It's been said that creativity requires ten parts to perspiration to one part inspiration. But not always. According to its creator, Mira Vucko, ITC Needlescript was designed in one breath." An accomplished lettering artist, Vucko was sketching letters one afternoon. "I was using a calligraphy nib and was drawing the alphabet without much thought," she recalls. "When I allowed the down strokes of a couple of letters to fall below the baseline, I realized that I had created the impression of movement. I kept drawing letters in this fashion and did the same with horizontal lines. I added a firm ending to the descenders. Instead of dots above the 'i' and 'j,' I placed strokes in the opposite direction." In this way, the first characters that were to become ITC Needlescript emerged. The finished design is a lively, distinctive alphabet that produces a striking texture on the page. Letters intertwine and overlap to create a sense of movement and graphic intensity, especially when reversed out of a dark background. Vucko lives, works and was educated in Zagreb, Croatia. She lived in France and Sweden while in her twenties, but then returned to Croatia to work as a graphic designer for the country's largest newspaper. It was here that her passion for type and typography was born. Vucko has since gone on to become one of Croatia's leading graphic designers, and has won many awards for her advertising and packaging design. Vucko recommends that ITC Needlescript be used for "titling, lively but 'thorny' content, and anywhere that a little typographic drama is called for.""

Franca is a neo-grotesk family in nine weights plus matching italics. The inspiration for the design came through the constant interest in new interpretations of the classic grotesk model and a study of "neutral“ typefaces like Helvetica, Univers or Normal Grotesk. During the studies, additional attention was given to the American representatives of the genre, resulting in the initial impetus for a reinterpretation, combining both paths into one contemporary design. This is reflected in the name, blending together the names of the most popular typefaces of each genres, (Fran)klin and Helveti(ca). Due to its large x-height and plain design, the family is perfectly suited for all kinds of text. Its mid-weights are optimized for usage in long paragraphs, while the bolder weights, due to a short descender and ascender, create a compact and confident look in headlines or short copy. In order to create strong and dynamic italics, the oblique glyph shapes come with a faint calligraphic hint, defined by a higher stroke contrast and a steeper connection between stems and arcs in, for example, h n m and u. This is followed by different standard shapes for a and y, supporting the dynamic movement of the lowercase in general. A wide range of OpenType features such as ligatures, old style figures, fractions, case-sensitive shapes and many more, are available for professional and contemporary typesetting. This is completed with eleven alternative glyph sets, enabling a quick customization of the typeface. The family supports up to 92 languages and comes with 500+ glyphs per font.

Welcome Amica Pro, a workhorse sans designed to give your branding a friendly, approachable look. What is it that makes a typeface friendly? Eclectotype undertook extensive research* in this and the results are in! To cut a long story short, friendliness in sans serif fonts can be summed up in two words – short and fat. Basically, think Danny DeVito in letter form. The shortness in Amica Pro is achieved (somewhat counterintuitively) by pushing up the x-height. This, coupled with short ascenders and descenders, gives the text a squat appearance. For the fatness, that's easy in the bolder weights, but how to carry this through to the lights? Here, the fatness equates to roundness, so the letterforms, even if the stroke weight is light, have a rotund appearance from the wideness and roundness of the circular glyphs. When thinking about friendliness, we think about inclusiveness. To this end, Amica Pro supports a super wide range of latin-based languages, as it uses Underware's Latin Plus character set, as well as extra support for Vietnamese. Amica Pro is best used for branding, logos, infographics etc. It will give your UI a friendlier feel, but that doesn't mean it's not serious. There are many useful typographic features, including alternates, numerous figure styles, automatic fractions and case-sensitive forms. The italics are carefully optically corrected "sloped romans" and as such they are the same width as their upright equivalent, so changing your copy to italics will not mess around with the spacing. *I looked at a few fonts and drew some lazy conclusions.

Geodeco font family brings to you the recovery of the typographic forms from the beginning of the 20th century, with a strong ArtDecó flavour but from a new point of view: modernity and geometry. Modernity in the visual contrast between lowercase and capital letters, where rounded shapes are opposed to the breaks and graphic tensions of the strokes of the capital letters. which gives it an enormous originality. Generous doses of internal whites, assure a powerful legibility even with the spite of its short ascending and descending strokes. What we get is a coherent and martial look where fluidity and homogeneity is the main note. Soft and rounded minuscule, with large internal whites for super legibility, bombproof, especially on screens, where Geodeco lives with an astonishing naturalness. The capital letters, used alone as display, or as companions of the minuscule characters, give the family a touch of originality and exotic flavor. Like the spices in the food; a brief but intense note. Breaking the rectangular shapes so that the appearance of the letter comes out benefits from enlarging the internal whites and making them consistent with the white of the lower case. GeoDeco works very well in plain text with the obvious limitation that it is not a type for small bodies, but exceptionality weldon for plain text and signage. Maximum visibility, total beauty on screens. A family of this new century with the flavour of that epoch of experimentation that were the years 20. Extensive multilanguage support and almost all Opentype functionalities. Try it and it will convince you - for sure!

URW Geometric Extended is the matching complement for the URW Geometric, including 20 additional extended styles. URW Geometric is a sans serif typeface inspired by the German geometric typefaces of the 1920s but designed for modern usability. The character shapes have optimized proportions and an improved balance, the x-height is increased, ascenders and descenders are decreased. Special glyphs, which are often designed afterwards for the original geometric typefaces from the 1920s, are perfectly integrated in the URW Geometric. These design characteristics increase the usability and legibility tremendously. With its 10 weights ranging from Thin to Black, plus 10 additional oblique styles, it has a great versatility in mind. The extreme light styles shine bright in large sizes, the middle weights are perfect for body copy and the bolder variants for the use of emphasis information or bring a strong impact to headlines and information. The optically balanced styles are designed to work in perfect harmony together. URW Geometric is functional, strong, simple and harmonized in form, and at a glance appears as a modern variant of its predecessors. Apart from the basic characters the design has an extra focus on the special glyphs. These are designed for today’s needs. For example: the email glyph looks modern and unique, including a perfectly balanced spacing. The number sign, in modern use called “hashtag”, is space saving and optically balanced for body text. Additionally, various extra and alternate glyphs are designed to provide a friendly usability. Including a wide Latin language support and character sets, URW Geometric is perfectly designed for today’s requirements.

What comes to your mind if I say Architype, Geometric, Gaelic, and Uncial? An impossible combination of features? An unrealistic setup of tastes as weird as your music list? Or some part of a joke told by your favourite comedian? Just chill and stick to the idea that is possible. Gallos combines the conceptual historical elegance of the Uncials with the practical rationalism of the Geometric style. Moreover, this typeface is composed by two sub families: Gallos Uncial and Gallos Architype. The letters “M”, “N”, “W”, “a”, “m”, “n”, “r”, and “w” differ between these two models. The first one is related to both: The Uncial script aspect displaying the leaned “a” with a closed bowl, and the classical geometric style depicting more conventional uppercase and lowercase letters “m” and “n”. The Architype one is inspired by Paul Renner’s Architype model, thus the leaned “a” has an open counter, the “r” is composed by a stem and a dot, and the rest of the mentioned letters were built using square rational features. Both models are connected by classical Uncial features such as the curved stroke “e” and curved shaft “t”, and with Gaelic vibes which can be seen in uppercase and lowercase letters “K” and “X”. Also, the curved descender “g” and “y”, alongside the curved stem “z” connect really well with the rest of the system and provide more uniqueness to the Gallos type family. Without further ado, we say to you: let’s make Uncials popular again!

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 100-unit or 25-percent increments increments to keep the grid. The »H« in the font name stands for horizontal (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

Dolsáb was designed from scratch with uniqueness in mind. The subtle movement from thick to thin and the variants of sharp to rounded make this cutting edge san serif a must have. The inspiration for Dolsab was a simple pairing of a rhombus and calligraphy. While neither of those two elements can be seen in their entirety in any instance, the influence of both is strong. The rhombus can be notice on most ascenders like on the lowercase t & l, for example. And the calligraphy inspiration is most easily captured on the descenders such as the lowercase y & g. The most beautiful characteristics of Dolsab is definitely the calligraphy-influenced movement. These features really stand out on the lowercase a & e. It's almost amusing to let your eye follow the contours of those two letter forms as they travel from thick to thin, sharp to rounded and back again. Users are welcomed to try all font styles of Dolsab in any applique of their choosing. However, it will be quickly noticeable that only Dolsab Air & Demi (the thiner of the styles) will be best suited for body copy. Personally I like to see these letterforms as large as they can be to really showcase the subtle movement, especially in Dolsab Heavy where these movements become much more dramatic. You'll never know what really works best unless you experiment. Dolsab surely isn't the answer to all projects, but it's certainly worth trying. No other typeface moves quite like Dolsáb.

Well suited for headlines, packaging and display applications, AE Prosperity will be a robust and versatile addition to your script library. It’s purposefully designed to infer the visual connections of letters for a hand-lettered feel. Some characters will connect, and others will guide your eye to the next letter from, making it highly legible. In 1779, the schooner Prosperity sailed the high seas. Commissioned by a young continental congress, with 6 guns & at twenty tons, she sailed under a Letter of Marque for patriotism and profit. Look lively, because with contextual and alternate glyph sets (contextual glyphs, alternate lower case glyphs and an extended set of alternate capitals), this robust typeface is as inspiring as her namesake and adapts to whatever winds may blow. Prosperity is designed as a free-flowing script, for a spontaneous and historic aesthetic. Contextual glyphs include variations on tt (short and longbar), t longbar, ll, cc and other characters. Contextual features change ascender heights and descender styles. Alternate glyphs (set 1) include variations on b,d,f,g,h,l,o,p,r,s,t,y. Alternate capitals (set 2) include a complete set of alternate upper case letters. Most useful with Adobe® InDesign®, multiple variations of letter combinations can be achieved by selecting Contextual glyphs, and/or set 1 and set 2 from the Character Palette: OpenType: Stylistic Sets menu. Alternate glyphs and contextual characters will be available based on the OpenType support of your application. AE Prosperity™ is available exclusively in OpenType format.

Pietro Aretino (1492 – 1556) Was an Italian author, playwright, poet, satirist and blackmailer, who wielded influence on contemporary art and politics. The most vigorous and versatile vernacular writer of the 16th century He was a very versatile writer, famous for his Lascivious Sonnets – which caused great scandal at the time – but also for his satirical verses, addressed to all the powerful people in Italy, without forgetting the many plays that he wrote for the theatre. Part of the charm of his letters is that through them you may know the whole of Venetian society from the top to the bottom. The little-known church of San Luca in Venice (in St Mark's district) has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries for people who are decidedly not devout: journalists, writers, free thinkers. In 1556 Pietro Aretino, a unique character of the Italian and Venetian Renaissance period was buried there. Such strong of personality, has contributed to generate the powerful wind of change that emerged from the italian renaissance. We have inspired on that talent searching for a new sight the famous Venetian typefaces. Probably looking for more vigour and contemporary digital style. This typeface is slightly condensed, lighter and has more contrast between the thick and thin letter-strokes, it has concave bracketed serif. Their ascender and descenders strokes are very shorts. Aretino family is completed by four weigh: Regular, SemiBold, Bold and ExtraBold, while Italics has three weighs. These fonts came with a full OpenType features and CE languages.

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

The four weight semi-condensed Bartholemé family came into existence as a family expansion based on the designer's earlier concept, Bartholemé Open. This hybrid family was inspired by and loosely based on a number of contemporary mid-twentieth century type concepts having Old Face or Modern influence. Those inspirational type designs were primarily designed for various proprietary photolettering technologies of the time. The award-winning* Bartholemé Open and its companion design Bartholemé small capital open were inspired by various Shaded, Inline and Handtooled type models from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Most of those inspirational type designs were designed as titling fonts with all capital sets only. To set it apart from the earlier models, Bartholemé Open is semi-condensed intentionally designed with a lowercase. Design qualities include a large x- height, tightly curved ample counters, crisp serifs and tight bracketing. The overall plan of the family was originally intended for display usage in titling and short passages of text. At higher output resolutions all fonts read well at smaller point sizes. The Bartholemé family works well on its own, but also is compatible with type styles possessing qualities that complement or enhance its own. The Bartholemé family consists of a Regular weight complementing a Bold weight, along with Medium complementing an Extra Bold weight. The companion true-drawn italics are based on the Bartholemé roman design. * Award for Design Excellence bukva: raz! Type Design Competition of the Association Typographique Internationale, 2001

Averta Standard is the basic version of Averta. Bringing together features from early European grotesques and American gothics, Kostas Bartokas’ (Greek: ‘αβέρτα’ – to act or speak openly, bluntly or without moderation, without hiding) Averta is a geometric sans serif family with a simple, yet appealing, personality. The purely geometric rounds, open apertures, and its low contrast strokes manage to express an unmoderated, straightforward tone resulting in a modernist, neutral and friendly typeface. Averta Standard is intended for use in a variety of media. The central styles (Light through Bold) are drawn to perform at text sizes, while the extremes are spaced tighter to form more coherent headlines. The dynamism of the true italics adds a complementary touch to the whole family and provides extra versatility, making Averta Standard an excellent tool for a range of uses, from signage to branding and editorial design. Averta Standard comes with alternate glyphs, case sensitive forms and contextual alternates, in eight weights with matching italics and supports over two hundred languages with an extended Latin, Cyrillic (Russian, Bulgarian, and Serbian/Macedonian alternates), Greek and Vietnamese character set. It ships in three different packages offering different script coverage according to your needs: Averta Standard PE (Pan-European: Latin, Cyrillic, Greek), Averta Standard CY (Latin and Cyrillic), and Averta Standard (Latin and Greek). Averta's Cyrillic have received the 3rd Prize in the 2017 Granshan Awards in the Cyrillic Category.

Brailganta Script is the font of choice for writing things beyond words. This typeface is designed with great detail to convey stylish elegance. So, it can be said, the character of the transformation is very beautiful, a kind of classic ornamental copper script. The Brailganta script provides alternative variants of most fonts, binders, and many calligraphy tips, ideal for elegant labels, high-end packaging, stationery and compositions for certain brands, beautiful titles, verses, letters and short text, intended for read only with the eyes or meant to be whispered into someone's ear. To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternative, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Indesign & CorelDraw X6-X7, Microsoft Word 2010 or a later version. (Windows), Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters using Adobe Illustrator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzwjMkbB-wQ How to use the font style set in Microsoft Word 2010 or later versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVJlZQ3EZU0 There are additional ways to access the alternative/swash, using the Character Map (Windows), Nexus Font (Windows) Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters, using the Windows Character Map with Photoshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9vacoYmBw If you need help or advice, please contact me by email Thank you for watching!

When type historians look back on Jim Rimmer, they will consider him the last type designer who just couldn't let go of metal type, even though he was just as proficient in digital type. Lancelot is one definite case in point: A face designed and produced in digital as late in the game as 1999, only to spring onto the new millenium a couple of years later as a metal type cast in three sizes. That was Jim, a time traveler constantly reminding the craft of its origins. This particular time machine was originally designed as a simple set of attractive caps that emphasize the beauty of the variable conventional dialogue between the drawing tool and the intended final form, and the one exchanged within the totality of the forms themselves. Jim designed two weights, with contrast and counterspace being the main difference between them. In 2013, the Lancelot family was remastered and greatly expanded. Lancelot Pro is now a wonder of over 840 glyphs per font, including smaller versions of the caps in the minuscule slots, and alternates and ligatures that can transform the historic spirit of the original design into anything from half-uncial to outright gothic. Language support goes beyond the extended Latin stuff, to cover Cyrillic and Greek as well. 20% of the Lancelot Pro family's revenues will be donated to the Canada Type Scholarship Fund, supporting higher typography education in Canada.

The first versions of Nimbus Sans have been designed and digitized in the 1980s for the URW SIGNUS sign-making system. Highest precision of all characters (1/100 mm accuracy) as well as spacing and kerning were required because the fonts should be cut in any size in vinyl or other material used for sign-making. During this period three size ranges were created for text (T), the display (D) and poster (P) for small, medium and very large font sizes. In addition, we produced a so-called L-version that was compatible to Adobe’s PostScript version of Helvetica. Nimbus was also the product name of a URW-proprietary renderer for high quality and fast rasterization of outline fonts, a software provided to the developers of PostScript clone RIPs (Hyphen, Harlequin, etc.) back then. Also in the 80s, a new, improved version of the Nimbus Sans, namely Nimbus Sans Novus was designed. Nimbus Sans Novus was conceptually developed entirely with URW’s IKARUS system, i.e. all styles harmonize perfectly with each other in terms of line width, weight, proportions, etc. On top of that, Nimbus Sans Novus contains more styles than Nimbus Sans. Now, Nimbus Sans is also available as Round (like the popular URW fonts Futura Round and Eurostile Round). The Round versions are intended to facilitate the work of designers and typographers. The fonts can be used directly, without further preparatory work in graphic programs as finished, high-quality Rounds.

Originally drawn in 1985, Jovica Veljović had intended to add a few kerning pairs and make some minor refinements to the letterforms. However, his work lead him to take a fresh look at the family. Veljović recalls, … I soon realized that some characters could benefit by more refined shapes and proportions. By the time I was done, I had worked on just about every character in the original design." In fact the end result is two systems: one optimized for extended texts; the other for display settings. The original elegance of the design is not lost, but the new design brings with it letterforms that are altogether more harmonious and balanced. The roman is dynamic and spirited, just oozing character. The italic by contrast is a little more restrained, but nonetheless an elegant and fitting accompaniment. The text-optimized fonts come with a generous x-height, and slightly less contrast; though its marginally wider proportions let in the light, making it very legible even at small sizes. ITC New Esprit ® is a versatile family, brought to you in four weights from regular to black. OpenType features like small caps, alternates, and a broad character set make this a welcome addition to everyone's font library. Whether you want elegant and legible text, or dynamic and personable headlines, then you'll want to click through to see more of ITC New Esprit. "

The idea that mathematical precision and the supposed "purity" of geometric forms are part of the discourse of us graphic designers is not new. Studying typography for some time now and learning about all the small alterations and adjustments that this geometry undergoes to better adapt to the imperfect human eye, I found myself with a new way of seeing things. Compasso is, in a way, a result of my growth as a designer. Established and recognized fonts like Futura, Avenir, and their predecessors (including Tempo - published by the Ludlow foundry in the early 20th century) informed the result of Compasso at some level. Others opened my mind to possibilities. Mallory, Azo Sans, the font designed for Audi by Bold Monday, and many other contemporary sans-serif fonts that left me speechless are also responsible for details present in this font. From the first sketch, the family grew on both sides, gaining condensed and extended counterparts. From there - and from a brilliant insight from designer Nicole Rauen - I learned that Compasso was not about geometry. Compasso is about rhythm. It's about the rhythmic movement that provides a foundation, supports, and also makes you dance and swing. My musical taste is too eclectic, I can go from classical to funk in less than two songs on Spotify. Compasso is also eclectic. It's a font to take your project anywhere, a record to listen to on any occasion.

A storm has been brewing. It’s Hurricane. A complete redesign of a popular style. New flair and excitement abounds with this fast moving spirited brush script. This updated version of Hurricane was created with high end advertising in mind but can also be used for designs outside of commercial uses— greeting cards and social expression, or even scrap-booking projects. There are three regular styles and a PRO version of the script styles, plus a graphics font to add an extra breeze to your work. Hurricane Regular is straight forward with the more Roman capital forms. The Script version swaps the caps out for the more flourished uppercase. And finally, the Swash version contains many of the alternate letter forms found in the PRO version. Hurricane Pro offers the features of all three of the regular Hurricane versions with added OpenType programming and additional alternate glyphs. The Contextual feature of Hurricane swaps out the regular forms for more flashy characters along with necessary ligatures and alternates that give perfect flow to the words. Access the stylistic sets for even more creative options. In addition, see GLORY— a sans serif spin-off (pun intended) to complement the script styles. The Glory styles contrast to Hurricane’s slanted, brushy speed. In addition, an inline font has added to complete the pro package. I sincerely hope you enjoy this exciting update to a font I have always found to have huge potential.

From the designer, Tim Ahrens... I started designing this typeface about half a year after learning that Frutiger was not a new brand of sweets and that Garamond is not the name of a fragrance. In time it became clear that designing a sans serif must always be considered as a transformation of traditional serifed typefaces instead of deriving it from typefaces that have been derived from others which have been derived from others again. I did not want Aroma to be one of those odourless and tasteless typefaces wich sacrifice a natural feeling and the characteristic shapes of the letters to neutrality. I think that beauty often evolves unintentionally. For example, I am fascinated by the beauty of airfoils, which are actually a careful transformation of a bird's wing. I love their anorganic and abstract shape which still bears the essence and all the complexity of what they are modelled on. This is exactly the formal concept behind Aroma. Many of the outlines are actually parabolics. The small r, for example, consists exclusively of straight lines and parabolics. I decided to give Aroma more stroke contrast than it is usual for sans serif designs. Many strokes are slightly convex, which gives the font an anorganic feeling. The font was intended to have a feel similar to the antiqua. More specifically, it is based on Old Style Faces. The character of those fonts, which were cut during the Renaissance, is still inherent to Aroma.

The first versions of Nimbus Sans have been designed and digitized in the 1980s for the URW SIGNUS sign-making system. Highest precision of all characters (1/100 mm accuracy) as well as spacing and kerning were required because the fonts should be cut in any size in vinyl or other material used for sign-making. During this period three size ranges were created for text (T), the display (D) and poster (P) for small, medium and very large font sizes. In addition, we produced a so-called L-version that was compatible to Adobe’s PostScript version of Helvetica. Nimbus was also the product name of a URW-proprietary renderer for high quality and fast rasterization of outline fonts, a software provided to the developers of PostScript clone RIPs (Hyphen, Harlequin, etc.) back then. Also in the 80s, a new, improved version of the Nimbus Sans, namely Nimbus Sans Novus was designed. Nimbus Sans Novus was conceptually developed entirely with URW’s IKARUS system, i.e. all styles harmonize perfectly with each other in terms of line width, weight, proportions, etc. On top of that, Nimbus Sans Novus contains more styles than Nimbus Sans. Now, Nimbus Sans is also available as Round (like the popular URW fonts Futura Round and Eurostile Round). The Round versions are intended to facilitate the work of designers and typographers. The fonts can be used directly, without further preparatory work in graphic programs as finished, high-quality Rounds.

While in the same vein and spirit as Burgues and Compendium, Bellissima began from an entirely different thread from those fonts. It started with Alex Trochut generously showing me a gorgeous lettering book from his grandfather’s library: Bellezas de la Caligrafía, by Ramón Stirling, 1844. Stirling was one of the Latin calligraphy pioneers who introduced a refined version of English calligraphy in Spain and made it popular in the nineteenth century. Some scans from that book served as initial basis for the caps in my Poem Script. But it was always in the back of my mind that I should do a copperplate, and the Stirling model was the perfect source. My intention was to veer away from Stirling’s exuberant ornamentation, and work within simplified forms of his ideas. As it usually is with most of my projects, Bellissima became its own bird and shaped its own flying patterns. Suddenly there were many ligatures, multiple endings and swashed connections, hundreds of alternates for both uppercase and lowercase. Bellissima has an effusive energy that appeals much beyond its sourcing. It’s intended for these modern times of appreciation for old crafty things like stationery and letterpress, where its origins help it shine brightly. Bellissima Script Pro is a complete font with almost 2000 characters full of alternates, swashes, ligatures & ornaments covering a wide palette of latin languages and Bellissima Script Redux is a random sample of glyphs totally usable with a reduced price.

Lust Didone’s character set was expanded as well during the redraw and update, the Italics were separated and reimagined anew from the universal italics in the original offering. Lust Didone also includes the new Fine optical size with complementing Italics for each size as well. And, yes, more swashes. The Lust Collection is the culmination of 5 years of exploration and development, and I am very excited to share it with everyone. When the original Lust was first conceived in 2010 and released a year and half later, I had planned for a Script and a Sans to accompany it. The Script was released about a year later, but I paused the Sans. The primary reason was the amount of feedback and requests I was receiving for alternate versions, expansions, and ‘hey, have you considered making?’ and so on. I listen to my customers and what they are needing… and besides, I was stalling with the Sans. Like Optima and other earlier high-contrast sans, they are difficult to deliver responsibly without suffering from ill-conceived excess or timidity. The new Lust Collection aggregates all of that past customer feedback and distills it into 6 separate families, each adhering to the original Lust precept of exercises in indulgence and each based in large part on the original 2010 exemplars produced for Lust. I just hate that it took so long to deliver, but better right, than rushed, I imagine.

Tricorn Mono is a monospaced font with two styles – regular filled for uppercase and an outline version for the lowercase. Tricorn Mono was first hand drawn (sketched) as an exploration for a headline font and also developed on from a previously unreleased font. It was then expanded to feature multi language support and custom symbols. Tricorn Mono contains unique forms that explores the use of a rigid grid that is tested with negative form to provide legibility and balance. The conceptual design is focused on a modern, futuristic design aesthetic around the gaming, e-sports markets and future technology. Tricorn Mono typeface has been tightly monospaced and intended for use at larger sizes as a display typeface. The font can be tightly stacked to create strong, impactful typographic forms. This 612 glyph font has language support for 87 languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Asu, Basque, Bemba, Bena, Catalan, Cebuano, Chiga, Cornish, Corsican, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Galician, German, Gusii, Icelandic, Ido, Indonesian, Interlingua, Irish, Italian, Javanese, Jju, Kabuverdianu, Kalenjin, Kinyarwanda, Lojban, Low German, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malagasy, Malay, Manx, Morisyen, North Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Nyanja, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Portuguese, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Rwa, Samburu, Sango, Sangu, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Sena, Shambala, Shona, Soga, Somali, South Ndebele, Southern Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swati, Swedish, Swiss German, Taita, Taroko, Teso, Tsonga, Tswana, Vunjo, Walloon, Welsh, Western Frisian, Xhosa and Zulu.

Fantastic ML is an exuberant Art Nouveau font. It was originally released as “Modern Style” by Fonderie G. Peignot & Fils, Paris, France sometime before 1903. Since “Le style moderne” was the generic French name for Art Nouveau, it is possible that someone decided a less generic name was needed. The typeface became known as Fantastic. Compared to conventional text letters, it is just that. Fantastic has a whimsical, architectural feel. The typeface reminds me of a cross between Hoffmann’s Palais Stoclet in Brussels and Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona. The letterforms themselves are similar to those by Ludwig von Zumbusch on the cover of “Jugend” in March, 1896, but with the addition of serifs. Fantastic ML is a decorative, all-cap font intended for display use and functions best at 18 points or larger. There are a total of 306 glyphs. In addition to the standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page with character slots up to decimal position 255, there are glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. However, some older applications may only be able to access the Western Europe character set (1252). The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS format and a TTF version which is in Open TT format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

A characteristic of the Minea font family is the achievement of the calligraphic handwriting effect. In addition to basic, simple letter forms, it contains a large number of additional stylistic alternatives and ligatures that, by combining and changing without repetition, give the effect of calligraphic writing. Some of these characters can be changed by automatically turning on a particular OpenType function, when ligatures replace the combination of letters that are part of them, the letter is replaced by a certain alternative when found in a given context, and capital letters are replaced with decorative initials. Letter swap functions can be used in all programs that support OpenType programming. Minea is an attractive font that is sleek, clean, feminine, sensual, glamorous, simple and very easy to read. The Minea font family, based on original calligraphic sketches, contains a total of six weights. Thin, regular and medium weights have ligatures and alternate letter shapes, which help make the syllable look like an authentic calligraphic print. Semi-bold, bold, and black weights contain only basic letter shapes. The font family contains Latin and Cyrillic. Includes Russian and Serbian alternative letter forms. The family of calligraphic fonts Minea can be used on various occasions, and is intended for use in print and online. Can be used in the realization of certain tasks, unusual advertisements, packaging and invitations, diplomas ... as well as for all purposes where this type of letter is needed.

Lust’s original masters were completely redrawn, expanded, with a new optical size added based on customer requests. Lust now sports 6 fonts, instead of the original 4: Standard, Display, Fine, and complementing Italics. The character set has been expanded as well to include more OpenType features and more swashes. The Lust Collection is the culmination of 5 years of exploration and development, and I am very excited to share it with everyone. When the original Lust was first conceived in 2010 and released a year and half later, I had planned for a Script and a Sans to accompany it. The Script was released about a year later, but I paused the Sans. The primary reason was the amount of feedback and requests I was receiving for alternate versions, expansions, and ‘hey, have you considered making?’ and so on. I listen to my customers and what they are needing… and besides, I was stalling with the Sans. Like Optima and other earlier high-contrast sans, they are difficult to deliver responsibly without suffering from ill-conceived excess or timidity. The new Lust Collection aggregates all of that past customer feedback and distills it into 6 separate families, each adhering to the original Lust precept of exercises in indulgence and each based in large part on the original 2010 exemplars produced for Lust. I just hate that it took so long to deliver, but better right, than rushed, I imagine.

Linotype Bengali, a revival This project by Neelakash Kshetriymayum and Fiona Ross commissioned by Monotype is at heart a revival of the now ubiquitous original Linotype Bengali typeface designed by Tim Holloway and Fiona Ross (1978-1982) based on Ross’s research for her doctoral studies in Indian Palaeography. The new Linotype Bengali is informed by more recent research by Ross and Kshetrimayum resulting in additional glyphs that serve contemporary needs in a variety of genres – the original had been specifically designed for newspaper composition and in now outdated digital formats. The new design makes use of OpenType features with the employment of contextual vowel signs for Bengali – a feature that Ross and Holloway had first introduced in Indian scripts for the Adobe Devanagari typeface – and has sophisticated contextual mark positioning. Furthermore, whereas the original design had existed in only two typestyles, extensive work has been undertaken to produce this new design in 5 weights: Light, Regular, Medium, Bold and Black. It has been an important aspect of this project to remain true to the original design concepts, and so to achieve optimal readability for sustained reading at small type-sizes, but the additional weights enable differentiation in document design, and afford users scope to produce textural variety in their outputs. This revival design is intended to widen the hitherto very limited palette of typographic choices in the field of textual communication in Bengali, Assamese and other languages that make use of the Bengali script.

Classic Grotesque by Rod McDonald: a traditional font with a modern face. The growing popularity of grotesque typefaces meant that many new sans serif analogues were published in the early 20th century. Setting machines were not compatible with each other but all foundries wanted to offer up-to-date fonts, and as a result numerous different typeface families appeared that seem almost identical at first glance and yet go their separate ways with regard to details. One of the first fonts created with automatic typesetting in mind was Monotype Grotesque®. Although this typeface that was designed and published by Frank Hinman Pierpont in 1926 has since been digitalised, it has never achieved the status of other grotesque fonts of this period. But Monotype Grotesque was always one of designer Rod McDonald’s favourites, and he was overjoyed when he finally got the go-ahead from Monotype in 2008 to update this “hidden treasure”. The design process lasted four years, with regular interruptions due to the need to complete projects for other clients. In retrospect, McDonald admits that he had no idea at the beginning of just how challenging and complex a task it would be to create Classic Grotesque™. It took him considerable time before he found the right approach. In his initial drafts, he tried to develop Monotype Grotesque only to find that the result was almost identical with Arial®, a typeface that is also derived in many respects from Monotype Grotesque. It was only when he went back a stage, and incorporated elements of Bauer Font’s Venus™ and Ideal Grotesk by the Julius Klinkhardt foundry into the design process, that he found the way forward. Both these typefaces had served as the original inspiration for Monotype Grotesque. The name says it all: Classic Grotesque has all the attributes of the early grotesque fonts of the 20th century: The slightly artificial nature gives the characters a formal appearance. There are very few and only minor variations in line width. The tittles of the ‘i’ and ‘j’, the umlaut diacritic and other diacritic marks are rectangular. Interestingly, it is among the uppercase letters that certain variations from the standard pattern can be found, and it is these that enliven the typeface. Hence the horizontal bars of the “E”, “F” and “L” have bevelled terminals. The chamfered terminal of the bow of the “J” has a particular flamboyance, while the slightly curved descender of the “Q” provides for additional dynamism. The character alternatives available through the OpenType option provide the designer with a wealth of opportunities. These include a closed “a”, a double-counter “g” and an “e” in which the transverse bar deviates slightly from the horizontal. The seven different weights also extend the scope of uses of Classic Grotesque. These range from the delicate Light to the super thick Extrabold. There are genuine italic versions of each weight; these are not only slightly narrower than their counterparts, but also have variant shapes. The “a” is closed, the “f” has a semi-descender while the “e” is rounded. Its neutral appearance and excellent features mean that Classic Grotesque is suitable for use in nearly all imaginable applications. Even during the design phase, McDonald used his new font to set books and in promotional projects. However, he would be pleased to learn of possible applications that he himself has not yet considered. Classic Grotesque, which has its own individual character despite its neutral and restrained appearance, is the ideal partner for your print and web project.

URW Geometric® is a sans serif typeface inspired by the German geometric typefaces of the 1920s but designed for modern usability. The character shapes have optimized proportions and an improved balance, the x-height is increased, ascenders and descenders are decreased. Special glyphs, which are often designed afterwards for the original geometric typefaces from the 1920s, are perfectly integrated in the URW Geometric® . These design characteristics increase the usability and legibility tremendously. With its 10 weights ranging from Thin to Black, plus 10 additional oblique styles, it has a great versatility in mind. The extreme light styles shine bright in large sizes, the middle weights are perfect for body copy and the bolder variants for the use of emphasis information or bring a strong impact to headlines and information. The optically balanced styles are designed to work in perfect harmony together. URW Geometric® is functional, strong, simple and harmonized in form, and at a glance appears as a modern variant of its predecessors. Apart from the basic characters the design has an extra focus on the special glyphs. These are designed for todays needs. For example: the email glyph looks modern and unique, including a perfectly balanced spacing. The numero sign, in modern use called “hashtag”, is space saving and optically balanced for body text. Additionally, various extra and alternate glyphs are designed to provide a friendly usability. Including a wide Latin language support and character sets, URW Geometric® is perfectly designed for today’s requirements. Please have a look at the URW Geometric® Type Specimen (PDF) for further information.

Imagine a font that is easier to read the smaller it is – or the further away the text is. There are already many rasterised fonts, I wanted to take it to the extreme and use as few dots as possible. The result is a typeface that lives up to its name. Each individual circle makes no sense on its own; individual letters are only recognisable in the context of all associated circles, 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 a higher building, 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 100-unit increments to keep the grid. The numbers in the family- and style-names refer to the (ca.) grey value of the respective background and the font itself. Kontext Dot 00-33 has e.g. a white background (0%) and 33% grey value. Kontext Dot 66-33 has a 66% background and 33% grey value. »Positive« styles (first number smaller than the second number) have kerning, »negative« styles (first number bigger than the second number) can have none.

Gelion is a large family of geometric sans serif fonts. It ships both as two Variable Fonts or as 16 traditional fonts. Those static fonts span eight different weights, ranging from Extralight to Black. Each has an upright and an italic font on offer. The italics are carefully crafted, with an 8° slope. Gelion is inspired by 20th-century geometric sans serifs and classic neo-grotesque designs from the late 19th century and the middle of the 20th century. Its forms remain true to the gracefully geometric look of its classic predecessors, which will surely tick off any client’s long list of branding requirements. Letters in all of Gelion’s weights are drawn with virtually monolinear strokes. Its lowercase letters have a tall x-height. Yet, that still leaves enough room for the fonts’ diacritical marks. Gelion’s default “a” and “g” each have single-storey forms by default. The dots on the ‘i’, ‘j’, and diacritics are round, as are the punctuation marks. Gelion is an excellent choice for both corporate design and editorial design projects, thanks to its range of weights and its legibility in text. The fonts include a lot of ligatures, some monochromatic emoji, a set of arrows, lovely Roman Numerals, and more. Thanks to Gelion’s stylistic alternates, if a project comes up where you do not need a geometric vibe, you can activate Stylistic Set 1. That will replace many of the fonts’ letters with more humanistic-sans alternates, giving your text the feeling of a whole other type design with just one click. Last but not least, the descending “f” available in Gelion’s italics is a nice typographic trait.

Preta, portuguese for a very pure kind of black, has its name very related to its concept: I wanted to make the fattest/darkest script ever. People who follow my work may notice its forms are very related to works of my past (1) but this time the challenge was to be very cautious with the white spaces between letters. Not only I followed some rules and ductus of the copperplate style of calligraphy but also I took a lot of inspiration in posters of the early Art Nouveau (specially in Alfred Roller of the Vienna Secession) where letters forms looked like black squares if not looked from a close distance. With Preta, I wanted to achieve that same idea of “darkness” and thanks to the always welcomed question -what if?- the font grew a lot. The result is a very fat font, that looks delicious. Due to possible customer needs, I designed Preta Small, so it can be used in smaller sizes. Preta Ao Sol (which literally means under the sun!) is a style with those lovely tiny details to give the sensation of bright. Preta Ao Sol Solo was made to be used as a layered font with Preta. Finally, Preta Capitals serves as a company for Preta. Hope you enjoy the font as much as I did when designing it: The fact that it’s full of alternates, swashes, ligatures and swirls makes it really pleasurable at the moment of using it. Give it a try and dance with Preta! TIPS For better results, use Preta with the ‘standard ligatures’ feature activated. NOTES (1) Beatle in 2014. Seventies in 2015.

MOTORWAY is the companion typeface to TRANSPORT, the British road sign lettering. The Motorway alphabet was created for the route numbers on motorway signage, and is taller and narrower than the accompanying place names and distances which are printed in Transport. However, for Motorway Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert created only the numbers 0 to 9, the capitals A, B, E, M, N, S and W, ampersand, slash, parentheses and a comma. So, although the lettering made its first appearance on the Preston bypass in 1958, K-Type Motorway is the first complete typeface and contains all upper and lower case letters, plus a full complement of punctuation, symbols and Latin Extended-A accented characters. As with the Transport alphabet the starting point was Akzidenz Grotesk, Motorway taking inspiration from condensed versions. Changes were mainly driven by a quest for legibility, resulting in some reduced contrast between horizontal and vertical strokes, and Gill-esque straight diagonal limbs on the 6 and 9, and high vertex for the M. Kinneir and Calvert designed the limited range of characters in two weights; a SemiBold 'Permanent' weight for use as white letters on blue motorway signs, and a Bold 'Temporary' weight for heavier black letters on yellow non-permanent signage. In addition to creating full fonts in both original weights, the K-Type family adds a new Regular weight, plus a set of italics, completing a highly usable condensed typeface which, while rooted in history, is fully functional for both print and web usage. The K-Type fonts are spaced and kerned normally, simply increase the tracking to recapture the generous spacing of motorway signage.

Dederon Serif has been specifically designed for book setting. Preliminary sketches were drawn in 2004. Its inspiration – particularly its weight and width proportions – can be traced to the Liberta typeface from the TypoArt type foundry in former Eastern Germany. After a careful study of the model, the design of Dederon branched off into its own direction, finding its distinctive voice and becoming a wholly original type family. Dederon Serif kept most of the elements typical for the Old Style Roman lettering, such as the angle of the stress, the medium x-height, and lower contrast. In large sizes, the typical shapes of the letters stand out – the calligraphic feel characteristic for the Czech typefaces by Oldrich Menhart, the unusual serifs hinting at the angle of the pen, the shapes of the stems, or the terminals of dots and ears. Upon finishing the serif version, a Serif-serif variant called Dederon Serif was added. The construction principles are also derived from the Old Style Roman model, which lends the lettering its open, humanist feel. Yet the design also conforms to the rules of the modern Serif serif. Most characteristics of Dederon Serif match the serif version – the weight of individual cuts, the width proportions, x-height, ascenders' and descenders' length, and the slope of the italics. Each version of Dederon Open Type Std contains the standard Western Latin character set and the Central European characters; a number of basic and accented ligatures, small caps; old style, small caps and caps, table, fraction and superscript numerals; expert glyphs and alternative characters. This brings the total to a comfortable 820 glyphs per weight, permitting truly professional use in the most demanding projects.

Beyond broadcast Like Truman Burbank, the star of The Truman Show, FS Truman was born for TV. You’ll know it from Sky One’s on-screen trails and announcements, but it’s just as at home in other media. Its starting point was the skeleton of a highly legible, space-saving, corporate font with some of FS Dillon’s geometric discipline built in. Its distinctive tone of voice and “ownability” are in its boxy but friendly shapes, and characters with hybrid features. FS Truman’s weights and widths were honed to work at TV screen resolutions. A face for TV it may have been, but this is a font that works on every level, on screen, in print, in headlines, in listings, in longer text, in tight corners and open spaces. The space-saver Compact, condensed but crystal clear, FS Truman comes into its own where a lot needs to be said in not a lot of space. Its letter spacing allows the type room to breathe, even at small sizes, while its fulsome x-height and diminutive descenders pave the way for tighter leading. A natural for headlines and titles over three or four lines. “Hybrid” features With every font, Fontsmith look for crafty new ways to imbue letterforms with a consistent character. The idea with FS Truman was to introduce “hybrid” features. In open letters such as “c” and “s”, for example, the top terminals have straight, vertical cuts while their lower terminals have a more angular, cursive finish. Boxy, spacious forms with unusual curves and angles create not just highly legible and efficient letters but strongly distinctive ones, too.

Caribe is an expressive typefamily like the blue sky and bright Caribbean sun, designed by CFCG @andinistas. We love to design experimental fonts with a large amount of ligatures and swashes, drawn with special respect and study for what is handmade by ancient artisans. In this context, Caribe is an impressive typefamily of 5 fonts to create logos, posters, book covers, menus, labels, packaging, etc. The 5 Caribbean fonts add up to more than 1500 glyphs that serve to be mixed or independent, functioning as a springboard to encourage your creativity in the design of words, phrases or remarkable headlines of the elements that appear around them. Caribe Script has lowercase letters such as "b d f g h i j k l p q y z" with extremely short ascending and descending strokes achieving generous height x in: "a c e m n o r s u v w x". Caribe Script Produces visual attraction in words and phrases that need lowercase letters with sparing horizontal space width and bold stroke thickness, producing exceptional legibility in headlines or advertising texts. Caribe Script & Caps are based on ancient and multiple letterings from the 40s and 50s that were useful inspiration tools to produce visual pleasure. Caribe Words has more than 60 script words drawn diagonally generating greater intensity within a sentence. Caribe Shields & Digits has more than 50 designs each and they have containers and numbers designed to accompany words, phrases or drawings that serve to harmonize different writings. ENJOY more than 1500 glyphs: + Caribe Script: 743 glyphs + Caribe Caps: 507 glyphs + Caribe Words: 71 glyphs + Caribe Shields: 230 glyphs + Caribe Digits: 40 glyphs

Dederon Serif has been specifically designed for book setting. Preliminary sketches were drawn in 2004. Its inspiration — particularly its weight and width proportions — can be traced to the Liberta typeface from the TypoArt type foundry in former Eastern Germany. After a careful study of the model, the design of Dederon branched off into its own direction, finding its distinctive voice and becoming a wholly original type family. Dederon Serif kept most of the elements typical for the Old Style Roman lettering, such as the angle of the stress, the medium x-height, and lower contrast. In large sizes, the typical shapes of the letters stand out — the calligraphic feel characteristic for the Czech typefaces by Oldrich Menhart, the unusual serifs hinting at the angle of the pen, the shapes of the stems, or the terminals of dots and ears. Upon finishing the serif version, a sans-serif variant called Dederon Sans was added. The construction principles are also derived from the Old Style Roman model, which lends the lettering its open, humanist feel. Yet the design also conforms to the rules of the modern sans serif. Most characteristics of Dederon Sans match the serif version — the weight of individual cuts, the width proportions, x-height, ascenders' and descenders' length, and the slope of the italics. Each version of Dederon Open Type Std contains the standard Western Latin character set and the Central European characters; a number of basic and accented ligatures, small caps; old style, small caps and caps, table, fraction and superscript numerals; expert glyphs and alternative characters. This brings the total to a comfortable 820 glyphs per weight

Mackay is a powerful transitional serif in 6 weights plus matching italics, designed for screen and print. The eccentric serifs on uppercase letters like E, F, L and T are inspired by Alexander Kay’s “Ronaldson” from 1884, working as the starting point for the family. The lowercase letters follow the traditional Antiqua model with attributes tracing back to drawings from the early 20th century. The “grotesk” lowercase a, as well as the sharp lowercase s, derived from the closed shapes of uppercase letters like C, G or S, create a compact and bold appearance while a large x-height and small descenders add a modern look. In favor of a dynamic and elegant impression, the design of the italic cuts come with a strong calligraphic influence. This results in completely new shapes for letters like lowercase a or g, ensuring a smooth integration into their surrounding letters while maintaining a distinctive appearance when combining with romans. The family comes with a variety of opentype features like case sensitive shapes, old style figures, fractions, ordinals and many more. Additional attention was given to the standard and discretionary ligatures, extending the structure of the basic glyphs with elegantly designed letter combinations for g/i, i/t or s/t. According to their dynamic architecture, the italic weights are equipped with additional initial swash characters to subtle accentuate the calligraphic roots. As a result of a high stroke contrast the family works great in paragraphs with medium to large font sizes like headlines, short paragraphs or logos. With its 12 cuts, the family meets all requirements on high quality typography.