rumantsch), Rotokas, Sami (Inari), Sami (Lule), Samoan, Sardinian (Sardu), Scots (Gaelic), Seychellois Creole (Seselwa), Shona, Sicilian, Slovak, Slovenian (Slovene), Somali, Southern Ndebele, Southern Sotho (Sesotho), Spanish, Swahili, Swati/Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog (Filipino/Pilipino), Tahitian, Tausug, Tetum (Tetun), Tok Pisin, Tongan (Faka-Tonga), Tswana, Turkish, Turkmen, Turkmen (Latinized), Tuvaluan, Uyghur (Latinized), Veps, Volapük, Votic (Latinized), Walloon, Warlpiri, Welsh, Xhosa, Yapese, Zulu

Crox™ is a sans-serif professional typeface inspired by crude geometry, creativity, and art. In the font family, there are 19 styles, including upright and italic, It is constructed of big lowercase letters with a maximum x-height for excellent optical reading. English letters are supported as a numerator and denominator set, this feature may aid in the creation of fractions using letters and numbers, as well as for sophisticated scripting and various scientific fractions forms. All weights support over 25 professional OpenType features within each style, with extensive coverage of western languages. These features were originally planned for personal and professional use, including multi-alternative characters in Styles: 1, 2, 4, 10, 11. Operational styles 6, 7 are enhanced with some scientific forms, to write the fit derived (SI units' expressions). Otherwise, it supports a wide range of professional factory pricing styles for business and marketing, as well as retail pricing styles in Sets 5, 8, and 9, with ligatures, old-style numerals, ordinals, swashes... Crox™ is enhanced with a poster weight like the fantastical type to fulfill your creative needs in three styles: poster, poster oblique, and poster italic for ADS and web design, branding, or product design. Glyphs: More than 970 glyphs, including those accessible with OpenType features. Powerful OpenType features: Standard Ligature, Alternate access, Automatic ordinals (English, French...), Case sensitive, localized forms, Numerator set, Denominator set, Subscript, Superscript, Swash, Stylistic alternate, Styles 1,2,3,4,5(Pricing style 1), 6(Derived Units),7(Advanced Fractions for Scientific units, Derived Units Vulgar Form), Set 8 (Pricing Style 2), Set (Pricing Style 3), Proportional Old-style, Tabular Old-style, Proportional Lining, Tabular Lining, Zero with slash, Fractions (Default, Automatic). Suitable for: logo and modern branding, web design, packaging, Product packaging, Articles, scientific document, Product user guides, multiple works in the Media, Design, ADS... Specimen Crox™ is a trademark of Yassine Abdi.

Font Etruria is based on a real Etruscan inscriptions and realistic accurately simulates the writing of the Etruscans. The idea of the font Etruria is to give an opportunity for anyone to touch the past of mankind! The character of the Etruscan alphabet involves the creation of a font with only uppercase letters. However, I did not limit this font by that. Etruria has not only a lowercase is different from uppercase, but an additional sets of alternative characters. In General, the main characteristic of Etruscan writing is randomness and diversity of characters. Differs from lowercase to uppercase is only the first step on the road to make randomness effect. Next to the aid of the OT features. To recreate the randomness effect, in Etruria there are several OT features (Contextual Alternates, Stylistic Alternates and Stylistic Sets), which built a script to simulate randomness. Additionally, another script creates the effect of random positioning. Together they create incredibly realistic Etruscan inscription. Thus, any of these features can be disabled at will. I also used a small line spacing, because it is characteristic of the Etruscan writing. Actually the Etruscan writings is a mirror of the writings compared with the current European alphabets. I didn't use this feature all the letters, because this would make the font difficult to perceive, but to make the font characteristic of the Etruscan style, Etruria has a few letters in mirror image. However, if for someone it may seem unusual, mirrored letters can be disabled instead of them will appear more familiar to them. Another feature of Etruscan writing is the use instead of a space dotacentered. Font Etruria has this feature, there is a OT feature Stylistic set ss03. Naturally, it also can optionally be disabled. All these features can be used together, separately, or turn it off. The main goal achieved! The text typed in Etruria, creates full impression of these Etruscan inscriptions.

Lyra is an Italian Renaissance script that might have developed if metal type had not broken the evolution of broad pen calligraphy. It lies in the area between the humanist bookhand and the chancery cursive, combining the fullness and articulation of the Roman letters with a moderate italic slant and condensation. A steep pen-angle allows use of a broader pen relative to the x-height, giving the letters more contrast with light verticals and heavy curves. Lyra embodies the Renaissance spirit of refining technical advances of the late middle ages with reintroduction of ancient classical principles. Based on the moving penstroke with constantly changing pen-angle, it brings the vitality of handwriting to the ordered legibility of type. Lyra is a formal italic, too slow for copying books. By eliminating the element of speed, digital technology opens up a new level of calligraphy, bringing it into the sphere of typography as would naturally have happened if metalworkers had not controlled the process. If classical Western traditions are respected, digital calligraphy has the potential to recapture the work of the past and restart its stalled evolution. There is of course no substitute for the charm of actual writing, with each letter made for its space; but the tradeoff is for the formal harmony of classical calligraphy as every curve resonates in tune with every other. This three-weight font family marks Philip Bouwsma's much-requested return from a three year hiatus. It also reminds us of his solid vision in regards to how calligraphy, typography and technology can interact to produce digital beauty and vesatility. Each of the three Lyra fonts contains almost three character sets in a single file. Aside from the usual wealth of alternates normally built into Bouwsma's work, Lyra offers two unique features for the user who appreciates the availability of handy solutions to subtle design space issues: At least three (and as many as six) length variations on ascending and descending forms, and 65 snap-on swashes which can be attached to either end of the majuscules or minuscules. The series also offers 24 dividers and ornaments built into each weight, and a stand-alone font containing 90 stars/snowflakes/flowers, symmetric contstructs for building frames or separators, masking, watermarking, or just good old psychedelia.

We have transformed the “99 names of ALLAH” into a font. That means each key on your keyboard represents 1 of the 99 names of ALLAH Aaza Wajal. The fonts work with both the English and Arabic Keyboards. We call this Calligraphy "Linear" for obvious reasons. The first "Alef" has a "fatha", this indicates that the name can be pronounced only one way, "AR-RAHMAAN". (in the zip file you will find a pdf file explaining the differences in the "harakat", pronunciation and spelling according to the Holy Quran). This calligraphy is very clear and no letters overlap. Decorative letters used in this calligraphy: "Mim, Aain, Sin, HHe, He, Kaf, Ta & Saad". Purpose & use: - Writers: Highlight the names in your texts in beautiful Islamic calligraphy. - Editors: Use with kinetic typography templates (AE) & editing software. - Designers: The very small details in the names does not affect the quality. Rest assured it is flawless. The MOST IMPORTANT THING about this list is that all the names are 100% ERROR FREE, and you can USE THEM WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED. All the “Tachkilat” are 100% ERROR FREE, all the "Spelling" is 100% ERROR FREE, and they all have been written in accordance with the Holy Quran. No names are missing and no names are duplicated. The list is complete "99 names +1". The +1 is the name “ALLAH” 'Aza wajal. Another important thing is how we use the decorative letters. In every font you will see small decorative letters, these letters are used only in accordance with their respective letters to indicate pronunciation & we don't include them randomly. That means "mim" on top or below the letter "mim", "sin" on top or below the letter "sin", and so on and so forth. Included: Pdf file telling you which key is associated with which name. In that same file we have included the transliteration and explication of all 99 names. Pdf file explaining the differences in the harakat and pronunciation according to the Holy Quran.

Mencap When most of us go about everyday tasks, we take for granted the reading that’s involved, on instructions, labels and so on. For people with learning disabilities, reading is made much harder by certain fonts. FS Me is designed specifically to improve legibility for people with learning disabilities. The font was researched and developed with – and endorsed by – Mencap, the UK’s leading charity and voice for those with learning disabilities. Mencap receive a donation for each font license purchased. Every letter of FS Me was tested for its appeal and readability with a range of learning disability groups across the UK. Inclusive Fontsmith were determined to design a font that was accessible to those with learning disabilities without standing out as such – one that was inclusive of all readers. It should comply with accessibility guidelines and work best at 12pt, but still have a character of its own that was warm and approachable. “So much accessible design is done separately to the main body of brand work,” says Jason Smith. “We wanted to make a typeface that covered both brand tone and neutrality, and that could be used legitimately as a brand font as well as in accessible design.” Me, you, everyone FS Me is about design that doesn’t patronise. People with learning disabilities are often treated as inferior by childlike design. FS Me is designed for adults, not children – a beautifully-designed font for everyone. Its features include very subtle distinguishing elements of each letter to aid the reading and comprehension of texts, and tails, ascenders and descenders that have been extended for extra clarity. What the people said... Here is a sample of comments from the extensive research groups that helped to shape the letterforms of FS Me: “I want something round, clear and friendly.” “We like movement in the letters but don’t want anything childish.” “The ‘b’ and ‘d’ need to be different as they can be confused.” “I prefer the handwriting-style ‘a’.” “It’s important to have an accessible ‘a’ and ‘g’. Teachers sometimes complain that learners cannot read or understand the inaccessible ‘a’ and ‘g’.”

Juan Bruce’s Noort is not a type family for wayfinding or mapmaking alone, but for clarifying information and engaging readers along their own journey. The information designer’s role is to bring clarity and style to overwhelming amounts of information, which fortunately is Noort’s purpose as well. Hierarchies submit to its will and layering colour only adds more presence to its active posture. Noort’s design uses the proven editorial text features of a large x-height, ample spacing, and low contrast to check all the boxes for paragraph text use. But it’s the long serifs, wide characters, and overall typographic presence that make it resilient and ease the task of reading in small point sizes. These details mean Noort is able to demonstrate importance not only with its five pitch-perfect weights, but with its brindled colour within a layout. Noort’s roman and italic styles play off each other by transplanting their design features. The roman style’s serifs are transferred in substance but expectedly increased in speed in the italic styles. And the italic’s inktraps and separated strokes are echoed amidst the roman’s upright structure. Where digitisation could have removed the influence of the hand, Noort retains the analogue nature of its creation. This antiphonal seeding of details creates a cohesive family that is as fascinating as it is functional. Noort’s axis and serifs have a slightly varying ductus — the directional flow that aids reading and character clarity. Its latent obviousness in text sizes immediately becomes its signature style when bumped up to subhead sizes. And since Noort’s counters are so wide and welcoming, its heavier weights can expand more within themselves than along their exterior edges. Noort’s ten total fonts cover the Latin A Extended glyph set to bring its unbordered, globetrotting sensibilities to your projects. OpenType features include ligatures, fractions, and several figure styles, along with mature-rather-than-overbearing swashes. Aligned with TypeTogether’s commitment to produce high-quality type for the global market, the complete Noort family can set digital and printed works with ease, capitalising on the dual needs of clear information and fascinating textual artistry.

Mencap When most of us go about everyday tasks, we take for granted the reading that’s involved, on instructions, labels and so on. For people with learning disabilities, reading is made much harder by certain fonts. FS Me is designed specifically to improve legibility for people with learning disabilities. The font was researched and developed with – and endorsed by – Mencap, the UK’s leading charity and voice for those with learning disabilities. Mencap receive a donation for each font license purchased. Every letter of FS Me was tested for its appeal and readability with a range of learning disability groups across the UK. Inclusive Fontsmith were determined to design a font that was accessible to those with learning disabilities without standing out as such – one that was inclusive of all readers. It should comply with accessibility guidelines and work best at 12pt, but still have a character of its own that was warm and approachable. “So much accessible design is done separately to the main body of brand work,” says Jason Smith. “We wanted to make a typeface that covered both brand tone and neutrality, and that could be used legitimately as a brand font as well as in accessible design.” Me, you, everyone FS Me is about design that doesn’t patronise. People with learning disabilities are often treated as inferior by childlike design. FS Me is designed for adults, not children – a beautifully-designed font for everyone. Its features include very subtle distinguishing elements of each letter to aid the reading and comprehension of texts, and tails, ascenders and descenders that have been extended for extra clarity. What the people said... Here is a sample of comments from the extensive research groups that helped to shape the letterforms of FS Me: “I want something round, clear and friendly.” “We like movement in the letters but don’t want anything childish.” “The ‘b’ and ‘d’ need to be different as they can be confused.” “I prefer the handwriting-style ‘a’.” “It’s important to have an accessible ‘a’ and ‘g’. Teachers sometimes complain that learners cannot read or understand the inaccessible ‘a’ and ‘g’.”

Rabenau (formerly Lucinde), the distinctly warm and legible type family For 30 years the graphic designer Axel Bertram worked at creating his typefaces: He developed complete new alphabets for magazines and typewriters as well as for the constant demand for typefaces for use by commercial artists. He has developed wall charts the size of advertising posters as teaching aids for training commercial and graphic artists to write in a clean, classic cursive script. In the eighties he used the American Chyron computer to design a screen font for television. In the mid-nineties he discovered for himself the fabulous possibilities offered by the Fontographer font software program and explored them playfully. From the results of these experiments, Axel Bertram selected a design for further development. From 2003 onwards the calligrapher and type designer Andreas Frohloff collaborated with him on the further development and production of the 16 fonts of the Rabenau™ typeface family.The Rabenau font was inspired by many factors: From the fonts used as book covers to typewriter fonts and even printed material from England dating from the beginning of the nineteenth century (e.g. those used by the skilled printer William Bulmer), Rabenau's relatively high contrast is offset by some organic tapers, subtley rounded bracketed serifs, and a fairly generous x-height. This makes for a typeface that looks especially good in print. Its broad repertoire of weights and styles - Condensed, Poster, and Shadow - give it added versatility, and make it ideal for setting both display and text in the same typeface. Throughout the heavier weights, the contrast is maintained. The Poster Italic sparkles, and will make a fine display type for dynamic headlines, or logotypes. This family of sixteen fonts works beautifully together. All Rabenau font styles have a large set of ligatures and thus cover typical letter combinations in many European languages. Besides the standard ligatures for ff, fi and fl, letter connections are also available for tt, th and fj or ffi, ffl and ffk. The range is completed with lovely arched transitions for the characters st, ck or ct. The latter gives the font that certain something, both in continuous text and above all in headlines.

For much of the world, the last half of December encompasses the beginning of winter and the a season of gift-giving, marked by Hanukkah and Christmas. It is generally accepted that the tradition of giving of gifts at this time was begun by The Three Wisemen. As described in The Gospel According to Matthew, the wisemen, led by a star from a distant land to the east, found the baby Jesus. First, they worshipped him and then, "they presented him with gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh." (Matthew 2:11). Thus began the tradition of celebrating the birth of Christ with the giving of gifts. There is a parallel tradition in the Jewish faith of the giving of gelt or gold at Hanakkuh to help support poor students, in keeping with the rich history of scholarship that is fundamental to the rabbinic system. Inevitably, in our secular culture, there has been a blending and a secularization of these traditions. The reasons have gotton lost in the “gimme.” What is often overlooked is what Paul realized when he told Timothy, “Neglect not the gift that is in thee.” The most importent gift is the gift inside of us, the gift of sacrificial love for others. When we let that gift be diminished in our minds amid the clutter of modern day material seeking, we can recall the prophesy of Micah over 2800 years ago, But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel: whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." (Micah 5:2 KJV) Never underestimate the impact you have on others. Words of kindness can change people’s lives. The Talmud says that the highest form of wisdom is kindness. Be wise this holiday season. The font BETHLEHEM STAR was originally designed for the church to which I belong, The Star Bethlehem Church of Ansonia, Connecticut, USA and is based on the typeface Accent with the permission of URW++ of Hamburg, Germany. You might choose BETHLEHEM STAR for your personal greetings as well as for flyers and programs at your church this holiday season. Like most display fonts, it is most effective at 18 points and larger. Like most script fonts, it is most effective when set with both upper and lower case. All caps with this font is like eating two pieces of pecan pie — too much of a good thing.

In B-movie awesomeness, Air began as Grotesk vs. Grotesque. I was trying to unify the prevailing traits of German and English Grotes(que/k)s in order to make something different but familiar. I am NOT trying to reinvent Helvetica (snore), so get that out of your system. From the onset, I intended this typeface to be a true workhorse that offers infinite options and flexibility for the user. At its core, it is the maturation of the Aaux Next skeleton I developed years ago. I worked out Aaux Next to settle my issues and love for Akzidenz. With Aaux Next, I strove to be mechanical, cold and unforgiving with it. I was single, young, cocky and it fit. Now I'm married, kids, dog and have found that I've turned into a big softy. When I look at Aaux Next (and have for the past few years) I see another typeface trying to eek out. I wanted it to avoid the trappings of robotic sans, quick tricks and compromises. The typeface’s DNA needed to be drawn and not just generated on a screen — so I set aside a year. I love type. I love working with type. I hate when my options for a slanted complement is only oblique or italic. I set out to produce both to balance usage — there are more than enough reasons to prepare both and I want the user to feel free to consciously choose (and have the option to choose) the appropriate typeface for print, web, etc. That flexibility was central to my decision-making process. The Oblique is immediate and aggressive. The Italic was redrawn at a less severe angle with far more movement and, as a result, is far more congenial when paired with the Uprights. Condensed and Compressed. Yep, why not? I know I would use them. There are nine weights currently available. The logical progression of weights and the intended flexibility demanded I explore a number of light weights and their potential uses — this has produced a number of ‘light without being too light’ options that really work based on the size. The result is a robust 81-font superfamily that is functional, professional, and highly legible without compromising its personality. Pair that with over 900 characters per font that includes ligatures, discretionary ligatures, stylistic alternates, fractions, proportional/tabular lining and proportional/tabular oldstyle figures, numerators, denominators, ordinals, superiors, inferiors, small caps, case-sensitive functionality and extensive language support and you have a versatile superfamily well-suited for any project.

The Pagnol typeface has been designed with a principle developed by A. M. Cassandre in 1937, when the great French designer created the Peignot typeface following paleographic studies on the evolution of letterforms. Researches in the history of writing have proved that the lowercase "a" is at its origin nothing but the "A" shape transformed through centuries by scribes until the invention of printing. A large number of lowercases meanwhile kept their original shapes. If the scribes’ hand didn’t find the necessity to simplify them, it is only because these letters could be easily written. Integrating the classical shapes of capitals to the lowercases has already been used, keeping the lowercases which are only a deformation of capitals. Nevertheless, the respect of readability imposes to keep ascendants and descendants from traditional lowercases which serve as optical focus points in a text and make reading easier. The particularity of Pagnol is to use rounded shapes on top and bottom of pointed capital letters to make them fit with corresponding lowercases (Aa, Mm, Nn, Vv, Ww, Zz). Lowercases proportions are wide, to be in tune with classic lowercase shapes in order to optimize readability. Five weights in roman and italic have been designed to offer a wide palette of typographic possibilities in all sizes and all paper and screen supports.

The Ysobel™ typeface family is not only elegant; it is also exceptionally legible and space economical. A collaborative design effort between Robin Nicholas, as lead designer and project director, Delve Withrington and Alice Savoie of Monotype Imaging, the project had the primary design goal of creating a typeface family for setting text in newspapers and periodicals. The result, however, is also ideal for any application that requires quick and easy assimilation of text. According to Nicholas, “The idea for the design started when I was asked to develop a custom version of Century Schoolbook. I wanted to give the design a more contemporary feel, although the client ultimately decided to keep their typeface closer to the original. The project nevertheless gave me ideas for a new design. Since designing Nimrod, some 30 years ago, I had wanted to make a more modern typeface family for newspapers and magazines – this seemed the ideal candidate.” Ysobel (pronounced “Isabel”) has the soft, inviting letter shapes of Century Schoolbook but contrasts these with more incised serifs and terminals. Its capitals are also narrower than those of Century Schoolbook, and care was taken to ensure that they harmonize perfectly with the lowercase. Ysobel’s x-height is full-bodied without disrupting lowercase proportions. In addition, curved terminals, such as those in the “C,” “c” and “e,” were drawn more open as an aid to legibility and readability in text copy. Weight stress is near vertical, and hairlines are robust to ensure character fidelity in small point sizes. Development began with the text version of the family, which has four weights, each with an italic companion. All weights feature lining and old style numerals, fractions, superiors and extended Latin language coverage. Small caps are also available in the Roman Regular design. Ysobel Display is a completely redrawn version of the typeface; it is narrower, and has a slightly smaller x-height, thinner hairlines and subtle design changes to improve its appearance when set at large sizes. The Display Italic received particular attention to make it ideal for setting headlines, subheads and short blocks of copy. Changes include a slightly greater italic angle and more cursive treatment of some letter shapes. Alternative styles of capital “J” and “Q,” to provide variation, are available in all weights.