Aldine 401 is a Bitstream version of Bembo type family. It was designed on the base of artwork of Francesco Griffo for Aldus Manutius. Originally the font appeared in “De Aetna” in 1495 — the book by Pietro Bembo about his journey to Mount Etna. Griffo’s design was one of the first old style typefaces followed by Garamond. It was the forerunner for the standard text types in Europe for the next two centuries. A modern version of Bembo was designed at Monotype under the supervision of Stanley Morison in 1929. Aldine 401 is still very popular in book design due to its well-proportioned classic letterforms and lack of peculiarities. Italic was based on the handwriting of Giovanni Tagliente. Books and other texts set in Aldine 401 can encompass a large variety of subjects and formats because of its classical beauty and high readability. Cyrillic version was developed by Isabella Chaeva and released by ParaType in 2008.

Monotype Bembo is generally regarded as one of the most handsome revivals of Aldus Manutius' 15th century roman type, but the original had no italic counterpart. The story is told that Stanley Morison commissioned Alfred Fairbank, a renowned calligrapher, to create the first italic for Bembo, which was released as metal fonts in 1929. Alfred Fairbank, however, claimed that he drew the design as an independent project and then sold his drawings to Monotype. According to him, the statement has been made that I was asked to design an italic for the Bembo roman. This is not so. Had the request been made, the italic type produced would have been different." Whichever version you believe, it was obvious that Fairbank's design - while undeniably beautiful - was not harmonious with Bembo roman. A second, more conventional italic was eventually drawn and added to the Bembo family. Fairbank's first design, which was based on the work of sixteenth-century writing master Ludovico degli Arrighi, managed to have a modest life of its own as a standalone font of metal type. It never made the leap into phototype fonts, however, and the face could have been lost, were it not for Robin Nicholas, Monotype Imaging's Head of Typography in the United Kingdom, and Carl Crossgrove, a senior designer for Monotype Imaging in the US. Nicholas and Crossgrove used the original drawings for Fairbank as the starting point for a new digital design, but this was only the beginning. They improved spacing, added subtle kerning and optimized the design for digital imaging. In addition, Nicholas created an alternative set of lowercase letters, fancy and swash capitals and enough alternate characters to personalize virtually any design project. By the time his work was complete, Nicholas and Crossgrove had created a small type family that included Fairbank, a revived version of the earlier metal font, and Fairbank Chancery, a more calligraphic rendition of the design. An additional suite of ornate caps, elegant ligatures, and beginning and ending letters accompanies both fonts, as does a full complement of lowercase swash characters. Now, instead of a failed Bembo italic, Fairbank emerges in its true glory: a sumptuous, elegant design that will lend a note of grace to holiday greetings, invitations, and any application where its Italianate beauty is called for."

Artane, Tony Fahy's first typeface for Bitstream Inc., has a specific philosophy at the core of it's creation. He decided he would try to create a Roman sans that would have the elegance of a serifed italic, such as Stempel Garamond, Bembo, or Baskerville.

In searching for a Roman to use, I found there were bits of Bembo, Times, Garamond, etc., that I liked and bits that I did not. So I set out to take the best bits of all my favorite Romans and tried to create the ultimate Roman Typeface.

Albion’s Marker No.1, as the name suggests is the first in a series of ‘Marker Pen’ typefaces- merging good type design practice with deliberately casual and hand-drawn letter forms. Inspired by the great classic typefaces such as Bembo and Caslon, the design of Marker No.1 offers a unique blend of legibility and relaxed randomness.

Poliphilus is a facsimile of the text of the 'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili', after which it is named, published by Aldus Manutius in Venice in 1499, using a type that had been cut by Francesco Griffo. As a design, Poliphilus is related to Bembo, but whereas Bembo was redrawn, with the intention of making a new face based on an old design, Poliphilus is an exact copy of fifteenth century printing on hand made paper. So exact in fact that even the original ink spread is reproduced. This may not seem like a very sound idea for a typeface, but the letterforms are good and the design is functionally successful. Blado, the italic for use with Poliphilus, was used by Antonio Blado in 1539, and designed by the calligrapher Ludovico degli Arrighi. The Poliphilus type is used mainly for book and text work."

Since I am still in a Japanese mood, I decided to name this font after my favourite pastime in Japan: hunting for the smallest, nicest sushi bar in town. After all, there’s just nothing like eating freshly made sushi and washing it all down with a cup of green tea or a warm sake. Sushi Bar is a very detailed brush font - all caps, but upper and lower case differ and can be mixed. It is an ideal font for posters, albums, headlines and book covers. Comes with a bento box full of diacritics as well!

Loosely based on Bembo and Plantin, the Perrywood font family retains some old style characteristics which give the face a familiar feel, however much attention has been paid to optimizing the design to give good quality output at small point sizes and from low resolution output devices. The consistency of character shapes allows close letter spacing to give compact word shapes, excellent word recognition and an overall economy in text. Perrywood offers good legibility and, coupled with an even text color will be very useful for text setting, in correspondence, for faxes and reports.

JY Ætna was designed originally by Francesco Griffo in 1495, and appeared in a book by Cardinal Bembo the following year. The typeface was re-created by Jack Yan in 1994, in time for its 500th anniversary. The original x-heights, quaint letters and other niceties have been restored. An italic complement, based on the design by Giovantonio Tagliente, has also been developed. JY Ætna has been one of JY&A Fonts’ more popular families over the years, with some typographers preferring its taller ascenders and descenders for headline work.

Putteri Script This type is a soft typefaces. bold, elegant & fun vintage script font. Can be used for various purposes.such as logos, wedding invitation, t-shirt, letterhead, signage, news, posters, badges etc. Putteri Script Font features alternate characters, ligatures, swash and multiple language support. To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternates, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Indesign & CorelDraw X6-X7. How to get access alternate glyphs from open type fonts: - http://youtu.be/iptSFA7feQ0 There are additional ways to access alternates/swashes, using Character Map (Windows), Nexus Font (Windows), Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters, using Windows Character Map with Photoshop: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9vacoYmBw Thank you, Alpha Bento

Aldo New Roman (1000+ glyphs, incl. medieval Latin, Cyrillic, some Greek, ornaments, small capitals, nut fractions...) Renaissance antiqua · Venetian types · Venetian serif · Humanist serif · Old style antiqua A modern version of the typeface cut by Francesco Griffo for Venetian printer Aldus Manutius around 1490 AD. Intentionally not the original Griffo / Aldus / Bembo — but the part of the large project on revival and further development (by drawing many additional glyphs, sometimes over 1000) of the 20th century's typewriters’ fonts. Triple pun here :: :: #1 Aldine Roman type; #2 Since it is equalized, modernized version — the parallel to the Times New Roman; #3 He called himself Aldus Pius Manutius Romanus — he was a new Roman during his Renaissance times.

Dante was designed by Giovanni Mardersteig. Mardersteig started work on Dante after the Second World War when printing at the Officina Bodoni returned to full production. He drew on his experience of using Monotype Bembo and Centaur to design a new book face with an italic which worked harmoniously with the roman. Originally hand-cut by Charles Malin, Dante was adapted for mechanical composition by Monotype in 1957. The new digital font version has been re drawn, by Monotype's Ron Carpenter, free from any restrictions imposed by hot metal technology. The Dante font family was issued in 1993 in a range of three weights with a set of titling capitals. Dante is a beautiful book face which can also be used to good effect in magazines, periodicals etc. Dante® font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

The Combi collection includes Sans, Sans Oblique, a true Italic, Serif, Serif Oblique and a set of Openface capitals. Combi fonts have 5 compatible weights and metrics allowing them to be used in free combination. Inspiration came from Jan Van Krimpen’s 'Romulus' (Enschedé, 1931). In addition to the Roman style, Van Krimpen created a set of open capitals, a simple oblique variant and subsequently, an attractive calligraphic italic, Cancelleresca Bastarda. In addition to Van Krimpen’s idea, Combi has been influenced by features from many faces including Bembo, Melior and Optima. The object was to create a versatile family of body text and titling faces for use in books, magazines and on the web. Glyphs are available for most Latin based languages and all text fonts include small caps, proportional numerals and other Opentype features.

Hello Master Script Font DUO This type is a new modern script font with an irregular base line. Trendy and feminine style. Hello Master Script Font DUO looks beautiful in wedding invitations, thank you cards, quotes, greeting cards, logos, business cards, and more. Perfect for use in ink or watercolors. Including beginning and end letters, alternatives and support for many languages. To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternative, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Indesign & CorelDraw X6-X7, Microsoft Word 2010 or newer versions. There are several additional ways to access alternatives / swashes, using Character Maps (Windows), Nexus Fonts (Windows), Font Books (Mac) or software programs such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters: - http://youtu.be/iptSFA7feQ0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9vacoYmBw Need help or have a question, let me know I am happy to help :) Thank you & Congratulations on Design! Best Regards, Alpha Bento

Introducing Baby Sillentha Script Baby Sillentha Script a fresh & modern new script with a handcrafted calligraphy style, decorative characters and dancing baseline! Very pretty for invitations such as greeting cards, branding materials, business cards, quotes, posters and more!! Baby Sillentha Script comes with 360+ glyphs. Alternative characters are divided into several Open Type features such as Swash, Stylistic Sets, Stylistic Alternate, Contextual Alternate. The Open Type feature can be accessed using Open Type savvy programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop version of Corel Draw X, and Microsoft Word. And this Font has provided PUA unicode (custom coded font). so that all alternative characters can be easily accessed in full by a craftsman or designer. Baby Sillentha Script Uppercase & Lowercase Letters International Languages ​​& Symbols Support Punctuation & PUA Numbers Unicode Range Standard Alternative Style. If you don't have a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw X Versions, you can access all the alternative glyphs using Font Book (Mac) or Character Map (Windows). Best Regards, Alpha Bento

Bentara Script is a calligraphy font that comes with beautiful alternative characters. Calligraphy of copper plate with handlettering style. Designed to convey stylish elegance. Bentara Script attracts like a typeface that is soft and luxurious, clean, feminine, sensual, glamorous, simple and very easy to read. Its classic style is very suitable to be applied to all kinds of formal items such as invitations, labels, menus, Logos, fashion, make up, stationery, letterpress, romantic novels, magazines, books, greeting / wedding cards, packaging, labels. Bentara Script including multiple language support. With OpenType features with stylistic alternates, ligatures and swash characters, that allows you to mix and match pairs of letters to fit your design To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternates, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Indesign & CorelDraw X6-X7, Microsoft Word 2010 or later versions. (Windows), Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). If you need help or advice, please contact me by e-mail: alphabento.16@gmail.com Thank you, Alpha Bento

Indigo Antiqua 2 is an old-style humanist serif typeface primarily based on personal studies of a typeface by Francesco Griffo (1450–1518) Italian punchcutter. But it is not a revival of the so called original Bembo (1496) or any other typeface. My Inspirations are of various kinds, but some outstanding old typeface masters like Guillaume le Bé, Miklós Kis, Peter de Walpergen and Christoffel van Dijck are important. Indigo Antiqua 2 is most commonly used for body text were legibility / readability matters – and is a reliable multi-purpose typeface. It has been applied for thousands of book titles and between the book covers made reading comfortable. By using Indigo Antiqua 2 with OpenType features You can reach additional ligatures, various figure sets, small caps, stylistic options and a lot of other typographical choices. Multi-Lingual support: Central European languages and many others. | See www.fontanova.se

Garalde: the word itself sounds antique and arcane to anyone who isn’t fresh out of design school, but the sort of typeface it describes is actually quite familiar to all of us. Despite its age—born fairly early in printing’s history—the style has fared well; Garaldes are still the typefaces of choice for books and other long reading. And so we continue to see text set in old favorites—Garamond, Sabon®, and their Venetian predecessor, Bembo®. Yet many new books don’t feel as handsome and readable as older books printed in the original, metal type. The problem is that digital type revivals are typically facsimiles of their metal predecessors, merely duplicating the letterforms rather than capturing the impression—both physical and emotional—that the typefaces once left on the page. MVB Verdigris is a Garalde text face for the digital age. Inspired by the work of 16th-century punchcutters Robert Granjon (roman) and Pierre Haultin (italic), Verdigris celebrates tradition but is not beholden to it. Created specifically to deliver good typographic color as text, Mark van Bronkhorst’s design meets the needs of today’s designer using today’s paper and press. And now, as a full-featured OpenType release, it’s optimized for the latest typesetting technologies too. With MVB Verdigris Pro Text, Van Bronkhorst has revisited the family, adding small caps to all weights and styles, extensive language support, and other typographic refinements. Among the features: • Support for most Latin-based languages, including those of Central and Eastern Europe. • Precision spacing and kerning by type editor Linnea Lundquist. The fonts practically set beautiful text by themselves. • Proportional and tabular figure sets, each with oldstyle and lining forms with currency symbols to match. • Ligatures to maintain even spacing while accommodating Verdigris’ elegant, sweeping glyphs. • Numerators and denominators for automatic fractions of any denomination. • Useful, straightforward dingbats including arrows, checkboxes, and square and round bullets in three sizes. • Alternative ‘zero’ and ‘one’ oldstyle figures for those who prefer more contemporary versions over the traditional forms. • An alternative uppercase Q with a more reserved tail. • An optional, roman “Caps” font providing mid-caps, useful for titling settings, and for those situations when caps seem too big and small caps seem too small. __________ Sabon is a trademark of Linotype Corp. Bembo is a trademark of the Monotype Corporation.

Praxis® Next has the same robust shapes and proportions as the original 1976 Praxis design. Its large x-height, substantial counters and open apertures guarantee high levels of legibility and reading ease in print and on screen. More weights, condensed designs and true cursive italics differentiate Praxis Next from the older design. Praxis Next shines where space is at a premium. The regular designs are modestly narrow while the condensed typefaces perform with grace in the most crowded of environments. The bold designs create powerful headlines and banners and the lighter weights are ideal for both long and short-form text copy. Because of its many weights and proportions, Praxis Next is also an ideal design to build a brand identity. Praxis Next Variables are font files which are featuring two axis and have a preset instance from Light to Ultra and Condensed to Roman. Pair Praxis Next with old-style designs like Bembo® Book and Stempel Garamond™ to create a dynamic typographic contrast. Or complement the design with its serifed counterpart, Demos® Next . Unger also drew ITC Flora® as an alternative italic design. Looking for something a little different? Pair Praxis Next with Masqualero™ .

DIN has always been the typeface you root for—the one you wanted to use but just couldn’t bring yourself to because it was limited in its range of weights and widths, rendering it less useful than it could be. The century-old design has proven to be timeless, but modern use cases demanded an update, which resulted in DIN Next—a versatile sans serif family that will never go out of style. This classic design turned modern must-have includes seven weights that range from light to black, each of which has a complementary italic and condensed counterpart. The family also included four rounded designs, stretching the original concept’s range and core usability. DIN Next also boasts a suite of small capitals, old style figures, subscript, superscript and several alternate characters. A quintessential 20th-century design, its predecessor DIN was based on geometric shapes and was intended for use on traffic signs and technical documentation. Akira Kobayashi’s update made slight changes to the design, rounding the formerly squared-off corner angles to humanize the family. Rooted in over 100-years of history, it’s safe to say that there will always be a demand for the DIN design, and thanks to DIN Next, now it’s as usable as it is desired. Wondering what will pair with it perfectly? Check out Agmena™, Bembo® Book, Cardamon™, Joanna® Nova, FF Quadraat® and Quitador™. Featured in: Best Fonts for Logos, Best Fonts for Websites, Best Fonts for Tattoos

Generale Script is the font of choice for writing things that go beyond words. This font type is designed with high detail to deliver stylish elegance. So, it can be said, the character of the change is very beautiful, a kind of classical decorative copper script. Generale Script presents alternative variants of most letters, binders, and many calligraphy tips, ideal for elegant labels, high-end packaging, stationery, and compositions for certain brands, beautiful titling, verses, letters and short texts, which are intended to be read only with the eyes or intended to whisper into someone's ear. Generale Script has 300+ glyphs and alternative characters, including various language support. With the OpenType feature with an alternative style and elegant binder. The OpenType feature does not function automatically, but you can access it manually and for the best results needed for your creativity in combining these Glyph variations. To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternates, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Indesign & CorelDraw X6-X7, Microsoft Word 2010 or later versions. (Windows), Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters using Adobe Illustrator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzwjMkbB-wQ How to use stylistic sets fonts in Microsoft Word 2010 or later versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVJlZQ3EZU0 There are additional ways to access alternates / swashes, using the Character Map (Windows), Nexus Font (Windows) Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all the alternative characters, using the Windows Character Map with Photoshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9vacoYmBw If you need help or advice, please contact me. :) Thank You, Alpha Bento

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, which can be translated in English as “Dreaming Love Fighting of Poliphilus”, is a romance about a mysterious arcane allegory in which the main protagonist, Poliphilo, pursues his love, Polia, through a dreamlike landscape. In the end, he is reconciled with her by the “Fountain of Venus”. The author of the book is anonymous, however, an acrostic formed by the first, elaborately decorated letter in each chapter in the original Italian reads “POLIAM FRATER FRANCISCVS COLVMNA PERAMAVIT”, which means “Brother Francesco Colonna has dearly loved Polia”. Despite this clue, the book has also been attributed to many other authors. The identity of the illustrator is less certain than that of the author. It was first published in Venice, in December 1499, by Aldo Manutio. This first edition presents an elegant and unique page layout, with refined woodcut illustrations in an Early Renaissance style and a refined Roman font, cut by Francesco da Bologna, which is a revised version of the type used in 1496 for the De Aetna of Pietro Bembo. The print quality is very high for the time, but nevertheless it presents many inconsistencies and imperfections due to the non-ideal inking and adherence of the matrix to the paper. For that reason numerous samples of the original have been used to create every single glyph which will result in an appropriate reconstruction and not a mere and humble reproduction. Some letters like \J, \U and \W were extrapolated, because they are not part of the original alphabet of the period. Some letters like \Q, \X, \Y, \Z and \h have been updated to more modern variants, but the original shape is accessible by Stylistic Alternates Opentype Feature, which also changes the shape of the \V and the \v. The original numerals \zero, \one, \tree, \four and \six have been accompanied by reconstructions of the missing numbers and extended by modern figures. Finally, swashed lower cases and original scribal abbreviations were also included. The font has joined by a matching Italic variant, closely inspired from Aldo Manuzio's 1501 "Vergilius", the first book printed entirely in Italic type by Francesco da Bologna.

“There is just something magical about type design,” says Sebastian Lester. “If you draw a successful typeface it can travel the world, taking a part of you with it.” If this is true, his Soho® Gothic family has taken him far and wide. Understated, modern and exceptionally versatile, the family has been put to good use in just about every application imaginable. A good choice for virtually any type of project, The Soho Gothic family performs equally well as the backbone of a global brand as it would in an edgy fashion magazine. Versatile, extensive, customizable, and multilingual – the Soho Gothic typeface family has it all.With the same proportions as Soho, its slab serif cousin, Soho Gothic ranges across seven weights, from a willowy hairline to a brawny ultra – each with a complementary italic.Lester took care to ensure that the Soho and Soho Gothic designs work in perfect harmony. According to him, “The typefaces were developed alongside each other so that I could consider every aspect of each design and be certain that they would be absolutely compatible.”Soho Gothic is a more understated and more subtle design than Soho. Features that give the design its distinctive tone are the flat, crisp apexes of the diagonal characters like the A and V, and the marked horizontal stress in the a, g and s. “I wanted the family as a whole to radiate effortless modernity,” recalls Lester, “to be a master communicator that works in all conditions and at all sizes.” A collection of alternate and “semi-slab” characters were also part of Lester’s plan. “I like to develop alternate characters for all my type designs,” he says. “I believe they give graphic designers greater flexibility and make a typeface more valuable.” Soho Gothic is available as OpenType® Pro fonts that have an extended character set which supports most Central European and many Eastern European languages. If you’re looking to complete your designs, consider pairing it with Bembo® Book,Joanna® Nova,Neue Frutiger®,PMN Caecilia®,or ITC Stone® Serif.

A Venetian serif in 6 styles The Apolline typeface family was created by Jean François Porchez as a means to study the transition from Renaissance writing into the first printing types. Rather than sticking to the method commonly used these days for the creation of revivals of Jenson or Bembo types, it seemed more interesting to try and get in the same mindset as those exceptional designers during this pivotal period in the history of typography. Thus Apolline is an exploration of the design methods used by people like Nicolas Jenson and his contemporaries for adapting handwriting with its multiple occurrences (a, a, a, b, b, b…) into single, unique signs (a, b…). Initially Jean François made drawings modelled after his own calligraphy. They were done at a very small size on tracing paper (2 cm high for the capitals) to preserve the irregularity of human handwriting. Besides emphasising the horizontal parts of the letter forms, the serifs were designed asymmetrically to reinforce the rhythm of the writing. The final drawings were produced at a large size (10 cm high for the capitals) to allow for subtle optimisation of specific details. The very narrow and fluid Apolline italic Influenced by various concepts for an ideal italic by Van Krimpen, Gill, etc. Apolline italic was designed at 8° degrees. Although the structure of the letterforms were informed by chancery scripts, the italic has full serifs like the roman. Very narrow and fluid, its unique design creates a good contrast when used in combination with its upright counterparts. Thanks to the presence of the serifs similar to roman typefaces it sets very neatly in large sizes. The next step was digitising the drawings with Ikarus (the pre-Bézier-curves era) to create the final roman and italic fonts. Two years later, when the family was expanded to six series the same method was used, this time with Fontographer. This was necessary for correcting a few problems caused by the conversion to Bézier outlines, and to add intermediate weights. Before the advent of feature-rich OpenType, quality type families consisted of several separate fonts for each weight to provide users with various sets of numerals, an extended ligature set and alternates, ornaments, and so on. Introducing Apolline Morisawa Awards 1993

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.

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.