While throned before your keys, under your drumming fingers awaits the most astounding standard computer typeface ever devised: BuGlobal. In addition to all the usual alphanumeric characters and symbols, this lone font lets you type more than 400 accented letters appearing in more than 80 English-variant languages worldwide, 70 common math and science symbols, and dozens of other useful characters —more than half a thousand all told— all within the digital parameters of one standard computer typeface, without needing any alternate keyboards or other clumsy digital luggage. Here is a sample: You can add any accent appearing in more than 80 English-variant languages used around the world to any letter appearing in all these languages simply by typing ANY letter then the accent. This includes more than 400 diacritic-laden letters in all —without needing to remember several keystrokes to type any of these letters as a few of them appear in standard computer typefaces. You can type more than 50 math/science symbols that do not appear in standard computer typefaces. These new symbols include several kinds of arrows plus constants, centerlines, dimensions, and graphs and scales that when retyped create continuous scales and graphs. Common symbols such as ballot boxes, rating stars, checkboxes, hearts, fancy fleurons, and similar motifs that do not appear in standard computer typefaces. Dozens of flashy arabesques like ========= [in BuGlobal these equal signs are kerned together so when you type them you create a continuous double line]. In this typeface more than 30 symbols that never appear twice in a row are kerned together so when you continuously type them you create all kinds of flashy arabesques that will make your typing more attractive. No other standard compute typeface allows you to do this. As for Beauty, BuGlobal’s characters are designed according to several axioms of ocular perception until each profile is as iconically simple as Shaker furniture. These axioms make BuGlobal’s letters easier to read compared to other typefaces, and a few of them are: Each letter should look much like the others but for one defining detail. The letters should be as similarly wide as possible. The letters’ midbars should be the same height and thickness. The higher the lowercase letters are compared to capital letters, the more legible and easily readable are their texts. BuGlobal has a typeface user’s guide, titled A Lovely Face, in which a description of each ocular axiom compares BuGlobal with Baskerville, Georgia, Palatino, and other commonly-used standard computer typefaces so you can quickly see why the other typefaces are inferior. You can download a pdf file of this typeface user’s guide, for free, at BuGlobal’s website, butlerfontforge.com, at any time so you can learn all about BuGlobal’s many amazingly new features before possibly buying it. BuGlobal’s plain letters are perfect for texts, its italics are gracefully emphatic, its bolds are ideal for titles and headers, and its arabesques are a fancy way to make your texts look dressy —all of which will add more shimmer to your semantic plumage. One good typeface is more useful than an infinity of poor ones. Robert Bringhurst

PMN Caecilia™ is the premiere work of the Dutch designer Peter Matthias Noordzij. He made the first sketches for this slab serif design in 1983 during his third year of study in The Hague, and the full font family was released by Linotype in 1990. The PMN prefix represents the designer's initials, and Caecilia is his wife's name. This font has subtle variations of stroke thickness, a tall x-height, open counters, and vivacious true italics. Noordzij combined classical ductus with his own contemporary expression to create a friendly and versatile slab serif family. With numerous weights from light to heavy, and styles including small caps, Old style figures, and Central European characters, PMN Caecilia has all the elements necessary for rich typographic expression. eText fonts - the optimum of on-screen text quality With our new eText fonts that have been optimised for on-screen use, you can ensure that your texts remain readily legible when displayed on smartphones, tablets or e-readers. The poor resolution of many digital display systems represents a major challenge when it comes to presenting text. It is necessary to make considerable compromises, particularly in the case of text in smaller point sizes, in order to adapt characters designed in detail using vector graphics to the relatively crude pixel grid. So-called 'font hinting' can help with this process. This, for example, provides the system with information on which lines are to be displayed in a particular thickness, i.e. using a specific number of pixels. As font hinting is a largely manual and thus very complex technique, many typefaces come with only the most necessary information. What is unimportant for a text printed in high resolution can result in a poor quality image when the same text is displayed on a screen, so that reading it rapidly becomes a demanding activity. Specially optimised eText fonts can help overcome this problem. An extremely refined and elaborate font hinting system makes sure that these fonts are optimally displayed on screens. Monotype has not only adopted font hinting for this purpose but has also thoroughly reworked the fonts to hone them for display in low resolution environments. For example, the open counters present in the letters C, c, e, S, s, g etc. have been slightly expanded so that these retain their character even in small point sizes. Also with a view to enhancing appearance in smaller point sizes, line thickness has been discreetly increased and x-height carefully adjusted. Kerning has also been modified. Don't leave the on-screen appearance of your creations to chance. Play it safe and use eText fonts to achieve perfect results on modern display devices. Many typefaces, including many popular classics, are already available as eText fonts and new ones are continually being published. The eText font you can purchase here are available for use as Desktop Fonts or Web Fonts. Should they be used in Mobile Devices such as smartphones, tablets or eReaders, please contact our OEM specialists at sales-eu@monotype.com.

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

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