This upscale offering, with its understated elegance, is based on a release from the 1912 American Type Founders specimen catalog named, quite simply, "Freehand". Use it for any occasion which otherwise might require the services of a skilled Osmiroid wrangler. Guaranteed to please and to impress. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Millerstown is full of that solid, 19th Century, transatlantic spirit of enterprise. It is an all capitals face, decorative but clear and legible, ideal for signage, posters and banners. "Old Millerstown" has been treated to capture the look of heavily used, weathered type, adding another vintage element to the typeface. Bring a touch of American inspired flair to your next design project!

Ginolac is a unique, and creative font made by Avortic. Wrapped in a unique concept, this font is feasible and suitable for testing on several works in the form of posters, advertisements, crafts, and others. Don't forget that this font is already available in Russian, making this font not only usable by British or American people but also by Russians and surrounding areas.

The typeface was designed at the Polygraphmash type design bureau in 1949-61 (project manager Elena Tsaregorodtseva). Based on Shkolnaya ('School') typeface, 1939 (project manager Evgeny Chernevsky), a version of Century Schoolbook of American Type Founders, 1915-1923 by Morris F.Benton. The low-contrast text typeface of the Ionic-Legibility group, it is designed expressly for schoolbooks and children books.

Roadblock JNL is the solidified and slanted version of Patriotica JNL --a stars and stripes font based on lettering by the late Alf R. Becker as commissioned by Signs of the Times® magazine. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Publications, Inc. and the American Sign Museum in Cincinati, Ohio for providing source material for use as a work model.

HUGS is a font inspired by children at play and explorative good-natured spirit. With a bit of a bounce and a whole lotta whimsy this headline font has a hand-drawn charm and a wiggly lightheartedness. Originally created for a great American diaper company for use in coupons and packaging, HUGS also translates nicely to the screens of modern devices.

The typeface Modernistic, designed by Wadsworth A. Parker for American Type Founders in 1927, provided the design cues for this typeface which, unlike the original, includes lowercase letters. Best used sparingly for dramatic and memorable headlines. Both versions of this font contain the complete Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Cabriolet is a connected geometric script re-interpretation inspired by old chromo emblems of Chevy truck Apache of 1960. With three weight variables, it can be used in logos, games and graphic related to cars, automotive, American, Detroit, Art Deco, 1940, 1950, 1960, vintage, retro, classic and old machines. Can be expandable using underscore for connect words or expanding between letters space.

Linem Up JNL is based on one of Alf R. Becker's alphabets for Signs of the Times magazine. With A-Z only and basic punctuation, it is best used in very limited text at larger point sizes. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Publications (and the curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio) for providing the reference material.

Rage Italic is the work of American designer Ron Zwingelberg. It was one of the first casual brush style scripts with a rough, textured edge. The initial-like capitals complement a lowercase alphabet which links together to create the look of true handwriting. Rage Italic font is ideal for work that should have the spontaneous look of pen writing on parchment.

The Vtg Stencil fonts from astype are based on real world stencils from several countries. The Vtg Stencil Marsh design was derived from 1 inch stencils, cut by a Marsh R machine. Marsh produced stencil machines since 1922 and was one of the most important manufacturers for such marking machines. The design is part of the American industrial heritage. PDF Specimen

In 1931, Morris Fuller Benton created the Stymie typeface for the American Type Founders (ATF). Stymie is a reworking of a slab serif type that was popular in Europe at that time, Memphis. For the past one hundred fifty years, slab serif types (sometimes called Egyptian or Egyptienne-style faces) have been a popular choice for headline text in newspapers, magazines, and advertising.

This no-nonsense titling face is based on a Morris Fuller Benton 1934 offering for American Type Founders called, simply, Poster Gothic. Its crisp, clean lines and subtle Art Deco modeling make for attractive and attention-getting headlines. Available in plain and prismatic styles. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

DeVinne Ornamental is a display typeface from the famous Parisian typefoundry Deberny & Peignot, developed around 1900. Its style has become synonymous with the Art Noveau period, which was raging internationally when DeVinne Ornamental's letters were first drawn. The typeface is named after the renowned American printer Theodore Low DeVinne (1828-1914). Optimal uses for DeVinne Ornamental include headlines in magazines and newsletters.

Based on Morris Fuller Benton's 1905 oeuvre American Extra Condensed, this titling face packs a lot of information into very little horizontal space. Its champfered corners give the font an industrial feel which remains fresh even after more than a century. Both versions include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, with localization for Lithuanian, Moldovan and Romanian.

Index is a sans serif font which gives an impression of both movement and harmony. The soft, round forms of this font give it an almost ornamental feel. The influence of American advertisement and poster typefaces of the turn of the 20th century is apparent. Index can be used as a headline or text font in small or larger point sizes.

Thunderbird is an old American-style typeface. It is based on the kinds of big wood type that were popular in old Wild West advertising, which is evident through its ornate serifs, and the pointy flares that pop in and out of the centers of each stroke. Thunderbird is an all caps font and is best used in very large sizes.

Here’s a warm, casual text font based on an early twentieth century work by lettering artist Elizabeth Colwell, released by American Type Founders in 1923. For this update, all four fonts have been completely redrawn, and many new characters have been added. Both versions of this font contain the complete Latin A Extended character set, as well as extended ligatures and fractions.

This little charmer combines an uppercase designed by American lettering artist J. M. Bergling with a lowercase designed by English architect Roland W. Paul. The result has a wiggle in its walk and a giggle in its talk: oh, baby, that’s what I like! Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Over the years I have bought many books and music CDs in persuit of my passion for African and Latin (and especially Afro-Latin) cultures. I've noticed that a great number of these books and CDs feature either of two popular display fonts that are, in my opinion, very much overused. As an alternative, I designed Tambor. The Tambor family includes seven styles.

Farquharson is an all-caps display face, adapted from an early American woodtype, and designed especially for use in the book Charlie Farquharson’s Unyverse. The complete family consists of two fonts: a regular version and a stencil version. Alternate versions with slightly elongated feet are provided for A, H, K, M, N and R. Very eccentric, it is best used in small doses.

Nightspot JNL was modeled from one of many display alphabets created by the late sign painter and lettering expert Alf Becker. His work has graced the pages of Signs of the Times® magazine for decades. Special thanks to Tod Swormstedt of the American Sign Museum and ST Publications, Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio for providing the source material for this typeface.

ITC Kokoa is the work of German graphic designer Jochen Schuss. Schuss found the seeds of inspiration on a trip to Ghana and expanded and experimented with the idea on the computer. It includes an array of symbols and borders to complement its stylized letters. ITC Kokoa retains a touch of its African roots but is overall a modern, funky font.

Howdy is a modern French Clarendon revival typeface inspired by late 19th-century woodblock type and sign painting. Its ties to the American West evoke a distinctive western and retro flair. It was designed with flexibility in mind. Intended for use as a display type, its reverse contrast forms make an impact from tall or wide headlines and anything in between.

The Nixt Font Family is a new font with currently seven styles. As an alternative to Helvetica, Arial, Gill Sans, Futura, & Gotham, Nixt has a similar design aesthetic to those aforementioned in that its design, structure, and feel crosses decades of appeal. From Mid-Century, through the stark '60s, decades of succeeding modern architecture through the turn of the 21st Century, Nixt's glyphs are timeless, clear, ultra-legible in all styles and weights. Best use in Advertising, Branding, Signage, Architecture, Fashion, Posters, Headlines, and By-Lines, Print & Digital, and of course Labels. There are currently, at first release, 7 Styles: Extra Light, Light, Regular, Italic, Book, Bold, & Extra Bold. There are more in process and will be added when completed. The inspiration behind the Nixt Fonts is the Bauhaus, Mid Century Industrial Design, Art Deco through Moderne Era Architecture, American Pottery and American Design of The Twentieth Century.

Claridge was designed by Adrian Williams and released in 1979. The lowercase g of the Claridge font has a distinctive central join to the loop.

A classic “American” sans serif with a kink Desphalia belongs to the kind of sans serif fonts that were created in the 19th century. You could also name it “American Gothic”, a sans serif in the style of fonts like Franklin Gothic, News Gothic and similar. Above all, the high x-height characterizes this typeface style, as do the identical heights of uppercase and ascenders. However, I allowed myself a few peculiarities ;-) On the one hand, there is the gently sloping horizontal middle line on letters such as H, E, F, A and e. The M also got gently slanted sides. Some of the lower-case letters have an up- or down-stroke: a d m n p u. This "kink" on the shaft also serves to better distinguish the small l from the capital I — as can be seen clearly with the term »Illinois«. In keeping with the tradition of American typefaces, Desphalia does not have a true italic. Rather, the letters of the “Italic” have the same character forms as the normal upright variant, but in oblique — and so it is not called “Italic” but “Oblique”. Style Set 01: Another American peculiarity is the capital I with dashes above and below. It is included in the Desphalia as an alternate character form. An alternative small l with the “kink” in the ascender is also included — as is a y with the “kink” in the descender. Style Set 02: The corresponding “straight” forms a d l m n p u without the break are included as alternatives in a separate style set. Small caps are uppercase letters that are optically the same size as lowercase letters. They offer a very classy way of emphasis. Desphalia is available in the widths Condensed, Normal and Expanded, the weights include Thin, Light, Book, Bold, Black. Using the variable font, all intermediate levels can be freely selected. The figures are optionally available as tabular figures, proportional lining figures or old style figures.

The late-19th-century Prussian-American printer and publisher Louis Prang, the “father of the American Christmas card”, was well-known for his efforts to improve art education in the United States. He published many instructional books and even founded a training school for art teachers. One of the books he published included a series of alphabets for sign painters, lithographers, illuminators, architects and civil engineers. There was nothing truly original there — in the book’s preface, Prang says that the alphabets were “based on foreign forms and adapted for American taste”. The one alphabet that caught my attention in that book was one simply called “Italic”. It’s a high- contrast modern, a Didone really, but with an interesting little twist: the lowercase is almost entirely connected, which makes for an interesting mix of modern typography and classic calligraphy. That stuff is right up my alley now. Whenever my eyes happen on a modern, it’s easy, even almost impulsive for me to envision swashes coming out of serifs and terminals. The caps melt and the minuscules dance with them. And so I brought my vision to life. Prangs is an italic set of three weights, each containing more than 1400 glyphs with plenty of OpenType features and Latin language support. This set celebrates the convergence of three centuries of fancy display alphabets. These fonts should work wherever moderns are used to elevate and scripts are used to appeal — namely today’s branding, packaging and glossy publications.

Albiona Inked is a vintage distressed version of Albiona that evokes the urgency of teletext printers, typewriter ribbons and authentic hot-metal type on rougher paper. A contemporary slab-serif, it revisits aspects of Robert Besley’s classic Clarendon, designed around 1842 for Thorowgood and Co. and named after the Clarendon Press in Oxford. Subsequently extended by Stephenson Blake in the 1950s, Albiona adds the inwardly-curved stroke terminals of the same foundry ’s Grotesque series, and includes italics and old-style and tabular numerals. The original Clarendon’s ball serifs and calligraphic eccentricities have been rationalised and streamlined for functional contemporary uses. The family consists of five weights plus italics and a stencil, and its clean readable style is perfect for both extended text as well as headline setting. A rounded “soft” version is also available.

Noemí is a broad typeface based on a formally classic skeleton, but with a strong Meccano character, where its quadrangular serifs are the protagonists of the slab style. It is a typeface designed to solve the basic problems of newspaper printing, adapted to a novel and strong communication, in the case of a wide typeface and with generous ink traps making the impression. Noemí was born from the need to create a broad, functional typeface family with a strong compact character intended for use in the press. Intended for editing and layout in a newspaper / magazine with a wide range of subfamilies thought and designed to achieve a diverse graphic functionality; designed from the same common skeleton, with a style based on the mix between the Mecan characters of traditional typewriter fonts and Roman fonts.

Louisa is a monospaced font-family designed and optimized specifically for small font sizes. But even as headline font it looks good. It has a very good distinguishability of letter forms and legibility even in longer text paragraphs. The character of Louisa is a combination of strong elements and warm, friendly forms. The font family is not only designed for coding and tabular layout, but can be used in different fields of communication design. Therefore it provides two stylistic sets with different letter forms: one with the look of serious modern typewriter font, the second with more soft letter forms and elements of a real italic. Additionally it consists oldstyle numbers (and of course tabular numbers) and a set arrows. The font is available in four styles: regular, italic, bold and bold italic.

Magnetic Pro is a typeface inspired by typewriter characters with a mechanical aspect. Equipped for professional typography, this font family has many OpenType features such as small caps, case sensitive forms, tabular and old style figures, pro kerning, circled numerals, ligatures, and extra graphics. It comes in 8 weights with corresponding italics and it's suited for multiple purposes including display and editorial use, especially for advertising, long text, packaging and branding. Magnetic Pro has true italics with a 'mechanical script' aspect to give more style in long texts. It has also an extended character set to support Central and Eastern European as well as Western European languages. Magnetic Pro has also an extra graphics style for those who wants to add catchwords, special titles, arrows and geometric shapes to their creative projects.

Quarkwell™ by The Typeworks is a line based typeface ideal for use in designs that require a modern and highly legible appearance whilst still retaining a classic feel. The Quarkwell font family is inspired by lettering from twentieth-century pantograph engraving machines. The letterforms give a nod to the signature copy sets used on many computer mechanical keyboard keycaps and vintage typewriters, plotter engraved plastics signage fonts and others using modified Gorton lettering. Quarkwell font faces include many stylistic alternates for its uppercase and symbols characters sets. Need a different "Q" design? Use access all alternates or insert symbol to select a different "Q" form! Vector lines for plotting machines are also available to purchase on request at TheTypeworks.com So take Quarkwell home today! It's a perfect fit for all sorts of projects.

Kris Holmes and Charles Bigelow designed Lucida Console in 1993 for on-screen console and terminal emulation windows that needed monospaced fonts with sturdy letter shapes. Lucida Console has simple, clear, robust letterforms, a big x-height, and economical fitting. It looks large on-screen and in print but takes up less space than traditional typewriter and monospaced fonts. Its short capitals were originally technical adaptations to user interfaces on computers, but its compact look and active italic appeals to typographers and designers for a wide variety of uses, including in games and digital devices. The Lucida Console family has 675 glyphs in each font, and supports the WGL and W1G character sets. This includes the Extended Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic alphabets along with a generous set of symbols, box-draw, and graphical characters.

Fabrikat Mono is a type family designed by Christoph Koeberlin. The monospaced Sans Serif family is published by HVD Fonts and consists of seven weights plus matching italics. It is an addition to the popular Fabrikat type family that emphasises its engineering roots. Compared to Fabrikat, the Mono version evens out not only the characters’ variable widths but also its more subtle characteristics: Letters like B and R are counterbalanced, the height difference between caps, ascenders and even “t” are eliminated, while characters like the percent sign together with the stressed punctuation give a nod to typewriter typefaces. The type family is equipped for complex, professional typography with OpenType Features like alternate letters, arrows and an extended character set to support Central and Eastern European as well as Western European Languages.

Architype Crouwel is a collection of typefaces created in collaboration with Wim Crouwel, following his agreement with The Foundry, to recreate his experimental alphabets as digital fonts. Crouwel's most recognized work was for the Van Abbe and Stedelijk museums (1954 –72) where he established his reputation for radical, grid-based design. The Fodor letterforms were created for the magazine published by Museum Fodor, Amsterdam. To save cost it was designed to be ‘typeset’ on their own electric typewriter. The resulting monospaced effect was combined with a background of orange overlaid with pink dots that provided a page grid to align the text to. The title set on the dot matrix formed the 'system' for construction of the ‘digital effect’ letterforms. Now Architype Fodor recreates these letterforms as a truly digital font.

Lualaba Snake is a bold display font, characterized by the snake-like decoration used in each letter. The design of the font was inspired by the legend of the Lualaba River in Central Africa. Snakes enjoy a special status in Africa, as they are reputed to be messengers of the ancestors, and are therefore good. Near the Lualaba river is a pool in which a big snake called Kabwe lives. Our ancestors are thought to communicate through this snake.

I spend a lot of time following two obsessions: packaging and hand lettering. Alongside a few other minor obsessions, those two have been my major ones for so many years now, I've finally reached the point where I can actually claim them as “obsessions” without getting a dramatic reaction from the little voice in the back of my head. When you spend so much time researching and studying a subject, you become very focused, directionally and objectively. But of course some of the research material you run into turns out to be tangential to whatever your focus happens to be at the time, so you absorb what you can from it, then shelf it — like the celebrity bobblehead that amused you for a while, but is now an almost invisible ornament eating dust and feathers somewhere in your environment. And just like the bobblehead may fall off the shelf one day to remind you of its existence, some of my lettering research material unveiled itself in my head one day for no particular reason. Hand lettering is now mostly perceived as an American art. Someone with my historical knowledge about lettering may be snooty enough to go as far as pointing out the British origins of almost everything American, including lettering — but for the most part, the contemporary perspective associates great lettering with America. The same perspective also associates blackletter, gothics and sans serifs with Germany. So you can imagine my simultaneous surprise and impatience when, in my research for one of my American lettering-based fonts, I ran into a German lettering book from 1953, by an artist called Bentele. It was no use for me because it didn't propel my focus at that particular time, but a few months ago I was marveling at what we take for granted — the sky is blue, blackletter is German, lettering is American — and found myself flipping through the pages of that book again. The lettering in that book is upbeat and casual sign making stuff, but it has a slightly strange and youthful experimentation at its heart. I suppose I find it strange because it deviates a lot from the American stuff I'm used to working with for so long now. To make a long story short, what’s inside that German book served as the semilla, which is Spanish for seed, for the typeface you see all over these pages. With Semilla, my normal routine went out the window. My life for a while was all Bezier all the time. No special analog or digital brushes or pens were used in drawing these forms. They're the product of a true Bezier process, all starting with a point creating a curve to another point, which draws a curve to another point, and so on. It’s a very time-consuming process, but at the end I am satisfied that it can get to pretty much the same results easier and more traditional methods accomplish. And as usual with my fonts, the OpenType is plenty and a lot of fun. Experimenting with substitution and automation is still a great pleasure for me. It is the OpenType that always saves me from the seemingly endless work hours every type designer must inevitably have to face at one point in his career. The artful photos used in this booklet are by French photographer and designer Stéphane Giner. He is very deserving of your patronage, so please keep an eye out for his marvelous work. I hope you like Semilla and enjoy using it. I have a feeling that it marks a transition to a more curious and flexible period in my career, but only time will tell.