With the Josef K *, Julia Sysmäläinen continues her artistic debate on Franz Kafka’s writing style. This time the designer of FF Mister K is not drawn to Kafka’s literary works created at night but to those the writer produced at daytime as a high-ranking, confident bureaucrat – Dr Franz Kafka. The typefaces Josef K “Paneuropean” and “Strong European” echoe Kafka’s prestigious status at the Workmen’s Accident Insurance Institute of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Their ductus, originating from a broad-nibbed ink pen combines a clear, self-confident stroke with the calligraphic features so typical for Franz Kafka’s handwriting. While both typefaces are more straightforward and bolder than the wonderfully erratic fonts of the FF Mister K family Josef K Paneuropean is best characterized as a semibold handwriting textface. Josef K Strong European, Sysmäläinen’s latest “K”-accomplishment, provides an ideal complement to it as a distinctly bold display face – great for headlines, product names and branding. It combines perfectly not only with Josef K Paneuropean but also with all the FF Mister K textfaces. Both Josef K Paneuropean and Josef K Strong European have Western, Central European and Extended Cyrillic character sets. With more than 2500 glyphs they support over 100 languages. *Kafka’s persona Josef K is a leading bank officer – reminiscent of the author himself – in the novel The Trial.

These six faces are interpreted from examples shown in Rob Roy Kelly's "American Wood Types" They are not merely scanned copies, but have been redrawn from scratch with various optical adjustments. Kelly points out that the true glory of the American Wood Types are the negative spaces, which are, in their dynamic active forms, the antithesis of the anemic flimsy letters produced by type foundries in the 19th century. The Alphabets Wood Types are designed with digital manipulation in mind. Stretch, curve and distort at will! These designs were released prior to similar revivals from Adobe. Each font has two full alphabets (one full height, one smaller) and numerals. However, certain points and accents will not be found.

Spekta is an unorthodox Neo-Grotesk typeface devoted to versatility and beauty. Originally designed as an all-caps display typeface influenced by Bauhaus and early grotesque forms, Spekta switched priorities and evolved into a well-equipped 8-weight workhorse boasting 667 characters and italics to boot. Spekta’s focus on condensed forms and a greater x-height and cap height difference compared to typical Grotesque types allows for increased legibility at smaller sizes while utilising less horizontal space. Despite this, Spekta respects its display-type roots with elegant forms influenced by a mix of early and modern Grotesque typefaces and countless trial-and-error. Additionally, two sets of diacritics (marks such as acutes, graves, circumflexes, and so on) have been designed to further improve readability and reading flow, an atypical feature for most typefaces. Spekta is devoted to versatility, handing control to the designer with 8 stylistic sets (that only affect a single character and not a group of them), 4 number sets, true superscript, subscript, and scientific subscript characters (unlike what design softwares generate), ordinals, alternative and full-width characters, and much more.

Wink has been created as the result of exhaustive research, trial and development. It is an OpenType set of fonts which appears in a friendly and fun way, with a new twist on what Joluvian has previously created. Full of personality, with a brave and strong creative line, it is intended to reflect authenticity when being used in all types of media and styles. The ornaments offered in this font work as a graphic resource that expand all the possibilities for Wink users.
 
Although Wink is inspired by traditional calligraphic flourishes, its modern twist makes it elegant and simple at the same time. It’s not  completely a brush type but it has been created with the same calligraphy base Joluvian usually works with. Wink also has a caps version with the same style of the script. Both versions could work perfectly, individually or together. As usual, the type has been developed with Ale Paul for Sudtipos, and the collaboration of Macus Romero has been essential to illustrate the style that Wink represents.

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.

Carpathian Basin Rovas The Carpathian Basin Rovas script, or Kárpát-medencei rovás in Hungarian, was used in the Carpathian Basin between about the 7th and 11th centuries. Most of the inscriptions are in Hungarian, but some were in Onogur, As-Alan, Slavic or Eurasian Avar. Carpathian Basin Rovas is thought to be a descendent of the Proto-Rovas script, which was used to the east of the Aral Sea between about the 1st century AD and 567, when the tribes who were using it, the Avars and Ogurs, started to move into the Carpathian Basin. That process took until about 670 AD, after which the Proto-Rovas script became the Carpathian Basin Rovas and the Khazarian Rovas scripts. The Proto-Rovas script was perhaps a descendent of the Aramaic script. Since 2009 efforts have been made to revive the use of this alphabet. Some letters were added to it to represent sounds in modern Hungarian that weren't used historically.

Rotham Industrial. Stylised lettering for industrial flavoured projects. Imagine, if you will letters shaped from metal tube, or perhaps from a solid rod, or perhaps made from brass handrails? You get the idea. A stylised and fun typeface for those occasions where you want to suggest an engineering influence.

Birdcage was designed from a very short lettering sample in Rob Roy Kelly's American Wood Type book, from the image I created a complete font plus a regular version with lowercase. In the past banner style fonts would limit you to a monospaced look, so how do you kern a banner font? Well, with today's OpenType font format the solution is simple, draw the kerning pairs together as one character glyph and place them inside the font then use auto substitution to access those characters when needed. Birdcage (OpenType version) includes 249 auto ligature kerning pairs, to use this feature you will need an application that takes advantage of OpenType features such as Adobe CS products.

P22 Tuscan Expanded is a digitization of the mid-19th Century Woodtype font "Antique Tuscan Expanded - Wells & Webb 1854". Specimens of this font are rarely, if ever, seen with a lower case. It is noted in the book American Wood Type 1828-1900 by Rob Roy Kelly that the lower case is "missing". This version was digitized from a recently discovered full set including all lower case plus ff ligatures. One unique feature of this design is the heart shape formed in the V, X & Y.

Sans meets serif. Would you like to express tradition by using a contemporary font? Sintesi might be exactly what you are looking for. Sintesi stands for synthesis: the unification of serif and sans-serif into a contemporary font, which surprises with different facets depending on its application. In copy size Sintesi performs like a sans-serif. It is a compact and well readable font that fulfills all requirements of modern digital media. In larger sizes, Sintesi unfolds its traditional character. Now, its strong contrast and the perceptible feather-ductus stand out clearly, as we appreciate it in a historical old style face. Sintesi is completed by a suitable italic. Its cursive character has more to do with writing-speed than to moderate inclination. Therefore Sintesi may be well-suited for many other purposes, not only for emphasis. The whole font family consists of 20 styles and offers a wide range of Western and Eastern European special characters, typographical ligatures, uppercase, oldstyle and fraction figures. Sintesi (Serif) builds together with Sintesi Semi and Sintesi Sans an extended family. Start combining antiquity with modernity! Download a free trial version of Sintesi with a reduced character set. Check it out!

Madelican is a beautiful combination of modern and classical calligraphy, inspired by the handwriting of Italian women and ancient manuscripts. I think calligraphy has an advantage for the alternate characters, Madelican has tons of possibilities for just one letter. My exploration of this fonts was not as easy as in my imagination, it took several trial and errors for the perfect balance of the style. Madelican is very suitable for weddings, book covers, greeting cards, logos, branding, business cards and certificates, even for any design work that requires a classic, formal or luxurious touch. Almost all letters have more alternate than others, it is fine because the limitations of the shape of the letters. It must be readable and legible. Every letter that I've chose are only the best on it and fit with the character style. Multi-lingual support and up to 16 stylistic alternates. If you do not have programs that support OpenType features like Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw X Versions, you can access all alternative flying machines using Font Book (Mac) or Character Map (Windows). And feel free contact me if you have a question.

Domani from CounterPoint is a faithful digital revival of an old photo-typositing face called ITC Didi. Originally designed by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, Domani brings to life a font that has been somewhat neglected by the digital era until now. Brought to the attention of Jason Walcott by graphic designer Rob King, this font immediately captured Jason with its 1970s high contrast Didone style, typical of that time period. It has some unique design details that set it apart from other didone style typefaces. “Domani” is the Italian word for “tomorrow”. The name was suggested by Rob King, and Jason felt it was perfect for this revitalized design. Walcott has created a professional quality digital version that is both faithful to the original design while expanding the character set to make use of OpenType features. A full set of swash capitals and several swash lowercase, designed by Walcott, has been added, as well as support for Latin-based and Eastern European languages.

Poplar is an Adobe Originals typeface designed by Barbara Lind in 1990 for the Adobe Wood Type series. Poplar, a Gothic condensed, was designed from photographs taken by Rob Roy Kelly of the one surviving copy of an 1830 William Leavenworth type specimen book. Leavenworth possessed unusual artistic abilities, and his treatment of the letterform counters as narrow slits made it the only wood type of its kind displayed during the nineteenth century. Poplar is an excellent display face, its simplicity making it useful for a broad range of work.

Praitor is based on a devotional inscription to the goddess Diana found a short distance from Rome in 1887. It is an early style from before 100 BC and has some characteristics of Etruscan lettering. It's a rough, strong font which works very well for distinctive titles.

RoyHand RP is a new OpenType font family release by BluHead Studio, LLC from the wonderfully talented English designer and illustrator Roy Preston. RoyHand, as the name would suggest, is based upon the handwriting of Roy himself. The family has three weights and is suitable for many everyday uses.

Now even more design possibilities with the popular DIN Next. With its technical and neutral character, DIN Next has earned a permanent place in contemporary typography. Now, DIN Next Slab expands the font family further, offering new design potential. Now comes the next step, DIN Next Slab, also produced under the direction of Akira Kobayashi. On a team with Sandra Winter and Tom Grace, Kobayashi is creating the new font variant based on the optimized shapes of DIN Next. The expansion will make the popular font all the more flexible and versatile. Apart from that, the geometric slab serifs underline the technical and formal nature of the font and emphasize a central design element of DIN Next. However, the team did have some challenges to overcome. While it is relatively easy to imagine DIN Next Light with slab serifs, the amount of available space quickly disappears when it comes to the Black styles. Winter explains that many tests and trials were necessary to find a compromise between space, letters and the serif shapes. Experiments with modified contrast in the weight or only one-sided serifs were quickly abandoned. The central, technical and powerful character of the font changed too much. Nevertheless, it was necessary to simplify slightly the shape of some letters, such as the ‘k’ or ‘x’, for example. These changes, first developed in the Black styles, were applied to all weights in order to lend the font a consistent appearance. Like DIN Next, DIN Next Slab also has seven weights, which cover the range from Ultralight to Black, each with matching italic. There are various character sets in all of the styles and the four middle weights have small capitals available. DIN Next Slab harmonizes perfectly with the styles of DIN Next: the basic letterforms and weights are identical. Both versions of the font can work together perfectly, not just in headlines and body text, but also within a text; they complement each other very well as design variations. With the new DIN Next Slab, Monotype expands the DIN Next super family consistently. With DIN Next Slab, you can underscore the technical and formal nature of the understated font not only in headlines, but in texts, as well. In this way, you have new and diverse potential for application, thanks to the way the different styles of DIN Next combine perfectly.

Willow is an Adobe Originals typeface designed in 1990 by Joy Redick for the Adobe Wood Type series. Willow is a condensed typeface modeled on nineteenth-century wood types known as Clarendons (wood type Clarendons do not resemble the English metal types of that name). Clarendon condensed faces were originally so well-designed that words or a line of display type have an even color that is remarkable for wood types. Taken from proofs of type in the Rob Roy Kelly Collection housed at the University of Texas at Austin, Willow can be used for display work such packaging, advertising, and posters.

A former lettering artist at Hallmark Cards, Rob Leuschke now has his own thriving design businesses, Alphabytes and the new TypeSETit. Growing up in St Charles, Missouri, where he still lives, Rob showed great artistic promise at an early age. He earned a BFA in graphic design at the University of Missouri at Columbia. After graduation, his stint at Hallmark Cards gave him the opportunity to learn from and work with some of the best lettering artists in the industry. Rob struck out on his own in 1987 and now boasts a long list of clients from all over the world. Rob has created over 250 custom typefaces, and his work has been exhibited in New York. Ambiance BT is Rob’s first typeface published by Bitstream, with more to follow.

Coming Soon by Open Window is based on the handwriting from mom when she was in 6th grade. Solid balance, masterful strokes, and just a touch of lemonade stand for good measure!

An example of an antique sans serif wood type displayed in Rob Roy Kelly’s “American Wood Type” was the working model for Sandalwood JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

“More is better” may have been the motto of Richard Austin of Austin and Son’s Imperial Letter-Foundry on Worship Street at Finsbury Square in London when he designed and cut his Antique typeface. The year it was created is uncertain, but it is known to have appeared in a specimen book produced in 1827. At first glance, the upper case letters of Austin Antique look very much like Figgins Antique. But, upon examination, one will note that the Austin face is much darker. In general, the letters designed and cut by Richard Austin have fatter strokes, larger serifs and smaller counters -- more metal and less daylight. The premise was that the darker the letter, the more attention an ad using the typeface would receive. In old pictures of London and Paris one may see walls crowded with posters and “bills” -- competing for the attention of the passerby. Morris and Updike aside, the early nineteenth century marked the beginning of a commercial as well as industrial revolution. Patterns of commerce were changing. With new methods of marketing came the need for new typefaces to support the new methods. Foundries found the display types were very profitable and competed most energetically and creatively for the trade. There was a lot of trial-and-error. Some ideas faded away. Others, like the Antiques or Egyptians, were refined and developed. From them came the Clarendons that were to prove both popular and long lasting -- because they worked. Their job was to sell goods, not please the aesthetic sensibilities of the critics. They did their job well. Austin Antique has a full Western European character set, plus the following ligatures: ct, st, fi, fl, ff, ffi and ffl. Tabular numbers. Surprisingly readable.

According to the Dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy, «canturía» is the exercise of singing, and a way of singing musical compositions. Canturiana Type (derived from «canturía») has a romantic and musical air, as well as a clear sensuality thanks to its sinuous construction. The curves seduce us, conquer us, hypnotize us and the letters acquire a resounding lightness, and a very earthly presence that is complemented by a certain aerial, spiritual expressiveness. Canturiana Type is inspired by Canterbury, a font designed in the 1920s by the legendary American type designer and engineer Morris Fuller Benton and published by the American Type Founders (ATF). Canturiana Type collects all this heritage and transforms it into a digital typeface perfectly functional and adapted to the visual communication of the 21st century. Its elegant art deco essence provides it with a unique and heterodox imprint that works in very different media, giving them distinction and depth. The creative process of Canturiana Type has gone through various mutations to a point where each episode of its creation has left its mark, a multiple imprint that makes it unique, singular in its essence and plural in its possibilities. For this reason, Canturiana Type expresses itself with several voices without any variation in its essence. A conceptual ambiguity that makes it truly versatile. Canturiana Type is a typographic choir, a complex entity that has infinite nuances and tones. Classic and cool. Disruptive and romantic. Literary and musical. Canturiana Type is composed of 5 weights, and has a large number of swashes, alternate characters, ligatures and various visual elements to make compositions as titles or for use in short texts. Canturiana Type has more than a thousand glyphs and offers a wide range of languages that use the Latin alphabet.

Le Havre. It's a family with no lack of characters diverse, yet none are as deep or tested in their appearance as the weathered, hand-drawn texture of Le Havre Hand. Tall and lean, the well-aged face carries with it the stories of a thousand miles. Starting with a sans as its origin, this handwritten font's layered structure has been shaped through time and trial, ultimately capturing the simple beauty of a wise, experienced character. This layer-based font family includes style variations and new layering solutions. Le Havre Hand includes 21 font files. It also includes an outline, crosshatched versions and five inline variations, several extruded variants including a unique wireframe options. There are two extruded fonts and two drop shadow fonts. For users that have Opentype programs, such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Microsoft Publisher and Quark, each font also comes with an established set of art deco alternatives. Le Havre Hand's alternate characters come together to exhibit a clear sensitivity to the art deco style. Use them on their own or increase your options by using them with any of the other members of the Le Havre family. Take time to look deep into the soul of Le Havre Hand. It's often the tested, weathered hand that is most reliable to guide you to success.

- Unique Modernist Look - 590+ characters per font - Standard & Discretionary Ligatures - Multiple Stylistic Sets - Old Style Figures - Case-Sensitive Punctuation - Multilingual - Cyrillic Included - Uppercase + Lowercase Porte is an elegant sans serif font inspired by stone carving and modernist typefaces of early 20th century. While at its core Porte is a display font, it can also be used for larger bodies of text and in a variety of projects. Thanks to its unique proportions and feel Porte is reminiscent of early 20th century type, wherein aesthetic qualities often overweighed matters of practicality and applicability. Porte is at once delicate and sturdy, subtle and unyielding. Porte is very OpenType friendly, boasting an awesome selection of useful OpenType features, precise and exhaustive kerning (around 1000 pairs) and lots of discretionary ligatures to make your designs look amazing. A selection of wider and narrower alternate glyphs allow the designer to modify the rhythm of the typeface, extending its application and impact. With 590+ characters on board, Porte supports all major Latin based languages as well as a number of Cyrillic languages. Porte received its first major update in fall 2022. Not only was the character set expanded considerably, but also some glyphs were re-drawn to fix visual inconsistencies, and a large number of stylistic alternates was added. The kerning, too, was re-done to accommodate new letterforms. Trials available upon request.