Designed in 2020 for Zetafonts by Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli with help from Solenn Bordeau and Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini, the original Eastman typeface family was conceived as a geometric sans workhorse family developed for maximum versatility both in display and text use. The original wide weight range has been complemented with three more additional widths, to give you maximum control over the appearance of text in your page. While Eastman Compressed and Eastman Condensed behave as space-saving condensed families, Eastman Grotesque adapts the family design style to humanist proportions. All share a solid monolinear design and a tall x-height that makes body text set in Eastman extremely readable on paper and on the screen. Influenced by Bauhaus ideals and contemporary minimalism, but with a nod to the pragmatic nature 19th century grotesques, Eastman has been developed as a highly reliable tool for design problem solving, and given all the features a graphic designer needs - from a wide language coverage (thanks to over one thousand and two hundred latin, cyrillic and greek characters) to a complete set of open type features (including small capitals, positional numbers, case sensitive forms). The most impressive feature of all Eastman fonts remains the huge choice of alternate characters and stylistic sets that allows you to fine-tune your editorial and branding design by choosing unique, logo-ready variant letter shapes. Don’t want to lose too much time with the glyphs palette? Use the Eastman Alternate weights, thought for display use and presenting a selection of some of the more eye catching & unusual letter shapes available for the family.

Space Armada - A Science-Fiction Font for Out of this World Designs! Space Armada is inspired by a 1980s interpretation of the future, referencing blockbuster sci-fi action movies of the period, along with the emerging video-game consoles and home computer technologies. It's nine unique fonts are designed to work together in a variety of ways, so you can layer it's different styles on top of each other to retro-futuristic effect!* Here's an example of how it works: Start by placing the Regular font on top of the Bold for a simple base outline. Add contrasting gradients to both fonts for an instant metallic or chrome effect. Take it a step further with one of the readymade Outlines for an embossed look. Overlay the Wireframe font for a glimpse inside the machine! This looks particularly good when you apply a glow effect and reduce it's opacity so the other layers show through. That's just one way to use it. Check out my visuals for more usage ideas! You can also follow my short tutorial! Space Armada is an all-caps font with unique uppercase and lowercase characters, along with a range of alternatives for experimentation with different looks. It also includes punctuation, numerals and language support, plus a selection of underlines and symbols. It's a highly customisable font, perfect for retro designs such as movie titles, posters, games, book covers and more! Every care has been taken to ensure that all fonts align perfectly when layering. Due to the variations in how different software handles text tracking, some minor tweaking may be required for pixel perfect alignment.

Griggs is a variable type family with six-axis. Available as both static and variable font built to maximize versatility. This is a single variable font that can morph between a wide range of stylistic variations with each of its axes: Weight, Serif, Grade, Stylistic Set 1, Stylistic Set 2 and Slant. Also offer a variable subtle grade axis for slight weight adjustments, to user different preferences. For slant axis will automatically apply stylistic set 2 or set custom values on each axes for more options. A multi-purpose sans serif and serif typeface with high contrast, inktraps, sharp form, clean cuts and playful details, to convey the impression of opulence, elegance with a distinctive look. It comes in 3 distinct individual cuts within the Sans, Flare, and Serif subfamilies. Allows for many variations across its subfamilies, weights and styles. Each typeface contains with a warm personality and contemporary look. With different stylistic sets, you can choose the best-desired result for your design. You can change the feel of your design from more delicate, to bold to its sharpest most style. Griggs family with various styles will be an handy tool for a wide variety of designs. Excellent for text large and small. It’s a brilliant choice for branding, identity design, editorial design, logo design, display and packaging design etc. Typeface Features: * 325 Glyphs * 3 Subfamilies: Sans, Flare, Serif ( Each 8 Styles + Slant ) * 6 Weight: Thin, Light, Regular, Semi Bold, Bold, Black * Complete Collection: 144 Styles + Variable Font * Opentype Features: Stylistic Set 1, Stylistic Set 2 * Latin Language support including * Kerning * Autohinted Thank You.

Monotalic was created as a fun experiment, exploring better solutions for the monospaced type design. Most monospaced (fixed-width) typefaces have the same main design problem regarding the lowercase – filling the empty space around l, f, i, j and r. That usually brings the addition of slab serifs to those narrow characters, causing many monospaced fonts to look and feel alike. Monotalic solves that problem by adopting the handwritten (or cursive) form for those problematic characters, which allows them to be defined in more strokes, thus getting a better distribution of form in that fixed-width space. On the other hand, cursive writing usually lacks the legibility of a Roman (Regular upright) style, so Monotalic was created to be a hybrid, taking the best of both worlds. Monospaced fonts today are mostly used for coding. Modern code editors use colored text in order to differentiate between different kinds of code. So, in that environment there’s actually no need for traditional text styling by adding Italics, Bold or other styles, because the code lines are overstated as it is. That is why Monotalic focuses on one style only, in three widths and four weights. The weights allow users to choose the perfect contrast of text on screen, depending on their monitor resolution and background color in the editor. Movie scripts are almost exclusively set in 12pt Courier. It became the industry standard because when set in the specific “screenplay format" it helps with the breakdown of the schedule and budgeting process of the film production. Although it looks completely different, text set in Monotalic (Normal width) will take the same amount of space as Courier.

Discover the complete Eastman type family: Eastman Grotesque and Eastman Condensed! Designed in 2020 for Zetafonts by Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli with help from Solenn Bordeau and Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini, the original Eastman typeface family was conceived as a geometric sans workhorse family developed for maximum versatility both in display and text use. The original wide weight range has been complemented with three more additional widths, to give you maximum control over the appearance of text in your page. While Eastman Compressed and Eastman Condensed behave as space-saving condensed families, Eastman Grotesque adapts the family design style to humanist proportions. All share a solid monolinear design and a tall x-height that makes body text set in Eastman extremely readable on paper and on the screen. Influenced by Bauhaus ideals and contemporary minimalism, but with a nod to the pragmatic nature 19th century grotesques, Eastman has been developed as a highly reliable tool for design problem solving, and given all the features a graphic designer needs - from a wide language coverage (thanks to over one thousand and two hundred latin, cyrillic and greek characters) to a complete set of open type features (including small capitals, positional numbers, case sensitive forms). The most impressive feature of all Eastman fonts remains the huge choice of alternate characters and stylistic sets that allows you to fine-tune your editorial and branding design by choosing unique, logo-ready variant letter shapes. Don’t want to lose too much time with the glyphs palette? Use the Eastman Alternate weights, thought for display use and presenting a selection of some of the more eye catching & unusual letter shapes available for the family.

FangsALot is a bizarre typeface family that was designed to alternate two character sets. These sets are alternated automatically in applications that support the OpenType feature Contextual Alternatives (calt). The template used to design characters is a distorted triangle that resembles a curved tooth or a fang. This shape can be flipped horizontally, vertically, and both horizontally and vertically to give four orientations. Two of these orientations are used in the regular style and two in what is called the italic style. I thought the fang motif did not come through clearly in the regular and italic styles. Rather the impression they give is more like graffiti lettering. To emphasize the fang motif I added two more members to the family by filling fang outlines with unadorned sans-serif characters. Then to allow more color in lettering, I added two more styles with letters on black. I then had six styles based on triangles skewed left and right. Why not fill the family out with three more styles based on an isosceles triangle? The end result is a family of nine. All members of the family are monospaced and are hard to read. The three graffiti-like styles have some alternative letters that can be accessed with the OpenType feature Stylistic Sets. Also, for each style it is possible to use only one set of characters by adding a space after each letter and then adjusting the character spacing. The graffiti-like styles can be useful in situations where the hard-to-read property is not important but where a menacing and vicious touch is needed, such as topics of sharks, teeth, biting, and vampires.

After months of testing and development, we have managed to put together the Brandogram Typeface, an ultimate tool for monogram design. With the help of this typeface you can easily create a monogram in less than a minute. Thanks to the way we have created and optimised Brandogram, the uppercase letters effortlessly fit together with the small caps that are activated by the lowercase letters. Using the Brandogram typeface you can create unlimited monogram combos with 2, 3 or even 4 letters in some cases. And these are all possible thanks to features like: Multiple letter widths, from condensed to wide; Both sans serif and slab serif letter designs; Up to 24 different designs per letter; All letter variations are available as alternates so you can easily choose your favorite; Accents are available for each letter alternate; Uppercase and lowercase activated letters are constructed to perfectly center and middle align; There are 5 solid ready-made weights; There are another 2 stencil weights that can bring a new touch to your designs. The 7 weights of Brandogram Monogram Typeface: Thin Light Regular Medium Bold Stencil One Stencil Two Each of these weights are thought to express different levels of heaviness. The thicker the weight of the font gets, the less white space will be left between the letters when they are combined, therefore your design gets heavier. The role of the stencil weights is to create depth in the monogram designs. With those you can easily delete the extra overlapping shapes of the letters and create passages between the letters and give an interlocking impression. This typeface combined with your creativity can have no limits!

Thrace (/θreɪs/; Greek: Θράκη, Thráki; Bulgarian: Тракия, Trakiya; Turkish: Trakya) is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Sea to the east. It comprises southeastern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace), and the European part of Turkey (East Thrace). Trakya Rounded is a modern sans serif with a geometric touch. It has a modern streak which is the result of a harmonization of width and height especially in the lowercase letters to support legibility. Trakya Rounded is softer and rounder than it's sibling Trakya Sans. They're both ideally suited for advertising and packaging, editorial and publishing, logos, branding and creative industries, posters and billboards, small text, way-finding and signage as well as web and screen design. Trakya Rounded provides advanced typographical support for Latin-based languages. An extended character set, supporting Central, Western and Eastern European languages, rounds up the family. The designation “Trakya Rounded 500 Regular” forms the central point. The first figure of the number describes the stroke thickness: 100 Thin to 900 Bold. "Trakya Rounded" comes in 5 weights and italics and has the company of "Trakya Rounded Alt" that also comes in 5 weights and italics for a total of 20 styles. The family contains a set of 630+ characters. Case-Sensitive Forms, Classes and Features, Small Caps from Letter Cases, Fractions, Superior, Inferior, Denominator, Numerator, Old Style Figures are easily accessible in all graphic programs. Trakya Rounded is the perfect font for web use. Enjoy using it.

Since the beginning, Palsam was intended to be a super multilingual family, with a real cursive Arabic companion, and a display cut. The typeface was designed to be used for setting text and titles of contemporary Arabic content, specially magazines, and websites. The Arabic and Latin scripts were designed at the same time, to make a true authentic bilingual typeface. Both scripts have affected each other in several ways through the entire design process, which happened within ten years. Palsam has an inviting, approachable, fashionable and humanist look. Thanks to its low contrast, open apertures, detailed calligraphic strokes, and smooth counters, which also make it easy to read at smaller sizes. The main highlight for Palsam was the Cursive companion. For the first time, the calligraphic Ijaza style was used as a model for designing the Arabic cursive. Since the Ijaza is a hyper combination of Naskh and Thuluth, which makes it perfect to be a companion for the upright Naskh. Moreover this script was used in margins, and to highlight specific content inside a paragraph in older manuscripts. With true cursive companions in five weights, and many opentype features, Palsam grants all the tools needed to set complex information and editorial designs applications. More than 1000 characters are included per weight, including small caps, fractions, old style and lining numbers, ligatures, contextual ligatures, and discretionary ligatures. It supports over 40 languages that use the Latin extended, as well as Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu Languages. PalsamArabic only covers the Arabic script. The latin script was designed in collaboration with the Slovenian type designer Alja Herlah.

Worldly Even though it’s a new arrival, FS Brabo has seen the world. Designed by a Brazilian working in London and studying in Belgium under a Dutchman, it’s certainly well-travelled. And it was inspired by the extraordinary archive of early book typefaces at the world-renowned Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, while Fernando Mello was attending Frank Blokland’s Expert class Type Design course at the Plantin Institute of Typography. It was there that Fernando became engrossed in the collection of early metal type, matrices, punches and type samples by figures such as Garamond and Granjon. So much so that he took on the mighty task of developing ‘a beautiful, functional, serifed text font’ of his own. Heroic FS Brabo’s journey from sketch to font family took an epic three years, starting in Antwerp, continuing at Fontsmith in London, and reaching its conclusion back in Fernando’s home city of São Paulo. No wonder Fernando was reminded of another titanic face-off: that of Antwerp’s Roman hero of legend, Silvius Brabo, and the evil ogre, Antigoon. Brabo came to the town’s rescue after the tyrannical giant had been charging ships’ captains extortionate taxes and chopping off the hands of those who refused to pay up. Having finally downed Antigoon after a long and terrible duel, Brabo cut off the giant’s own hand and threw it into the river Scheldt, unwittingly giving the town its name: the Dutch for ‘hand-throw’ is hand werpen. What better way for Fernando to name his literary typeface than after the hero of Antwerp’s oldest tale? The garalde factor FS Brabo is not a revival, but a very much a contemporary, personal interpretation of a garalde – a class of typeface originating in the 16th century that includes Bembo, Garamond and Plantin, with characteristically rounded serifs and moderate contrast between strokes. Brabo’s ‘ct’ and ‘st’ ligatures, upper-case italic swashes and contextual ending ligatures – ‘as’, ‘is’, ‘us’ – all preserve the beauty and character of traditional typefaces, but its serifs are chunkier than a garalde. Their sharp cuts and squared edges give them a crispness at text sizes, helping to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. A workhorse with pedigree It may give the appearance of a simple, four-weight typeface, but FS Brabo has hidden depths beneath its simplicity and beauty. OpenType features such as cap italic swashes, contextual ending swashes – programmed only to appear at the end of words – and stylistic alternatives make this a complete and well-equipped typeface. Comprehensive testing was carried out at text and display sizes, too, to prevent counters from filling in. All of which makes FS Brabo a very modern take on a traditional workhorse serif typeface: colourful and versatile enough to adorn not just editorial projects but also signage, advertising and logotypes.

The font superfamily Vianova contains each 12 weights of Sans and Slab and 8 weights of the Serif style. The design from Jürgen Adolph dates back into the 1990s, when he studied Communication Design with Werner Schneider as a professor at the Fachhochschule Stuttgart. Adolph started his carrier 1995 at Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett. He was responsible for trade marks as Adidas, BMW, Germanwings and Merz. He has been honored as a member of the Art Directors Club (ADC) with more than 100 awards. On February 26, 2014, Jürgen Adolph wrote the following: “I was already interested in typography, even when I could not yet read. Letterforms, for instance, above storefronts downtown, had an irresistible appeal for me. Therefore, it is probably not a coincidence that, after finishing high school, I began an apprenticeship with a provider of signage and neon-advertising in Saarbrücken, and – in the late 1980s – I placed highest in my field in my state. When I continued my studies in communications design in Wiesbaden, I was introduced to the highest standards in calligraphy and type design. “Typography begins with writing” my revered teacher, Professor Werner Schneider, taught me. Indefatigably, he supported me during the development of my typeface “Vianova” – which began as part of a studies program – and accompanied me on my journey even when its more austere letterforms did not necessarily conform to his own aesthetic ideals. The completely analogue development of the types – designed entirely with ink and opaque white on cardboard – covered several academic semesters. In order to find its appropriate form, writing with a flat nib was used. Once, when I showed some intermediate designs to Günter Gerhard Lange, who occasionally honored our school with a visit, he commented in his own inimitable manner: “Not bad what you are doing there. But if you want to make a living with this, you might as well order your coffin now.” At that time, I was concentrating mainly on the serif version. But things reached a different level of complexity when, during a meeting with Günther Flake which had been arranged by Professor Schneider, he suggested that I enlarge the offering with a sans and slab version of the typeface. So – a few more months went by, but at the same time, Elsner+Flake already began with the digitilization process. In order to avoid the fate predicted by Günter Gerhard Lange, I went into “servitude” in the advertising industry (Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett) and design field (Rempen& Partner, SchömanCorporate, Claus Koch) and worked for several years as the Creative Director at KW43 in Düsseldorf concerned with corporate design development and expansion (among others for A. Lange & Söhne, Deichmann, Germanwings, Langenscheidt, Montblanc.”

Silent films evoke a sense of nostalgia that is as timeless as the era itself. While the stars of silent cinema may have faded into the past, their influence is still felt in modern-day art, fashion, and design. Silentina is a typeface that embodies the spirit of the silent film era, inspired by the intertitles that were used to convey crucial information to audiences during these films. Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, Clara Bow, and Rudolph Valentino all graced the silver screen with their emotive faces during the silent film era. These icons used their expressions to convey a range of emotions that captivated audiences and made them fall in love with the magic of cinema. Intertitles, the brief messages that would appear on-screen during the film, were just as essential in conveying information to moviegoers. Silentina is a typeface that pays homage to the unsung heroes of the silent film era—the intertitles. It channels the glitz and glamour of the roaring twenties, taking us back to a time of flapper dresses, jazz music, and speakeasies. But Silentina isn’t just a typeface—it’s a portal to another era. It transports us to a time when movies were an escape from reality, and each trip to the cinema was a chance to lose ourselves in a world of adventure and romance. With Silentina, you can project your message in the same way that the stars of silent cinema projected theirs. This typeface captures the essence of a bygone era, bringing it to life in the modern world. Use it to convey plot information, set the scene, or add a touch of vintage charm to your design. Whatever your message, Silentina will help you communicate it in the same glitzy way as the intertitles of the silent film era. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

The font superfamily Vianova contains each 12 weights of Sans and Slab and 8 weights of the Serif style. The design from Jürgen Adolph dates back into the 1990s, when he studied Communication Design with Werner Schneider as a professor at the Fachhochschule Stuttgart. Adolph started his carrier 1995 at Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett. He was responsible for trade marks as Adidas, BMW, Germanwings and Merz. He has been honored as a member of the Art Directors Club (ADC) with more than 100 awards. On February 26, 2014, Jürgen Adolph wrote the following: “I was already interested in typography, even when I could not yet read. Letterforms, for instance, above storefronts downtown, had an irresistible appeal for me. Therefore, it is probably not a coincidence that, after finishing high school, I began an apprenticeship with a provider of signage and neon-advertising in Saarbrücken, and – in the late 1980s – I placed highest in my field in my state. When I continued my studies in communications design in Wiesbaden, I was introduced to the highest standards in calligraphy and type design. “Typography begins with writing” my revered teacher, Professor Werner Schneider, taught me. Indefatigably, he supported me during the development of my typeface “Vianova” – which began as part of a studies program – and accompanied me on my journey even when its more austere letterforms did not necessarily conform to his own aesthetic ideals. The completely analogue development of the types – designed entirely with ink and opaque white on cardboard – covered several academic semesters. In order to find its appropriate form, writing with a flat nib was used. Once, when I showed some intermediate designs to Günter Gerhard Lange, who occasionally honored our school with a visit, he commented in his own inimitable manner: “Not bad what you are doing there. But if you want to make a living with this, you might as well order your coffin now.” At that time, I was concentrating mainly on the serif version. But things reached a different level of complexity when, during a meeting with Günther Flake which had been arranged by Professor Schneider, he suggested that I enlarge the offering with a sans and slab version of the typeface. So – a few more months went by, but at the same time, Elsner+Flake already began with the digitilization process. In order to avoid the fate predicted by Günter Gerhard Lange, I went into “servitude” in the advertising industry (Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett) and design field (Rempen& Partner, SchömanCorporate, Claus Koch) and worked for several years as the Creative Director at KW43 in Düsseldorf concerned with corporate design development and expansion (among others for A. Lange & Söhne, Deichmann, Germanwings, Langenscheidt, Montblanc.”

Look, folks! From what may just be the vernacular sign capital of the world, Chattanooga, Tennessee, it’s a brand new hyperfamily from insigne! Look includes three different related fonts, with three weights each. That’s over 70 fonts! Imagine: you turn onto a stretch of open country road. On the distressed, red background of an old barn wall, a large block of crisp white letters shout out: “See Rock City.” You soon realize this barn is not alone in competing for the passing eye. Far from it, ladies and gentlemen. This is just one of the many pieces of historic, hand-painted advertisements dotting the great Southern United States. Yes, these are the pieces of true Americana--the barns, the roadside signs, the machinery, the soda fountains, and more--that now inspire this splendid new set of three font families. This new, easily readable type from insigne digs deep to capture the very heart and passion of this splendid country’s lettering of the post-war era. Look’s compact frame quickly draws the audience to your headline, logo, subheading, or pull quote, working well in those compact spots of text without overpowering your content. You'll easily put the feeling of those days gone by into every piece with the natural beauty and simple usefulness of the Look hyperfamily. Each of the individual sub-families incorporates a variety of font weights with distressed attributes. Think Woodtype. Jeans. Antiques, folks. That deep, ingrained texture--that quality that will stand the test of time. And Look is flexible, too. Take, for example, Look Script. This powerhouse of a font offers thinner weights to give your work an easy-going, down-to-earth design. But bring in those heavier weights, and you'll have a muscular, assertive font that will go the whole nine rounds. Combine any of the Look families with Ornaments to really give your layouts a zing. Build an extraordinary design as well with Look’s swashes and alternates. To activate any of these alternates, just click on Swash, Stylistic or Titling Alternates in any OpenType-savvy application, or choose from the Glyph Palette. Explore hundreds of included extras to find that “cherry on top” for your one-of-a-kind project. There are over 70 fonts to choose from, including subfamily sans, serif, script and ornament fonts! You can't go wrong. To get the most bang for your buck, order the whole Look family now! Note on SHADOWS: Increase depth and make your designs pop! Add shadows to any of the Look fonts by duplicating the text content layer in place and switching it to its corresponding shadow. Color and offset to taste. Look shadows are offset automatically. In Illustrator, you may need to turn on Em Box Top for proper shadow alignment.

Worldly Even though it’s a new arrival, FS Brabo has seen the world. Designed by a Brazilian working in London and studying in Belgium under a Dutchman, it’s certainly well-travelled. And it was inspired by the extraordinary archive of early book typefaces at the world-renowned Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, while Fernando Mello was attending Frank Blokland’s Expert class Type Design course at the Plantin Institute of Typography. It was there that Fernando became engrossed in the collection of early metal type, matrices, punches and type samples by figures such as Garamond and Granjon. So much so that he took on the mighty task of developing ‘a beautiful, functional, serifed text font’ of his own. Heroic FS Brabo’s journey from sketch to font family took an epic three years, starting in Antwerp, continuing at Fontsmith in London, and reaching its conclusion back in Fernando’s home city of São Paulo. No wonder Fernando was reminded of another titanic face-off: that of Antwerp’s Roman hero of legend, Silvius Brabo, and the evil ogre, Antigoon. Brabo came to the town’s rescue after the tyrannical giant had been charging ships’ captains extortionate taxes and chopping off the hands of those who refused to pay up. Having finally downed Antigoon after a long and terrible duel, Brabo cut off the giant’s own hand and threw it into the river Scheldt, unwittingly giving the town its name: the Dutch for ‘hand-throw’ is hand werpen. What better way for Fernando to name his literary typeface than after the hero of Antwerp’s oldest tale? The garalde factor FS Brabo is not a revival, but a very much a contemporary, personal interpretation of a garalde – a class of typeface originating in the 16th century that includes Bembo, Garamond and Plantin, with characteristically rounded serifs and moderate contrast between strokes. Brabo’s ‘ct’ and ‘st’ ligatures, upper-case italic swashes and contextual ending ligatures – ‘as’, ‘is’, ‘us’ – all preserve the beauty and character of traditional typefaces, but its serifs are chunkier than a garalde. Their sharp cuts and squared edges give them a crispness at text sizes, helping to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. A workhorse with pedigree It may give the appearance of a simple, four-weight typeface, but FS Brabo has hidden depths beneath its simplicity and beauty. OpenType features such as cap italic swashes, contextual ending swashes – programmed only to appear at the end of words – and stylistic alternatives make this a complete and well-equipped typeface. Comprehensive testing was carried out at text and display sizes, too, to prevent counters from filling in. All of which makes FS Brabo a very modern take on a traditional workhorse serif typeface: colourful and versatile enough to adorn not just editorial projects but also signage, advertising and logotypes.

The font superfamily Vianova contains each 12 weights of Sans and Slab and 8 weights of the Serif style. The design from Jürgen Adolph dates back into the 90th, when he studied Communication Design with Werner Schneider as a professor at the Fachhochschule Stuttgart. Adolph started his carrier 1995 at Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett. He was responsible for trade marks as Adidas, BMW, Germanwings and Merz. He has been honoured as a member of the Art Director Club (ADC) with more than 100 awards. On February 26, 2014, Jürgen Adolph wrote the following: “I was already interested in typography, even when I could not yet read. Letterforms, for instance, above storefronts downtown, had an irresistible appeal for me. Therefore, it is probably not a coincidence that, after finishing high school, I began an apprenticeship with a provider of signage and neon-advertising in Saarbrücken, and – in the late 1980s – I placed highest in my field in my state. When I continued my studies in communications design in Wiesbaden, I was introduced to the highest standards in calligraphy and type design. “Typography begins with writing” my revered teacher, Professor Werner Schneider, taught me. Indefatigably, he supported me during the development of my typeface “Vianova” – which began as part of a studies program – and accompanied me on my journey even when its more austere letterforms did not necessarily conform to his own aesthetic ideals. The completely analogue development of the types – designed entirely with ink and opaque white on cardboard – covered several academic semesters. In order to find its appropriate form, writing with a flat nib was used. Once, when I showed some intermediate designs to Günter Gerhard Lange, who occasionally honored our school with a visit, he commented in his own inimitable manner: “Not bad what you are doing there. But if you want to make a living with this, you might as well order your coffin now.” At that time, I was concentrating mainly on the serif version. But things reached a different level of complexity when, during a meeting with Günther Flake which had been arranged by Professor Schneider, he suggested that I enlarge the offering with a sans and slab version of the typeface. So – a few more months went by, but at the same time, Elsner+Flake already began with the digitilization process. In order to avoid the fate predicted by Günter Gerhard Lange, I went into “servitude” in the advertising industry (Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett) and design field (Rempen& Partner, SchömanCorporate, Claus Koch) and worked for several years as the Creative Director at KW43 in Düsseldorf concerned with corporate design development and expansion (among others for A. Lange & Söhne, Deichmann, Germanwings, Langenscheidt, Montblanc.”