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.

Helvetica’s 50-year anniversary celebrations in 2007 were overwhelming and contagious. We saw the movie. Twice. We bought the shirts and the buttons. We dug out the homage books and re-read the hate articles. We mourned the fading non-color of an old black shirt proudly exclaiming that “HELVETICA IS NOT AN ADOBE FONT”. We took part in long conversations discussing the merits of the Swiss classic, that most sacred of typographic dreamboats, outlasting its builder and tenants to go on alone and saturate the world with the fundamental truth of its perfect logarithm. We swooned again over its subtleties (“Ah, that mermaid of an R!”). We rehashed decades-old debates about “Hakzidenz,” “improvement in mind” and “less is more.” We dutifully cursed every single one of Helvetica’s knockoffs. We breathed deeply and closed our eyes on perfect Shakti Gawain-style visualizations of David Carson hack'n'slashing Arial — using a Swiss Army knife, no less — with all the infernal post-brutality of his creative disturbance and disturbed creativity. We then sailed without hesitation into the absurdities of analyzing Helvetica’s role in globalization and upcoming world blandness (China beware! Helvetica will invade you as silently and transparently as a sheet of rice paper!). And at the end of a perfect celebratory day, we positively affirmed à la Shakti, and solemnly whispered the energy of our affirmation unto the universal mind: “We appreciate Helvetica for getting us this far. We are now ready for release and await the arrival of the next head snatcher.” The great hype of Swisspalooza '07 prompted a look at Max Miedinger, the designer of Neue Haas Grotesk (later renamed to Helvetica). Surprisingly, what little biographical information available about Miedinger indicates that he was a typography consultant and type sales rep for the Haas foundry until 1956, after which time he was a freelance graphic designer — rather than the full-time type designer most Helvetica enthusiasts presume him to have been. It was under that freelance capacity that he was commissioned to design the regular and bold weights of Neue Haas Grotesk typeface. His role in designing Helvetica was never really trumpeted until long after the typeface attained global popularity. And, again surprisingly, Miedinger designed two more typefaces that seem to have been lost to the dust of film type history. One is called Pro Arte (1954), a very condensed Playbill-like slab serif that is similar to many of its genre. The other, made in 1964, is much more interesting. Its original name was Horizontal. Here it is, lest it becomes a Haas-been, presented to you in digital form by Canada Type under the name of its original designer, Miedinger, the Helvetica King. The original film face was a simple set of bold, panoramically wide caps and figures that give off a first impression of being an ultra wide Gothic incarnation of Microgramma. Upon a second look, they are clearly more than that. This face is a quirky, very non-Akzidental take on the vernacular, mostly an exercise in geometric modularity, but also includes some unconventional solutions to typical problems (like thinning the midline strokes across the board to minimize clogging in three-storey forms). This digital version introduces four new weights, ranging from Thin to Medium, alongside the bold original. The Miedinger package comes in all popular font formats, and supports Western, Central and Eastern European languages, as well as Esperanto, Maltese, Turkish and Celtic/Welsh. A few counter-less alternates are included in the fonts.

The idea for Quirky was born while I was looking at a book of etchings by British artist Graham Clarke. His signature, crawling spider-like across the page, fascinated me with its casual, almost messy, inky dark and light drama. I started scribbling the alphabet as I imagined he would write it, based on his signature, then continued, adding curls, making the characters more angular, and refining the dramatic play between dark and light. Finally, Quirky appeared. Apparently casual, Quirky is, in fact, a true connected script. Quirky is characteristic of contemporary handwriting: It appears loose, angular, unstructured, and free, while maintaining good form and legibility. Its baseline is varied, creating an impression of impatient handwriting, without losing legibility. Quirky comes in five styles: condensed -- the most dramatic form, with great drama between thick and thin condensed black -- as with condensed but allows the user to provide exceptional emphasis wide -- increased readability wide black -- increased readability and emphasis splat -- messy and ink-blotted -- a hint of grunge Use Quirky for advertising, for humorous greeting cards, for a funky fashion look or tongue-in-cheek spooky media. Quirky is a fully professional font with extensive use of OpenType Ligatures. For example: most common double letter combinations such as "ee" are rendered as two, slightly different shaped "e"s. This variation in letter shapes removes the cues by which the reader identifies that he is viewing a FONT and thus conveys a strong sense of hand-lettered text. Language support includes all European character sets and has been designed to be used with the following languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Basque, Bemba, Cornish, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, Ganda, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Kinyarwanda, Luo, Malagasy, Malay, Manx, Morisyen, North Ndebele, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Nyankole, Oromo, Portuguese, Romansh, Sango, Shona, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Swiss German and Zulu.

Schism is a modulated sans-serif, originally developed from our Alias Didot typeface, as a serif-less version of the same design. It was expanded to three sub-families, with the thin stroke getting progressively heavier from Schism One to Schism Three. The different versions explore how this change in contrast between thick and thin strokes changes the character of the letterforms. The shape is maintained, but the emphasis shifts from rounded to angular, elegant to incised. Schism One has high contrast, and the same weight of thin stroke from Light to Black. Letter endings are at horizontal or vertical, giving a pinched, constricted shape for characters such as a, c, e and s. The h, m, n and u have a sharp connection between curve and vertical, and are high shouldered, giving a slightly square shape. The r and y have a thick stress at their horizontal endings, which makes them impactful and striking at bolder weights. Though derived from an elegant, classic form, Schism feels austere rather than flowery. It doesn’t have the flourishes of other modulated sans typefaces, its aesthetic more a kind of graphic-tinged utility. While in Schism Two and Three the thin stroke gets progressively heavier, the connections between vertical and curves — in a, b, n etc — remain cut to an incised point throughout. The effect is that Schism looks chiselled and textural across all weights. Forms maintain a clear, defined shape even in Bold and Black, and don’t have the bloated, wide and heavy appearance heavy weights can have. The change in the thickness of the thin stroke in different versions of the same weight of a typeface is called grading. This is often used when the types are to used in problematic print surfaces such as newsprint, or at small sizes — where thin strokes might bleed, and counters fill in and lose clarity, or detail might be lost or be too thin to register. The different gradings are incremental and can be quite subtle. In Schism it is extreme, and used as a design device, giving three connected but separate styles, from Sans-Didot to almost-Grotesk. The name Schism suggests the differences in shape and style in Schism One, Two and Three. Three styles with distinct differences, from the same start point.

Schism is a modulated sans-serif, originally developed from our Alias Didot typeface, as a serif-less version of the same design. It was expanded to three sub-families, with the thin stroke getting progressively heavier from Schism One to Schism Three. The different versions explore how this change in contrast between thick and thin strokes changes the character of the letterforms. The shape is maintained, but the emphasis shifts from rounded to angular, elegant to incised. Schism One has high contrast, and the same weight of thin stroke from Light to Black. Letter endings are at horizontal or vertical, giving a pinched, constricted shape for characters such as a, c, e and s. The h, m, n and u have a sharp connection between curve and vertical, and are high shouldered, giving a slightly square shape. The r and y have a thick stress at their horizontal endings, which makes them impactful and striking at bolder weights. Though derived from an elegant, classic form, Schism feels austere rather than flowery. It doesn’t have the flourishes of other modulated sans typefaces, its aesthetic more a kind of graphic-tinged utility. While in Schism Two and Three the thin stroke gets progressively heavier, the connections between vertical and curves — in a, b, n etc — remain cut to an incised point throughout. The effect is that Schism looks chiselled and textural across all weights. Forms maintain a clear, defined shape even in Bold and Black, and don’t have the bloated, wide and heavy appearance heavy weights can have. The change in the thickness of the thin stroke in different versions of the same weight of a typeface is called grading. This is often used when the types are to used in problematic print surfaces such as newsprint, or at small sizes — where thin strokes might bleed, and counters fill in and lose clarity, or detail might be lost or be too thin to register. The different gradings are incremental and can be quite subtle. In Schism it is extreme, and used as a design device, giving three connected but separate styles, from Sans-Didot to almost-Grotesk. The name Schism suggests the differences in shape and style in Schism One, Two and Three. Three styles with distinct differences, from the same start point.

Schism is a modulated sans-serif, originally developed from our Alias Didot typeface, as a serif-less version of the same design. It was expanded to three sub-families, with the thin stroke getting progressively heavier from Schism One to Schism Three. The different versions explore how this change in contrast between thick and thin strokes changes the character of the letterforms. The shape is maintained, but the emphasis shifts from rounded to angular, elegant to incised. Schism One has high contrast, and the same weight of thin stroke from Light to Black. Letter endings are at horizontal or vertical, giving a pinched, constricted shape for characters such as a, c, e and s. The h, m, n and u have a sharp connection between curve and vertical, and are high shouldered, giving a slightly square shape. The r and y have a thick stress at their horizontal endings, which makes them impactful and striking at bolder weights. Though derived from an elegant, classic form, Schism feels austere rather than flowery. It doesn’t have the flourishes of other modulated sans typefaces, its aesthetic more a kind of graphic-tinged utility. While in Schism Two and Three the thin stroke gets progressively heavier, the connections between vertical and curves — in a, b, n etc — remain cut to an incised point throughout. The effect is that Schism looks chiselled and textural across all weights. Forms maintain a clear, defined shape even in Bold and Black, and don’t have the bloated, wide and heavy appearance heavy weights can have. The change in the thickness of the thin stroke in different versions of the same weight of a typeface is called grading. This is often used when the types are to used in problematic print surfaces such as newsprint, or at small sizes — where thin strokes might bleed, and counters fill in and lose clarity, or detail might be lost or be too thin to register. The different gradings are incremental and can be quite subtle. In Schism it is extreme, and used as a design device, giving three connected but separate styles, from Sans-Didot to almost-Grotesk. The name Schism suggests the differences in shape and style in Schism One, Two and Three. Three styles with distinct differences, from the same start point.

Impressed by the quality of the Aachen typeface that was originally designed for Letraset in 1969 and extended to include Aachen Medium in 1977, Jim Wasco of Monotype Imaging has extended this robust display design to create an entire family. Derived from the serif-accented Egyptienne fonts dating to the early 20th century, Aachen has serifs that are very solid but considerably shorter than those of its precursor. The incorporated geometrical elements, such as right angles and straight lines, provide the slender letters of Aachen with a slightly technological, stencil-like quality. Despite this, the effect of Aachen is by no means static; its dynamism means that this typeface, originally designed for use in headlines, has come to be used with particular frequency in sport- and fitness-related contexts. Jim Wasco, for many years a type designer at Monotype Imaging, recognized the potential of Aachen and decided to extend the typeface to create an entire typeface family. He appropriated the existing Aachen Bold in unchanged form and first created the less heavy cuts, Thin and Regular. Wasco admits that he found designing the forms for Thin a particular challenge. It took him several attempts before he was able to achieve consistency within the glyphs for Thin and, at the same time, retain sufficient affinity with the original Aachen Bold. But he finally managed to adapt the short serifs and the condensed and slightly geometrical quality of the letters to the needs of Thin. The weights Light, Book, Medium and Semibold were generated by means of interpolation. Supplemented by Extralight and Extrabold, the new Neue Aachen can now boast a total of nine different weights. Wasco initially relied on his predilection for genuine cursives in his designs for the Italic cuts. But it became apparent with these first trial runs that the soft curves of cursives did not suit Aachen and led to the loss of too much of its original character. Wasco thus decided to compromise by using both inclined and cursive letters. Neue Aachen Italic is somewhat narrower than its upright counterparts; the lower case 'a' has a closed form while the 'f' has been given a descender, but the letters have otherwise not been given additional adornments. The range of glyphs available for Neue Aachen has been significantly extended, so that the typeface can now be used to set texts not only in Western but also Central European languages. Wasco has also added a double-counter lowercase 'g' while relying on the availability of alternative letters in the format sets for the enhancement of the legibility of Neue Aachen when used to set texts. The seven new weights and completely new Italic variants have enormously increased the potential applications of Aachen and the range of creative options for the designer. While the Bold weights have proved their worth as display fonts, the new Book and Regular cuts are ideal for setting text. And the subtlety of Ultra Light will provide your projects with a quite unique flair. The new possibilities and opportunities in terms of design and applications that Neue Aachen offers you are not restricted to print production; you can also create internet pages thanks to its availability as a web font.

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

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