Akira Kobayashi's ITC Seven Treasures is a symbol font for use in patterns and textures. The interlocking patterns, usually circular or oval, are taken primarily from motifs used in Japanese textiles. Most of these designs are known as komon, or tiny patterns," and they are often applied to kimono and other textiles, although their use is not limited to fabrics. They also appear carved in wood in traditional architecture, and painted in pictures as background patterns. Each of the individual designs in ITC Seven Treasures Ornaments is carefully sized and spaced so that it will fit together into a continuous pattern. Most overlap slightly but precisely, so that when you type a row of them you can't tell where one leaves off and the next begins. They may be combined or alternated to vary the texture of a background pattern."

ITC Luna is the work of Japanese designer Akira Kobayashi. He turned to the designs of the 1930s for his inspiration for both ITC Luna and ITC Silvermoon. Luna is designed to fill the gap between a pure Art Deco display face and an ordinary text face," says Kobayashi. "It has an Art Deco style but is still fairly easy to read. It can be used in short passages of text. As for individual characters, I especially liked the distinctive O, shaded only on one side. Lowercase a and g are also unusual, but they are somehow legible enough in text matter." And for a finishing touch on his Luna, Kobayashi added the charming moon face as an extra character.

In 1948, Mergenthaler Linotype released the first weights of Trade Gothic, designed by Jackson Burke. Over the next 12 years Burke, who was the company’s Director of Typographic Development from 1948 through 1963, continued to expand the family. Trade Gothic Next is the 2008 revision of Jackson Burke’s design. Developed over a prolonged period of time, the original Trade Gothic showed many inconsistencies. Under the direction of Linotype’s Type Director Akira Kobayashi, American type designer Tom Grace, a graduate of the MA Typeface Design in Reading, redesigned, revised and expand the Trade Gothic family. Many details were improved, such as the terminals and stroke endings, symbols, and the spacing and kerning. Moreover, there are newly added compressed widths and heavy weights perfect for setting even more powerful headlines. Trade Gothic Next brings more features and better quality for today’s demanding typographers. Trade Gothic Next® font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Akira Kobayashi’s Between™ typeface comes in three main states. While different from each other, they all offer human-centered design to ensure that copy set in them is affable and approachable. An added benefit is the ability to transition “between” font designs, choosing different styles – or even individual characters – to create hierarchy, contrast or emphasis. Kobayashi designed the Between typeface in response to the current popularity of rounded, humanist sans serif designs over the cool grotesques of the 20th century. Between 1 melds industrial and humanist sans ethics. Between 2 represents a sans version of Kobayashi’s Cosmiqua® typeface, striking a balance between crisp and legible, organic and friendly. Between 3 is a freestyle sans with an uplifting sprightly mien. Between has 48 styles; each has eight weights of roman with its own italic counterpart. The family offers a large set of alternative glyphs and OpenType® features. A full interactive type specimen can be viewed here: http://www.monotype.com/fonts/between/ Featured in: Best Fonts for Logos

ITC Japanese Garden Ornaments is a symbol font designed by Akira Kobayashi (before Kobayashi became Linotype's Type Director in 2001, he worked as an independent typeface designer in Tokyo). The images in Japanese Garden are, as the name suggests, mostly floral or herbaceous, derived from designs used in Japanese indigo stencil dyeing. In Japanese Garden," Kobayashi says, "I tried to create a set of type fleurons that are very familiar to a Japanese eye, but not too exotic to people in other countries." Several of the designs fit together seamlessly in repeating patterns; others work either together or as isolated ornaments, a flexibility that also characterizes traditional Western type fleurons. "The original illustrations," notes Kobayashi, "were mostly cut from white paper squares, about two by two inches in size, and were simply scanned and traced. That is why there are few smooth curves and perfectly straight lines in the illustrations. I simply liked the ragged textures of them.""

The Akko typeface family is the first new design from Akira Kobayashi in a very long time - and it is well worth the wait. Picture an industrial strength typeface like the Isonorm™ design. Now blend this with an organic design like the Cooper Black™ typeface. It was the idea of the fusion of these two design concepts that inspired Kobayashi to draw Akko. „My initial idea was to create a sanserif type with a ‚soft-focus‘ effect,“ says Kobayashi. „From here, the design evolved into two families, the robust and structured sanserif Akko and soft and friendly Akko Rounded.“ Akko has a wide range of weights, with options including complementary italics and a new Condensed range. The Akko typeface family is available as a suite of OpenType™ Pro fonts, allowing for the automatic insertion of small caps, ligatures and alternate characters. Pro fonts also offer an extended character set supporting most Central European and many Eastern European languages. And new Paneuropean versions introduce support for Cyrillic and Greek.

The Akko typeface family is the first new design from Akira Kobayashi in a very long time - and it is well worth the wait. Picture an industrial strength typeface like the Isonorm™ design. Now blend this with an organic design like the Cooper Black™ typeface. It was the idea of the fusion of these two design concepts that inspired Kobayashi to draw Akko. „My initial idea was to create a sanserif type with a ‚soft-focus‘ effect,“ says Kobayashi. „From here, the design evolved into two families, the robust and structured sanserif Akko and soft and friendly Akko Rounded.“ Akko has a wide range of weights, with options including complementary italics and a new Condensed range. The Akko typeface family is available as a suite of OpenType™ Pro fonts, allowing for the automatic insertion of small caps, ligatures and alternate characters. Pro fonts also offer an extended character set supporting most Central European and many Eastern European languages. And new Paneuropean versions introduce support for Cyrillic and Greek.

In 1948, Mergenthaler Linotype released the first weights of Trade Gothic, designed by Jackson Burke. Over the next 12 years, Burke, who was the company’s Director of Typographic Development from 1948 through 1963, continued to expand the family. Trade Gothic Next is the 2008 revision of Jackson Burke’s design. Developed over a prolonged period of time, the original Trade Gothic showed many inconsistencies. Under the direction of Linotype’s Type Director Akira Kobayashi, American type designer Tom Grace, a graduate of the MA Typeface Design in Reading, has redesigned, revised and expanded the Trade Gothic family. Many details were improved, such as the terminals and stroke endings, symbols, and the spacing and kerning. Moreover, there are newly added compressed widths and heavy weights perfect for setting even more powerful headlines. Trade Gothic Next brings more features and better quality for today’s demanding typographers. Trade Gothic Next Soft Rounded introduces a new friendliness and warmth to the family.

Neue Frutiger Tamil was created by Pria Ravichandran and a team of designers and font engineers from the Monotype Studio, under the direction of Monotype type director Akira Kobayashi. The family is available in 5 weights from Light to Bold to support the Tamil script. The typographic forms of Neue Frutiger Tamil are familiar and friendly. The Tamil shows traces of elements that is reminiscent of the calligraphic influences found in the 20th-century designs. Reflecting the modern typographic needs of the Tamil script, this type family is in the upright style. These two factors ensure that the two scripts, Tamil, and Latin pair elegantly. The result, Neue Frutiger Tamil, is an eclectic contemporary type family that bridges the past and the present. Neue Frutiger Tamil embodies the same warmth and clarity as Adrian Frutiger's original design, but allows brands to maintain their visual identity, and communicate with a consistent tone of voice, regardless of the language. It is part of the Neue Frutiger World collection, offering linguistic versatility across environments – suited to branding and corporate identity, advertising, signage, wayfinding, print, and digital environments.

With the clear, simple elegance of its sans serif forms and the warmly human touches of its tapering stems, the Optima family has proved popular around the world. In 2002, when it was finally possible to produce digital alphabets without technical limitations and compromises, and more than fifty years after the first sketches, an expansion and redesign of the Optima family was completed and released as Optima nova. Hermann Zapf and Japanese type designer, Akira Kobayashi, collaborated on the project, which included re-working of the existing weights and the addition of several new weights: small caps, old style figures, light, heavy, and condensed. The original Optima was never manufactured with a real italic, only an oblique version of the roman. Optima nova has a complete range of beautifully designed real italics; the new italic forms, of the e, f and g are especially notable. The titling face includes capital letters with special and unusual letter combinations and ligatures, making it an excellent choice for headlines, logos and advertising purposes. Optima continues to be an all-purpose typeface; and Optima nova works for just about anything from book text to signage. Optima Nova® font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

The original Frutiger typeface was designed in the early 1970s by Adrian Frutiger and his studio for the way finding system of the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Soon after the airport was opened, a huge demand for the typeface arose from companies wanting to employ it in other signage systems, as well as in printed matter. The Frutiger typeface came out as part of the Linotype library in 1977. Epitomizing functionality and clarity both in signage and as a bread-and-butter typeface in print, Frutiger became a modern classic. Neue Frutiger® is the 2009 version of the Frutiger typeface family. It was revised and improved by Akira Kobayashi in close collaboration with Adrian Frutiger. While Frutiger Next, the 1999 revision, introduced a new concept (including a larger x-height, a more pronounced ascender height, narrower letter-spacing and, most notably, an italic with calligraphic traits), Neue Frutiger returns to the original 1977 design. The result is a well-balanced range of 10 finely-graded weights. Despite the various changes, the ‘New Frutiger’ still fits perfectly with Frutiger and serves to harmoniously enhance the styles already in existence. Neue Frutiger Variable are font files which are featuring two axis and have a preset instance from UltraLight to ExtraBlack and Condensed to Extended. Featured in: Best Fonts for Resumes, Best Fonts for Websites, Best Fonts for PowerPoints, Best Fonts for Tattoos

The award-winning Conrad was created by Japanese type designer Akira Kobayashi. Its design was based on the fifteenth-century type by Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz, two German printers active in Rome at that time. They produced a unique, slightly unbalanced yet attractive type. Kobayashi says of his typeface, “I have designed a couple of typefaces inspired from the past, but this time the original print acted merely as a reference. The distinctive lowercase ‘a’ and some other letters were inspired by Sweynheym and Pannartz’s second roman type, but I revived the type in a more informal way. Here I used the historical type as a springboard. The resulting type looks different, taking on a rather temporary and lively look. I assume that the Conrad is the first revival of the Sweynheym and Pannartz type, though it does not closely resemble the original.” Conrad won first prize for the text typeface category in Linotype’s Third International Typeface Design Contest (2000) as well as the Certificate of Excellence in Type Design from the Type Directors Club (2001).

ITC Magnifico Daytime and ITC Magnifico Nighttime are inspired by nineteenth-century decorated types and letterings. “Although they are designed as display typefaces, their use is not limited to large headings. Usually three-dimensional types are employed in gigantic headings in large posters, but I thought it would be interesting if such decorative types were used as well in small sizes, say at 12 point,” says designer Akira Kobayashi. “There were a few examples of small three-dimensional types used in cards printed in the nineteenth-century. I studied their letterforms carefully and became more and more interested in those small three-dimensional types. The outlines of ITC Magnifico are robust enough to endure use at small sizes. Sometimes the angle or the shape of the 'shadow' had to be slightly modified or even illogical, because the letterforms ought to look as simple as possible. The resulting types are fairly easy to read at small sizes, and I hope that at large sizes those occasional oddities will appear charming.”

Frutiger® Serif is a re-envisioning of Meridien,a typeface first released by Deberny & Peignot during the 1950s. Working closely with Adrian Frutiger, Linotype's Type Director Akira Kobayashi expanded the original metal type version of Meridien into a new digital family of 20 variants. Renamed Frutiger Serif, this up-to-date Meridien has new weights, widths, and styles that correspond better with several other of Frutiger's designs. Just as Meridien has always been a fine choice for text settings, Frutiger Serif works brilliantly for large amounts of text & also at small point sizes. With its many weights and styles, this family is strong enough for most typographic projects. However, its added versatility is revealed when used in combination with other fonts. Frutiger Serif works well with the original Frutiger, Frutiger Next, and Univers - just to name a few. Paring these serif and sans serif families together is perfect for creating complex hierarchies and clear information design. Working with complicated typographic systems - involving elements such as headlines, captions, pull quotes, multilingual text, etc - is made easy by selecting Frutiger Serif and another of Frutiger's sans serif families. The designer needs simply to mix and match different weights and styles for the various textual elements to create smart and innovative layouts.

ZapfinoExtra is an OpenType format typeface available in two versions. The Contextual version contains a treasure-trove of extra contextual features. When created in 2004, this was the most advanced OpenType font released to date. By purchasing the Contextual version, users of OpenType-supporting applications, such as Adobe InDesign, may access all of the features available in the entire Zapfino family through just two fonts, Zapfino Extra LT Pro (Contextual), and Zapfino Forte LT Pro! Unfortunately, most non-Adobe applications currently do not support the contextual features made possible by recent OpenType developments. Users of Quark XPress and Microsoft Office should instead purchase all of the non-contextual fonts of Zapfino Extra Pro family, in order to access all of the Zapfino family's 1676 glyphs. The Zapfino family's character set supports 48 western and central European languages. More Zapfino History: Today's digital font technology allowed the world-renowned typeface designer/calligrapher Hermann Zapf to finally realize a vision he first had more than fifty years ago: creating a typeface that could capture the freedom and liveliness of beautiful handwriting. The basic Zapfino™ font family, released in 1998, consists of four alphabets with many additional stylistic alternates that can be freely mixed together to emulate the variations in handwritten text. In 2003, Herman Zapf completely reworked the Zapfino design, creating Zapfino™ Extra. This large expansion of the Zapfino family was designed in close collaboration with Akira Kobayashi. Zapfino™ Extra includes a cornucopia of new characters. It features exuberant hyper-flourishes, elegant small caps, dozens of ornaments, more alternates and ligatures, index characters, and a very useful bold version-named Zapfino™ Forte. Use Zapfino to produce unusual and graceful advertisements, packaging, and invitations. Zapfino Extra is so joyously abundant that it's tempting to over-indulge, so be sure to check out the tips for working well with the possibilities!"

The original Avenir typeface was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, after years of having an interest in sans serif typefaces. The word Avenir means “future” in French and hints that the typeface owes some of its interpretation to Futura. But unlike Futura , Avenir is not purely geometric; it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an “o” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These nuances aid in legibility and give Avenir a harmonious and sensible appearance for both texts and headlines. In 2012, Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next to life, as a new take on the classic Avenir. The goal of the project was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. Since then, Monotype expanded the typeface to accommodate more languages. Akira’s deep familiarity with existing iterations of the Frutiger designs, along with his understanding of the design philosophy of the man himself, made him uniquely suited to lead the creation of different language fonts. Avenir Next World family, the most recent release from Monotype, is an expansive family of fonts that offers support for more than 150 languages and scripts that include Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian and Thai. Avenir Next World contains 10 weights, from UltraLight to ExtraBlack.

Although inspired by the engraved lettering on eighteenth-century English trade-cards, ITC Vineyard has unusual characteristics of its own. The type retains some quality of copperplate scripts, but the differentiation between thicks and hairlines is not very sharp. There are a few cursive forms, but most of the letters are romanized: they are almost upright and not joining. Occasional flourishes are casually interpreted from various sources such as the lettering on trade-cards and writing masters' copybooks. “I think it is a new kind of 'copperplate script' which is not too formal and easier to read,” claims designer Akira Kobayshi. Irregularities are apparent in the angle of caps and numerals, but the face's quirkiness gives a type page some friendliness rather than cold brilliancy. ITC Vineyard is designed in two weights: regular and bold. Each variation includes several extra characters such as an alternative lowercase 'd' with a long arm, a T-h ligature, swelled rules, and a pair of flourishes. Swash caps are available for both weights. The swash caps variation also includes oldstyle figures. Kobayashi notes: “There are a few swash-cap lowercase combinations that collide or look awkward. In that case, I recommend using the plain caps. Setting all swash cap copy should also be discouraged.” Featured in: Best Fonts for Tattoos

The Times Europa Office family is designed after the model of the original serif family produced by Walter Tracy and the Linotype Design Studio in 1974. A redesign of the classic Times New Roman typeface, Times Europa was created as its replacement for The Times of London newspaper. In contrast to Times New Roman, Times Europa has sturdier characters and more open counter spaces, which help maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times Europa drastically improved on the legibility of the bold and italic styles of Times New Roman. Overall, text set in Times Europa is easier to read, and quicker to digest. Akira Kobayashi, Linotype’s Type Director, brought Times Europa up to speed for the new millennium in 2006. Now optimized for office communication instead of newspaper design, Times Europa Office offers a familiar yet refreshingly new appearance for serif text. Because of The Times of London’s specific printing conditions in the early 1970s, Times Europa originally had some intentional errors built into its letterform design. These inconsistencies created an even image in newspaper text in the long run. However, these design elements bear no role on modern office communication and its needs. Kobayashi redrew these problem forms, eliminating them completely. Now Times Europa’s font weights appear clearer and easier to read than ever before.

DIN has always been the typeface you root for—the one you wanted to use but just couldn’t bring yourself to because it was limited in its range of weights and widths, rendering it less useful than it could be. The century-old design has proven to be timeless, but modern use cases demanded an update, which resulted in DIN Next—a versatile sans serif family that will never go out of style. This classic design turned modern must-have includes seven weights that range from light to black, each of which has a complementary italic and condensed counterpart. The family also included four rounded designs, stretching the original concept’s range and core usability. DIN Next also boasts a suite of small capitals, old style figures, subscript, superscript and several alternate characters. A quintessential 20th-century design, its predecessor DIN was based on geometric shapes and was intended for use on traffic signs and technical documentation. Akira Kobayashi’s update made slight changes to the design, rounding the formerly squared-off corner angles to humanize the family. Rooted in over 100-years of history, it’s safe to say that there will always be a demand for the DIN design, and thanks to DIN Next, now it’s as usable as it is desired. Wondering what will pair with it perfectly? Check out Agmena™, Bembo® Book, Cardamon™, Joanna® Nova, FF Quadraat® and Quitador™. Featured in: Best Fonts for Logos, Best Fonts for Websites, Best Fonts for Tattoos

Phrygia is the Greek name of an ancient state in western-central Anatolia (modern Turkey), extending from the Eskişehir area east to (perhaps) Boğazköy and Alishar Hüyük within the Halys River bend. The Assyrians, a powerful state in northern Mesopotamia to the south, called the state Mushki; what its own people called it is unknown. We know from their inscriptions that the Phrygians spoke an Indo-European language. Judging from historical records supported by ceramic evidence, settlers migrating from the Balkans in Europe first settled here a hundred or more years following the destruction of the Hittite empire (ca. 1200 B.C.). Most of what is known about Phrygian archaeology and its language derives from excavations at the capital city Gordion, located about 60 miles southwest of the modern Turkish capital of Ankara (also a Phrygian site). Gustav and Alfred Körte first excavated Gordion in 1900. The excavators did not reach Phrygian levels, but they did reveal burials dated to the late eighth century B.C. with Phrygian ceramic, metal, and wooden artifacts. From 1950 to 1973, Rodney S. Young of the University of Pennsylvania led excavations at Gordion. Archaeological work at the site resumed in 1988 and continues to the present.

Eight designers present a set of icons that indicate the fun and fantastic world of signage. Each collaborator's solution represents a completely different interpretations on signage vernacular. Akira Kobayashi's "Subsumption", obscured by foliage, offers a perspective that signs on Japanese roads can be vague and beautiful. M.A.D.'s "People Signs" is a graphical association of people signage with a variety of well known situation symbols. Cynthia Jacquette's "Honest Arrows" are a series of arrows that attempts to honestly tell you how to get from point A to Point B in a big, confusing city. Mike Kohnke's "Road Kill" and the "Bump & Bruise" highlight how signs make for perfect targets when unloading a round of buckshot, and the licking a contruction barrier often endures. Joachim Muller-Lance's "Traffic Blends" places faces on things! Hey, didn't you give your first car a nickname? Cars are alive, you know - they guzzle and smoke all day. Jean-Benoît Lévy's "Inner-State" was inspired while reading the California driver handbook to pass a driver's test. Kevin Roberson's "Tail Lighting" reminds us to drive carefully and not to forget to signal. Diana Stoen's "Drivers Out There" shows us "driver personality archetypes", including the lil'ol lady that everyone tries to avoid.

Avenir Next Paneuropean is a new take on a classic face—it’s the result of a project whose goal was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. This family is not only an update though, in fact it is the expansion of the original concept that takes the Avenir Next design to the next level. In addition to the standard styles ranging from UltraLight to Heavy, this 56-font collection offers condensed and semi condensed faces that rival any other sans on the market in on and off—screen readability at any size alongside heavy weights that would make excellent display faces in their own right and have the ability to pair well with so many contemporary serif body types. Overall, the family’s design is clean, straightforward and works brilliantly for blocks of copy and headlines alike. Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next Pro to life. It was Akira’s ability to bring his own finesse and ideas for expansion into the project while remaining true to Frutiger’s original intent, that makes this not just a modern typeface, but one ahead of its time. Complete your designs with these perfect pairings: Dante™, Joanna® Nova, Kairos™, Menhart™, Soho® and ITC New Veljovic®.

Designed for global branding and supporting 93 languages, the SST® typefaces blend the organic readability and controlled structure of modern sans serif designs. In combining these attributes, the SST family is understated, versatile – and sure to be a timeless design. The SST Thai family has 4 fonts in total. It spans four weights from light to bold. SST’s subtle design traits provide a quietly handsome and consistently friendly typographic presence that can be used for just about any typographic application. Broad range branding applicability combined with coverage for almost a hundred languages, makes SST one of the most widely accessible and usable typefaces available. Originally designed in partnership with the global consumer brand, Sony, the SST family is one of the most comprehensive type families available. Since extensive multi-lingual support was a critical design goal from the beginning, Akira Kobayashi, Monotype type director and primary designer on the project, turned to a network of local designers around the world for their individual language expertise. As a result, the details – which could be as subtle as stroke curvature and width – are consistent across Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic and multiple Asian languages. SST performs equally well in print and on-screen and the designs can be used at very small sizes in packaging and catalogs; while massive print headlines – even complicated wayfinding projects pose no stumbling blocks to the family’s typographic dexterity.

Designed for global branding and supporting 93 languages, the SST® typefaces blend the organic readability and controlled structure of modern sans serif designs. In combining these attributes, the SST family is understated, versatile – and sure to be a timeless design. The SST Vietnamese family has 4 fonts in total. It spans four weights from light to bold. SST’s subtle design traits provide a quietly handsome and consistently friendly typographic presence that can be used for just about any typographic application. Broad range branding applicability combined with coverage for almost a hundred languages, makes SST one of the most widely accessible and usable typefaces available. Originally designed in partnership with the global consumer brand, Sony, the SST family is one of the most comprehensive type families available. Since extensive multi-lingual support was a critical design goal from the beginning, Akira Kobayashi, Monotype type director and primary designer on the project, turned to a network of local designers around the world for their individual language expertise. As a result, the details – which could be as subtle as stroke curvature and width – are consistent across Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic and multiple Asian languages. SST performs equally well in print and on-screen and the designs can be used at very small sizes in packaging and catalogs; while massive print headlines – even complicated wayfinding projects pose no stumbling blocks to the family’s typographic dexterity.

The Metro Office family is designed after the model of the original sans serif family – Metro No.1 – produced by W.A. Dwiggins and Mergenthaler Linotype’s design studio during the late 1920s and 1930s. A distinctly new interpretation of the sans serif idea, Metro was a thoroughly “American” sans serif when it was released. However, over the ensuing decades, it became a favorite the world over. Moreover, it is one of the first “humanist” sans serif typefaces designed. While redesigning Metro in 2006, Linotype’s Type Director Akira Kobayashi drew from his own knowledge of humanistic letterforms. The result is a redefined Metro; a typeface that is finally ready for heavy text setting. The original Linotype Metro No.1 never had italic variants. Kobayashi has created oblique variants, extending its use in document setting. A double-storey a and g, as well as a wider w were features of Dwiggins’ original Metro design that were filtered out by Mergenthaler Linotype in the 1930s. Kobayashi remedied this historical slight, retooling Dwiggins’ original forms and optimizing their legibility. Kobayashi has additionally retooled some of Metro’s more troublesome letters, which has black elements that became too dense. By opening up the troublesome joins (like that on the Q), Kobayashi has given his new Metro a more even color in text, improving its legibility while retaining its original spirit.

Designed for global branding and supporting 93 languages, the SST® typefaces blend the organic readability and controlled structure of modern sans serif designs. In combining these attributes, the SST family is understated, versatile – and sure to be a timeless design. The SST Japanese Pro family has 6 fonts in total. It spans four weights from ultra light to bold, and has two condensed weights to further expand the family’s vast range of uses. SST’s subtle design traits provide a quietly handsome and consistently friendly typographic presence that can be used for just about any typographic application. Broad range branding applicability, combined with coverage for almost a hundred languages, makes SST one of the most widely accessible and usable typefaces available. Originally designed in partnership with the global consumer brand, Sony, the SST family is one of the most comprehensive type families available. Since extensive multi-lingual support was a critical design goal from the beginning, Akira Kobayashi, Monotype type director and primary designer on the project, turned to a network of local designers around the world for their individual language expertise. As a result, the details – which could be as subtle as stroke curvature and width – are consistent across Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic and multiple Asian languages. SST performs equally well in print and on-screen and the designs can be used at very small sizes in packaging and catalogs; while massive print headlines – even complicated wayfinding projects — pose no stumbling blocks to the family’s typographic dexterity.

Avenir Next Pro is a new take on a classic face—it’s the result of a project whose goal was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. This family is not only an update though; in fact it is the expansion of the original concept that takes the Avenir Next design to the next level. In addition to the standard styles ranging from ultralight to heavy, this 32-font collection offers condensed faces that rival any other sans on the market in on and off—screen readability at any size alongside heavy weights that would make excellent display faces in their own right and have the ability to pair well with so many contemporary serif body types. Overall, the family’s design is clean, straightforward and works brilliantly for blocks of copy and headlines alike. Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next Pro to life. It was Akira’s ability to bring his own finesse and ideas for expansion into the project while remaining true to Frutiger’s original intent, that makes this not just a modern typeface, but one ahead of its time. Avenir Next Variables are font files which are featuring two axis, weight and width. They have a preset instance from UltraLight to Heavy and Condensed to Roman width. The preset instances are: Condensed UltraLight, Condensed UltraLight Italic, Condensed Thin, Condensed Thin Italic, Condensed Light, Condensed Light Italic, Condensed, Condensed Italic, Condensed Demi, Condensed Demi Italic, Condensed Medium, Condensed Medium Italic, Condensed Bold, Condensed Bold Italic, Condensed Heavy, Condensed Heavy Italic, UltraLight, UltraLight Italic, Thin, Thin Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, Italic, Demi, Demi Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Heavy, Heavy Italic.

Avenir Next Pro is a new take on a classic face—it’s the result of a project whose goal was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. This family is not only an update though; in fact it is the expansion of the original concept that takes the Avenir Next design to the next level. In addition to the standard styles ranging from ultralight to heavy, this 32-font collection offers condensed faces that rival any other sans on the market in on and off—screen readability at any size alongside heavy weights that would make excellent display faces in their own right and have the ability to pair well with so many contemporary serif body types. Overall, the family’s design is clean, straightforward and works brilliantly for blocks of copy and headlines alike. Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next Pro to life. It was Akira’s ability to bring his own finesse and ideas for expansion into the project while remaining true to Frutiger’s original intent, that makes this not just a modern typeface, but one ahead of its time. Avenir Next Variables are font files which are featuring two axis, weight and width. They have a preset instance from UltraLight to Heavy and Condensed to Roman width. The preset instances are: Condensed UltraLight, Condensed UltraLight Italic, Condensed Thin, Condensed Thin Italic, Condensed Light, Condensed Light Italic, Condensed, Condensed Italic, Condensed Demi, Condensed Demi Italic, Condensed Medium, Condensed Medium Italic, Condensed Bold, Condensed Bold Italic, Condensed Heavy, Condensed Heavy Italic, UltraLight, UltraLight Italic, Thin, Thin Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, Italic, Demi, Demi Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Heavy, Heavy Italic.

The original Avenir typeface was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, after years of having an interest in sans serif typefaces. The word Avenir means “future” in French and hints that the typeface owes some of its interpretation to Futura. But unlike Futura, Avenir is not purely geometric; it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an “o” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These nuances aid in legibility and give Avenir a harmonious and sensible appearance for both texts and headlines. In 2012, Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next to life, as a new take on the classic Avenir. The goal of the project was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. Since then, Monotype expanded the typeface to accommodate more languages. Akira’s deep familiarity with existing iterations of the Frutiger designs, along with his understanding of the design philosophy of the man himself, made him uniquely suited to lead the creation of different language fonts. Avenir Next World family, the most recent release from Monotype, is an expansive family of fonts that offers support for more than 150 languages and scripts that include Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian and Thai. Avenir Next World contains 10 weights, from UltraLight to Heavy. The respective 10 Italic styles do not support Arabic, Georgian and Thai, since Italic styles are unfamiliar in these scripts/languages. Separate Non-Latin products to support just the Arabic, Cyrillic, Georgian, Hebrew and Thai script are also available for those who do not need the full language support.

The original Avenir typeface was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, after years of having an interest in sans serif typefaces. The word Avenir means “future” in French and hints that the typeface owes some of its interpretation to Futura. But unlike Futura, Avenir is not purely geometric; it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an “o” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These nuances aid in legibility and give Avenir a harmonious and sensible appearance for both texts and headlines. In 2012, Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next to life, as a new take on the classic Avenir. The goal of the project was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. Since then, Monotype expanded the typeface to accommodate more languages. Akira’s deep familiarity with existing iterations of the Frutiger designs, along with his understanding of the design philosophy of the man himself, made him uniquely suited to lead the creation of different language fonts. Avenir Next World family, the most recent release from Monotype, is an expansive family of fonts that offers support for more than 150 languages and scripts that include Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian and Thai. Avenir Next World contains 10 weights, from UltraLight to Heavy. The respective 10 Italic styles do not support Arabic, Georgian and Thai, since Italic styles are unfamiliar in these scripts/languages. Separate Non-Latin products to support just the Arabic, Cyrillic, Georgian, Hebrew and Thai script are also available for those who do not need the full language support.

The original Avenir typeface was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, after years of having an interest in sans serif typefaces. The word Avenir means “future” in French and hints that the typeface owes some of its interpretation to Futura. But unlike Futura, Avenir is not purely geometric; it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an “o” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These nuances aid in legibility and give Avenir a harmonious and sensible appearance for both texts and headlines. In 2012, Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next to life, as a new take on the classic Avenir. The goal of the project was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. Since then, Monotype expanded the typeface to accommodate more languages. Akira’s deep familiarity with existing iterations of the Frutiger designs, along with his understanding of the design philosophy of the man himself, made him uniquely suited to lead the creation of different language fonts. Avenir Next World family, the most recent release from Monotype, is an expansive family of fonts that offers support for more than 150 languages and scripts that include Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian and Thai. Avenir Next World contains 10 weights, from UltraLight to Heavy. The respective 10 Italic styles do not support Arabic, Georgian and Thai, since Italic styles are unfamiliar in these scripts/languages. Separate Non-Latin products to support just the Arabic, Cyrillic, Georgian, Hebrew and Thai script are also available for those who do not need the full language support.

The Trump Mediaeval Office family is designed after the model of the original serif family produced by Georg Trump in 1954. Trump released this typeface through the C.E. Weber type foundry in Stuttgart, and Linotype quickly cut the face for mechanical composition. Thereafter it became popular around the world. One of the most prolific German type designers of the 20th century, Trump created numerous typefaces in several different styles, but Trump Mediaeval is often regarded as his best work. Trump Mediaeval is an old style serif typeface, with new inherent quality that could only have come about after centuries of variation on this theme. It bears some resemblance to the classic Garamond typefaces, yet its characteristic letters set it apart in a positive way. Akira Kobayashi, Linotype’s Type Director, released his own revived design, Trump Mediaeval Office, in 2006. Trump Mediaeval Office has two weights, each with an italic companion. Unlike the original design, Kobayashi has harmonized the varying letterforms across the two weights, allowing Regular and Bold text to stand side by side harmoniously. Trump Mediaeval’s numbers now match across weights as well, optimizing their legibility in sizes large and small. Decades ago, Trump Mediaeval was a popular choice for setting book texts, because of its robust serifs. These are exactly what make the face a good choice for office application today; on lower-resolution printers, these serifs will still remain a strong feature on the letterform, increasing legibility along the line of text.

Palatino® Nova is Prof. Hermann Zapf's redesign of his own masterpiece, Palatino. The original Palatino was cut in metal by August Rosenberger at D. Stempel AG typefoundry in Frankfurt, and released in 1950. Palatino was later adapted for mechanical composition on the Linotype machine, and became one of the most-used typefaces of the 20th Century. Palatino was designed for legibility, and has open counters and carefully weighted strokes. The type was named after Giambattista Palatino, a master of calligraphy from the time of Leonardo da Vinci. Palatino is a typeface based on classical Italian Renaissance forms. A modern classic in its own right, Palatino is popular among professional graphic designers and amateurs alike, working well for both text and display typography. Hermann Zapf and Akira Kobayashi redeveloped Palatino for the 21st Century, creating Palatino Nova. Released by Linotype in 2005, the Palatino Nova family is part of Linotype's Platinum Collection. Palatino Nova includes several weights (Light, Regular, Medium, and Bold), each with companion italics. Four styles (Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic) have Greek and Cyrillic glyphs built into their character sets. The Palatino Nova family also includes revised versions of Aldus (now called Aldus Nova), as well as two titling weights. The first titling weight, Palatino Nova Titling, is based on Hermann Zapf's metal typeface Michelangelo, including Greek glyphs from Phidias Greek. The heavier titling weight, Palatino Nova Imperial, is based on Sistina. The fonts in the Palatino Nova family support all 48 Western, Central, and Eastern European languages. Additional features: ligatures and historical ligatures, Small Caps, ornaments, and a range of numerals (proportional & tabular width lining and Old style Figures, fractions, inferiors, and superiors)."

Palatino® Nova is Prof. Hermann Zapf's redesign of his own masterpiece, Palatino. The original Palatino was cut in metal by August Rosenberger at D. Stempel AG typefoundry in Frankfurt, and released in 1950. Palatino was later adapted for mechanical composition on the Linotype machine, and became one of the most-used typefaces of the 20th Century. Palatino was designed for legibility, and has open counters and carefully weighted strokes. The type was named after Giambattista Palatino, a master of calligraphy from the time of Leonardo da Vinci. Palatino is a typeface based on classical Italian Renaissance forms. A modern classic in its own right, Palatino is popular among professional graphic designers and amateurs alike, working well for both text and display typography. Hermann Zapf and Akira Kobayashi redeveloped Palatino for the 21st Century, creating Palatino Nova. Released by Linotype in 2005, the Palatino Nova family is part of Linotype's Platinum Collection. Palatino Nova includes several weights (Light, Regular, Medium, and Bold), each with companion italics. Four styles (Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic) have Greek and Cyrillic glyphs built into their character sets. The Palatino Nova family also includes revised versions of Aldus (now called Aldus Nova), as well as two titling weights. The first titling weight, Palatino Nova Titling, is based on Hermann Zapf's metal typeface Michelangelo, including Greek glyphs from Phidias Greek. The heavier titling weight, Palatino Nova Imperial, is based on Sistina. The fonts in the Palatino Nova family support all 48 Western, Central, and Eastern European languages. Additional features: ligatures and historical ligatures, Small Caps, ornaments, and a range of numerals (proportional & tabular width lining and Old style Figures, fractions, inferiors, and superiors)."

Today's digital font technology allowed the world-renowned typeface designer/calligrapher Hermann Zapf to finally realize a vision he first had more than fifty years ago: creating a typeface that could capture the freedom and liveliness of beautiful handwriting. The basic Zapfino™ font family, released in 1998, consists of four alphabets with many additional stylistic alternates that can be freely mixed together to emulate the variations in handwritten text. In 2003, Herman Zapf completely reworked the Zapfino design, creating Zapfino™ Extra. This large expansion of the Zapfino family was designed in close collaboration with Akira Kobayashi. Zapfino™ Extra includes a cornucopia of new characters. It features exuberant hyper-flourishes, elegant small caps, dozens of ornaments, more alternates and ligatures, index characters, and a very useful bold version, named Zapfino™ Forte. A version of the 1998 Zapfino typeface ships as one of the pre-installed fonts included with Mac OSX. The Mac OSX version's letters are four times larger than the Linotype standard. In order to minimize compatibility problems for Macintosh users, Linotype has created OSX versions of its Zapfino Extra Pro typefaces, which have been enlarged to correlate visually with the Mac OS Zapfino system font. These special Linotype fonts can be distinguished by the letter X" in their name. Zapfino Extra is an OpenType format font, which is available in two versions. Which version you purchase should depend on which software applications you use the most and what features they support! The Contextual version of Zapfino Extra Pro contains a treasure-trove of extra contextual features. When created in 2004, this was the most advanced OpenType font released to date. By purchasing this version, users of OpenType-supporting applications, such as Adobe InDesign, may access all of the features available in the entire Zapfino family through just two fonts, Zapfino Extra LT Pro (Contextual) and Zapfino Forte LT Pro! Unfortunately, most non-Adobe applications currently do not support the contextual features made possible by recent OpenType developments. Users of Quark XPress and Microsoft Office should instead purchase all of the non-contextual fonts of Zapfino Extra Pro family, in order to access all of the Zapfino Extra family's 1676 glyphs. The Zapfino Extra family's character set supports 48 western and central European languages. Use Zapfino Extra to produce unusual and graceful advertisements, packaging, and invitations. Zapfino Extra is so joyously abundant that it's tempting to over-indulge, so be sure to check out the tips for working well with the possibilities."

Avenir Next Pro is a new take on a classic face—it’s the result of a project whose goal was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. This family is not only an update though, in fact it is the expansion of the original concept that takes the Avenir Next design to the next level. In addition to the standard styles ranging from UltraLight to Heavy, this 32-font collection offers condensed faces that rival any other sans on the market in on and off—screen readability at any size alongside heavy weights that would make excellent display faces in their own right and have the ability to pair well with so many contemporary serif body types. Overall, the family’s design is clean, straightforward and works brilliantly for blocks of copy and headlines alike. Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next Pro to life. It was Akira’s ability to bring his own finesse and ideas for expansion into the project while remaining true to Frutiger’s original intent, that makes this not just a modern typeface, but one ahead of its time. Complete your designs with these perfect pairings: Dante™, Joanna® Nova, Kairos™, Menhart™, Soho® and ITC New Veljovic®. Avenir Next Variables are font files which are featuring two axis, weight and width. They have a preset instance from UltraLight to Heavy and Condensed to Roman width. The preset instances are: Condensed UltraLight, Condensed UltraLight Italic, Condensed Thin, Condensed Thin Italic, Condensed Light, Condensed Light Italic, Condensed, Condensed Italic, Condensed Demi, Condensed Demi Italic, Condensed Medium, Condensed Medium Italic, Condensed Bold, Condensed Bold Italic, Condensed Heavy, Condensed Heavy Italic, UltraLight, UltraLight Italic, Thin, Thin Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, Italic, Demi, Demi Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Heavy, Heavy Italic. Featured in: Best Fonts for PowerPoints

My goal was to make a design that might fit in anywhere,” says Jim Ford about his Quire Sans™ typeface. “I wanted it to be highly functional and sexy at the same time.” With one foot comfortably in the realm of oldstyle design and traditional book typography, and the other in evolving electronic media, the Quire Sans family does, indeed, fit in just about anywhere. As for sexy, someone once quotably wrote, “A great figure or physique is nice, but it's self-confidence that makes someone really sexy.” Yes, Quire Sans is sexy, performing confidently in virtually any setting. 2014-06-26 00:00:00.000 57.9900 F43063-S193385 42831 Neue Frutiger World Monotype https://www.myfonts.com/collections/neue-frutiger-world-font-monotype-imaging https://cdn.myfonts.net/cdn-cgi/image/width=417,height=208,fit=contain,format=auto/images/pim/10000/279026_ed8c8093fe1ac59ebe9e3ee1d9262c8e.png Neue Frutiger World is designed for global use with an impressive range of 10 weights, from Ultra Light to Extra Black, with matching italics. It embodies the same warmth and clarity as Adrian Frutiger’s original design, but allows brands to maintain their visual identity, and communicate with a consistent tone of voice, regardless of the language. Neue Frutiger World supports more than 150 languages and scripts including Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Georgian, Armenian, Hebrew, Arabic, Thai and Vietnamese. “Before Neue Frutiger World it was not an easy task for western brands to find families in Arabic, Hebrew, Thai and Vietnamese which match with their Latin,” says Monotype type director Akira Kobayashi, who led the Neue Frutiger World project. “They may find a type with closer expression, but there was no guarantee if the bold version in the non-Latin family matches the bold in their Latin. Neue Frutiger World offers a better solution.” In addition to Neue Frutiger World’s linguistic versatility, it works hard across environments – suited to branding and corporate identity, advertising, signage, wayfinding, print, and digital environments. The Neue Frutiger World fonts can be paired with Monotype’s CJK fonts: M XiangHe Hei (Chinese), Tazugane Gothic (Japanese), Tazugane Info (Japanese), and Seol Sans (Korean). These were all designed to address brands’ needs to expand into Asian cultures and solve for global typographic challenges.

Designed for global branding and supporting 93 languages, the SST® typefaces blend the organic readability and controlled structure of modern sans serif designs. In combining these attributes, the SST family is understated, versatile – and sure to be a timeless design. The SST Pan-European family has 17 fonts in total, supporting the W1G character set. It spans six weights from ultra light to heavy, each with an italic complement. In addition, three condensed designs and two monospaced (typewriter) typefaces were drawn to further expand the family’s vast range of uses. SST’s subtle design traits provide a quietly handsome and consistently friendly typographic presence that can be used for just about any typographic application. Broad range branding applicability combined with coverage for almost a hundred languages, makes SST one of the most widely accessible and usable typefaces available. Originally designed in partnership with the global consumer brand, Sony, the SST family is one of the most comprehensive type families available. Since extensive multi-lingual support was a critical design goal from the beginning, Akira Kobayashi, Monotype type director and primary designer on the project, turned to a network of local designers around the world for their individual language expertise. As a result, the details – which could be as subtle as stroke curvature and width – are consistent across Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic and multiple Asian languages. SST performs equally well in print and on-screen and the designs can be used at very small sizes in packaging and catalogs; while massive print headlines – even complicated wayfinding projects pose no stumbling blocks to the family’s typographic dexterity. While the family is also large enough to manage complicated typographic hierarchy, SST pairs handsomely with typefaces as far reaching as ITC Berkeley Old Style®, Meta®, PMN Caecilia®, Malabar® and Neue Swift®.

The Neuzeit Office family is designed after the model of the original sans serif family Neuzeit S™ , which was produced by D. Stempel AG and the Linotype Design Studio in 1966. Neuzeit S itself was a redesign of D. Stempel AG’s DIN Neuzeit, created by Wilhelm Pischner between 1928 and 1939. Intended to represent its own time, DIN Neuzeit must have struck a harmonious chord. DIN Neuzeit is a constructed, geometric sans serif. It was born during the 1920s, a time of design experimentation and standardization, whose ethos has been made famous by the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements in art, architecture, and design. Upon its redesign as Neuzeit S in the 1960s, other developments in sans serif letter design were taken into account. Neuzeit S looks less geometric, and more gothic, or industrial. Separating it from typefaces like Futura, it has a double-storey a, instead of a less legible, single-storey variant. Unlike more popular grotesque sans serifs like Helvetica, Neuzeit S and especially the redesigned Neuzeit Office contain more open, legible letterforms. Neuzeit Office preserves the characteristic number forms that have been associated with its design for years. After four decades, Neuzeit has been retooled once again, and it is more a child of its age than ever before. Akira Kobayashi, Linotype’s Type Director, created the revised and updated Neuzeit Office in 2006. His greatest change was to retool the design to make its performance in text far more optimal. Additionally, he created companion oblique to help emphasize text.

Now even more design possibilities with the popular DIN Next. With its technical and neutral character, DIN Next has earned a permanent place in contemporary typography. Now, DIN Next Slab expands the font family further, offering new design potential. Now comes the next step, DIN Next Slab, also produced under the direction of Akira Kobayashi. On a team with Sandra Winter and Tom Grace, Kobayashi is creating the new font variant based on the optimized shapes of DIN Next. The expansion will make the popular font all the more flexible and versatile. Apart from that, the geometric slab serifs underline the technical and formal nature of the font and emphasize a central design element of DIN Next. However, the team did have some challenges to overcome. While it is relatively easy to imagine DIN Next Light with slab serifs, the amount of available space quickly disappears when it comes to the Black styles. Winter explains that many tests and trials were necessary to find a compromise between space, letters and the serif shapes. Experiments with modified contrast in the weight or only one-sided serifs were quickly abandoned. The central, technical and powerful character of the font changed too much. Nevertheless, it was necessary to simplify slightly the shape of some letters, such as the ‘k’ or ‘x’, for example. These changes, first developed in the Black styles, were applied to all weights in order to lend the font a consistent appearance. Like DIN Next, DIN Next Slab also has seven weights, which cover the range from Ultralight to Black, each with matching italic. There are various character sets in all of the styles and the four middle weights have small capitals available. DIN Next Slab harmonizes perfectly with the styles of DIN Next: the basic letterforms and weights are identical. Both versions of the font can work together perfectly, not just in headlines and body text, but also within a text; they complement each other very well as design variations. With the new DIN Next Slab, Monotype expands the DIN Next super family consistently. With DIN Next Slab, you can underscore the technical and formal nature of the understated font not only in headlines, but in texts, as well. In this way, you have new and diverse potential for application, thanks to the way the different styles of DIN Next combine perfectly.