The Salden fonts are our tribute to the man who was dubbed the face of the Dutch book, and whose work is considered essential in 20th century Dutch design history. Helmut Salden’s exquisite book cover designs were the gold standard in the Netherlands for more than four decades. His influence over Dutch lettering artists and book designers ranges far and wide, and his work continues to be used commercially and exhibited to this very day. At the root of Salden’s design work was a unique eye for counter space and incredible lettering skills that never failed to awe, regardless of category or genre. This made our attention to his lettering all the more focused within our appreciation to his overall aesthetic. Though Salden never designed alphabets to be turned into typefaces (he drew sets of letters which he sometimes recycled and modified to fit various projects), we thought there was enough there to deduce what a few different typefaces by Salden would have looked like. The man was prolific, so there were certainly enough forms to guide us, and enough variation in style to push our excitement even further. And so we contacted the right people, obtained access to the relevant material, and had a lot of fun from there. This set covers the gamut of Salden’s lettering talents. Included are his famous caps, his untamed, chunky flare sans serif in two widths, his unique Roman letters and an italic companion and, most recognizable of all, his one-of-a-kind scripty upright italic lowercase shapes, which he used alongside Roman caps drawn specifically for that kind of combination titling. All the fonts in this set include Pan-European glyph sets. They’re also loaded with extras. Salden Roman (908 glyphs) and Salden Italic (976 glyphs) each come with built-in small caps (and caps-to-small-caps), quite a few ligatures, and two different sets of alternates. Salden Black and Salden Black Condensed (636 glyphs each) come with a set of alternates, and both lining and oldstyle figures. Salden Caps (597 glyphs) comes with a set of alternates, and Salden Titling (886 glyphs) comes with a quite a lot of swashed forms and alternates (including as many six variants for some forms), a few discretionary ligatures, and two sets of figures. There are also some form alternates for the Cyrillic and Greek sets included in all six fonts. These alphabets were enjoyably studied and meticulously developed over the past ten years or so. We consider ourselves very fortunate to be the ones bringing them to the world as our contribution to maintaining the legacy of a legendary talent and a great designer. The majority of the work was based on Salden’s original drawings, access to which was graciously provided by Museum Meermanno in The Hague. The Salden fonts were done in agreement with Stichting 1940-1945, and their sale will in part benefit Museum Meermanno.

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older typeface, Plantin, as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space (always important concerns for newspapers). As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman," Morison's revision became "Times New Roman." The Times of London debuted the new typeface in October 1932, and after one year the design was released for commercial sale. The Linotype version, called simply "Times," was optimized for line-casting technology, though the differences in the basic design are subtle. The typeface was very successful for the Times of London, which used a higher grade of newsprint than most newspapers. The better, whiter paper enhanced the new typeface's high degree of contrast and sharp serifs, and created a sparkling, modern look. In 1972, Walter Tracy designed Times Europa for The Times of London. This was a sturdier version, and it was needed to hold up to the newest demands of newspaper printing: faster presses and cheaper paper. In the United States, the Times font family has enjoyed popularity as a magazine and book type since the 1940s. Times continues to be very popular around the world because of its versatility and readability. And because it is a standard font on most computers and digital printers, it has become universally familiar as the office workhorse. Times™, Times™ Europa, and Times New Roman™ are sure bets for proposals, annual reports, office correspondence, magazines, and newspapers. Linotype offers many versions of this font: Times™ is the universal version of Times, used formerly as the matrices for the Linotype hot metal line-casting machines. The basic four weights of roman, italic, bold and bold italic are standard fonts on most printers. There are also small caps, Old style Figures, phonetic characters, and Central European characters. Times™ Ten is the version specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below); its characters are wider and the hairlines are a little stronger. Times Ten has many weights for Latin typography, as well as several weights for Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek typesetting. Times™ Eighteen is the headline version, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer. Times™ Europa is the Walter Tracy re-design of 1972, its sturdier characters and open counterspaces maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times New Roman™ is the historic font version first drawn by Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison for the Monotype hot metal caster."

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older typeface, Plantin, as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space (always important concerns for newspapers). As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman," Morison's revision became "Times New Roman." The Times of London debuted the new typeface in October 1932, and after one year the design was released for commercial sale. The Linotype version, called simply "Times," was optimized for line-casting technology, though the differences in the basic design are subtle. The typeface was very successful for the Times of London, which used a higher grade of newsprint than most newspapers. The better, whiter paper enhanced the new typeface's high degree of contrast and sharp serifs, and created a sparkling, modern look. In 1972, Walter Tracy designed Times Europa for The Times of London. This was a sturdier version, and it was needed to hold up to the newest demands of newspaper printing: faster presses and cheaper paper. In the United States, the Times font family has enjoyed popularity as a magazine and book type since the 1940s. Times continues to be very popular around the world because of its versatility and readability. And because it is a standard font on most computers and digital printers, it has become universally familiar as the office workhorse. Times™, Times™ Europa, and Times New Roman™ are sure bets for proposals, annual reports, office correspondence, magazines, and newspapers. Linotype offers many versions of this font: Times™ is the universal version of Times, used formerly as the matrices for the Linotype hot metal line-casting machines. The basic four weights of roman, italic, bold and bold italic are standard fonts on most printers. There are also small caps, Old style Figures, phonetic characters, and Central European characters. Times™ Ten is the version specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below); its characters are wider and the hairlines are a little stronger. Times Ten has many weights for Latin typography, as well as several weights for Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek typesetting. Times™ Eighteen is the headline version, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer. Times™ Europa is the Walter Tracy re-design of 1972, its sturdier characters and open counterspaces maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times New Roman™ is the historic font version first drawn by Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison for the Monotype hot metal caster."

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older typeface, Plantin, as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space (always important concerns for newspapers). As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman," Morison's revision became "Times New Roman." The Times of London debuted the new typeface in October 1932, and after one year the design was released for commercial sale. The Linotype version, called simply "Times," was optimized for line-casting technology, though the differences in the basic design are subtle. The typeface was very successful for the Times of London, which used a higher grade of newsprint than most newspapers. The better, whiter paper enhanced the new typeface's high degree of contrast and sharp serifs, and created a sparkling, modern look. In 1972, Walter Tracy designed Times Europa for The Times of London. This was a sturdier version, and it was needed to hold up to the newest demands of newspaper printing: faster presses and cheaper paper. In the United States, the Times font family has enjoyed popularity as a magazine and book type since the 1940s. Times continues to be very popular around the world because of its versatility and readability. And because it is a standard font on most computers and digital printers, it has become universally familiar as the office workhorse. Times™, Times™ Europa, and Times New Roman™ are sure bets for proposals, annual reports, office correspondence, magazines, and newspapers. Linotype offers many versions of this font: Times™ is the universal version of Times, used formerly as the matrices for the Linotype hot metal line-casting machines. The basic four weights of roman, italic, bold and bold italic are standard fonts on most printers. There are also small caps, Old style Figures, phonetic characters, and Central European characters. Times™ Ten is the version specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below); its characters are wider and the hairlines are a little stronger. Times Ten has many weights for Latin typography, as well as several weights for Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek typesetting. Times™ Eighteen is the headline version, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer. Times™ Europa is the Walter Tracy re-design of 1972, its sturdier characters and open counterspaces maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times New Roman™ is the historic font version first drawn by Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison for the Monotype hot metal caster."

After doing this for so many years, one would think my fascination with the old history of writing would have mellowed out by now. The truth is that alongside being a calligraphy history buff, I'm a pop technology freak. Maybe even keener on the tech thing, since I just can't seem to get enough new gadgets. And after working with type technologies for so many years, I'm starting to think that writing and design technologies as we now know them, being about 2.5 post-computer generations, keep becoming more and more detached from what the very old humanity arts/tasks they essentially want to facilitate. In a world where command-z is a frequently used key combination, it’s difficult to justify expecting a Morris-made book or a Zaner-drawn sentence, but accidental artistic “mutations” become welcome, marketable features. When fluid pens were introduced, their liquid saturation influenced type design to a great extent almost overnight an influence professional designers tend to play down. Now round stroke endings are a common sight, and the saturation is so clean and measured, unlike any liquid-paper relationship possible in reality. Some designers even illustrate their work by overlaying perfect circles at stroke ends, in order to illustrate how “geometric” their work was. Because if it’s measured with precise geometry, it’s got to be meaningful design. And once in a while, by a total freak accident, the now-cherished mutations prove to have existed long before the technology that caused them. Rolling Pen was cued by just such a thing: A rounded, circular, roll-flowing calligraphy from the late nineteenth century seemingly one of those experimental takes on what inspired Business Penmanship, another font of mine. Looking at it now it certainly seems to be friendlier, more legible, and maybe even more practical and easier to execute than the standard business penmanship of those days, but I guess friendliness and simplicity were at odds with the stiff manner business liked to present itself back then, so that kind of thing remained buried in the professional penman’s oddities drawer. It would be quite a few years before all this curviness and rounding were thought of as symbolic of graceful movement, which brought such a flow closer to the idea of fine art. Even though in this case the accidental mutation just happens to not be a mutation after all, the whole technology-transforms-application argument still applies here. I'm almost sure “business” will be the last thing on people’s minds when they use this font today. One extreme example of that level of disconnect between origin and current application is shown here, with the so-called business penmanship strutting around in gloss and neon. Rolling Pen is another cup of mine that runneth over with alternates, swashes, ligatures, and other techy perks. To explore its full potential, please use it in a program that supports OpenType features for advanced typography. Enjoy the new Rolling Pen designed by Ale Paul with Neon’s visual poetry by Tomás García.

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older typeface, Plantin, as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space (always important concerns for newspapers). As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman," Morison's revision became "Times New Roman." The Times of London debuted the new typeface in October 1932, and after one year the design was released for commercial sale. The Linotype version, called simply "Times," was optimized for line-casting technology, though the differences in the basic design are subtle. The typeface was very successful for the Times of London, which used a higher grade of newsprint than most newspapers. The better, whiter paper enhanced the new typeface's high degree of contrast and sharp serifs, and created a sparkling, modern look. In 1972, Walter Tracy designed Times Europa for The Times of London. This was a sturdier version, and it was needed to hold up to the newest demands of newspaper printing: faster presses and cheaper paper. In the United States, the Times font family has enjoyed popularity as a magazine and book type since the 1940s. Times continues to be very popular around the world because of its versatility and readability. And because it is a standard font on most computers and digital printers, it has become universally familiar as the office workhorse. Times™, Times™ Europa, and Times New Roman™ are sure bets for proposals, annual reports, office correspondence, magazines, and newspapers. Linotype offers many versions of this font: Times™ is the universal version of Times, used formerly as the matrices for the Linotype hot metal line-casting machines. The basic four weights of roman, italic, bold and bold italic are standard fonts on most printers. There are also small caps, Old style Figures, phonetic characters, and Central European characters. Times™ Ten is the version specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below); its characters are wider and the hairlines are a little stronger. Times Ten has many weights for Latin typography, as well as several weights for Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek typesetting. Times™ Eighteen is the headline version, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer. Times™ Europa is the Walter Tracy re-design of 1972, its sturdier characters and open counterspaces maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times New Roman™ is the historic font version first drawn by Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison for the Monotype hot metal caster."

Karl-Heinz Lange presented his first drafts of Rotola during a Typoart® type design competition in 1985 under the name "Boutique". A year later, Norbert du Vinage, former manager of the type design department, integrated "Boutique" in his production plan. Due the Fall of the Wall, it took about 18 years until Lange finished this font family in cooperation with Elsner+Flake. Karl-Heinz Lange was born on July 29, 1929 in Wiesenkirch in West Prussia. He was enrolled in the Humanistic Gymnasium at Elbing from 1939 to 1945 and changed to the Wernigerode High School after his family had to flee to central Germany. From 1949 to 1951, Karl-Heinz Lange studied at the Werkkunstschule Halle, where one of his teachers was Professor Post. After 1951, he continued his studies at the Hochschule for Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig with an emphasis on book design. He received his diploma in 1955 with distinction based on his design of a hot metal typeface. From 1956 to 1961, Karl-Heinz Lange worked as a lecturer for Type and Commercial Graphics at the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in Magdeburg. From 1961 to 1963, he taught at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, and finally as a freelance commercial designer in Magdeburg. He worked on a variety of assignments, one of which was the design of trick films. From 1969 to 1976 he took the position of Artistic Director of the Henschelverlag, Berlin; from 1976 to 1994 he was Professor of Type and Typography at the Fachschule für Werbung und Gestaltung in Berlin; and, until 2004, he taught at various institutes for advanced professional education. From 2005 to 2007 he taught at the Fachhochschule Magdeburg/Stendal. Karl-Heinz Lange was awarded the second prize at the "International Type Design Contest 1971" for a headline typeface, and, in 1984, at the XI. Biannual of Graphic Design in Brno, he won a Silver Medal for the design of his typeface family Publica. He created the telephone book typeface Minima and re-designed the Typoart Super Grotesk® (Arno Drescher, 1930) as well as the Newspaper typeface Magna® by Herbert Thannhaeuser for the use on digital typesetting systems. To the day of his death on June 29, 2010, Karl-Heinz Lange lived and worked as a type designer. Among others, he closely followed the designs of the typefaces which were developed under his guidance for Typoart®: "Publica®", "Typoart Super Grotesk®" and "Minima®" which he launched as "Publicala", "Minimala" and "Superla" in 2009. In cooperation with Elsner+Flake, he developed the Typeface family "Rotola" between 2006 and 2009 as well as the script families of the "Viabella®" series. To the end, he followed the development of his first typeface, the "Diplom Antiqua", which he also wanted to bring to market together with Elsner+Flake.

The Posterama™ typeface family contains 63 fonts and is a true journey through space and time. Designed by Jim Ford, each Posterama family contains 7 weights from Thin to Ultra Black, in 9 distinct families. What makes Posterama so unique and versatile are the eight alternative display families. By making use of a collection of alternative glyphs, Posterama sets an evocative flavor to visualize an entire century of futuristic reference points from art, architecture, poster design and science fiction into one family. Posterama Text is the base family. It has the most robust character set including upper and lowercase glyphs and pan-European language support (including Greek and Cyrillic). Note: all the other Posterama variants described below do not have lowercase letters or Greek and Cyrillic support. Posterama 1901 recalls the decoratively geometric style of Art Nouveau from the turn of the 20th century. Letterforms such as the slender, snaking ‘S’, the high-waisted ‘E’ and the underlined ‘O’ revive the spirit of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the designers of the Viennese Secession. Posterama 1913 pays homage to the Armory Show, or 1913 Exhibition of Modern Art, which brought the revolutionary work of European artists such as Picasso, Duchamp and Kandinsky to the US for the first time to the shock and astonishment of press and public. Near-abstract, angular characters such as the ‘A’, ‘E’ and ‘N’ hint at cubism’s jagged and clashing planes. Posterama 1919 uses a small, but important, variation to set a tone when the Bauhaus was founded, and the surge in radical European typography that followed. The straight-sided, roundheaded ‘A’ adds a flavor of 1919 – this style of ‘A’ can still be seen in the Braun logo, designed in 1934. Posterama 1927 captures the year of Metropolis, The Jazz Singer and Paul Renner’s pioneering, geometric Futura typeface from 1927, which had a profound influence on design in the US and Europe. Posterama 1933 – With its low-waisted, sinuous designs, the Posterama 1933 typeface family echoes lettering of the Art Deco period, which in turn had its roots in Art Nouveau, the key influence on Posterama 1901. The two fonts make a great team and can be used interchangeably. Posterama 1945 features a few Cyrillic characters to conjure up an era when Russian art and political posters made their mark in cold war propaganda, espionage and also giant aliens and monsters. Posterama 1984 takes its typographic influences from George Orwell’s classic novel, publicity for the dystopian action and sci-fi movies (Blade Runner, Videodrome and Terminator) and games like Space Invaders and Pac-Man that made an impact at that time. Posterama 2001 was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction masterpiece, which made extensive use of the Futura typeface. Posterama 2001 finds its cosmic orbit with its nosecone-style ‘A’ from NASA’s much-missed ‘worm’ logotype. There’s an echo, too, in Bauhaus designs from as early as 1920, whose minimalist, geometric lettering also featured a crossbar-less ‘A’.

A sturdy workhorse with the grace of a gazelle, the FF Pastoral typeface family marries pure craftsmanship with rapturous excesses of form. With his fifteenth release under the FontFont brand, prolific French designer Xavier Dupré has filled a typographic toolbox with plentiful options ranging from a tender, feathery Thin to a robust, healthy Black. At a glance, FF Pastoral appears deceptively simple, particularly in the middle weights. That surface serenity is intentional and allows for easy reading and quick comprehension of short blocks of copy. Upon closer inspection, FF Pastoral is complex and nuanced, carrying a balanced tension in its forms. This plays particularly well in magazine spreads and corporate logos, where uniqueness is a virtue. In creating his latest design, Dupré drew inspiration from a tasteful mix of references, combining diverse elements with a deft hand. While its letter shapes were informed by humanist-geometric hybrid Gill Sans, FF Pastoral’s proportions have been optimized for contemporary typography. Slightly condensed but generously spaced, FF Pastoral features a tall x-height, open counters, and subtle, sprightly italics slanted at just 5°. Proportional oldstyle figures are the default in the family, with tabular and lining numbers and fractions accessible through OpenType features. Elegant details evocative of calligraphy judiciously pepper the FF Pastoral glyph set. The ‘e’ bears an oblique crossbar, while the right leg of the ‘K’ and the ‘R’ are insouciantly curved in both the upright and italic variants. Further flourishes appear throughout the italics, notably in the ‘T’ and the ‘Z’, the gloriously looped tail of the ‘G’, and an extraordinary ampersand. Sharp-eyed fans of Dupré’s work may feel like they’re in familiar territory, and they would be right. An early version of FF Pastoral sprang to life in 2017 as Malis, a family in four weights on the heavier side of the spectrum. Over time, Dupré refined his original design, expanding it with four lighter styles and including true italics for all. The lightest weights are ethereal, with exquisitely delicate strokes drawing the eye in and across a line of type. The most substantial styles are tremendous in their power, allowing text to make a deep impression in print or on screen. Fully fleshed out, FF Pastoral works sublimely in a vast array of text and display settings. Dupré sees his latest FontFont offering as a ‘cultural’ typeface, perfect for the pages of an oversized coffee-table book or business communications where warmth and informality will win the day. Born in Aubenas, France (1977), Xavier Dupré is a gifted user of type as well as an award-winning type designer and lettering artist. After training in graphic design in Paris, Dupré studied calligraphy and typography at the Scriptorium de Toulouse. Since releasing FF Parango in 2001, Dupré has published such FontFont classics as the FF Absara and FF Sanuk superfamilies, FF Megano, FF Tartine, and FF Yoga. A designer of Khmer fonts as well as Latin typefaces, Dupré splits his time between Europe and Asia.

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older typeface, Plantin, as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space (always important concerns for newspapers). As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman," Morison's revision became "Times New Roman." The Times of London debuted the new typeface in October 1932, and after one year the design was released for commercial sale. The Linotype version, called simply "Times," was optimized for line-casting technology, though the differences in the basic design are subtle. The typeface was very successful for the Times of London, which used a higher grade of newsprint than most newspapers. The better, whiter paper enhanced the new typeface's high degree of contrast and sharp serifs, and created a sparkling, modern look. In 1972, Walter Tracy designed Times Europa for The Times of London. This was a sturdier version, and it was needed to hold up to the newest demands of newspaper printing: faster presses and cheaper paper. In the United States, the Times font family has enjoyed popularity as a magazine and book type since the 1940s. Times continues to be very popular around the world because of its versatility and readability. And because it is a standard font on most computers and digital printers, it has become universally familiar as the office workhorse. Times™, Times™ Europa, and Times New Roman™ are sure bets for proposals, annual reports, office correspondence, magazines, and newspapers. Linotype offers many versions of this font: Times™ is the universal version of Times, used formerly as the matrices for the Linotype hot metal line-casting machines. The basic four weights of roman, italic, bold and bold italic are standard fonts on most printers. There are also small caps, Old style Figures, phonetic characters, and Central European characters. Times™ Ten is the version specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below); its characters are wider and the hairlines are a little stronger. Times Ten has many weights for Latin typography, as well as several weights for Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek typesetting. Times™ Eighteen is the headline version, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer. Times™ Europa is the Walter Tracy re-design of 1972, its sturdier characters and open counterspaces maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times New Roman™ is the historic font version first drawn by Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison for the Monotype hot metal caster."

New Lincoln Gothic is an elegant sanserif, generous in width and x-height. There are twelve weights ranging from Hairline to UltraBold and an italic for each weight. At the stroke ends are gentle flares, and some of the round characters possess an interesting and distinctive asymmetry. The character set supports Central Europe, and there are three figure sets, extended fractions, superior and inferior numbers, and a few alternates, all accessible via OpenType features. Back in 1965, Thomas Lincoln had an idea for a new sanserif typeface, a homage of sorts, to ancient Roman artisans. The Trajan Column in Rome, erected in 113 AD, has an inscription that is considered to be the basis for western European lettering. Lincoln admired these beautiful letterforms and so, being inspired, he set out to design a new sanserif typeface based on the proportions and subtleties of the letters found in the Trajan Inscription. Lincoln accomplished what he set out to do by creating Lincoln Gothic. The typeface consisted only of capital letters. Lincoln intentionally omitted a lowercase to keep true his reference to the Trajan Inscription, which contains only magiscule specimens. The design won him the first Visual Graphics Corporation (VGC) National Typeface Competition in 1965. The legendary Herb Lubalin even used it to design a promotional poster! All this was back in the day when typositor film strips and photo type were all the rage in setting headlines. Fast forward now to the next millennium. Thomas Lincoln has had a long, illustrious career as a graphic designer. Still, he has one project that feels incomplete; Lincoln Gothic does not have a lowercase. It is the need to finish the design that drives Lincoln to resurrect his prize winning design and create its digital incarnation. Thus, New Lincoln Gothic was born. Lacking the original drawings, Lincoln had to locate some old typositor strips in order to get started. He had them scanned and imported the data into Freehand where he refined the shapes and sketched out a lowercase. He then imported that data into Fontographer, where he worked the glyphs again and refined the spacing, and started generating additional weights and italics. His enthusiasm went unchecked and he created 14 weights! It was about that time that Lincoln contacted Bitstream about publishing the family. Lincoln worked with Bitstream to narrow down the family (only to twelve weights), interpolate the various weights using three masters, and extend the character set to support CE and some alternate figure sets. Bitstream handled the hinting and all production details and built the final CFF OpenType fonts using FontLab Studio 5.

The great value of something crafted thoroughly by hand has been observed for years by Guille Vizzari throughout a wide spectrum of clients and projects developed at «Yani & Guille» —the studio he runs cheek by jowl with Yani Arabena—, and they both noticed that recently it has been taking on a new meaning. From barbers at their shops, to a barista that passionately prepares coffee every morning, or a bartender that deeply enjoys diving towards unknown ingredients, and even Guille’s admiration for sign painters worldwide that keep spreading their passion for the perfectly constructed letter. This wide trades universe, where craftsmanship represents a huge difference, is where «Proprietor» lives, and it’s the reason why it exists. «Proprietor» was born in a Moleskine notebook —just pencil, paper and ink— as a tribute to those crafts, and to regain the art behind Type Design that involves the fusion between tools, materials and the action of the hand. Fed by these principles, every single glyph within the whole «Proprietor» Family has been fully designed and illustrated by hand by its author (including all the ornaments, frames and crafts icons that can be seen along this specimen), showcasing Vizzari’s solid formation in the drawing field. Proprietor can be described as a compact type family system illustrated by hand, intended and designed to be able to create solid —but beautifully ornamented— paragraphs, and elaborate compositions. For this purpose, Proprietor Roman and Open displays a notorious x-height which goes perfectly with plenty of ornaments that unfold along the ascenders and descenders, but always containing its swashes inside the text line. The icing on the cake, Proprietor Script, a copperplate-based font unbelievably flooded with ornamented capitals, flourishes and endings to break through the coarse feeling of the Proprietor non-script sets, with a huge load of delicate and warm letterforms. Proprietor Wide and Wide Open hand a complete font set to complement the family for composing extended words in uppercase, matching in style and adding a striking personality. And as being part of Sudtipos’ catalogue «Proprietor» comes packed with full Open Type support —thanks to Ale Paul, fearless to tame this hand–drawn beast, supported by his vast knowledge in programming and optimization—. 7 imperfectly elegant and completely handmade fonts join the «Proprietor» system, bringing life to designs that are meant to represent the spirit of the genuine and skilled craftsmen, showing respect for their trade, and at the same time being part of it.

Divina Proportione is based from the original studies from Luca Pacioli. Luca Pacioli was born in 1446 or 1447 in Sansepolcro (Tuscany) where he received an abbaco education. Luca Pacioli was born in 1446 or 1447 in Sansepolcro (Tuscany) where he received an abbaco education. [This was education in the vernacular (i.e. the local tongue) rather than Latin and focused on the knowledge required of merchants.] He moved to Venice around 1464 where he continued his own education while working as a tutor to the three sons of a merchant. It was during this period that he wrote his first book -- a treatise on arithmetic for the three boys he was tutoring. Between 1472 and 1475, he became a Franciscan friar. In 1475, he started teaching in Perugia and wrote a comprehensive abbaco textbook in the vernacular for his students during 1477 and 1478. It is thought that he then started teaching university mathematics (rather than abbaco) and he did so in a number of Italian universities, including Perugia, holding the first chair in mathematics in two of them. He also continued to work as a private abbaco tutor of mathematics and was, in fact, instructed to stop teaching at this level in Sansepolcro in 1491. In 1494, his first book to be printed, Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita, was published in Venice. In 1497, he accepted an invitation from Lodovico Sforza ("Il Moro") to work in Milan. There he met, collaborated with, lived with, and taught mathematics to Leonardo da Vinci. In 1499, Pacioli and Leonardo were forced to flee Milan when Louis XII of France seized the city and drove their patron out. Their paths appear to have finally separated around 1506. Pacioli died aged 70 in 1517, most likely in Sansepolcro where it is thought he had spent much of his final years. De divina proportione (written in Milan in 1496–98, published in Venice in 1509). Two versions of the original manuscript are extant, one in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, the other in the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire in Geneva. The subject was mathematical and artistic proportion, especially the mathematics of the golden ratio and its application in architecture. Leonardo da Vinci drew the illustrations of the regular solids in De divina proportione while he lived with and took mathematics lessons from Pacioli. Leonardo's drawings are probably the first illustrations of skeletonic solids, an easy distinction between front and back. The work also discusses the use of perspective by painters such as Piero della Francesca, Melozzo da Forlì, and Marco Palmezzano. As a side note, the "M" logo used by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is taken from De divina proportione. “ The Ancients, having taken into consideration the rigorous construction of the human body, elaborated all their works, as especially their holy temples, according to these proportions; for they found here the two principal figures without which no project is possible: the perfection of the circle, the principle of all regular bodies, and the equilateral square. ” —De divina proportione

Geometric sans fonts in the Bauhaus tradition were the inspiration for the design of FF Mark®, for example the Universal font by Herbert Bayer, Erbar® Grotesk, Kabel®, Neuzeit Grotesk and of course Paul Renner's Futura®. From an aesthetic point of view, FF Mark is a descendant of these classics of German typeface design that intends to meet the needs of modern communication. Hannes von Döhren and Christoph Koeberlin had the support of the entire FontFont Type Department in the design of FF Mark, including Erik Spiekermann, who took over the artistic direction of the project. The teamwork resulted in carefully planned, balanced forms, which are responsible for the harmonious overall impression of the font. The capitals are not based on Roman square capitals; rather, they have a uniformly wide letter form in a comfortable ratio to the x-height. Thanks to the x-height, which is significantly larger compared to the historical models, FF Mark is also very legible in small sizes. This makes it a very flexible font in terms of its range of applications. A contrast in the stroke width is barely noticeable. At the same time, light modulation supports readability, especially in the bold styles in small sizes. The uniform line ends are obvious for a contemporary sans family nowadays (unlike some of the historical precedents, which evolved over years). Other details from the predecessors are consciously maintained and provide for added individuality in FF Mark. For example, the limbs in the uppercase "K" and "R" are offset slightly from the stem. Alternative characters with crossbars are available for the numbers "0", "1", "7" and the uppercase "Z" and the lowercase "a" also has an alternative with an open form. German typesetters have the option of uppercase umlauts with points that are set lower, as well as a long "s" from the Fraktur. And last but not least, FF Mark has the very characteristic ft-ligature of Futura. FF Mark is available in ten finely tuned weights ranging from Hairline to Black. A Book style for text setting further emphasizes the well-rounded features of this contemporary typeface. When the font was published, it also included ten carefully designed cursives for all weights. Users also have the option of various numeral sets with old-style and uppercase numbers as well as small capitals. FF Mark also has some geometric shapes and arrows based on the features of Futura. FF Mark is a modern, full-featured, geometric sans serif that you can use without hesitation for large projects in headlines as well as in texts. FF Mark's design is a nod to the historical models and transports their charm, elegance and in some cases unusual design applications into a modern font family equipped with the most current typographical features. NEW: the new FF Mark W1G versions features a pan-European character set for international communications. The W1G character set supports almost all the popular languages/writing systems in western, eastern, and central Europe based on the Latin alphabet and also several based on Cyrillic and Greek alphabets.

I love geometric sans serifs, their crispness and rationality. Le Havre taps into this style, but for a while, I've wanted to create a font recalling the printed Futura of the 1940s, which seems to have an elusive quality all its own. After seeing an old manual on a World War II ship, I developed a plan for "Le Havre Metal" but chose to shelve the project due to Le Havre's small x-height. That's where Steagal comes in. When Robbie de Villiers and I began the Chatype project in early 2012 (a project which led one publication to label me the Edward Johnston of Chattanooga!), we started closely studying the vernacular lettering of Chattanooga. During that time, I also visited Switzerland, where I saw how designers were using a new, handmade aesthetic with a geometric base. I was motivated to make a new face combining some of these same influences. The primary inspiration for the new design came from the hand-lettering of sign painters in the United States, circa 1930s through 1950s. My Chatype research turned up a poster from the Tennessee Valley Authority in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which exhibited a number of quirks from the unique hand and style of one of these sign artists. Completing the first draft of Steagal, however, I found that the face appeared somewhat European in character. I turned then to the work of Morris Fuller Benton for a distinctly American take and discovered a number of features that would help define Steagal as a "1930s American" vernacular typeface--features I later learned also inspired Morris Fuller Benton's Eagle. The overall development of Steagal was surprisingly difficult, knowing when to deliberately distort optical artifacts and when to keep them in place. Part of type design is correcting optical illusions, and I found myself absentmindedly adjusting the optical effects. In the end, though, I was able to draw inspiration from period signs, inscriptions, period posters, and architecture while retaining just enough of the naive sensibility. Steagal has softened edges, which simulate brush strokes and retain the feeling of the human hand. The standard version has unique quirks that are not too intrusive. Overshoots have almost been eliminated, and joins have minimal corrections. The rounded forms are mathematically perfect, geometric figures without optical corrections. As a variation to the standard, the “Rough” version stands as the "bad signpainter" version with plenty of character. Steagal Regular comes in five weights and is packed with OpenType features. Steagal includes three Art Deco Alternate sets, optically compensated rounded forms, a monospaced variant, and numerous other features. In all, there are over 200 alternate characters. To see these features in action, please see the informative .pdf brochure. OpenType capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe Creative suite can take full advantage of the automatically replacing ligatures and alternates. Steagal also includes support for all Western European languages. Steagal is a great way to subtly draw attention to your work. Its unique quirks grab the eye with a authority that few typefaces possess. Embrace its vernacular, hand-brushed look, and see what this geometric sans serif can do for you.

Father's Day, or June 17 of this year, is in the middle of Argentinian winter. And like people do on wintery Sunday mornings, I was bundled up in bed with too many covers, pillows and comforters. Feeling good and not thinking about anything in particular, Father's Day was nowhere in the vicinity of my mind. My eleven year old son, Matías, came into the room with a handmade present for me. Up to this point, my Father's Day gift history was nothing unusual. Books, socks, hand-painted wooden spoons, the kind of thing any father would expect from his pre-teen son. So you can understand when I say I was bracing myself to fake excitement at my son's present. But this Father's Day was special. I didn't have to fake excitement. I was in fact excited beyond my own belief. Matí's handmade present was a complete alphabet drawn on an A4 paper. Grungy, childish, and sweeter than a ton of honey. He'd spent days making it, three-dimensioning the letters, wiggle-shadowing them. Incredible. A common annoyance for graphic designers is explaining to people, even those close to them, what they do for a living. You have to somehow make it understandable that you are a visual communicator, not an artist. Part of the problem is the fact that "graphic designer" and "visual communicator" are just not in the dictionary of standard professions out there. If you're a plumber, you can wrap all the duties of your job with 3.5 words: I'm a plumber. If you're a graphic designer, no wrapper, 3.5 or 300 words, will ever cover it. I've spent many hours throughout the years explaining to my own family and friends what I do for a living, but most of them still come back and ask what it is exactly that I do for dough. When you're a type designer, that problem magnifies itself considerably. When someone asks you what you do for a living, you start looking for the nearest exit, but none of the ones you can find is any good. All the one-line descriptions are vague, and every single one of them queues a long, one-sided conversation that usually ends with someone getting too drunk listening, or too tired of talking. Now imagine being a type designer, with a curious eleven year old son. The kid is curious as to why daddy keeps writing huge letters on the computer screen. Let's go play some ball, dad. As soon as I finish working, son. He looks over my shoulder and sees a big twirly H on the screen. To him it looks like a game, like I'm not working. And I have to explain it to him again. This Father's Day, my son gave me the one present that tells me he finally understands what I do for a living. Perhaps he is even comfortable with it, or curious enough about that he wants to try it out himself. Either way, it was the happiest Father's Day I've ever had, and I'm prouder of my son than of everything else I've done in my life. This is Matí's font. I hope you find it useful.

My first font for 2009 was Aerle. It is a new dark sans serif font in my continuing objective of designing book fonts that I can really use. It made a little ripple in the industry, but more than that I found that I loved it with Aramus and Artimas — my latest book font family with the same proportions. In many ways, Aerle is a very different direction for me built on what I have learned on Aramus and other recent developments in my style. The concept came to me while using Bitstream's Mister Earl on a site online—though there is no direct reference. I wanted a more playful heavy sans with a much smaller x-height than I have been using lately, plus taller ascenders. As I was using Aerle, I constantly needed a light and bold version. The new direction I am taking is a result of a decision that my fonts, though I loved the character shapes, produced an even type color that is too dark or a little dense. Aerle was an attempt to get away from that look even though the letterspacing is quite tight. For Aerle Thin I pushed a little further in that direction and increased the letterspacing. The hand-drawn shapes vary a lot, many pushing the boundaries of the normal character. This gives a little looseness and helps the lightness in feel I am looking for. It will be interesting to see where this all goes. Most new type around the world is far too perfect for my taste. While the shapes are exquisite, the feel is not human but digital mechanical. I find myself wanting to draw fonts that feel human — as if a person crafted them. In most ways this is a normal font for me in that it has caps, lowercase, small caps with the appropriate figures for each case. These small caps were very small (x-height as is proper). So Aerle's small caps are a little oversize because they plugged up too bad at x-height size. The bold is halfway between. These size variations seem important and work well in the text. This font has all the OpenType features in the set for 2009. There are several ligatures for your fun and enjoyment: bb gg sh sp st ch ck ff fi fl ffi ffl ffy fj ft tt ty Wh Th and more. Like all of my fonts, there are: caps, lowercase, & small caps; proportional lining figures, proportional oldstyle figures, & small cap figures; plus numerators, denominators, superiors, inferiors, and a complete set of ordinals 1st through infinity. Enjoy!

Burgues Script is an ode to the late 19th century American calligrapher Louis Madarasz, whose legendary pen has inspired schools of penmanship for over 100 years. His talent has caused some people to call him “the most skillful penman the world has ever known.” I use the word ‘ode’ in a colloquially ambitious manner. If I was an actual poet, my words would be about things I desire but cannot attain, objects of utter beauty that make me wallow in humility, or people of enormous talent who look down at me from the clouds of genius. But I don’t write poems. My work consists of letters drawn to fit together, that become an element of someone’s visual poetry. I am the poet’s assistant, so to speak. Once in a while, the assistant persists on what the subject of the poem will be. And occasionally, the poet gives in to the persistence. I hope you, visual poet, find my persistence justified in this case. The two main sources for Burgues were the calligraphy examples shown in Zaner Bloser’s The Secret of the Skill of Madarasz: His Philosophy and Penmanship Masterpieces, and C. W. Jones’s Lessons in Advanced Engraver’s Script Penmanship by L. Madarasz. These two references were the cornerstone for the concept I was trying to work with. I did have to change many of the letters in order to be able to produce digital calligraphy that can flow flexibly and offered the user a variety of options, while maintaining its attractive appearance. To this end, many ligatures and swashes were made, as well as full flourished sets of letters for use at the beginnings or endings of words and sentences. All of this has been tied together with OpenType and tested thoroughly within today’s standard design and desktop publishing software. After working with digital scripts for so long, at one point I thought that Burgues Script would become a bit of a chore to complete. I also thought that, like with most other scripts, the process would regularize itself after a while and be reduced to a mechanical habit. Surprisingly, and fortunately for me, this did not happen. The past holds as many surprises as the future. Madarasz’s method of penmanship was fascinating and challenging to translate into the strict, mathematically oriented language of the computer. It seems that the extremely high contrast of the forms, coupled with the required flow and connectivity of such lettering, will always be hard work for any visual artist to produce, even with the aide of a powerful machine. I can only imagine what steady nerves and discipline Madarasz must have had to be able to produce fully flourished and sublimely connected words and sentences on a whim. When I think of Madarasz producing a flourished calligraphic logotype in a few seconds, and try to reconcile that with the timelines of my or my colleagues’ work in identity and packaging design, the mind reels. Such blinding talent from over a hundred years ago. Burgues is the Spanish word for Bourgeois. In the end, I hope Burgues Script will serve you well when a flourished word or sentence is required for a design project. One of the wonders of the computer age is the ability to visually conjure up the past, serving both the present and the future. With Burgues, you have a piece of “the most skillful penman the world has ever known,” at your service. Burgues received important awards such as a Certificate of Excellence TDC2 2008 and a Certificate of Excellence at the Bienal Tipos Latinos 2008.

Times with a Human Face: In my article of the same name which appeared in the magazine Font, volume 2000 I described the long and trying story of an order for a typeface for the Czech periodical Lidové noviny (People’s Newspaper). My task was to design a modification of the existing Times. The work, however, finally resulted in the complete re-drawing of the typeface. The assignment, which was on the whole wisely formulated, was to design a typeface which would enable “a smooth flow of information in the reader’s eye”, therefore a typeface without any artistic ambitions, from which everything which obstructs legibility would be eliminated. A year later Lidové noviny had a different manager who in the spring of 2001 decided to resume the cooperation. The typeface itself definitely profited from this; I simplified everything which could be simplified, but it still was not “it”, because the other, and obviously more important, requirement of the investor held: “the typeface must look like Times”. And that is why the above-mentioned daily will continue to be printed by a system version of Times, negligently adjusted to local conditions, which is unfortunately a far cry from the original Times New Roman of Stanley Morison. When I was designing Lido, the cooperation with the head of production of Lidové noviny was of great use to me. Many tests were carried out directly on the newspaper rotary press during which numerous weak points of the earliest versions were revealed. The printing tests have proved that the basic design of this typeface is even more legible and economical than that of Times. The final appearance of Lido STF was, however, tuned up without regard to the original assignment – the merrier-looking italics and the more daring modelling of bold lower case letters have been retained. The typeface is suitable for all periodicals wishing to abandon inconspicuously the hideous system typefaces with their even more hideous accents and to change over to the contemporary level of graphic design. It is also most convenient for everyday work in text editors and office applications. It has a fairly large x-height of lower case letters, shortened serifs and simplified endings of rounded strokes. This is typical of the typefaces designed for use in small sizes. Our typeface, however, can sustain enlargement even to the size appropriate for a poster, an information table or a billboard, as it is not trite and at the same time is moderate in expression. Its three supplementary condensed designs correspond to approximately 80% compression and have been, of course, drawn quite separately. The intention to create condensed italics was abandoned; in the case of serif typefaces they always seem to be slightly strained. I named the typeface dutifully "Lido" (after the name of the newspaper) and included it in the retail catalog of my type foundry. In order to prevent being suspected of additionally turning a rejected work into cash, Lido STF in six designs is available free of charge. I should not like it if the issuing of this typeface were understood as an “act out of spite” aimed against the venerable Times. It is rather meant as a reminder that there really are now alternatives to all fonts in all price categories.