Empresario Stephen F. Austin (1793-1836) is considered by many the “Father of Texas” for leading the first Anglo-American colony into the then-Mexican territory back in the 1820s. A few years later, while on a diplomatic mission to Mexico City, Austin was arrested on suspicion of plotting Texas independence and imprisoned for virtually all of 1834. During this time he kept a secret diary of his thoughts and musings—much of it written in Spanish. Austin Pen is my interpretation of Austin’s scribblings in this miniature prison journal (now in the collection of the wonderful Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, in the Texas city that bears his name). The little leather-bound book is filled with notes in ink and pencil—some of the faded penciled pages traced in ink years later by Austin’s nephew Moses Bryan. A genuine replication of 19th century cursive, Austin Pen has two styles: a fine regular weight, along with a bold style that replicates passages written with an over-inked pen. Each is legible and evocative of commonplace American penmanship of two centuries ago.

Located in the Valencian Community, Spain, Manises is very famous for its pottery. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Manises was the most important production center for Spanish-Moresca ceramics, which was exported throughout Europe. At the beginning of the 16th century, Manises tiles were very commercially successful, especially of the heraldic type. Much appreciated by the Aragonese crown, Manises ceramics was also exported to France, Italy, and especially to Naples. As a big fan of Paterna and Manises ceramics, Naples influenced other Italian courts. Calixto III and Alejandro VI continuously commissioned Valencian pieces and tiles for the halls of the Vatican. The export also extended to Sicily, Venice, Turkey, Cyprus and even Flanders and the Baltic countries. The palaces of all the courts of Europe were enriched with this art. Many painters reproduced it in his paintings. It can be seen in the work of Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, and in the central panel of a triptych by Hugo Van der Goes (Uffizi Gallery, Florence). In this city there are also some frescoes by Domenico Ghirlandaio in which the Arabic-Valencian earthenware appears. Manises font is inspired by a text written on a 16th century tile, but adapting it to our times and giving it a very modern air. It is characterised by being able to combine uppercase and lowercase letters in a conventional manner, or use only capitals, or only lowercase letters, or, a random combination of both. It comes with an extra of many ligatures, stylistic alternates, and a set of very useful catchwords, to give more modernity to your text. This OpenType features may only be accessible via OpenType-aware applications, or the Character Map to view and copy any of the extra characters to paste into your favourite text editor/app. Manises looks lovely on wedding invitations, greeting cards, logos, posters, labels, t-shirt design, logos, children's material, in ink or water-colour based designs, fashion, magazines, food packaging and menus, book covers and whatever your imagination holds!