Polias Varia is an all-caps uniwidth variable weight typeface inspired by an ancient inscription carved on a monoblock stone in hybrid characters — between no-contrast linear sans to low-contrast flared serif. The inspiring inscription is the dedication by Alexander the Great, discovered in the Temple of Athena Polias in the ancient Ionian city of Priene. Stanley Morison mentioned this inscription in one of his lectures: “The distinctive feature of this inscription consists of a consistent thickening towards the ends of perpendiculars and horizontals.” … “We have not the right to say that the serif was invented for Alexander the Great’s inscription, only that this is its first datable appearance.” In Polias Varia, the letter proportions are almost identical to the original, but the stroke features have been reinterpreted and characterized. Serif-like nodes at the end of the strokes are subtle extensions that serve to accentuate rather than break its monoline elegance. With an analogy, they are not flowers, but like blooming buds. Polias Varia is a flared sans typeface which is closer to sans-serif forms on the spectrum between sans and serif. It’s especially light looking by design to convey rather thin and white typographic color of its original monumental look. It comes in eight weights and a variable font, scaled from Thin to Bold. It is multiplexed, so the weights do not affect text lengths. Light weights are closely based on the actual carving of the inscription. Thicker weights can be used on smaller typesettings to compensate for the weight difference of larger letters’ strokes, and to keeping the monoline appearance of the entire text block intact. This method can be used for any purpose, such as setting a hierarchy between the lines or to justify their lengths. Some of the original letterforms have been preserved and stylistic alternatives such as Ionic four-bar Sigma, dotted Theta, palm Y are provided as open type feature. Some of the other ancient forms, such as the three-bar Sigma (S), the pointed U, were also added for both the Greek and Latin scripts. Polias Varia is preferable for big type settings such as logos and headlines as a modern representation of perennial classical forms. Its a fine fit for product branding, movie posters, book covers, packaging materials, and more, which require an epic look to attracting attention with a distinctive elegance. Polias Varia can be considered for distinctiveness wherever Roman Capitals work. As a noun, Polias is one of the epithets of Athena / Minerva, and in this case referring to her role as the protector of the city of Priene. Polias (family) is one of the seven typeface designs in Esintype’s ancient scripts of Anatolia project, Tituli Anatolian series.

This all started with a love for Minister. This is a font designed by Carl Albert Fahrenwaldt in 1929. In the specimen booklet there’s a scan from Linotype’s page many years ago. They no longer carry the font. I’ve gone quite a ways from the original. It was dark and a bit heavy. But I loved the look and the readability. This came to a head when I started my first book on all-digital printing written from 1994-1995, and published early in 1996. I needed fonts to show the typography I was talking about. At that point oldstyle figures, true small caps, and discretionary ligatures were rare. More than that text fonts for book design had lining OR oldstyle figures, lowercase OR small caps—never both. So, I designed the Diaconia family (using the Greek word for minister). It was fairly rough. I knew very little. I later redesigned and updated Diaconia into Bergsland Pro —released in 2004. It was still rough (though I impressed myself). In 2006, I found myself needing a readable sans serif. So I went to Bergsland Pro, and eliminated the serifs. I named the font Brinar. I kept a flare in place for the serifs and cupped the ends. I was stunned. People loved it. It’s remained my bestseller until very recently. So, at the end of 2016 I decided that Brinar really needed some help. The flares were basically random. The stem width and modulation variances all needed to be fixed. My old OpenType feature code was quite limited and clumsy. So, I created the 6-font Biblia family. I cleaned up or redesigned all the glyphs. I updated the fonts to the 2017 set of features: small caps, small cap figures, oldstyle figures, fractions, lining figures, ligatures and discretionary ligatures. These are fonts designed for book production and work well for text or heads.

Drawn by Tony Stan, ITC Garamond was first released in 1975 in Book and Ultra weights only. These were intended as display faces to complement existing text designs from other foundries. (In fact, many of ITC’s interpretations of traditional typefaces began as display counterparts for existing text designs.) These first weights of ITC Garamond became so popular, however, that ITC released the Light and Bold weights and a suite of condensed faces in 1977. Now, the complete ITC Garamond family features sixteen members: four weights of roman and italic in normal width and four weights of roman and italic in companion condensed versions. The family resemblance is there, but ITC Garamond’s unique provenance gives it an unmistakable, one-of-a-kind appeal.

I happened to mention to the proprietor of an antique barn near here that I'd be interested in any old typewriters she happened to come across. A conversation ensued, the proprietor withdrew into a back room, and she re-emerged with an old handwritten letter, dated 18 Sept. 1825 and spanning nearly three pages. The letter, penned by Samuel Clarke, a Princeton, Mass., pastor, sought donations for the victims of an accident at sea. I thought his script unique, stylistic, and definitely something worth digitizing, so I bought the old letter and took it home. Had to come up with several uppercase characters to round out the set, but the results seem good and proper. Full release has complete character set.

There's something satisfying about tweaking to perfection a typeface based on the particular style of lettering applied to a particular kind of paper by a particular human hand. One day, in pursuit of this curious sense of satisfaction, I sat down with a porous pad of lined note paper and printed out the alphabet with a ballpoint pen. I found particularly interesting the bulbous ends of the strokes where the ink soaked in. I couldn't help myself: I drew out the rest of the character set, scanned, hand-traced, and -- as with all 3IP font designs -- manipulated every glyph to an obsessive degree. Named it Cedar Street, after a favorite address of mine. Full release has a single medium weight with a thorough character set.

Hokagata is a casually and quickly written brush script. Letters are made with brush pen on a paper. Then scanned and carefully drawn into vector format. There is just a right amount of texture left so it looks good in small and big sizes. These elements gives Hokagata its organic, authentic and laid-back characteristics. The Hokagata Family includes 2 font files: 1. Hokagata • A handwritten script font containing upper & lowercase characters, numerals and a large range of punctuation. 2. Hokagata Swashes • A set of 64 hand-drawn swashes, the perfect finishing touch to underline your Hokagata text. Simply install this as a separate font, select it from your font menu and type any A-U character to create a swash.

ITC Dartangnon is a work of English designer Nick Cooke and began with the thought, It's a long shot but it might just work as a font." It started as a doodle with a chunky pencil. "So many script fonts look too stylized so I thought I'd try to produce one that looks more like handwriting." He scanned the doodles and used Fontographer to draw a set of monoline letters. "Working quickly I soon drew the whole alphabet, and without being too pedantic about the characters joining exactly, I arrived at this script." ITC Dartangnon is an energetic font which remains legible even in small point sizes. And, Cooke adds, "It is supposed to be used as upper and lowercase only, NEVER just caps.""

Newspeak is a display typeface based upon Soviet architectural forms from the Stalinist period (spanning the 1930s—'50s). Stalinist architecture is now considered unsightly and without aesthetic merit, yet it has a strange beauty, hinting at an unrealised utopia (while its function was to buttress a brutal dictatorship). Inspiration was also drawn from the Cyrillic alphabet which, to kids growing up in Western Europe in the '70s and '80s, was a cipher for an alternative way of living – Cyrillic letterforms represented the exotic, familiarity-twice-removed universe of Eastern Bloc states. When you visited a communist country you were confronted with unfamiliar typography that reinforced your sense of alienation and unease that there existed a real, if imperfect, working alternative to consumerism.