Out of a lifelong inner struggle, Philip Bouwsma unleashes a masterpiece that reconciles classic calligraphy with type in a way never before attempted. Maestro takes its cue from the Italian chancery cursive of the early sixteenth century. By this time type ruled the publishing world, but official court documents were still presented in calligraphy, in a new formal style of the high Renaissance that was integrated with Roman letters and matched the refined order of type. The copybooks of Arrighi and others, printed from engraved wood blocks, spread the Italian cancellaresca across Europe, but the medium was too clumsy and the size too small to show what was really happening in the stroke. Arrighi and others also made metal fonts that pushed type in the direction of calligraphy, but again the medium did not support the superb artistry of these masters or sustain the vitality in their work. As the elegant sensitive moving stroke of the broad pen was reduced to a static outline, the human quality, the variety and the excitement of a living act were lost. Because the high level of skill could not be reproduced, the broad pen was largely replaced by the pointed tool. The modern italic handwriting revival is based on a simplified model and does not approach the level of this formal calligraphy with its relationship to the Roman forms. Maestro is the font that Arrighi and his colleagues would have made if they had had digital technology. Like the calligraphic system of the papal chancery on which it is modelled, it was not drawn as a single finished alphabet, but evolved from a confluence of script and Roman; the script is formalized by the Roman to stand proudly in a world of type. Maestro came together on screen over the course of several years, through many versions ranging widely in style, formality, width, slant, weight and other parameters. On one end of the spectrum, looking back to tradition it embodies the formal harmony of the Roman capitals and the minuscule which became the lower case. On the other it is a flowing script letter drawing on the spirit of later pointed pen and engravers scripts. As its original designers intended, it works with simple Roman capitals and serifs or swash capitals and baroque flourishes. The broad pen supplies weight and substance to the stroke which carries energy through tension in balanced s-curves. Above all it is meant to convey the life and motion of formal calligraphy as a worthy counterbalance to the stolid gravity of metal type. The Maestro family consists of forty fonts distributed over two weights. The OpenType version compresses the family considerably down to two fonts, regular and bold, each containing the entire character set of twenty fonts, for a total of more than 3350 characters per font. These include a wide variety of stylistic alternates, ligatures, beginning and ending letters, flourishes, borders, rules, and other extras. The Pro version also includes extended linguistic support for Latin-based scripts (Western, Central and Eastern European, Baltic, Turkish, Welsh/Celtic, Maltese) as well as Greek. For more thoughts on Maestro, its background and character sets, please read the PDF accompanying the family.

Blackletter typefaces, also known as Gothic, Fraktur, or Old English, have been used in the headings and initial chapters of books. This style of typeface is recognizable by its dramatic thin and thick strokes, and in some fonts, the elaborate swirls on the serifs. Blackletter typefaces are based on early manuscript lettering and evolved in Western Europe from the mid twelfth century. They are best used for headings, logos, posters, and signs, as they are not easy to read in body texts. Blackletter was type that emulated the most common handwritten scripts of the era and was used for books of hours and initial chapters of books Brazilian type designer Paulo W created this font ideally suited for advertising and packaging, festive occasions, editorial and publishing, logo, branding and creative industries as well as poster and billboards. An elegant and clean typeface, with two harmonic blackletters styles, the bold lowercases with beaufitul ornamented initials. A classic decorative design around an antique theme: The headings of gothic texts, this font works great in display purposes. ENJOY

Hassan is a traditional-style Arabic text face designed by Hassan Sobhi Mourad, an experienced calligrapher and teacher of the art and first produced by the Linotype Design Studio (U.K.) as a PostScript font in 1993. An individual Naskh style, Hassan cleverly combines elegant proportions, echoing an inscriptional Thuluth in its tall vertical stems and deeply rounded final jim and ain. The effect of verticality is enhanced by the tense, reined-in kerning strokes of ra and waw, the well-poised lam-alif, and the compactly drawn ligatures. The broad-band strokes of Hassan Bold smooth some of the angularity and relax the tension apparent in the Light. The traditional-style ligatures are rendered with an easy flow. Because of the economical character count, Hassan Light and Bold text may be headed by the compact titling styles (Hisham, Mariam) as well as designs like Ahmed or Kufi which answer to the inscriptional qualities of Hassan. In addition to other uses, Hassan would be particularly suited to document text-setting. Hassan’s two OpenType weights include Latin glyphs from Janson Text Roman, and Janson Text Bold, respectively, inside the font files, allowing a single font to set text in both most Western European and Arabic languages. The OpenType glyph ranges incorporate Basic Latin and the Arabic character set, which supports Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. The fonts include tabular and proportional Arabic, Persian, and Urdu numerals, as well as a set of tabular European (Latin) numerals.

Admiral was inspired by and extrapolated from the Art Nouveau lettering incised into the facade of a local hostelry. This gave us some inspiration for the capitals 'A', 'B', 'C', 'E', 'H', 'I', 'L', 'O', 'S', 'T' and 'U'; we then had great fun extrapolating the rest! The source of the name Admiral can be spotted if you look at characters such as 'A', 'H' and 'N'. Admiral's distinctive charm and humour lends it to projects with a 1900s Art Nouveau theme, be they book covers, posters, signage, invitations, cards, or anything else you enjoy!

Mr Brown is a typeface based on hand drawn letters to our new book for children. It has up to four alternate glyphs for each character. You can switch them manually or use OpenType Contextual Alternates feature. It will automatically set alternate glyphs de-pending on frequency of appearance of the same character. The script doesn’t throw random glyphs. For example in the word “HIPPOPOTAMUS” you will automatically get three different “P” glyphs and two “O” glyphs. It really works great but of course you can always fine tune it by hand.

Years ago the company that developed Fontographer marketed a program called Font-o-Matic, a program that distorted fonts in various ways. 99% of what it produced was garbage, but every once in a while it would yield something interesting. Since I had designed a lot of typefaces by that time, I had lots of material to feed it and it was fun to see what it produced. YahoschWormy is one of rare results that was interesting enough to save and clean up. The source font was Yahosch.

Years ago the company that developed Fontographer marketed a program called Font-o-Matic, a program that distorted fonts in various ways. 99% of what it produced was garbage, but every once in a while it would yield something interesting. Since I had designed a lot of typefaces by that time, I had lots of material to feed it and it was fun to see what it produced. KolkFizzy is one of rare results that was interesting enough to save and clean up. The source font is Kolkman.

Years ago the company that developed Fontographer marketed a program called Font-o-Matic, a program that distorted fonts in various ways. 99% of what it produced was garbage, but every once in a while it would yield something interesting. Since I had designed a lot of typefaces by that time, I had lots of material to feed it and it was fun to see what it produced. BaumSquiggle is one of rare results that was interesting enough to save and clean up. The source font is Baumfuss.

Thomas Oldfield’s typeface, Reaper, is reminiscent of inscribed Greek letterforms but he claims that its origin is much simpler than that. “I recall”, Tom says, “that I just began the design by making the uppercase ‘I’ and continued using it to make up the other characters.” The cap only typeface has alternate cap forms in the lowercase positions, including a vastly scaled downed O and Q that make for some unusual text settings. Contrary to what the name might have you believe, there’s a lot of life in this quirky typeface.

Okaeri is a linear display font inspired by Japanese aesthetics, uppercase is decorated with oriental patterns. Okaeri is suitable for typographic posters in oriental style. The font is also suitable for menu and restaurant design, tourist products, magazine and book covers, thematic events design. The font works great both for printing clothes and craft products branding and packaging. Also use individual letters to create logos and monograms. Okaeri includes stylistic alternates for symbols: a, i, o, u. There are also ligatures: aa, ca, ea, ee, ff, ka, ki, la, li, ra, ri, oo, tt, za.

PT Reforma Grotesk was designed for ParaType in 1999 by Albert Kapitonov based on the letterforms of Russian pre-revolutionary hand composition typefaces: Uzky Tonky Grotesk («Condensed Thin Sans»), Poluzhirny Knizhny Grotesk («Semibold Book Sans») and Reforma, of H. Berthold and O. Lehmann foundries (St.- Petersburg). This extra compressed sans serif with distinctive letter shapes is typical for display fonts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For use in advertising and display typography. The face got 'Galina' prize at Kirillitsa'99 International Type Design Competition in Moscow.

Hand drawn shadow entities from the dark corners of Dawnland. Lilith X is ideal for: Initial characters - give your text a unparalleled facelift! Headlines - create a unique look for your posters, event graphics, book covers & music/media/game packaging. Preamble - reanimate the introduction... The main focus and usage of Lilith X are initial characters or headlines for posters, event graphics and music/media/game packaging. The bread text on the gallery images is written in Aeterna . Lilith X contain uppercase and small caps letters A-Z + swedish characters Å Ä Ö.

So y'think youse gonna whack me, huh? Y'think that font o' yours is packin' enough heat to finish me off? Huh? Is that what youse is thinkin'? Well go ahead, but if y'whack me then every two bit hood in Alphabet City is gonna hunt youse down and kern youse like the rat you are! So go ahead, show them you're the Big Boss, the Kingpin of Crime, the Godfather... but you won't see me beggin' for my life, 'cause I got pride, see? I got --RATATATATATATTATATATATTATAT... Ahhh... fuggedaboutit!!

I'm always experimenting with new ideas for display fonts. I took the inside counter of a capital 'O', divided it into quarters, and applied an outline stroke to all the elements. By removing two quarters of the inside counter I had the beginnings for an interesting new design. Of course, the hard part was getting all the other letters in the alphabet to work well together using this approach. It's often a labor of love trying to shape an idea into a new typeface. I find the entire process stimulating and rewarding.

Vododeo JNL is directly named for the free-form sheet music title lettering from Jack Yellen and Milton Ager's "Vo-Do-De-O". The term itself was a catchphrase made popular during the era known as the "Roaring 20s". Yellen and Ager were responsible for such hits as "Ain't She Sweet" (1927) and "Happy Days Are Here Again" (1930) along with countless others. During his career, Jack Yellen provided lyrics to over 200 songs. As a side note, Yellen was married to a distant cousin of type designer Jeff Levine's late mother.

The 'VanderHand' font is a friendly and easy to use handwritten font. It is so loaded with ligatures it could easily pass for actual handwriting. The font was created with a felt-tip brush pen and so there are natural thick and thin parts in the characters. All writing was done upright with tightly fit characters. As a result this font has a unique 'instant logo' quality. But you should really try this out for yourself. O, and the font was written by Jeroen van der Ham. It's his handwriting. That's why it's called VanderHand.

Aure Jane defines grace under fire. These clean, sans-serif forms engage the reader with a subtext of trust. Jane’s excellent legibility will stand up under almost any typographic challenge, bringing confidence to text and titles, and clarity to astrological expressions and chartwheels. Jane is an original design developed by Aurora Isaac. After more than a decade in development, 2018 marks the first release of the CJ and KB glyphsets in regular, italic, bold, and bold-italic. The CJ glyphset is a full text font supporting a variety of European languages. A matching set of small-caps complements the extended lowercase and uppercase glyphsets. Supporting glyphs include standard ligatures, four variations of the ampersand, and check-mark and happy-face with their companions x-mark and grumpy-face. Numbers are available in lining, oldstyle, and small versions, with numerators and denominators for forming fractions. Companion glyphs include Roman numerals, specialized glyphs for indicating ordinals, and a variety of mathematical symbols and operators. The CJ glyphset also includes an extended set of glyphs for typesetting Western Astrology. These glyphs are also available separately in the KB glyphset: a symbol font re-coded to allow easy keyboard access for the most commonly used glyphs. In addition to Aure Jane’s versatility as a text font, Jane can enhance the message of other designs. Aure Jane pairs well as an innocuous foil to any decorative font; Aure Sable, for example, will shine all the more beside Jane’s sensible utility. The witty highlights of Aure Brash will sparkle against Jane’s practicality. Give Aure Jane a trial run! You may discover a permanent place for this font family in your typographic palette. AureFontDesign.com

Digital Sans Now combines and completes the many diverse requests and requirements by users of the past years. By now, 36 versions for over 70 Latin and Cyrillic languages have become available, including Small Caps. Digital Sans Now is also available as a webfont and reflects, with its simplified and geometric construction and its consciously maintained poster-like forms as well as with its ornamental character, the spirit of the decorative serif-less headline typefaces of the 1970s. The basic severity of other grotesque typefaces is here repressed by means of targeted rounds. Exactly these formal breaks allow the impression that it could be used in a variety of visual applications. Short texts, headlines and logos of all descriptions are its domain. It is because of this versatility that the typeface has become a desirable stylistic element, especially in such design provinces as technology, games and sports, and that, for many years now, it appears to be timeless. Additional weights designed on the basis of the original, from Thin to Ultra, the Italics, Small Caps and alternative characters allow for differentiated “looks and feels”, and, with deliberate usage, give the “Digital Sans Now” expanded possibilities for expression. The basis for the design of Digital Sans Now is a headline typeface created in 1973 by Marty Goldstein and the Digital Sans family which has been available from Elsner+Flake since the mid-1990s under a license agreement. The four weights designed by Marty Goldstein, Thin, Plain, Heavy and Fat, were originally sold by the American company Visual Graphics Corporation (VGC) under the name of “Sol”. Similarly, the company Fotostar International offered film fonts for 2” phototypesetting machines, these however under the name “Sun”. The first digital adaptation had already been ordered in the mid 1970s in Germany by Walter Brendel for the phototypesetting system Unitype used by the TypeShop Group, in three widths and under the name “Digital Part of the Serial Collection.” Based on the versions by VGC, Thin, Plain, Heavy and Fat, new versions were then created with appropriate stroke and width adaptations for data sets for the fonts Light, Medium and Bold as well as for the corresponding italics

To obtain maximum pleasure in working with Hangulatin, please use the typeface as follows: 1 Open an OpenType-savvy program 2 Select the "Hangulatin“ typeface. 3 Copy the following test text into your document: HEL LO WORLD ! THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS O VER THE LA ZY DOG . If this fails to bring about the desired result, please make sure that you are using an OpenType-savvy program and that usage of the OpenType features is activated in that program. Standard graphic programs are suited to that purpose. The same applies to Microsoft Word starting from the 2010 version upwards.To have fun and success with your new typeface, please write all words in the format shown in the sample text, i.e. all syllables need to be written in capital letters and separated from one another using spacecharacters (for single letters leave 2 spaces). If, however, a desired syllable is not to be substituted, proceed as follows: Please check + to see whether it is a word from the English language; + whether the word has been spelled correctly; + whether the word has been subdivided into syllables correctly; + whether the syllable has been terminated with a space character (allow 2 spaces for single letters).

Crestwood is an updated version of an elegant semi-formal script typeface originally released by the Ludlow Type Foundry in 1937. Crestwood is best used at larger sizes, and is wonderful for invitations and greeting cards. Character Set: Latin-1

Meche Pro it is a geometric typeface family with a semi-formal touch, it contains 12 variants, from the Thin to Black and Stencil Thin to Black versions, plus Cyrillic alphabet with alternatives and different ligatures was added, especially for titles

Based on script handwriting and engraving used in formal announcements and invitations, Riviera Script lends itself to typesetting in which an elegant mood is desired. The Riviera Script font is an upright script with an engraved appearance and decorative capitals.

This type of font perfectly made to be applied especially in logo, and the other various formal forms such as invitations, labels, logos, magazines, books, greeting / wedding cards, packaging, fashion, make up, stationery, novels, labels or any type of advertising purpose.

Tenison is a semi-formal script which echoes the way the designer was taught to write in school. It is not overly decorative and it is highly legible. All lowercase characters link with each other, just as we were taught.

Calligraffitti by Open Window owes its credit to mom and all her years of Calligraphic experience. This impromptu rendering of her calligraphic alphabet captures her years or formal practice blended with a rare encounter with the mood altering music of Santana.

This type of font perfectly made to be applied especially in logo, and the other various formal forms such as invitations, labels, logos, magazines, books, greeting / wedding cards, packaging, fashion, make up, stationery, novels, labels or any type of advertising purpose.

Casual and Elegant. Liet Display© is an upright italic that plays with formality by subtly exploring the spaces between serif, sans-serif and italic styles. I recommend Liet Display© for post-apocalyptic packaging, branding, and editorial design. Dominic

Need a semi-formal yet unique font? Thinkerbery is the answer! The look of Thinkerbery is like a digital typing style but still has its uniqueness. We bring a strong looks for your text. Enjoy in creating unique arts using Thinkerbery! :)