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.

The story of Scripps College Old Style is a heart-warming and inspiring chronicle about a young librarian, a handful of students, a wealthy grandmother, a dedicated educator -- and two eminent American type designers. The story begins in 1938, when Dorothy Drake, the newly hired librarian at Scripps College, a small women's college in southern California, became an impromptu dinner companion of the American type designer Fred Goudy. By the 1990s, the original fonts that Goudy had created for Scripps College in the 1940s had become prized -- but they were seldom-used antiques. Scripps needed digital versions of the metal fonts. This goal posed two immediate challenges: finding a designer familiar with letterpress printing who was skilled at creating digital fonts, and locating the money to commission the designer's services. The first challenge was the easiest to conquer. Sumner Stone was my first and only choice," recalls Kitty Maryatt, the current curator of the Scripps College Press. "I knew he had letterpress experience, was an accomplished calligrapher, and that his typeface designs were simply exquisite. The choice was easy."The second challenge was more difficult. It took the dedication, hard work and tenacity of Maryatt to bring the beautiful Goudy designs into the twenty-first century. While Stone was eager to begin work on the project, the college had no more money for new typeface designs in the 1990s than it did in the1930s. Years of lobbying, cajoling and letter writing were necessary to obtain the college's approval for the design project. Once she had the necessary funding, the design brief posed yet a third challenge. Goudy had provided two sizes of type to the Press: 14 point and 16 point. Which would serve as the foundation for Stone's work? In addition, the Goudy fonts were quite worn. Should Stone use printed samples as his design master, or base his work on the original Goudy renderings? The 14-point master drawings were the ultimate choice, with the stipulation that the finished fonts would provide both a seamless transition from the worn metal versions and a faithful representation of the original Goudy designs. Once the budget and design brief were established, the process of converting the original Goudy drawings into digital fonts took just a little over two months. Stone delivered finished products to Scripps in the fall of 1997. The first official use of the fonts was to set an announcement for a lecture by Stone at Scripps in February of 1998. But the story is not quite finished. Maryatt was so pleased with the new digital fonts, she wanted to share them with the graphic design community. At Stone's suggestion, she contacted Monotype Imaging with the hope that the company would add the new designs to its library. An easy decision! Now Monotype Imaging is part of the story. We are proud to announce the release of Scripps College Old Style as a Monotype Classic font. The once exclusive font of metal type is now available in digital form for designers around the world. "

An entry in the Second Linotype Design Contest, Linotype Brewery, designed by Gustavs Andrejs Grinbergs, became part of the TakeType Collection in 1997. Brewery No 2 represents a significantly improved version of its precursor, and the typeface has been both extended and enhanced. When asked about prototypes, Grinbergs cites German typefaces of the early 20th century. It is thus not surprising that the characters of Brewery™ No 2 are based on geometrical forms. However, this is no mere synthetic Grotesque-derived typeface. It has significant contrasts in line thickness and triangular line terminals that are not unlike serifs, placing it in the middle ground somewhere between a Grotesque and serif font. The contrast between the features of a synthetic Grotesque and an Antiqua gives the characters of Brewery No 2 their distinctive charm and is the distinguishing attribute of this contemporary typeface. Additional vibrancy is provided by bevelled line endings (as in the case of the 'E' and the 'F'), the circular punctuation marks and the slight curve of the descending bar of the 'k'. Thanks to a generous x-height and its open counters, Brewery No 2 is also highly legible in small point sizes. Only in its bolder versions is another aspect of Brewery No 2 apparent; Grinbergs has here made the linking elements more rectangular and has emphasized the counters, so that the Bold variants of Brewery No 2 exhibit elements typical of a broken typeface. Brewery No 2 is available in seven finely graduated weights, ranging from Light to Black. Every variant has a corresponding, slightly narrower Italic version. In addition, the lowercase 'a' is given a closed form, the 'e' is more rounded and the 'f' has a descender. The character sets of Brewery No 2 leave nothing to be desired. In addition to small caps and ligatures, there are various numeral sets with old style and lining figures for setting proportional text and table columns. In its most extensive form (the Pan-European variant), Brewery No 2 can be used to set texts in many languages that employ the Latin alphabet and also texts in international languages that use Cyrillic or monotonic Greek orthography. Although some of the features of Brewery No 2, such as the tiny serifs, are only evident in the larger point sizes, this typeface is not just at home when used to set headlines. Brewery No 2 also cuts a good figure in short or medium length texts. This contemporary typeface with its formally elegant quality looks good, for example, on posters, in newspapers and promotional material. It can also be used for websites as it is also available as a web font.

An entry in the Second Linotype Design Contest, Linotype Brewery, designed by Gustavs Andrejs Grinbergs, became part of the TakeType Collection in 1997. Brewery No 2 represents a significantly improved version of its precursor, and the typeface has been both extended and enhanced. When asked about prototypes, Grinbergs cites German typefaces of the early 20th century. It is thus not surprising that the characters of Brewery™ No 2 are based on geometrical forms. However, this is no mere synthetic Grotesque-derived typeface. It has significant contrasts in line thickness and triangular line terminals that are not unlike serifs, placing it in the middle ground somewhere between a Grotesque and serif font. The contrast between the features of a synthetic Grotesque and an Antiqua gives the characters of Brewery No 2 their distinctive charm and is the distinguishing attribute of this contemporary typeface. Additional vibrancy is provided by bevelled line endings (as in the case of the 'E' and the 'F'), the circular punctuation marks and the slight curve of the descending bar of the 'k'. Thanks to a generous x-height and its open counters, Brewery No 2 is also highly legible in small point sizes. Only in its bolder versions is another aspect of Brewery No 2 apparent; Grinbergs has here made the linking elements more rectangular and has emphasized the counters, so that the Bold variants of Brewery No 2 exhibit elements typical of a broken typeface. Brewery No 2 is available in seven finely graduated weights, ranging from Light to Black. Every variant has a corresponding, slightly narrower Italic version. In addition, the lowercase 'a' is given a closed form, the 'e' is more rounded and the 'f' has a descender. The character sets of Brewery No 2 leave nothing to be desired. In addition to small caps and ligatures, there are various numeral sets with old style and lining figures for setting proportional text and table columns. In its most extensive form (the Pan-European variant), Brewery No 2 can be used to set texts in many languages that employ the Latin alphabet and also texts in international languages that use Cyrillic or monotonic Greek orthography. Although some of the features of Brewery No 2, such as the tiny serifs, are only evident in the larger point sizes, this typeface is not just at home when used to set headlines. Brewery No 2 also cuts a good figure in short or medium length texts. This contemporary typeface with its formally elegant quality looks good, for example, on posters, in newspapers and promotional material. It can also be used for websites as it is also available as a web font.

Morris is a four-font family produced by HiH Retrofonts and based on the work of the very English William Morris. William Morris wanted a gothic type drawn from the 14th century blackletter tradition that he admired both stylistically and philosophically. He drew from several sources. His principal inspiration for his lower case was the 1462 Bible by Peter Schoeffer of Mainz; particularly notable for the first appearance of the ‘ear’ on the g. The upper case was Morris’s amalgam of the Italian cursive closed caps popular throughout the 12th through 15th centuries, a modern example of which is Goudy’s Lombardic Capitals. The gothic that Morris designed was first used by his Kelmscott Press for the publication of the Historyes Of Troye in 1892. It was called “Troy Type” and was cut at 18 points by Edward Prince. It was also used for The Tale of Beowulf. The typeface was re-cut in at 12 points and called “Chaucer Type” for use in The Order of Chivalry and The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Morris' objective is designing his gothic was not only to preserve the color and presence of his sources, but to create letters that were more readable to the English eye. ATF copied Troy and called it Satanick. Not only was the ATF version popular in the United States; but, interestingly, sold very well in Germany. There was great interest in that country in finding a middle ground between blackletter and roman styles -- one that was comfortable for a wider readership. The Morris design was considered one of the more successful solutions. Our interpretation, which we call Morris Gothic, substantially follows the Petzendorfer model used by other versions we have seen, with the following exceptions: 1) a larger fillet radius on the upper arm of the H, 2) a more typically broadpen stroke in place of the foxtail on the Q, which I do not like, 3) inclusion of the aforementioned ear on the g and 4) a slightly shorter descender on the y. We have included five ornaments, at positions 0135, 0137, 0167, 0172 and 0177. The German ligatures ‘ch’ & ‘ck’ can be accessed using the left and right brace keys (0123 & 0125). Morris Initials One and Morris Initials Two are two of several different styles of decorative initial letters that Morris designed for use with his type. He drew from a variety of 15th century sources, among which were Peter Schoeffer’s 1462 Mainz Bible and the lily-of-the-valley alphabet by Gunther Zainer of Augsburg. Each of the two initial fonts is paired with the Morris Gothic lower case. Morris Ornaments is a collection of both text ornaments and forms from the surrounding page-border decorations.

As you can see, Nefertiti is a font based on ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and could be classified as a fun-font. I've always been really interested in Egyptology and a couple of years ago I thought it would be great to be able to write in hieroglyphs. I started to study them but soon realized it would take me a long time to be able to do this. Still, I was determined to find a way around this problem. At some point I came up with the idea of rearranging and reforming the hieroglyphs so as to resemble the English alphabet. During this process I tried as much as possible to preserve their ethos and appearance. However, since they are designed to write in English with, it's obvious that they are not always going to look like the real thing. Despite this, I'm really happy with the final result and I think many Pharaohphiles who just want to have some fun will be also. The only difference in this font between lower and upper case characters, is that the latter are set between two parallel, horizontal lines. These are for use with brackets (motif ends) to form cartouches - elongated ovals for names and/or titles. Try typing the following using the upper case in the sample text box. e.g. (JOHN} The zigzagged vertical lines at each end, separate the motifs from the hieroglyphs. Note the three types of ends/brackets. These lines are also used to separated words from one another and to give a more authentic appearance. So pressing the space bar gives a zigzagged line - not a space. They can also be used at any point within a cartouche to separate first and last names or titles. e.g. ; (JOHN;BROWN} walked straight home after work. Notice the eye glyph (period/full stop) at the end of the sentence. This is the only punctuation mark which can be used within a cartouche, e.g. after Mr. or to add a more Egyptian appearance to a name or title. e.g. (MR>;JOHN;BROWN} Parallel lines dividing hieroglyphical inscriptions and writing into rows or columns are very common. To incorporate these in a body of text, simple use the underline U. e.g. (OSIRUS) and {ISIS} were important gods of the ancient Egyptians. (HORUS) {HATHOR} and [RA],the sun god, were also highly revered deities. The punctuation marks available are shown below. . , " " ' ! ? "where is the king?" The font also includes the numbers 0-9, the following mathematical symbols and the hash sign(Scarab beetle). Once again, I've tried to make them look as Egyptian as possible; whether I've succeeded or not is open to debate. e.g. + - x / = # This font is named after Akhenaten's beautiful wife, Nefertiti, who's image can be seen in the graphic on this page.

The story of Freigeist is a journey into the past, back to the early grotesk fonts and long before Helvetica and Co were standard fonts in operating systems. For what we take for granted today is the result of innovation and pioneering spirit of type foundries such as Caslon or Stephenson Blake in the 19th century, whose expressive designs are mostly forgotten today. The Freigeist family captures this untamed spirit — hence the name (German for “free spirit”) — and puts it into a contemporary context, resulting in a multi-faceted family with a wide range of applications, font styles and features for modern typesetting. Design Details Unlike other modern grotesk typefaces like Helvetica or Univers, Freigeist is characterized by a warm and dynamic appearance. It draws inspiration from various historical models such as Caslon’s Doric or the Grotesque variants of Stephenson Blake. Particularly noticeable are the narrow terminals, the serpentine S or the dynamic g in combination with ascenders that reach to the cap-height only. Italics Many italic grotesk fonts are strongly oriented towards their upright counterparts. Unfortunately, this often means that they cannot do justice to their actual task, which is to highlight words or sections of a text. The italic cuts of Freigeist try to remedy this situation by using the greatest possible formal distance while reinforcing the untamed spirit. What adds to this, is a reminiscent of handwritten forms, which can be found in a, n, y or g, as well as the German sharp s or the ampersand. Alternate Characters Alternative letterforms are ideal for customizing the overall appearance of a text, for usage in logos or they can even work as custom fonts for companies. Freigeist comes with ten stylistic alternatives that are easy to insert via the Opentype window, such as the single-storey a, a tail-less version of the a for compact text, when uses in condensed widths or a dialed down version of the r. Languages Freigeist has a built-in support for Latin and Cyrillic based languages and covers more than 210 languages. Opentype Features and Symbols The family comes with many opentype features to support modern typesetting. This includes ligatures, different number sets or alternative shapes for texts set in all caps. Styles Freigeist is available in five widths (XCon, Con, Normal, Wide, XWide) and six weights (Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Black). Including the accompanying italics, the family comes in 60 cuts that are suitable for any application. Testfonts If you like to test the fonts before buying the full version, please follow the link below: https://www.renebieder.com/test-fonts Update 1 A lot has changed in this first update. It is more than just a 1.01 or 1.02. It is actually the 2.0! I’ve gone through all! single glyphs of the 18 master files, making the family more sharp and even a bit more modern. I’ve added some new opentype features and redesigned the italics, because I wasn’t happy enough with the result. I’ve added new kerning pairs, new metrics, and even new glyphs. Please check my website for more details on the new design and overview about the opentype features and alternate shapes. If you purchased the Freigeist family already, thanks a lot!! It is the most advanced family that I published so far. I hope that you’re happy with this new version. Thanks!

Paverify is an all-caps geometric slab serif display face inspired by a particular pavement tile component which is evoking a blocky “I” letter. All other characters were interpreted based on its look and drawn accordingly. There are three uppercase Roman fonts in different weights and widths substantially. With the additional versions, type family consisting of 7 fonts in total. Over 220 Latin, Cyrillic and Greek script languages supported. Each font contains an extensive multilingual support with more than 1600 glyphs and OpenType features, including number forms, fractions, and stylistic alternate sets those provide different looks by the typographic preferences. For the lowercase letters there are small caps variants, i.e., shorter caps. These also have identical glyphs and matching marks to enable “Small Capitals From Capitals” feature. Narrower Medium and Bold styles was produced to accompany the Black first design. Paverify comes with an ornaments font named as “Extras”, which contains geometric graphical elements, i.e., paver stone patterns, banner/sticker background sets, star comps and a collection of catchwords to simplify creating feature rich layouts. As is known as interlocking paver in certain regions — a rectangular shape with the distinctive diagonal tabs — transcribing the simplest letter to draw into the whole alphabet was a challenging task. Not only it was the single thing that can be used as a source, considering its thick form in roughly 1.2:1 proportions compared to the sophistication of letterforms was the challenge. Starting point was keeping design consistent while both avoiding and preserving a particular appearance to achieve a similar texture, basically a repeating pattern on the streets. In contrary of a traditional approach, Paverify tend to have more contrast than the other slab serifs which helps to reduce massive stem weight of the source form. This look contributes to its hand painted sign effect achieved in a certain degree, which may otherwise impractical to transform because the source material is an inorganic, static form by definition. Tight and even spacing of the pavement tiles was inspirational for the kerning balance of the letters. Although the lighter weights have more space between the letter pairs, black weight adjusted as to be close to each other as the original grid. Tight spacing can be ignored by using Capital Spacing OpenType feature for the Outline versions as layer fonts. In one stroke, this gives an extra space between the letters to avoid diagonal armed letter terminals overlap. Black typographic colour and texture gives a sturdy appearance to the lines, it is useful for the projects where a robust display faces preferred for the titling, strong headlines, letter stacks, dropcaps, initials, short names on materials such as advertisements, book covers, posters, logotypes, wordmarks, package designs, and more in print or digital. Paverify can be paired as a complimentary face in a combination with broader type systems, where vintage look compositions and woodcut style fusions requiring an extra stunning texture.

Neue Haas Unica by Toshi Omagari: The original purpose behind the creation of the typeface Haas Unica was to provide a sympathetic update of Helvetica. But now the font designer Toshi Omagari has decided to make this typeface his own and has thus significantly supplemented and extended it. In the late 1970s, at the same time at which hot metal typesetting was being replaced by phototypesetting, the Haas Type Foundry commissioned a group of specialists known as "Team '77" consists of Andre Gurtler, Christian Mengelt and Erich Gschwind to adapt Max Miedinger's font The characters of Haas Unica are somewhat narrower than those of Helvetica so that the larger bowls, such as those of the "b" and "d", appear more delicate and have a slightly more pleasing effect. In general, the spacing of Haas Unica was increased to provide for improved kerning and thus enhance the legibility of the typeface in smaller point sizes. Major changes were made to the lowercase "a", in that the curve of the upper bowl became rounder and its spur was eliminated. The form of the "k" was additionally modified to remove the offset leg so that both diagonals originate from the main stem. The outstroke of the uppercase "J" was also significantly curtailed. In addition to many minor alterations, such as to the length of the horizontal bars of the "E", "F" and "G" and to the angle of the tail of the "Q", the leg of the "R" was extended and made more diagonal. In the case of the numerals, the upper curve of the "2" was reduced and the lower loops of the "5" and "6" were correspondingly adapted. The sweep of the diagonal of the "7" was also reduced. Several decades later, Toshi Omagari returned to the original sketches with the objective of reinvigorating this almost totally forgotten typeface. First, however, he needed to revise the drafts prepared by Team '77 to adapt them for digital typesetting. So Omagari carefully adjusted the proportions of the glyphs, achieving a more uniform overall effect across all line weights and removed details that had become redundant for contemporary typefaces. It was also apparent from the old drafts that it had been the case that the original plan was to create more than the four weights that were published. Omagari has added five additional styles, giving his Neue Haas Unica? a total of nine weights, from Ultra Light to Extra Black. He has also greatly extended the range of glyphs. Providing as it does typographic support for Central and European languages, Greek and Cyrillic texts, Neue Haas Unica is now ready to be used for major international projects. In addition, it has been supplied with small caps and various sets of numerals. With its resolute clarity and excellent typographic support, Neue Haas Unica is suitable for use in a wide range of new contexts. The light and elegant characters can be employed in the large point sizes to create, for example, titling and logos while the very bold styles come into their own where the typography needs to be powerful and expressive. The medium weights can be used anywhere, for setting block text and headlines.

‘Thwaites’ typeface is fully dedicated to one of my best Canadian friends who I do cherish and value highly. This great and industrious Canadian friend is ‘James Douglas Thwaites’ who lives along with his good-natured family in British Columbia, Canada. For me, James is like a source of inspiration and I do consider him as an ideal in my life. Our strong friendship has started since 1999 and I hope that it will endure just to the last moment of my life. Sometimes I see him as the writer and poet that I learn a lot from, sometimes I see him as a devoted religious minister that I try to understand more about his teachings, and other times I see him as the educator that I strive to imitate verbatim in my life. When I want to talk more about this Canadian friend, I will not be able to give him his due in full. Thus, I will instead mention some excerpts of his biography that he wrote himself saying that: “James D. Thwaites is a self-accomplished man. Having worked in various fields including restaurant management and cleaning, he has achieved his goals of being a full-time teacher, past-time writer, and volunteer religious minister for the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. His personal and academic pursuits have led him to be published in various magazines, newspapers, self-published books, and websites, including his now defunct ‘poetryofthemonth.com’ website. He continues to learn and augment the craft of writing while working primarily in early literacy and delayed literacy learners, teaching reading and literature to a wide age range of students. He views his religious endeavors as an extension of his academic ones. He teaches others both as a public speaker and in one-on-one situations, teaching about the benefits of submission to God and to His teachings. His future goals include expanding his ministry and continuing his writing.” The name ‘Thwaites’ itself comes from Great Britain and originated from the last Viking raids upon England, being an Anglicized version of a Scandinavian term meaning—depending on the source material—either "a place that is difficult to approach" or "a small thicket of trees." Another recitation mentions that ‘Thwaites’ can be described also as an English surname but one of pre 7th century Norse-Viking origins. It may be either topographical or locational, and is derived from the word "thveit", meaning a clearing or farm. As a locational surname it originates from any one of the various places called "Thwaite", found in several parts of Northern England and East Anglia to the south. The various modern spelling forms include Thwaite, Thwaites, Thwaytes, Thoytes, Twaite, Twatt, Twaites, Tweats and Twite. The name, although often appearing unique to outsiders, can often be found within other famous names like Braithwaite, Goldthwaites, or Misslethwaites. With various spellings, some families not including the ‘e’ or the ‘s’ at the end, Thwaites and its derivations—although not exceedingly common—is a name found worldwide. ‘Thwaites’ typeface is simply a sans-serif streamlined, stylish, and versatile font. It is designed using a combination of thick and thin strokes for its +585 characters. Its character set supports nearly most of the Central, Eastern, and Western European languages using Latin scripts including the Irish language. The typeface is appropriate for any type of typographic and graphic designs in web, print, and other media. It is also absolutely preferable to be used in the wide fields related to publication, press, services, and production industries. It can create a very impressive impact when used in headlines, posters, titles, products’ surfaces, logos, medical packages, product and corporate branding, and also signage. It has also both of lining and old-style numerals which makes it more suitable for any printing or designing purposes. ‘Thwaites’ typeface is really the cannot-miss choice for anyone who wants to possess unique artistic and modern designs produced using this streamlined typeface.

To design a text typeface "at the top with, at the bottom without" serifs was an idea which crossed my mind at the end of the sixties. I started from the fact that what one reads in the Latin alphabet is mainly the upper half of the letters, where good distinguishableness of the individual signs, and therefore, also good legibility, is aided by serifs. The first tests of the design, by which I checked up whether the basic principle could be used also for the then current technology of setting - for double-sign matrices -, were carried out in 1970. During the first half of the seventies I created first the basic design, then also the slanted Roman and the medium types. These drawings were not very successful. My greatest concern during this initial phase was the upper case A. I had to design it in such a way that the basic principle should be adhered to and the new alphabet, at the same time, should not look too complicated. The necessary prerequisite for a design of a new alphabet for double-sign matrices, i.e. to draw each letter of all the three fonts to the same width, did not agree with this typeface. What came to the greatest harm were the two styles used for emphasis: the italics even more than the medium type. That is why I fundamentally remodelled the basic design in 1980. In the course of this work I tried to forget about the previous technological limitations and to respect only the requirements then placed on typefaces intended for photosetting. As a matter of fact, this was not very difficult; this typeface was from the very beginning conceived in such a way as to have a large x-height of lower-case letters and upper serifs that could be joined without any problems in condensed setting. I gave much more thought to the proportional relations of the individual letters, the continuity of their outer and inner silhouettes, than to the requirements of their production. The greatest number of problems arose in the colour balancing of the individual signs, as it was necessary to achieve that the upper half of each letter should have a visual counterbalance in its lower, simpler half. Specifically, this meant to find the correct shape and degree of thickening of the lower parts of the letters. These had to counterbalance the upper parts of the letters emphasized by serifs, yet they should not look too romantic or decorative, for otherwise the typeface might lose its sober character. Also the shape, length and thickness of the upper serifs had to be resolved differently than in the previous design. In the seventies and at the beginning of the eighties a typeface conceived in this way, let alone one intended for setting of common texts in magazines and books, was to all intents and purposes an experiment with an uncertain end. At this time, before typographic postmodernism, it was not the custom to abandon in such typefaces the clear-cut formal categories, let alone to attempt to combine the serif and sans serif principles in a single design. I had already designed the basic, starting, alphabets of lower case and upper case letters with the intention to derive further styles from them, differing in colour and proportions. These fonts were not to serve merely for emphasis in the context of the basic design, but were to function, especially the bold versions, also as independent display alphabets. At this stage of my work it was, for a change, the upper case L that presented the greatest problem. Its lower left part had to counterbalance the symmetrical two-sided serif in the upper half of the letter. The ITC Company submitted this design to text tests, which, in their view, were successful. The director of this company Aaron Burns then invited me to add further styles, in order to create an entire, extensive typeface family. At that time, without the possibility to use a computer and given my other considerable workload, this was a task I could not manage. I tried to come back to this, by then already very large project, several times, but every time some other, at the moment very urgent, work diverted me from it. At the beginning of the nineties several alphabets appeared which were based on the same principle. It seemed to me that to continue working on my semi-finished designs was pointless. They were, therefore, abandoned until the spring of 2005, when František Štorm digitalized the basic design. František gave the typeface the working title Areplos and this name stuck. Then he made me add small capitals and the entire bold type, inducing me at the same time to consider what to do with the italics in order that they might be at least a little italic in character, and not merely slanted Roman alphabets, as was my original intention. In the course of the subsequent summer holidays, when the weather was bad, we met in his little cottage in South Bohemia, between two ponds, and resuscitated this more than twenty-five-years-old typeface. It was like this: We were drinking good tea, František worked on the computer, added accents and some remaining signs, inclined and interpolated, while I was looking over his shoulder. There is hardly any typeface that originated in a more harmonious setting. Solpera, summer 2005 I first encountered this typeface at the exhibition of Contemporary Czech Type Design in 1982. It was there, in the Portheim Summer Palace in Prague, that I, at the age of sixteen, decided to become a typographer. Having no knowledge about the technologies, the rules of construction of an alphabet or about cultural connections, I perceived Jan Solpera's typeface as the acme of excellence. Now, many years after, replete with experience of revitalization of typefaces of both living and deceased Czech type designers, I am able to compare their differing approaches. Jan Solpera put up a fight against the digital technology and exerted creative pressure to counteract my rather loose approach. Jan prepared dozens of fresh pencil drawings on thin sketching paper in which he elaborated in detail all the style-creating elements of the alphabet. I can say with full responsibility that I have never worked on anything as meticulous as the design of the Areplos typeface. I did not invent this name; it is the name of Jan Solpera's miniature publishing house, in which he issued for example an enchanting series of memoirs of a certain shopkeeper of Jindrichuv Hradec. The idea that the publishing house and the typeface might have the same name crossed my mind instinctively as a symbol of the original designation of Areplos - to serve for text setting. What you can see here originated in Trebon and in a cottage outside the village of Domanín - I even wanted to rename my firm to The Trebon Type Foundry. When mists enfold the pond and gloom pervades one's soul, the so-called typographic weather sets in - the time to sit, peer at the monitor and click the mouse, as also our students who were present would attest. Areplos is reminiscent of the essential inspirational period of a whole generation of Czech type designers - of the seventies and eighties, which were, however, at the same time the incubation period of my generation. I believe that this typeface will be received favourably, for it represents the better aspect of the eighties. Today, at the time when the infection by ITC typefaces has not been quite cured yet, it does absolutely no harm to remind ourselves of the high quality and timeless typefaces designed then in this country.In technical terms, this family consists of two times four OpenType designs, with five types of figures, ligatures and small capitals as well as an extensive assortment of both eastern and western diacritics. I can see as a basic text typeface of smaller periodicals and informative job-prints, a typeface usable for posters and programmes of various events, but also for corporate identity. Štorm, summer 2005

“Hand Sketch Rough Pos­ter” is a hand­made, rough and dirty sans-serif dis­play font for deco­ra­tive head­line sizes. Hand drawn. A–Z (× 2), a–z (× 2) and 0–9 (× 4) are each many dif­fe­rent forms. Con­text­ual alter­na­tes. Is inten­ded to show the hand-made cha­rac­ter and the vibrancy of the dis­play font. The dif­fe­rent forms of rough­ness crea­tes a live­li­ness in the typeface. Stan­dard liga­tures like ae, oe, AE, OE, ff, fl, fi, fj, ffl, ffi, ffj and more deco­ra­tive liga­tures like CT, LC, LE, LH, LI, LO, LU, LY, TOO, TC, TE, TH, TU, TZ and ch, cl, ck, ct, sh, sk, st, sp, addi­tio­nal logo­ty­pes like BPM, fff, ppp, sfz and many more … plus Ver­sal Eszett (Capi­tal Let­ter Dou­ble S) give the font more life and shows that des­pite their retro-looks works with modern Open­Type tech­no­logy (type the word note for the sym­bol ♫ and the word love for the ding­bat ❤ … ). Sym­bols like play, stop, eject, for­ward, back­ward, skip, pause and so on. The topic for the dis­cre­tio­nary liga­tures and the sym­bols are music. Have fun with this font – turn up the volume! How To Use – awe­some magic OpenType-Features in your lay­out application ■ In Adobe Pho­to­shop and Adobe InDe­sign, font fea­ture con­trols are wit­hin the Cha­rac­ter panel sub-menu → Open­Type → Dis­cre­tio­nary Liga­tures … Che­cked fea­tures are applied/on. Unche­cked fea­tures are off. ■ In Adobe Illus­tra­tor, font fea­ture con­trols are wit­hin the Open­Type panel. Icons at the bot­tom of the panel are but­ton con­trols. Dar­ker ‘pres­sed’ but­tons are applied/on. ■ Addi­tio­nally in Adobe InDe­sign and Adobe Illus­tra­tor, alter­nate gly­phs can manu­ally be ins­er­ted into a text frame by using the gly­phs panel. The panel can be opened by selec­ting Win­dow from the menu bar → Type → Gly­phs. Or use sign-overview of your ope­ra­ting sys­tem. ■ For a over­view of OpenType-Feature com­pa­ti­bi­lity for com­mon app­li­ca­ti­ons, fol­low the myfonts-help http://www.myfonts.com/help/#looks-different ■ It may pro­cess a little bit slowly in some app­li­ca­ti­ons, because the font has a lot of lovely rough details (anchor points). TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS ■ Font Name: Hand Sketch Rough Pos­ter ■ Font Weights: Regu­lar ■ Fonts Cate­gory: Dis­play for Head­line Size ■ Desktop-Font For­mat: OTF (Open­Type Font for Mac + Win) + TTF (True­Type Font) ■ Web-Font For­mat: SVG + EOT + TTF + WOF ■ Font License: Desk­top license, Web license, App license, eBook license, Ser­ver license ■ Glyph cover­age: 715 ■ Lan­guage Sup­port: Afri­kaans, Alba­nian, Alsa­tian, Ara­go­nese, Ara­paho, Aro­ma­nian, Arr­ernte, Astu­rian, Aymara, Bas­que, Bela­rusian (Lac­inka), Bis­lama, Bos­nian, Bre­ton, Cata­lan, Cebuano, Cha­morro, Che­yenne, Chi­chewa (Nyanja), Cim­brian, Cor­si­can, Croa­tian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Espe­ranto, Esto­nian, Fijian, Fin­nish, French, French Creole (Saint Lucia), Fri­sian, Fri­ulian, Gali­cian, Genoese, Ger­man, Gil­ber­tese (Kiri­bati), Green­lan­dic, Hai­tian Creole, Hawaiian, Hili­gaynon, Hmong, Hopi, Hun­ga­rian, Iba­nag, Iloko (Ilo­kano), Indo­ne­sian, Inter­g­lossa (Glosa), Inter­lin­gua, Irish (Gae­lic), Istro-Romanian, Ita­lian, Jèr­riais, Kas­hubian, Kur­dish (Kur­manji), Ladin, Lat­vian, Lithua­nian, Loj­ban, Lom­bard, Low Saxon, Luxem­bour­gian, Malag­asy, Malay (Lati­ni­zed), Mal­tese, Manx, Maori, Megleno-Romanian, Mohawk, Nahuatl, Norfolk/Pitcairnese, Nort­hern Sotho (Pedi), Nor­we­gian, Occi­tan, Oromo, Pan­gasinan, Papia­mento, Pied­mon­tese, Polish, Por­tu­guese, Pota­wa­tomi, Que­chua, Rhaeto-Romance, Roma­nian, Romansh (Rumantsch), Roto­kas, Sami (Inari), Sami (Lule), Samoan, Sar­di­nian (Sardu), Scots (Gae­lic), Sey­chel­lois Creole (Seselwa), Shona, Sici­lian, Slovak, Slove­nian (Slovene), Somali, Sou­thern Nde­bele, Sou­thern Sotho (Seso­tho), Spa­nish, Swa­hili, Swati/Swazi, Swe­dish, Taga­log (Filipino/Pilipino), Tahi­tian, Tau­sug, Tetum (Tetun), Tok Pisin, Ton­gan (Faka-Tonga), Tswana, Tur­kish, Turk­men, Turk­men (Lati­ni­zed), Tuva­luan, Uyghur (Lati­ni­zed), Veps, Vola­pük, Votic (Lati­ni­zed), Wal­loon, Warl­piri, Welsh, Xhosa, Yapese, Zulu ■ Spe­cials: Alter­na­tive let­ters, logo­ty­pes, ding­bats & sym­bols, accents & €. OpenType-Features like Access All Alter­na­tes (aalt), Con­text­ual Alter­na­tes (calt), Glyph Composition/Decomposition (ccmp), Dis­cre­tio­nary Liga­tures (dlig) Deno­mi­na­tors (dnom), Frac­tions (frac), Kerning (kern), Stan­dard Liga­tures (liga), Lining Figu­res (lnum), Nume­ra­tors (numr), Old Style Figu­res (onum) Ordi­nals (ordn), Pro­por­tio­nal Figu­res (pnum), Sty­listic Alter­na­tes (salt), Sty­listic Set 01 (ss01), Sty­listic Set 02 (ss02), Sty­listic Set 03 (ss03), Sty­listic Set 04 (ss04), Super­script (sups), Tabu­lar Figu­res (tnum) ■ Design Date: 2015 ■ Type Desi­gner: Manuel Viergutz