Ashemore developed as a result of my visits to Barcelona, Spain and to Germany, followed soon after by a visit to Asheville, North Carolina. Blending the styles of art and architecture from these three areas may seem initially to result in an unusual formula, but the distinct and flamboyant style of Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts style combined with the more strict rules of a sans serif transfer well into a beautiful and very usable blend of these individually eccentric forms. The resulting font retains the Art Nouveau and Craftsman style flavors, which shine through the typeface despite its geometric base. One of the font’s defining characteristics is the unique terminators of its C, G and S. This face’s texture and rhythm also moves well in longer texts. These and other features give Ashemore a restrained bohemian vibe that seems particularly appropriate for a coffee house or an art gallery. The Ashemore family has a full range of six weights from thin to black and includes condensed and extended options for a total of 36 fonts. The typeface also includes some unique OpenType alternates that make the superfamily even more versatile. Ashemore is equipped for complex professional typography, including alternates, small caps and many alternate characters. The face also has a number of numeral sets, including tabular figures, fractions, old-style, lining figures and superiors and inferiors. OpenType-capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe Suite can take full advantage of automatic ligatures and alternates. You can find these features demonstrated in the .pdf brochure. Ashemore also includes the glyphs to support a wide range of languages, including Central, Eastern and Western European languages. In all, Ashemore supports over 40 languages that use the extended Latin script, making the new addition a great choice for multi-lingual publications and packaging. Ashemore was designed by Jeremy Dooley with production assistance from Lucas Azevedo and Marcelo Magalhaes. Kerning assistance from iKern.

Grava is Neil Summerour’s injection of warmth within the geometric sans font category. Historically, geometric sans families have been based on primal shapes — triangle, circle, square — and the more closely they held to those rigid rules, the more internal inconsistencies they showed. Angles won’t match up correctly, letters will lean, overshoots complicate clean typesetting, and idealized circles become grotesque and unwieldy in some weights. Because of issues like these, geometric sans fonts have a reputation of being cold, austere, even a bit “off”. Grava was made to hold a T-square and triangle in one hand while giving a welcoming handshake with the other. The Grava font family comes in two styles (a normal and a Display), each with 20 weights (Thin to Ultra) and paired with italics. Its design allowed the three scripts of Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek to emerge seamlessly, ensuring Grava will find its home in multilingual publications. Even better, each character in the three scripts is spaced with every other character for a beautifully matched fit, and it’s a buy-one-get-all-three deal since they are all packaged together. The normal style’s large x-height won’t let you down in paragraphs, headings, and any call-out text. And have you seen the angles on those numerals? Pairing Grava’s numerals on a jersey is sure to catch some eyes, just sayin'. Grava Display is purposefully quirky and sharp, and made for poster sizes, book and album covers, and those websites with a well-defined character — somewhere between playfully self-aware and overtly vintage. Flat edges are abandoned to make way for sharp points and conspicuousness, for geometrical attitude and respectful expressiveness. Corporate reports use Grava Display to take on a professional and current look. The optional ligatures (N–T, L–L, G–A, C–O, almost anywhere an ‘A’ is placed, and more) in both the normal and Display styles invoke a midcentury modernist and high art feel. Now that introductions are done, you can let go of Grava’s hand and put it to work for you.

The Englishman William Caslon punchcut many roman, italic, and non-Latin typefaces from 1720 until his death in 1766. At that time most types were being imported to England from Dutch sources, so Caslon was influenced by the characteristics of Dutch types. He did, however, achieve a level of craft that enabled his recognition as the first great English punchcutter. Caslon's roman became so popular that it was known as the script of kings, although on the other side of the political spectrum (and the ocean), the Americans used it for their Declaration of Independence in 1776. The original Caslon specimen sheets and punches have long provided a fertile source for the range of types bearing his name. Identifying characteristics of most Caslons include a cap A with a scooped-out apex; a cap C with two full serifs; and in the italic, a swashed lowercase v and w. Caslon's types have achieved legendary status among printers and typographers, and are considered safe, solid, and dependable. ITC Founder's Caslon® was created in 1998 by Justin Howes, an English designer who used the resources of the St. Bride Printing Library in London to thoroughly research William Caslon and his types. As was common in the eighteenth century, Caslon had punchcut several different sizes of his types, and each size had a slightly different design. Howes digitized every size of type that Caslon cast, keeping their peculiarities and irregularities and reproducing them as they appeared on the printed page. This family has the 12 point, 30 point, 42 point, and Poster styles, as well as a full set of bona fide ornaments. In keeping with the original Caslon types, none of the sizes have bold weights, the numerals are all old style figures, and a full set of ligatures (some with quaint forms) are included. ITC Founder's Caslon® is a remarkable revival in the true sense of the word, and works beautifully in graphic designs or texts that require an authentic English or historical flavor.

Hamptons BF is a beautiful, elegant sans serif with dramatic individuality. A font that steps out in Art Deco style. As a design movement Art Deco came into prominence during the 1920s and 30s when forms were typically sleek, symmetrical, geometric or highly stylized. Today the influence of this enduring style can be clearly seen in architecture, industrial design, fashion, art, graphic design, and yes, even type design. Art Deco style exemplifies luxury, glamour and modernity. I believe Hamptons BF captures something of that retro look in a nod to the past without ever looking dated, all the while retaining a contemporary flair. Named after the well-known New York resorts synonymous with style and elegance, this gothic or sans serif type is based upon University Roman, an early 1970s serif design which in turn was influenced by yet another serif design called Forum Flair (late 1960s); and that in turn owes its pedigree to the late 1930s’ Stunt Roman, which is the original source of inspiration for all of these. Quite a family tree! There’s dynamic interplay between certain wide, full-round letters such as C, D, G, O, P, Q, R, S and narrow ones like A, E, F, H, K, L, M, N, U, etc. This contrast repeats throughout certain lower case letters and serves to create a unique look of distinction. Light and Regular weights communicate a romantic, feminine appeal while the Bold offers a complementary emphasis. The font is somewhat versatile as in addition to its primary purpose for display, Hamptons BF also succeeds in settings containing short blocks of large text. It’s right at home in a variety of typographic environments: branding, packaging, signage logos, magazine headlines, invitations, menus, trendy cafes and more. Among the included OpenType features are Stylistic Alternates, Automatic Ligatures and Fractions. There is extended language support for Western, Central and Eastern Europe and Turkish.

The Englishman William Caslon punchcut many roman, italic, and non-Latin typefaces from 1720 until his death in 1766. At that time most types were being imported to England from Dutch sources, so Caslon was influenced by the characteristics of Dutch types. He did, however, achieve a level of craft that enabled his recognition as the first great English punchcutter. Caslon's roman became so popular that it was known as the script of kings, although on the other side of the political spectrum (and the ocean), the Americans used it for their Declaration of Independence in 1776. The original Caslon specimen sheets and punches have long provided a fertile source for the range of types bearing his name. Identifying characteristics of most Caslons include a cap A with a scooped-out apex; a cap C with two full serifs; and in the italic, a swashed lowercase v and w. Caslon's types have achieved legendary status among printers and typographers, and are considered safe, solid, and dependable. Caslon Antique was designed by Berne Nadall and brought out by the American type foundry Barnhart Bros & Spindler in 1896 to 1898. It doesn't bear any resemblance to Caslon, but has the quaint crudeness of what people imagine type looked like in the eighteenth century. Use Caslon Antique for that old-timey" effect in graphic designs. It looks best in large sizes for titles or initials. Caslon Black was designed by David Farey in the 1990s, and consists of one relatively narrow and very black weight. It is intended exclusively for titles or headlines. Caslon Black has a hint of the original Caslon lurking in the shadows of its shapes, but has taken on its own robust expression. Caslon Graphique was designed by Leslie Usherwood in the 1980s. The basic forms are close to the original Caslon, but this version has wide heavy forms with very high contrast between the hairline thin strokes and the fat main strokes. This precisely drawn and stylized Caslon has verve; it's ideal for headlines or initials in large sizes."

Hawkes is an extensive handmade typeface family that comes with a bundle of weights, widths and styles, all designed to work cohesively. Here is a breakdown of the Hawkes family. Hawkes Sans: The primary subfamily is a sans-serif typeface that includes nine fonts: three weights (light, medium and bold) and three widths (narrow, regular and wide). Within this set are an array of stylistic features; including small capitals, character style alternatives, discretionary ligatures and contextual alternatives. See details below for more information on OpenType Features. Hawkes Variable Width Sans: The secondary subfamily is the same base sans-serif fonts but combined in variating widths. Essentially, it takes all three widths of each weight and randomly mixes them together. This creates a funky and creative alternative to the more traditional sans-serif set. The variations are for the uppercase, lowercase, small capitals, ligatures and numbers. Hawkes Script: The last subfamily is the script typeface. It’s a quirky script with variations of its own, including ligatures, swashes and contextual alternatives (again, see below for further details.) The script font works great as a complimentary style to the sans-serif, or on it’s own. FEATURES Alright, let’s get into all the extra goodies this typeface has to offer. Small Capitals: Small caps are short capital letters designed to blend with lowercase text. These aren’t just capital letters just scaled down but designed to fit with the weight of both the lowercase and capitals. With Hawkes, small caps can either sit on the baseline (in line with the base of the capital and lowercase) or to be lifted to match the height of the capital letters by applying the discretionary ligature setting in the OpenType panel. These small capitals have a dot underlining them that sit along the baseline. The feature offers a unique display affect that is great for logos, titles and other headline needs. Discretionary Ligatures: A discretionary ligature is more decorative and unique combination than a standard ligature and can be applied at the users discretion (as the name indicates.) The specific styling for these ligatures varies for different fonts. With Hawkes, they are used as an all capital styling feature, or to lift the small capitals to align with the height of the capitals. In the former setting, both lowercase and uppercase letters are first changed to all capitals, then a specialized set of letter combinations are transitioned so small characters are positioned within a main capital letter. These combinations only happen with main characters that include an applicable stem, such as C F K L R T Y. Some of these combinations include two or three characters. When Small Caps is turned ‘on’, this feature will lift the small caps to the height of the capital letter. For more information, please check out the user guide! Stylistic Alternatives: Stylistic alternates are a secondary form of a character, often used to enhance the look or style of a font. For Hawkes, these alternatives provide a slightly more handmade feel. A - the capital and small capital A will lose its pointed apex and become rounded. Think of it more as an upside-down U than an up-side-down V ;-) Oo, G, Ss, Cc- these characters’ topmost terminal becomes a loop. The O is applied automatically, the G S and C need to be turn on individually. Titling Alternatives: This feature does sort of the opposite of what it intends. Instead of being used for titling purposes, this feature makes the text look better in paragraph text settings. Kk Rr h n m - curved terminals on the are straightened e - the counter stroke also gets straightened from a more looping motion y - the shape of y is changed from a rounded character to a sharper apex (think more like a ‘v’ than ‘u’) Contextual Alternatives: Contextual alternates are glyphs designed to work within context of other adjacent glyphs. With Hawkes Sans, there are three slightly different variations per character. The feature rotates the application of each variation. This helps with organic authenticity, so if you have two e’s next to each other, they won’t look identical (reflecting the natural variations in handwriting and lettering.) With Hawkes Variable width fonts, I have created a contextual pattern that randomizes the widths of each character. So, when the feature is turned ‘on’ in the OpenType panel, the widths would alternate in a pattern such as: Narrow, Wide, Regular, Narrow, Regular Wide, Narrow, etc. It happens automatically so the user doesn’t have to think or worry about getting a random seed. With Hawkes Script, contextual alternates allow strokes to connect properly from one character to the next while maintaining a believable, natural flow. Connecting strokes are present for two letters next to each other but are replaced by a shorter stroke when located at the end of a word or sentence. Some characters have in-strokes when located at the start of a word. When a character is preceded by a capital letter that doesn’t connect, it too needs an in-stroke or altered spacing. This feature is complicated and messy, but luckily you don’t really have to think about it! I’ve done all the coding so all you have to do is turn ‘on’ the feature in the OpenType panel and you are off to the races! I’m just letting you know what’s happening behind the scenes. Swashes: These are just for Hawkes Script and provide tail swashes to the start and ends of letters. There are three different options. You can pick the basic option by turning ‘on’ the swash feature in the OpenType panel, or you can pick using the Glyph panel. Stylistic Sets: This feature work in new versions of Illustrator CC and InDesign CC. You can pick specific styling sets instead of turning on an entire feature. For example, let’s say you want to have a loopy S, but not a loopy C or O, you can just turn on the S in the Style Set. It also helps create the little drop box that pops up when you hover over a character, showing you the alternates associated with that character. This makes it easy to pick and choose specific styles you want in a word or headline. ---------- And there it is folks! That’s all the basic info on Hawkes, I know it’s been a lot and I appreciate you hanging on. If you are like me and need more of a visual reference to accessing all these goodies, I’ve made a user guide to help navigate Hawkes and everything it has to offer. Altogether this extensive family boasts 14 total fonts in a wide array of styles, weights and widths, making it a great addition to any handmade type collection. Enjoy!

Pekin is an unusual design with an oriental flavor. It was originally designed by Ernst Lauschke and released by The Great Western Type Foundry of Chicago as “Dormer,” which is similar to the French verb ‘to sleep,’ not exactly a marketing triumph. Barnhart Bros. And Spindler (independently-operated subsidiary of ATF since 1911) bought Great Western in 1918. According to McGrew, AMERICAN METAL TYPEFACES of the TWENTIETH CENTURY, BB&S renamed the typeface prior printing their 1925 specimen book — guess they wanted something just a tad more exciting. Quirky, distinctive and fun. Pekin ML represents a major extension of the original release, with the following changes: 1. Added glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Added glyphs to complete standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page. Special glyphs relocated and assigned Unicode codepoints, some in Private Use area. Total of 415 glyphs (compared to 218 glyphs in the original release). 2. 652 Kerning Pairs. Note: Ag, Aj and gj will cross unless kerned. Alternative A may also be used. 3. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: onum, salt, liga, dlig, hist, ornm and kern. 4. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. 5. Refined various glyph outlines, based on improved scans. 6. Added set of Tabular Numbers at cap height, based on original design; added Old-Style Numbers based on default design. 7. Added a bunch of alternative characters: 18 upper case letters, 10 lower case letters, 1 ampersand and 1 bullet. The alternate c is actually the original design, but I don't like it - easily confused with e. Alt E H M h m n r t are from the original design. I added the rest. 8. 7 Ligatures, 4 Ornaments, 18 Geometric Shapes, 6 Arrows and 12 Misc. Symbols. The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS (Post Script Type 1) format and a TTF version which is in Open TT (True Type)format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

Alias Vertical is a sans serif typeface with a vertical cut-off point for letter endings. The vertical cut-offs bend round characters (b, c, o, etc) into a squarish, high-shouldered shape, suggesting Roger Excoffon’s Antique Olive. In mid-weights, the typeface mixes Antique Olive with typefaces such as Gill or Johnston, for example the shape of the t, the l borrowing Johnston’s flick. Vertical has the same minimal difference in weight between verticals and horizontals as Gill and Johnston, and the same sharp connection point where curves meet straight lines. Like Antique Olive, Vertical has a narrow connection point here, adding contrast and definition. The overall effect feels austere at lighter weights and strident and graphic at bolder weights, and sharp and incised throughout. In the Bold and Black weights, the squarish and top heavy shape of Antique Olive is most noticeable. For example the wide uppercase, with the B having almost-even width between top and bottom curves, and the almost-overhang of the top curve of the G. But Vertical does not have as extreme an aesthetic or square shape as Antique Olive. As well as its wide design, the upper case is given extra authority by being a slightly heavier weight than the lower case. This is a device borrowed from Gill, and other ‘old’ typefaces, where the upper case is presented as a titling design. Modern sensibilities are more focussed on an even colour between upper and lower case. Vertical was originally intended as a sister typeface to Ano, like AnoAngular or AnoStencil. Vertical developed into a similar but separate design. Ano was designed for use in Another Man — in its modular, circle-base design, and the way there aren’t the amendments usually made in bolder weights to ensure letter clarity. This is for layouts where different weights are used together in different sizes so that the overall letter weight is the same, a feature of the magazine. Where Ano is simple and graphic, Vertical has nuance and texture. It is a pragmatic, utility design. In the balance between graphic and typographic, its focus is the latter.

Milan-based Leftloft studio has produced a third leg to its hit Etica font family: LFT Etica Mono. Meant to be a coder’s go-to font for everyday use as much as a designer’s way to invoke a certain genre, it is part of a broader and more versatile family that already contains almost 80 sans and serif fonts. LFT Etica Mono’s ten weights carry the same modern, recognisable DNA of the Etica family while hewing to the defined requirements of a coding typeface: space, density, distinct forms, and clarity. It uses the same instroke on the ‘c’ and open form of the ‘a’ for which the Etica family is famous, but adds something new in the form of an additional italic style. Monospaced fonts usually incorporate slanted letters as italics, as does LFT Etica Mono, but its default italics have warmer, cursive shapes while the alternate italics are simply slanted. The default ‘a’ is a simplified bowl and stem instead of a two storey shape; the ‘d, f, i, l, t, y’ and others gain an outstroke tail; the ‘e’ is one smooth stroke; and the default ‘k’ is looped. These characters have basic, slanted alternates if the cursive look isn’t desired, and includes a set of arrows and geometric shapes. The monospaced design, by nature, makes the typeface useful in coding and in low readability situations. And how does LFT Etica Mono work from the designer’s perspective? The starting point was the need for a monospaced Etica companion intended for technical applications: captions in graphic layouts, small text, confined or predefined space, and overall tone. Flat terminals and counters maintain the colour and versatility of the original typeface, but choosing between the organic cursive or blunt slanted alphabet will give every layout its own character. Of particular aesthetic interest may be the & and % symbols. Designed to be applied to the common visual environment, the new LFT Etica Mono font family completes a more complex system. One benefit is to give an expressive tone — less serious and more friendly — to something inherently technical, to bytes and bots, to encode the beautiful life.

Buntypes Bunaero™ combines classical and contemporary characteristics to a unique and distinctive font family with extravagant but also harmonious appearance. The characters are clear, open and sometimes bellied. Especially the caps have a very high waistline. Based on this, four main states with different moods have been composed: The original Bunaero™, the more conservative “Classic”, the elegant and curvy “Up” and the matching ”Italic”. All states offer weights from a considerably thin „Hair“ to a real fat „Heavy“, so the family consist of 34 Styles, all with rather narrow width and very good legibility. The font was manually hinted and contains extensive handcrafted kerning tables to ensure flawless appearance in all media. It supports at least 99 languages incl. Vietnamese and provides ligatures, alternative glyphs, special localized forms and even more enjoyable OpenType® features. This Pro version of Bunaero also includes a lot of features for sophisticated users: Lining figures for headline setting; Intermediate linings and oldstyle figures for text setting; Tabular versions of all figures; Superiors, inferiors, numerators, denominators and automated fractions; Language specialities like a capital Eszett for the german language and extra characters with a polish kreska instead an acute; And many more. Further information: Bunaero™ Pro Specimen PDF Bunaero™ Pro OpenType® Quickguide Feature Summary*: -4 Moods: Normal, Classic, Up and Italic -9 weights: Hair, Light, Thin, SemiLight, Regular, SemiBold, Bold, ExtraBold and Heavy -Supports at least 99 Languages incl. eastern european and vietnamese languages -Overall width: Narrow or Space-Saving -Advanced f- ligature set including fb -Discretionary s- and c- ligatures -Alternative Characters: a, e, f, g, i, k, l, t, v, w, y, J, K, Q, R, and more -6 sets of figures: -Capital sized figures, oldstyle figures and intermediate figures, each in proportional and carefully adjusted tabular versions -Superiors, inferiors, numerators and denominators -Circled and negative circled figures -Capital German Eszett -Extra characters with Polish Kreska -Catalan Punt Volat -Extra characters with alternate minmalistic Cedille -Arrows -Automated feature for fractions as well as extended fraction character set -More than 1000 characters per font * Some features may only be available in OpenType®-savvy applications

Useful links: Using the variable font in Illustrator Working with a variable font in Photoshop TT Frantz is an experimental variable font, distinguished by its slimness and lightness. The variation in the font affects the change in the height of the mean line - by moving the axis adjustment slider you can easily raise or lower the mean line of the font. In TT Frantz, you can find small references to the art deco aesthetics, which are expressed in significantly lowered or, conversely, heightened waist of the letters. In addition, depending on the position of the axis adjustment slider, the closedness of the aperture changes for some letters. In order to preserve the main feature of the font—the change in the height of the main line—we made lowercase characters as tall as uppercase ones, but at the same time we kept small kerns. An interesting fact is that in Cyrillic letters з с а е, the variability of the aperture follows a different scenario in comparison with their Latin sisters. When working on TT Frantz, we tried to make it so that when changing the variability, the width of the characters would not change, and the font would remain monospaced. And in order to avoid holes in the set, we made contextual alternates and several ligatures. Frantz consists of 470 glyphs, and in addition to broad language support (Latin and Cyrillic) it can offer standard and old-style figures, including their tubular versions, as well as ligatures. Important clarification regarding variable fonts. At the moment, not all graphic editors, programs and browsers support variable fonts. You can check the status of support for the variability of your software here: v-fonts.com/support/ But do not despair—even if you do not have access to the necessary software, you still have the opportunity to use TT Frantz in your projects. Especially for you, we have prepared three separate non-variable styles (Frantz A, Frantz B, Frantz C), each of which is responsible for a certain location of the mean line of the font and where this line is already fixed in a certain position (high, medium and low).

The Scriptuale family, which contains eight styles, is a contemporary upright calligraphic face. Designed by German designer Renate Weise in 2003, this family of typefaces speaks to the present, while at the same time reflecting on a lyrical past. The letterforms of the Scriptuale family are romanticized, they reference German calligraphic styles from the 19th and early 20th Centuries. For instance the design of Scriptuale's uppercase strays from the canon of classical proportion into romantic idealism. While the C and O are drawn according to the ancient quadratic proportions - almost twice as wide, optically, as the E or the L - the letter A is wider than would be expected, and the D narrower. These subtle differences introduce a different rhythm into text set in Scriptuale than Italic styles of calligraphy may offer. Scriptuale's Gs merit special notice: both the upper and lower case G lunge slightly forward, further enhancing the dynamic quality of the text. Also unique in Scriptuale's design is the lowercase width: the letterforms appear slightly condensed; they have large x-heights to compensate for this. In a delightful twist, the number 2's beak has been closed by drawing it full-circle, back into the stem: this references a style of letter design that was practiced, among other places, by artists from the old Klingspor foundry in Offenbach Germany. Typefaces constructed there easily captured the zeitgeist of the romantic period, but are less calligraphic than Scriptuale (e.g., Rudolf Koch's Koch Antiqua). A semi-serif face (like Prof. Hermann Zapf's Optima or Otl Aicher's Rotis Semi), some of Scriptuale's letters have serifs (D), and some do not (A). And although both the B and the E normally have the same "structure" on their left side, Weise has drawn them differently in Scriptuale. These strengthen the calligraphic-like quality of the family. Traces of the pen are easy to see in Scriptuale's design; it is a thoroughly calligraphic face. The eight typefaces in the Scriptuale family include Light, Regular, Semi Bold, and Bold weights. Each weight has a companion italic. Scriptuale is similar to one other contemporary calligraphic family in the Linotype portfolio, Anasdair , from British designer