Milan-based Leftloft studio has produced a third leg to its hit Etica font family: LFT Etica Mono. Meant to be a coder’s go-to font for everyday use as much as a designer’s way to invoke a certain genre, it is part of a broader and more versatile family that already contains almost 80 sans and serif fonts. LFT Etica Mono’s ten weights carry the same modern, recognisable DNA of the Etica family while hewing to the defined requirements of a coding typeface: space, density, distinct forms, and clarity. It uses the same instroke on the ‘c’ and open form of the ‘a’ for which the Etica family is famous, but adds something new in the form of an additional italic style. Monospaced fonts usually incorporate slanted letters as italics, as does LFT Etica Mono, but its default italics have warmer, cursive shapes while the alternate italics are simply slanted. The default ‘a’ is a simplified bowl and stem instead of a two storey shape; the ‘d, f, i, l, t, y’ and others gain an outstroke tail; the ‘e’ is one smooth stroke; and the default ‘k’ is looped. These characters have basic, slanted alternates if the cursive look isn’t desired, and includes a set of arrows and geometric shapes. The monospaced design, by nature, makes the typeface useful in coding and in low readability situations. And how does LFT Etica Mono work from the designer’s perspective? The starting point was the need for a monospaced Etica companion intended for technical applications: captions in graphic layouts, small text, confined or predefined space, and overall tone. Flat terminals and counters maintain the colour and versatility of the original typeface, but choosing between the organic cursive or blunt slanted alphabet will give every layout its own character. Of particular aesthetic interest may be the & and % symbols. Designed to be applied to the common visual environment, the new LFT Etica Mono font family completes a more complex system. One benefit is to give an expressive tone — less serious and more friendly — to something inherently technical, to bytes and bots, to encode the beautiful life.

The market for humanistic sans serif type families is saturated, so what can a new release add, and what does it take to stand out from the crowd? Asterisk Sans Pro (named after my favourite glyph to make) aims to be a highly versatile type family; massively useful due to its pan-European language support and bounty of OpenType features which make it the ideal choice for demanding typography. The look is contemporary; details which give the fonts character at large sizes all but disappear when small, making the middle weights suitable for large chunks of text. The family ranges from a hairline ultra light to a pretty weighty black – a must in a new typeface. Asterisk Sans Pro supports Latin, modern Greek and Cyrillic, with localized forms for Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian to boot. This is rare enough, but to have small caps for all these scripts in both upright and italic fonts is a big plus. Your client may not need all this language support right now, but this typeface gives them the option to grow while keeping a consistent look, and at a similar price point to families with a much narrower scope. The ability to customize Asterisk Sans Pro through the use of Stylistic Sets in OpenType savvy layout programs means you are really in control. Want more italic forms in the uprights? Go for it. A more Roman italic? Easy! The spurless m, n, r and u, accessible through SS13 give a graphic, almost bauhaus feel. The Dutch IJ glyph can be changed to a much cooler thing using SS14, and the family even supports ij-acute. Other OpenType features include a wealth of numeral styles (tabular and proportional, lining and oldstyle, plus small cap figures, numerators, denominators, subscript and superscript) and automatic fractions. There are also case-sensitive forms for all caps settings, a bunch of useful arrows, and superscript lower case Latin letters. All in, there are well over 1200 glyphs per font, making Asterisk Sans Pro an invaluable tool in your typeface arsenal, great for everything from corporate identities to editorial work, apps to cookbooks.

Inspired by early grotesque typefaces such as Akzidenz Grotesk and Venus, Werksatz is our contemporary interpretation of this beloved genre. Some things are timeless. These are the things that only get better with use. The aforementioned typefaces certainly belong into this category. Rediscovered by designers from every generation again and again, they are here to stay. However, as tools evolve and technology moves on, even a well-tried design has to adapt to this evolution continuously in order to stand the test of time. Werksatz is such an adaptation, taking the best from the invincible classics and infusing them with the warm blood of today’s tech. With 10 weights from Thin to Black, each with painstakingly fine-tuned obliques, and more than 940 characters per style, this font family is ready for the future. Its Extended Latin support ensures you won’t miss a letter in any of hundreds of languages. Special glyphs like three variations of arrows and additional shapes will make your design work so much easier—for well-structured forms as well as radical editorial layouts. Among a treasure trove of OpenType features, you’ll find essentials such as Capital Spacing, Case-Sensitive Forms, and Ligatures, but also advanced functions like Small Caps, Subscript and Inferior figures and letters, plenty figure sets (Lining Figures, Tabular Figures, Old-Style Figures, circled and squared figures, figures for small caps … you get the idea), Slashed Zero, and more. You’ll discover that Werksatz is less formalistic and rigid than your average neogrotesk typeface. Sure, you can use it for serious business—whether in corporate design, branding, editorial design, publication design, or web design for industries and topics ranging from politics, government, management, or law to technology, entrepreneurship, commerce, or finance. However, Werksatz is much more versatile than that. Its more human appearance also allows for effective use in culture, fashion, art, entertainment, sports, exhibitions, leisure, and luxury. It’s an excellent choice for wayfinding applications, apps, packaging, and all kinds of nonfiction books. Other Grotesks with big names are left behind outdated by their proprietors, but Werksatz is here to stay. The classic industrial warmth of these letterforms will age like fine wine.

I was inspired to create the Rainier type family during my summer back home in the Pacific Northwest. The concept behind it may be simple - a hand crafted font family - but what it delivers is quite complex! Here is a breakdown of everything you get: FONT FAMILIES: Two sub-families with unique styles - Rainier North and Rainier West WEIGHTS: 4 weights per family, broken down numerically - 100 (light), 300 (regular), 500 (bold), 700 (black) OPENTYPE: In each family, there are tons of OpenType options, offering lots of customizable opportunities (in order to access all these goodies, you must be using Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign or Publisher). Because Rainier is 100% handmade, contextual alternatives allow each letter has three subtle variations, this way it keeps that authentic hand-drawn look. Additionally, a full alphabet with special descending swashes, as well as start and end swashes for capitals and small caps. Titling alternatives offer a full character set just to help with readability! Meant for captions or smaller text, these letterforms are easy on the eye and a great complement to the regular alphabet. Stylistic Alternatives add a little fun, providing a unified cap height, no matter what case you are using (all caps, small caps or lowercase.) Discretionary Ligatures are created only for capitals, and takes specific letter pairs and creates a unique ligature between them To get a better understanding of everything, please check out the quicker user guide (http://bit.ly/1W0Bfma) and print if you so desire (http://bit.ly/23W9ZV6) that helps you navigate your way around and get the most out of Rainier! Unfortunately those links aren't working right now and soon I will have them fixed. So sorry! ORNAMENTS: In addition to the font, you get a set of awesomely rustic ornaments designed and drawn to go specifically with Rainier! - Rustic Northwest Illustrations - Banners & Flags - Frames - Flourishes - Lines & Line Breaks - Arrows There are a lot of extras packed in this set, so make sure you check out the Ornaments User Guide to get the most out of it! Check it out here: http://bit.ly/1rRVJRx And that’s all folks! Hope you enjoy Rainier!