Since my first contact with blackletters in 1999, I became more and more fascinated by these artistic looking typefaces. It all started in the USA at the age of 16, when I took an art class. I decided to trace some blackletter typefaces because they looked very interesting. From this point on I was intrigued by blackletter fonts from all over the world. I studied their different body structures and their cultural background as well as the type designers behind it. Full of information and inspiration I started to draw my own blackletter typeface in 2006. While studying in Hamburg I got in touch with the studio of URW++, where I got skilled in type software and development. Creating a type takes an eye for detail and patience but also lots of time and so it took almost 4 years until the project was finished. And so Ruca was born. Ruca is a refined and expanded typeface. When you look at the spines, the tails or the flags you can see the detailed drawing, which makes the font also extremely good looking in very tall letters. The full character set contains over 400 characters, many ligatures, two number sets and all important currency symbols. Over 300 kerning pairs and many OTF-features make the font easy in use for professional type applications. The typeface is very well applicable for strong headlines and mastheads. Because of its unique appearance, Ruca is perfectly suitable professional graphic applications such as fashion design or branding.

Whomp takes its inspiration from the work of an American master in sign painting and alphabet manipulation: Alf Becker . In 1932, Becker began designing a series of alphabets to be published in Signs of the Times magazine at the rate of one alphabet per month. Nine years later, 100 of those alphabets were compiled in one book that became an enormous success among sign painters. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many Alf Becker alphabets were digitized with blurbs that falsely credit an “Alf Becker typeface”. Alf Becker was not really a typeface kind of guy. He was more of a calligrapher and sign painter. His alphabets were either incomplete or full of variations on different letters, and didn't become typefaces until the digital era. This particular Becker alphabet was quite incomplete. In fact, it wasn't a showing of an alphabet, but words on a poster. Alejandro Paul took the challenge of drawing, digitizing, restructuring, and finally building a complete usable typeface from that partial alphabet. He then extended his pleasure by once again playing with the wonderful possibilities of OpenType. Whomp comes with more than 100 alternates, tons of swashy endings and ligatures, all built into the font and accessible through OpenType palettes in programs that support such features. This is the in-your-face kind of font that stands among other Becker-based alphabets as paying most homage to the vision of this great American artist who saw letters as live ever-changing beings. Whomp is right at home when used on packaging, signage, posters, and entertainment related products.

Imagine a font that is easier to read the smaller it is – or the further away the text is. There are already many line screen fonts, I wanted to take it to the extreme and use as few lines as possible, while keeping the grid of the fonts metrics. The result is a typeface that lives up to its name. Each individual line makes no sense on its own; individual letters are only recognisable in the context of all associated lines, individual letters are most likely to be recognised in the context of whole words. Attached to a building wall, text would be readable from a great distance and become increasingly difficult to decipher the closer you get to the building. Placed on the ground or on a large flat roof, text would only be readable from an aeroplane or - depending on the size - in Google Earth. Kontext has old style figures, superscript numerals, case-sensitive questiondown and exclamdown and an alternative ampersand, 390 glyphs at all. Use the same value for font size and line spacing to keep the lines in the grid, or change the line spacing in 10% steps. Change the spacing in 50-unit or 25-percent increments to keep the grid. The »V« in the font name stands for vertical (lines). The numbers in the font name refer to the brightness of the background and letters themselves, with the first number describing the background and the second the letters. Starting with »00« (white) to »200« (dark) See also my family Kontext Dot

Michael Hoffmann manufactures digital fonts for 30 years. At URW++ he contributed to the technological progress. Over the years, he also specialized in the ideal representation of fonts on screen and the complex assembly of international fonts with scripts of all countries. In his latest project he put the emphasis on developing a highly readable typeface. Less interested in the design as in the functionality of this typeface, he designed Arsapia which he has now installed as a system font on all his computers. Michael Hoffmann studied Japanology at the University of Hamburg and traveled in the early years of his professional activity frequently to Japan, there to train the IKARUS font production tools to Japanese customers. In his spare time he plays guitar or golf depending on the weather. The typeface Arsapia has been designed in such a way that all three font styles Light, Regular and Bold have the same width. When a user therefore opts for the use of Arsapia Light, even though he has already written his text in Regular, nothing changes with respect to the letter tracking. When choosing the Bold for emphasis: Nothing changes except the blackness of the letters. A font change does not engender unwanted line and page breaks of itself. All letters can be clearly distinguished from each other. 1 l I O 0 are all different. For programmers and lovers of monospaced fonts Michael Hoffmann has developed a fourth typeface: Arsapia Mono. This is the perfect terminal font.

Merengue Script is the second typeface designed by Panco, once again together with Ale Paul, who supervised the whole development. In this opportunity, the process of shape research and the systematization of signs led him to dive into new waters. The objective was to generate a system of signs in which the construction of such was not directly bound to traditional calligraphy, nor to texts typography. Instead, the point was to create signs inspired in “Brush pen” calligraphy but with their main features drawn or literally illustrated. The result was a font with personality, authenticity and uncommon formal aspects that make Merengue Script an interesting, highly attractive and rather unusual font. From the very beginning, the search was based on creating a font with weight and good presence in big formats, but, at the same time, efficient for brief texts of small formats. The aim was to make it usable mainly in candy, sweets and chocolate packaging. The predominance of round shapes, harmonious modulations and funny and friendly-looking visual rhythms spark a special effect in the usage of Merengue Script. Texts are enhanced with an interesting visual charm, capable of transforming a very simple text into a virtual illustration that semantically reinforces the messages in a simple way, without putting legibility at risk. With a basic set of stylistic alternatives full of frills and flounces for initials, ornamental and final letters, plus a set of disconnected signs, Merengue Script offers a wide and versatile range of options for graphic designers in the process of packaging design.

LaFarge is a typeface primarily inspired by the historic mosaic titling capitals found in the New York City Subway, designed by architect Squire J. Vickers and his staff between 1915-1927. These elegant but industrial signs are characteristic of early-20th century American architectural lettering, and show an evolution of the classical Roman capitals to lower contrast, bolder serifs, and more regular character widths. The majority of this lettering still remains in subway stations today, and though elements of the style vary from sign to sign, many carry the unique features that are reflected in LaFarge: high-waisted crossbars with angled serifs, elegantly curved “R” leg, and distinctive trapezoidal serifs. LaFarge expands this style into a lower case, taking cues from contemporary typefaces like Bookman, Cheltenham, and Della Robbia. A number of typographic features are included, such as small caps, ordinal indicators / superscript letters, arrows, and a set of borders inspired by early subway tile. The result is a fashionable, architecturally-minded typeface that is just as at home on the façade of a grand public building as it is on packaging, magazines, or the web. LaFarge works well in both text and display settings, remaining readable at small sizes but showing off its elegant details in larger uses. LaFarge has received the Communication Arts Typography Award, the ADC Annual Merit Award, is included in the 2020 STA 100, and was part of designer Greg Shutters’ winning portfolio in the 2019 Type Directors Club Ascender Awards. You can download a PDF specimen of LaFarge, and also view a video of LaFarge in action.

Sacnoth is a font inspired in the old knots celtic visual.

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Pitshanger is loosely derived from a shop sign in Limogues, France.

A wild and wacky font that falls in that extreme catagory.

Based on custom design work by DTP Types Limited in 1992.

Blozend is a display font designed by Dani Montesinos in 2010.

Another informal script designed in 1939 by M.K. Kaufmann for ATF.

Based on custom design work by DTP Types Limited in 1992.

Based on custom design work by DTP Types Limited in 1992.

A vigorous brush design by Paul Zimmermann for Wagner in 1954.

Based on custom design work by DTP Types Limited in 1999.

Finesse and style in this condensed hand drawn elegant type forms.

Designed for informal effects in 1961 by Freeman Craw for ATF.

Based on custom design work by DTP Types Limited in 1992.

Based on custom design work by DTP Types Limited in 1992.

Based on custom design work by DTP Types Limited in 1992.

Gerry Powell’s stencil version of Clarendon designed for ATF in 1938.

a decorative caps font based in designs of old Speedball booklets

A bold kid-friendly title font in a whimsical unicase style.

Eco-nomico is the pop version of Eco , designed in 2001.

a well crafted font inspired in classic wood type fonts heritage

Based on custom design work by DTP Types Limited in 1999.

DB Circles - Frilly is an adorable DoodleBat placed in uniform circles.

Italican Oblique is an unconnected script style font. Updated in 2022

Pretty handwriting in an upright, classic feminine style. Nice and neat.

inspired in classic wood type heritage fonts from old America's foundryes

a classic wood type font, in an attractive set of variations

Based on custom design work by DTP Types Limited in 1990.

Flexible elegance in one font, as creamy as you can imagine...

This is an original font designed in the Art Nouveau style.

Based on custom design work by DTP Types Limited in 1990.

A messy, markered, painted font in pure whimsical and messy style.

Contains 4 clock designs in quarter hour increments totaling 192 clocks.