Absurdies is a trilogy of pictorial typefaces with lots of mischief, fun, weirdness, black humour and amusement. It includes 143 digitized illustrations. You will find many inexplicable behaviours, madmen, strange occupations, absurd and chaos-loving characters, and general whimsy. This little crowd can be used in many ways, from spot illustration to big illustration work or graphic designs, taking advantage of the vectorial format of the font file. The characters in Absurdies (together with their kin, the Illustries, Whimsies, Ombres, Bizarries and Genteta dingbats) are drawings from the sketchpad of Joan M. Mas, drawn from imagination and with no reference, except in a handful of cases pulled from historical photography. He wanted an easy-to-use format to collect his hundreds of imaginary ink drawings and he realized a digital typeface was an ideal solution. Having the illustrations gathered in a font file means you can use them instantly in any program you like. You may choose to use the images out of the box, or further customize them with colours and textures. The possibilities are endless.

“In some way I was Mr Mamoulian, and someone else was writing and drawing this stuff. He kept sending me these pages. I had to sign my name and pass them off as my own. I had no choice. He was holding my aged mother hostage, you see. I told him when the pages were due and he somehow got them to me. Sometimes he left them in secret locations. I don't remember them at all.” -- Brian Bolland Mr. Mamoulian has four weights with automatic alternating uppercase letters, Crossbar I Technology, and European, Vietnamese & Cyrillic language support.

Goodwater is an original collection of a Brush, three weights of a monoline Script and four weights of condensed Sans typeface. Goodwater also has a “Print” version with rugged outline and worn-out texture of each font. Goodwater is a great pack for any display use from online to logo and from headline to packaging. All the styles are designed using the same proportions and soft corners so that they’ll place nice together. All Print versions have the same texture style and size too so that they’ll fit smooth together. Goodwater Script and Brush fonts are equipped with automatic Standard Ligatures and Contextual Alternates to keep the flow smooth and it’s best to keep those features on.

PKG Roman Capitals is one more of Posterizer KG calligraphic fonts, based on Roman Square Capitals letterforms, also called Capitalis Monumentalis, Inscriptional Capitals, Elegant Capitals and Capitalis Quadrata from (about) 2nd century A.D. All graphemes are taken from calligraphic pages written with brush on traditional calligraphic stile, inspired by epigraphic monuments from the Roman Pantheon, Trajan’s Column, and the Arch of Titus. PKG Roman Capitals font is good guides for any who want to study the beautiful proportions of Roman Capitals. In practice, it can be useful for calligraphic sketches and imitation of Roman (European) historical manuscripts. Font contains good stylistic, morphological and metrical balanced Capitals, Small Caps and all the Latin and Cyrillic glyphs.

TF Hustler Blood Graffiti Font - a unique and exciting design that is sure to add a splash of creativity to your projects! Our font features a monoline style that is complemented by a vibrant splash of paint, giving your designs a unique and eye-catching look. we've also included several alternative that are perfect for supporting the graffiti style. These alternative give you even more flexibility and allow you to create designs that are truly unique and individual. The monoline style gives the font a clean and modern look, while the splash of paint adds a touch of creativity and spontaneity. Features: Uppercase, Lowercase, Numeral, Punctuation & Multilingual. For any questions please contact me 🙂 Thanks!

Ragtag is an adventurous display font that’s fun, graphic and loud. The font features three irreverent, geometric variations for each letterform, plus a few extra goodies like eñes and diacritics so it’s ready to use En Español. Ragtag creates harmonies from the fully interchangeable collection of letters. Each letter is unique and designed so it composes beautifully with all others — but can also stand on its own as an accent piece or as part of a design. Ragtag is inspired by the scattered crew of makers and designers from design studio In-House International--a fully remote creative home based in Austin, TX. The design of Ragtag was led by Alexander Wright and digitized by Rodrigo Fuenzalida.

In 2009, Corradine Fonts released one of its most successful projects: Mussica, an experimental and hybrid typeface that explore the exaggeration of ascenders and descenders in a high contrast style. Now, around eight years later, we are proud to introduce Mussica Italic, which surpass the original version in quality and quantity of ornamental possibilities while try to maintain its proportions and looking. Mussica Italic is programmed to obtain a smart replacement of swashes, endings and ligatures using the Open Type features, but you can also explore manually its wide range of alternatives to get the best graphic result according to your requirements. Mussica Italic supports most of Western and Central European languages.

Neustade is a layered typeface based on a simple grid, taking inspiration from the work of Wim Crouwel and Foundry Types. I challenged myself to create a typeface where words and letters can appear within or outside of other words and letters with the help of layering. Neustades grid also applies to the spacing and kerning of individual letters or words, ensuring that every layer will line up and allowing different weights to interact with each other. Individually each weight within the Neustade family has been designed with legibility at small sizes in mind, allowing for smooth and uninterrupted reading. Neustade in large sizes feels both modern and retro, especially when mixing weights and colors.

Kairos is equal parts traditional and digital. Inspired by 19th century wood type fonts called Grecians, it’s an octagonal slab serif at its core. The serif detailing makes it radiate in headlines, with the square serifs driving its performance in text. The 51 weights and widths—all with small caps—offer a flexible and usable contemporary palette of styles perfect for branding, advertising and packaging. Kairos is stout, but has energy. It often looks athletic, industrial, and stern, while the subtle rounded features can also give it a gentlemanly and gracious demeanor. Kairos Variables are font files which are featuring two axis and have a preset instance from Thin to Black and Condensed to Extended.

Burdigala is a clean-cut, modern yet classic typeface inspired by Didones and Aicher’s Rotis family. Burdigala Sans is especially well suited for on-screen usage such as in apps and pdf documents. It is also ideal for larger amounts of (printed) texts in brochures, magazines and books. It is slighty narrow in order to conserve space, but spacious enough to faciliate reading and overall clarity. Check out its sibling, the Burdigala Semi Serif version. The expanded versions, being wider and more open, works equally well in media intended both for print and on-screen reading, e.g. in Pdf-documents etc. Burdigala is the ancient Roman name of the city of Bordeaux France.

Hummingbird is reminiscent of old-fashioned cursive penmanship found in treasured letters bundled together by silken ribbons or in worn leather-bound ledgers. Hummingbird is graced with an impressive number of contextual alternates (214!) that bring a flowing randomness to the typeface, creating a more natural handwritten appearance. The font also has 266 swashes including an entire set of decorated uppercase letters that add personality, emphasis, and beauty. See what’s included! http://bit.ly/2cdVw4d *NOTE* Basic versions DO NOT include swashes, alternates or ornaments These fonts have been specially coded for access of all the swashes, alternates and ornaments without the need for professional design software! Info and instructions here: http://lauraworthingtontype.com/faqs/

Monroe was designed in 2010, but in 2013 the font’s designer stopped selling it. Eight years after its initial release, Monroe returns in a new and upgraded version—with improved drawing and spacing—which includes more weights as well as alternate glyphs. Each font style has 819 glyphs and the whole set contains 394 characters which support 207 Latin-based languages. Monroe also includes 5 stylistic sets that offer a wide range of signs, swashes and discretionary ligatures, all specially made to add aesthetic value to your designs. The family comes in 5 weights: Thin, Ultra Light, Light, Regular and Bold. Monroe was designed by Daniel Hernández with the collaboration of Alfonso García.

Introducing Sportzan - A Sporty Display Font Sportzan, as its name, is a sport font. Sportzan brings you the kind of cheerful and sporty vibes which spreads the playful energy for the game. Sportzan is designed to have sharp-corners to express the strength. With its bold design, sportzan will be suitable to be associated to any kind of sport product such as poster, jersey design, sport-slogan, and any writing which needs a strong-bold vibe. FEATURES - PUA Encoded - Uppercase and Lowercase letters - Numbering and Punctuations - Multilingual Support - Works on PC or Mac - Simple Installation - Support Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, also works on Microsoft Word Hope you Like it. Thanks.

Scillienta is a considered and exacting handwriting font that includes unique ligatures, characters for multiple languages, and a range of mathematical symbols. Inspired by the condensed, small, skinny handwriting traits I have consistently seen in scientists' handwriting, it exemplifies the effort of trying to write neatly when appearance is not the first priority. Scillienta is well-suited to handwritten notes and labels, school work and professional scribbles. It also works well as handwriting on electronic devices such as iPads and other cases in which handwriting might appear less fluid than usual. Scillienta includes 287 glyphs and 17 ligatures to ensure that common double- and triple-letter combinations retain the true-to-life inconsistencies of real handwriting.

Fellbaum Grotesk is a condensed typeface with both grotesque and cursive/humanist attributes. Fellbaum Grotesk Regular presents a clean, “grotesk” exterior, while the Italic version features faint slab-style flourishes. These characteristics, combined with a subtle stroke contrast and slightly extended x-height make for a distinct, and artisanal appearance. The family was inspired by the condensed & sterile, yet quirky, sans serifs found on a lot of vintage apothecary labels & municipal street signage. Both styles in the family are modest enough to work as secondary fonts, but also sport enough character to work as a primary sans face for wordmarks, logos, headers, etc. Fellbaum Grotesk Features: • 14 Fonts, 7 Weights, 2 Styles • OpenType Support • Adobe CE Language Support • Dingbats

Armavir by Fontazy is an uppercase type-family consisting of three gradually distressed sub-families Armavir 01, Armavir 02 and Armavir 03 (each in Regular and Bold weights) and Shadow (also in Regular and Bold). Armavir is a sans serif font with a slight touch of handmade. Each typeface contains stylistic alternate version of vowels -A, -a, -E and -e, that converting uppercase font in unicase(-ish). The Shadow style is suitable for each of three text styles. Being a duplicate of the text layer, it gives an additional decorative appearance to the text. All fonts in the family has Latin (West, Central and Baltic) and Cyrillic encoding. Armavir is perfect for logo making, print design, advertising, branding etc.

Sabina Chipară's DIN Next Shapes typeface is a twist on the original German industrial classic, taking its skeleton and re-clothing it in dots, hearts, snowflakes and stars. The design offers a more approachable and whimsical tone of voice than the original, while maintaining all the legibility and clarity of form that makes DIN Next such a reliable and versatile design. It works in harmony with DIN Next, and is particularly suited for designers looking to be a little more expressive. DIN Next Shapes includes four fonts: Dots, Flakes, Hearts and Stars, and has pan European language support including Greek and Cyrillic. It also has OpenType features including stylistic alternatives, ligatures and fractions.

Aeronic is a work of love. I stumbled upon a fantastic Japanese poster for Nikke Coat by Gihachiro Okuyama (1907 - 1981). Gihachiro Okuyama (also: Okayama) was a very prolific Japanese print artist who started his career making woodblock prints, but later moved on to posters and advertisements. I tried to recreate the hand lettering in the original 1937 Nikke Coat poster, but since I had to work with a few glyphs only, I designed the remaining ones myself. The outline of Aeronic is rather thin, with thicker bits in some glyphs. It is quite rough in places, but it all adds to its unique look. Aeronic comes with a bonanza of diacritics.

The basic design style for Nouveau Days JNL was inspired by the hand lettering on the sheet music cover for "Linger Longer Letty". This tongue-twisting song title comes from the 1919 musical comedy of the same name. Some of the characters originally had tiny spur serifs, but they were omitted in the digital version to keep the overall design consistent. The font is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The typeface Ruano was inspired from “Lettera cancelleresca formata” by the Vatican calligrapher Ferdinando Ruano, carved and cast in 1926 by Nebiolo of Turin on the advice of Raffaello Bertieri who designed the capital letters and numbers, missing in the original. The difficulty of the design of this chancery font lies in its original vertical layout, bending the calligraphic harmonies to the Gothic style, thus distinguishing it from contemporary cursive alphabets.

Dr. Gerard Unger expands the concept of Sanserata to a sans type family with Sanserata, adding specific characteristics which improve reading. Sanserata’s originality does not overtly present itself at text sizes. Rather, at those sizes, it draws upon its enormous x-height, short extenders, and articulated terminals to improve readability, especially on screens. Having articulated terminals means characters flare as they near their end, but readers likely won’t notice. What they would notice is that their ability to take in more content in a line of text is improved because the lettershapes are more defined. Articulation also makes clearer text from digital sources, where rectangular endings tend to get rounded by the emission of light from the screen. Lately there seems a whispered discontent with the lack of progress in the sans serif category. Designs can either stretch too far beyond what is accepted or be too bland to be considered new. Sanserata’s strength is in being vivid and unique without being off-putting. This bodes well for designers of paragraphs and of branding schemes since, with Sanserata’s two flavors, it is well able to capture attention or simply set the tone. Sanserata’s first voice is a generous, friendly, and even cheerful sans serif. But when using the alternate letterforms its voice becomes more businesslike, though still with nice curves, generous proportions, and a pleasant character. Sanserata comes in seven weights with matching italics, covers the Latin Extended character set, and is loaded with extras. Its OpenType features allow for the implementation of typographic niceties such as small caps, both tabular and proportional lining and oldstyle figures, ligatures, alternate characters, case-sensitive variants, and fractions. The complete Sanserata family, along with our entire catalogue, has been optimised for today’s varied screen uses. Dr Unger worked with Tom Grace on the production of Sanserata. For extended branding use with Sanserata, check out Sanserata, the contemporary, eclectic typeface drawn from roots in Romanesque Europe.

ITC Beesknees font is the work of David Farey. He credits a number of sources as inspirations for his work, including Pushpin Studio, Peter Max, Bob Zoell and the Marx Brothers, whose typographic titles he admired as much as their cinematic humor. He was going to name the font 'Horse Feathers' or 'Monkey Business' after Marx Brothers films, then the name got shortened to 'Business', which then got transformed to 'Beesknees'. ITC Beesknees font contains a capital and small caps alphabet.

TT Polls useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options About TT Polls family: TT Polls emerges as a modern modular slab serif inspired by American sports graphics. As we wanted to create a really special and remarkable project, we've decided to broaden the character palette and implement the OT features support, and also to add a traditional handwritten script in several weights to the slab serif. Although TT Polls and TT Polls Script subfamilies are stylistically contrasting each other, they perfectly match thanks to the appropriate proportions both in the thickness of vertical strokes and the general width of characters. TT Polls subfamily consists of 5 weights and 5 italics. In it, we've implemented a ligatures set and broad support of OpenType features: calt, salt, liga, dlig, case, frac, sinf, sups, dnom, numr, tnum. Thanks to stylistic alternates it is possible to significantly change the nature of the font, making it more technological. TT Polls Script subfamily is a handwritten script in 5 weights. Geometric swashes created for all characters of basic Latin and Cyrillic alphabets contribute to its authenticity. A lot of OpenType features (swsh, liga, calt, case, frac, ordn, sinf, sups, dnom, numr, tnum, onum, pnum) are also integrated into the TT Polls Script. Although we've been considering the use of TT Polls in sports-related design—be that inscriptions on baseball players' shirts or numbers on a race car’s side—while creating the font family, we have to admit that the final version of TT Polls is also a great fit to a more casual design and application spheres. TT Polls language support: Acehnese, Afar, Albanian, Alsatian, Aragonese, Arumanian, Asu, Aymara, Banjar, Basque, Belarusian (cyr), Bemba, Bena, Betawi, Bislama, Boholano, Bosnian (cyr), Bosnian (lat), Breton, Bulgarian (cyr), Cebuano, Chamorro, Chiga, Colognian, Cornish, Corsican, Cree, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Embu, English, Erzya, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Gaelic, Gagauz (lat), Galician, German, Gusii, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiri Motu, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Innu-aimun, Interlingua, Irish, Italian, Javanese, Judaeo-Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish, Kalenjin, Karachay-Balkar (lat), Karaim (lat), Karakalpak (lat), Kashubian, Khasi, Khvarshi, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kongo, Kumyk, Kurdish (lat), Ladin, Latvian, Laz, Leonese, Lithuanian, Luganda, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Macedonian, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malay, Manx, Maori, Mauritian Creole, Minangkabau, Moldavian (lat), Montenegrin (lat), Mordvin-moksha, Morisyen, Nahuatl, Nauruan, Ndebele, Nias, Nogai, Norwegian, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Palauan, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rheto-Romance, Rohingya, Romanian, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Russian, Rusyn, Rwa, Salar, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Scots, Sena, Serbian (cyr), Serbian (lat), Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Shona, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Swiss German, Swiss German, Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Tatar, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Tsonga, Tswana, Turkish, Turkmen (lat), Ukrainian, Uyghur, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Xhosa, Zaza, Zulu.

Pantographia Collection is a Intellecta digitization, in facsimile style, without artistical interpretation of any kind, of the work of Edmund Fry (monumental book), Pantographia , a work on languages containing over 200 alphabets. We just are collecting in digital way these alphabets. Each alphabet has a short pdf description (see in the gallery). For example, in the pdf brochure of the "Saracen One" font, according to Edmund Fry, "This characters, according to Theseus Ambrosius, was used by the Saracens at the time of their conquests. Claude Duret, p. 475." Ambrosius, Theseus: Introductio in Chaldaicam lingua, Syriaca, atque Armenicam, [et] dece*. - 1539. Theseus Ambrosius or AMBROGIO, was an Italian orientalist, which born in 1469, and died in 1539 - He wrote his Introduction to the Chaldean, Syrian, Armenian, and ten other tongues, with the alphabetical characters of about forty different languages, 4to." The Pantographia font have only the original characters showed in Fry's book. There are instructions in the PDF files to get them. These fonts have no philological (or linguistic) academic pretentions. They are digitized and faithful versions of the original, like first published at Fry's book.

The Bauer Typefoundry first released the Beton family of types in 1936. Created by the German type designer Heinrich Jost, the present digital version of the Beton family consists of six slab serif typefaces. First developed during the early 1800s, by the 1930s slab serif faces had become one of many stock styles of type developed by foundries all over the world. Because of their distance from pen-drawn forms and their industrial appearance, they were seen as “modern” typefaces. (Their serifs kept them from being too modern.) The first slab serif typefaces were outgrowths of didone style text faces (e.g., Walbaum). As newspapers and advertising grew in importance in the western world (especially in “Wild West” America), type founders and printers began to create bigger, bolder typefaces, which would set large headlines apart from text, and each other. Through display tactics, businesses and industry could begin to visually differentiate their products from one another. This craze eventually led to the development of monster sized wood type, among other things. By the 20th Century, the typographic establishment had begun to tame, categorize, and codify 19th Century type styles. It was in the wake of this environment that Jost developed Beton. The Beton family is a type “family” in a pre-1950s sense of the word. Although six styles of type are available, only four of them fit in logical progression with each other (Beton Light, Beton Demi Bold, Beton Bold, and Beton Extra Bold). The other two members of the family, Beton Bold Condensed and Beton Bold Compressed, are more like distant cousins. They function better as single headlines to text set in Beton Light or Beton Demi Bold, of as companions to totally separate typefaces.

The history of Able’s connection with the Harry Potter phenomenon is really up in the air. It’s a catch-22 in this business - you either promote your own work and negotiate expensive exclusive licenses, or you work with a promoter and sell your designs to anyone and everyone. It could have been an in-house designer at Rowling’s publisher, Scholastic, or a freelancer who proposed Able for the headings and such. The responsible party licensed it from T26, and JK Rowling’s storytelling made it a star. (I suppose it’s ironic that there’s a whole lot of unwritten history in the typography business.) Able’s rise to fame really is a classic love story between reading and type design. If the books weren’t so popular, Able might still be waiting for some Mexican fast food chain to pick it up for packaging design. The movie deal certainly made the font all the more recognizable, what with its merchandising campaign. Popularity can also cripple a great decorative face. It’s always being recognized as “The Harry Potter Font.” It might just have to wait a few decades for the Potter phenomenon to subside to be freed from the “Chamber of Pigeonholed Fonts.” In the meantime, I’m sure that a lot of fledgling graphic design apprentices are reading their new Potter books, being charmed by the idea of type design when they’re not turning the pages too fast to notice.

Behiner is a font created to offer your varied design projects a classic art deco flair. This font is sleek and modern, with simple yet appealing letterforms. The ligature function and its equivalents offer design freedom in character choices. You may use Behiner to provide a retro feel to your commercials, posters, brochures, business cards, and other creative projects. Behiner also supports several languages, allowing you to use it in multilingual projects. Get Behiner now and join a legendary art deco saga with the current and exquisite touch that this font offers! What’s Included : - File font - All glyphs Iso Latin 1 - Alternate, Ligature - Simple installations - We highly recommend using a program that supports OpenType features and Glyphs panels like many Adobe apps and Corel Draw so that you can see and access all Glyph variations. - PUA Encoded Characters – Fully accessible without additional design software. - Fonts include Multilingual support

Kaindra is a Theme display font that has a Japanese Ninja Looks. Kaindra is a good font to use for various graphic designs, such as poster titles, banners, advertisements, logotypes, and is good for combining various types of icons. This font is also good for packaging, crafting, children's and adult clothing. apply this font for your various designs to make it more powerful

Chocotea - Fun Retro Font You Can Mix And Match for Your Awesome Project This fonts is ideal for crafting, branding and decorate your any project. This fonts are perfect for wedding invitation or your blog. Also with their help, you can create a logo or beautiful frame for your home. Or just use for your business, book covers, stationery, marketing, magazines and more.

This is a simple and legible tag style font as written with a bullet tip marker. HumanRase includes characters for all uppercase and lowercase keys as well as numbers, punctuation and dozens of other symbols (many more characters than most other tag style fonts). This font works well at large sizes but is also very legible when used for body copy.

Chizcake. Do you love random shape thick font? This font is cuteness overload. It is for everyone, for various design purpose. This font is suitable for happy theme, cute, party, holiday, kids and many more. It is also suitable for Logo, Cards, Branding, Social Media, Youtube Thumbnail, Advertisement, Posters, any many others. Features: – Standard Characters (Uppercase and Lowercase) – Numerals – Punctuation – International Characters

Introducing, Claire Murphy - a stylish italic serif with bunch of alternates! Claire Murphy is a classic and stylish italic serif with a bunch of alternates that will make your presentation or logo even more stunning and elegant. You can use this font for any purpose, such as a wedding invitations, logo, or instagram post. This font also support multilingual and already PUA Encoded.

Wicked Butter is a display font inspired by writing styles for young children, such as animated cartoons, comic posters, and so on. This font is bold but sharp and bouncy, which makes it look more playful but still strong. This font also comes with several combined letter variations. but you can still use wicked butter for many print and digital needs.

Heidenberg is a hand lettering work with retro style. This well designed font was inspired from classic typography designs in 60's to 80's. Heidenberg was packed with a lot of alternates and swashes (please check preview images), it will give you more choices to custom your words with this OpenType features. It also has multilingual support for standard latin characters.

Introducing Thickline, a classic bold monoline typeface. Thickline is bold, strong, and classy. You can use this font for making awesome logos, branding, letterhead, invitations, quote, print, card clothing brand, vintage looks, and so much more!. Comes with open type feature and a lot of alternates that helps you to make great lettering. This font also has multi language support.

Here come our latest product with serif typeface called Seriously. This typeface has 3 different weights that you can use according your needs. It has elegant look, very suitable for corporate branding, logo, document, social media design, presentation, print design, web, etc. This typeface is comes in uppercase, lowercase, punctuation, symbols, numerals, stylistic set alternate, ligatures, etc also support multilingual.

Introducing Marceila, a modern script font with a lot of alternates character and unique flourish. This font is perfect for logotype creation, lettering compositions, wedding invitations, fashion projects, book design cover, magazines typography, cards, packagings, posters, branding and more. Come with OpenType feature with a lot of alternates, its help you to make great lettering. This font is also support multi language.

Alea Weiqsaw inspired from victorian era, art neuveau, psychedelic art and music. This font comes with unique trippy style, it will be interesting to make a headlines, packaging design and vintage style logotype like a cover album, sign logotype, vintage headline. Alea Weiqsaw also bring some alternative glyph and unique ornament. This combination allows you to easily develop awesome designs.

Here is another design by jewelry designer Max Joseph Gradl. Zier is a verb, meaning to decorate, adorn or ornament; zierlich means decorative, elegant, fine, neat. Schrift means type. Zierschrift, therefore, means decorative type. Gradl Zierschriften is a decorative type in the Art Nouveau style, rather than the more ornate Victorian style. Very modern, very young, with an elegant simplicity of form. Maria Makela, in her book The Munich Secession (Princeton 1990) suggests that the frequent use of simple, flowing, organic forms that was so characteristic of Art Nouveau was a reaction against the growing complexity and rapid urbanization that resulted from 19th century industrialization. In keeping with that reaction is the hand-drawn quality that intentionally rejects a mechanistic mathematic precision of line rendering. Gradl Zierschriften preserves that hand-drawn quality. Designed with upper case only, this face was obviously intended for short headlines only and is best set at 18 points or larger. However, I don't think you really get to experience the grace of this design until you get to 36 points or more. In the larger sizes, it is simply stunning. Please note that while most of the uppercase letterforms are repeated in the lower case for convenience, the ‘F’,‘L’ and ‘T’ are rendered a little narrower than in the uppercase to provide for visual variety. The font also includes a generous supply of ligatures for just the right fit ... and just for the fun of using them. Three common ways of inserting a ligature, accented letter or other special character are: 1) Key in “ALT”+“0”+[ascii #]; for example ALT+0233 for the e-acute, 2) From within your application program, go to the INSERT menu and look for something like “Insert Symbol,” (this function is NOT available in all application programs) & 3) Cut & Paste from the CHARACTER MAP display that has been supplied by every generation of Windows Operating System that I can recall (All Programs>Accessories>System Tools). Isn't it amazing what you can do? Don't be afraid to experiment. If you back up your work, you have very little to lose and a lot to gain. Not only do you acquire a new tool, but by the very process you have learned how to continually expand your knowledge and skill base.