Quirky and irregular FS Split is no ordinary typeface. Its irregular proportions make it unique, with round letters appearing wide, and straight letters narrow. Other quirks include its eclectic crossbars – the uppercase ‘A’ has an unusually low bar, while the bar on ‘G’ is particularly long. The uppercase has many interesting features in fact, including large counters, closed terminals on certain letters like ‘J’, and a cap-height that lines up with ascenders. The lowercase also holds surprises – the dots on ‘i’ and ‘j’ are unusually large, and some characters, such as ‘g’, feature double-storey counters. An extreme but stylish italic The italic versions of FS Split Sans and Serif are particularly striking. While similar in style to their upright, Roman versions, they take on a larger-than-usual 18-degree angle, making the forward-slant more dramatic. Although the main purpose of any italic is to help words and phrases stand out, this unique execution helps to make the italic variants of FS Split stylish fonts in their own right – they would work brilliantly on magazine covers, in titles and headlines, pull quotes, and even used commercially in logos and corporate branding. Serif and sans: a split personality FS Split Sans and Serif have their differences but also their similarities, contrasting and complementing each other perfectly. This ‘love hate’ relationship inspired the name of the typeface family, and means the two variants provide a versatile, typographic palette for use in graphics and branding. While its proportions are similar to the sans, the serif has a bigger contrast between its weights of bold, regular and light, bracketed serifs, and different styles of terminals, some being straight and others ball-shaped. FS Split Sans has more subtlety and simplicity, with a smaller weight contrast, less flamboyant terminals, and more consistent counter sizes. The two variants are distinct yet alike, so can be used successfully either in isolation or together.

Quirky and irregular FS Split is no ordinary typeface. Its irregular proportions make it unique, with round letters appearing wide, and straight letters narrow. Other quirks include its eclectic crossbars – the uppercase ‘A’ has an unusually low bar, while the bar on ‘G’ is particularly long. The uppercase has many interesting features in fact, including large counters, closed terminals on certain letters like ‘J’, and a cap-height that lines up with ascenders. The lowercase also holds surprises – the dots on ‘i’ and ‘j’ are unusually large, and some characters, such as ‘g’, feature double-storey counters. An extreme but stylish italic The italic versions of FS Split Sans and Serif are particularly striking. While similar in style to their upright, Roman versions, they take on a larger-than-usual 18-degree angle, making the forward-slant more dramatic. Although the main purpose of any italic is to help words and phrases stand out, this unique execution helps to make the italic variants of FS Split stylish fonts in their own right – they would work brilliantly on magazine covers, in titles and headlines, pull quotes, and even used commercially in logos and corporate branding. Serif and sans: a split personality FS Split Sans and Serif have their differences but also their similarities, contrasting and complementing each other perfectly. This ‘love hate’ relationship inspired the name of the typeface family, and means the two variants provide a versatile, typographic palette for use in graphics and branding. While its proportions are similar to the sans, the serif has a bigger contrast between its weights of bold, regular and light, bracketed serifs, and different styles of terminals, some being straight and others ball-shaped. FS Split Sans has more subtlety and simplicity, with a smaller weight contrast, less flamboyant terminals, and more consistent counter sizes. The two variants are distinct yet alike, so can be used successfully either in isolation or together.

The x factor How do you make a font like FS Albert unique, distinctive? “When designing a font I try to question every letter,” says Jason Smith, “but all you need is a few that have an x factor. With FS Albert, they’re the lowercase ‘a’ and ‘g’ and the uppercase ‘I’ and ‘J’. “I remember a friend saying, ‘Why on earth have you designed the ‘a’ like that? Isn’t it too friendly for this kind of font?’ And, in a way, that’s what I wanted – honesty and warmth, because a lot of big brands at the time really needed to show a more human side.” Range of weights and styles FS Albert is a charismatic type: a warm, friendly sans serif face with a big personality. Open, strong and amenable, and available in a wide range of weights and styles, FS Albert suits almost every task you put it to. Fontsmith has crafted five finely-tuned upright Roman weights and four italic weights, as well as a special Narrow version to provide the best coverage and give headlines and text an easy-going character. The chunky kid “FS Albert was inspired by – and named after – my son, who was a bit of a chunky kid,” says Jason Smith. “I designed an extra bold weight because I always felt that the really big font heavy weights had the most personality. “I recently told Albert this story. He laughed, and forgave me for thinking he was a fat baby. He liked the big personality bit, though.” 1000s of glyphs Not content with a character set that covered Europe and the whole of the Western world, the studio decided to go further afield. There are now FS Albert character sets that cover western and eastern European languages, including those of Russia, as well as Cyrillic, Arabic and Greek scripts. In fact, the font now covers more than 100 languages, making it ideal for bringing a consistent typographic style to the communications of global brands.

Part of the extended Rahere typeface family, Rahere Slab is a humanist slab serif (or Egyptian) in six weights from light to extra bold with corresponding italics. Rahere Slab – like its sibling Rahere Sans – features subtle detailing, giving the typeface a distinctive, warm appearance without distracting the reader. Legible at large and small sizes, Rahere Slab is a versatile, workhorse typeface that is suitable for a wide range of applications such as information signage, packaging, annual reports, advertising, brochures, catalogues, screen text and visual identities. Slab serifs are ideal for projects that need to convey a sense of authority tempered with diplomacy or messages that just need some serious oomph – and Rahere is a great slab for the job. The italic lowercase is more cursive and expressive than the roman and when they’re used together it displays enough character to create emphasis without looking out of place while harmonising admirably. Set on its own (for example, pull-out quotes), the italic exudes a charm that draws attention to the text. The character set covers most European languages plus Vietnamese. Each weight contains lining & non-aligning numerals in both proportional & tabular spacing. The tabular numerals share the same width across all weights and styles (matching Rahere Sans too) – indispensable for financial tables in annual reports. If a companion sans serif is needed, Rahere Sans is the perfect partner. They are both part of the extended Rahere typeface family and have been designed to complement each other beautifully. The typeface is named after Rahere, a 12th-century Anglo-Norman priest, who founded the Priory of the Hospital of St Bartholomew, London in 1123. In 2007 I was successfully treated at Barts for relapsed testicular cancer so I’m indebted to all the doctors, nurses and support staff who work there. A special shout out to Orchid Cancer – a UK charity that helps men affected by cancer – who funded the research for my treatment.

Geometric, stylish, and not quite a stencil face: Glance Sans is the urban alter ego of Glance Slab—a strong-willed sans-serif with no frills but a few unique character traits. Glance Sans follows the design principle of nonjoining parts that made Glance Slab successful. Some strokes may not connect to their stems, creating visible gaps and thus, a dynamic impression of balance and movement. However, Glance Sans has a calmer appearance due to the lack of detached serifs. If Glance Slab’s home territory are large, crowded stadiums and massive sports events, Glance Sans prefers streetball courts, well-used skate parks, and underground clubs. It also adapts to urban work environments from finance to high-tech. Whenever a more toned-down look is called for while retaining the elegance of an athlete, Glance Sans is ready to roll. In the city environment, versatility is key. That’s why Glance Sans sports 7 weights as well as a complete set of italics. These are not just sloped romans but individually drawn letterforms, subtly referencing classic italic construction for more effective emphasis. Among the 600+ glyphs of Glance Sans, you’ll find goodies such as six sets of figures, circled numbers, circled arrows, and all kinds of currency symbols in two stylistic versions. Glance Sans is a great tool for industrial and high-tech branding, for wayfinding systems in contemporary or modernist architecture, for corporate identities in arts, crafts, medicine, culture, and education, and for all kinds of sports-themed design. Both members of the Glance superfamily are easily and effectively combinable; both are able to stand on their own feet. With its powerful italics, you might opt for Glance Sans as your text typeface and use Glance Slab for headlines. Or you set large, clean, display-sized lines in Glance Sans and spice them up with a bit of sportive Glance Slab. It’s up to you to decide how to bring out the best in both of them.

Right now! FS Emeric reconciles a pair of seemingly opposing approaches: the systematic but chilly functionalism of early modernist typography, trapped in time, and a warmer, more emotional, more optimistic spirit. What Fontsmith created was something that marries precision with expression, geometry with movement, functionality with humanity. FS Emeric has a sharp, kinetic edge that cuts across design disciplines – graphic, fashion, product, automotive. It’s about what’s happening right now. Contemporary, optimistic, distinctive – a classic working sans serif. Appetite Discussions with some of Fontsmith’s design studio clients had revealed an appetite for a new kind of typeface that could express mid-century modernist principles in a fresh, contemporary voice. As he crafted the letterforms that would form FS Emeric, Phil Garnham was guided by two central ideas. First, there was Jan Tschichold’s contention that a good letter is “one that expresses itself, speaking with the utmost distinctiveness and clarity”. Second was a belief that a font can be personally expressive without compromising its functionality. These provided the fuel that drove the project to its conclusion. Posters To mark the launch of FS Emeric, Fontsmith asked 11 eminent design studios from around the world – the likes of Pentagram, Studio Dumbar, Bibliotheque, Non-Format and Build – to create a limited edition A1 poster. Each poster celebrated a different weight of FS Emeric, and just 50 of each were screen-printed by Dan Mather onto 175gsm Colorplan stock. “We gave away a randomly selected poster every time two or more weights of the FS Emeric were purchased,” says Phil Garnham. “They’ve now become somewhat of a collector’s item in their own right.” Superfamily In the spirit of Univers, the original font superfamily, FS Emeric now comprises 22 Roman and italic typefaces overall, making it one of the most versatile and functional modern fonts across all kinds of media, as well as one of the most distinctive.

FF Good is a straight-sided sans serif in the American Gothic tradition, designed by Warsaw-based Łukasz Dziedzic. Despite having something of an “old-fashioned” heritage, FF Good feels new. Many customers agree: the sturdy, legible forms of FF Good have been put to good use in the Polish-language magazine ‘Komputer Swiat,’ the German and Russian edition of the celebrity tabloid OK!, and the new corporate design for the Associated Press. Although initially released as a family of modest size, the typeface was fully overhauled in 2010, increasing it from nine styles to 30 styles, with an additional 30-style sibling for larger sizes, FF Good Headline. In 2014, the type system underwent additional expansion to become FontFont’s largest family ever with an incredible 196 total styles. This includes seven weights ranging from Light to Ultra, and an astonishing seven widths from Compressed to Extended for both FF Good and FF Good Headline, all with companion italics and small caps in both roman and italic. With its subtle weight and width graduation, it is the perfect companion for interface, editorial, and web designers. This allows the typographer to pick the style best suited to their layout. As a contemporary competitor to classic American Gothic style typefaces—like Franklin Gothic, News Gothic, or Trade Gothic—it was necessary that an expanded FF Good also offers customers both Text and Display versions. The base FF Good fonts are mastered for text use, while FF Good Headline aims for maximum compactness. Its low cap height together with trimmed ascenders and descenders give punch to headlines and larger-sized copy in publications such as newspapers, magazines, and blogs. There is even more good news about FF Good: it has something of a serif companion. Łukasz Dziedzic built FF Good to work together with FF More, creating in a powerhouse superfamily that is versatile in both its function and aesthetic.

In 1459, while visiting his dying mother, Italian painter Piero della Francesca spent seven days creating a fresco of a pregnant madonna in a small country church in the hilltown of Monterchi (Italy). Hailed today as one of the masterpieces of Italian Renaissance, the fresco was given a new branding in 2019 by Art Director Riccardo Falcinelli who asked the Zetafonts team to develop a custom font for the project. The resulting typeface system, designed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini together with Andrea Tartarelli and Maria Chiara Fantini as a rework of Francesco Canovaro original Beatrix Antiqua, is a 50-weights ode to the beauty of classical roman letterforms, that pairs elegant alternates and quirky ligatures with an array of design options for clear and effective editorial, signage, logo and wayfinding design. The base display family, Monterchi, allows endless design expressions with a range of six weights from the slender thin to the strong extrabold, all with matching italics and an array of over one hundred discretionary ligatures. A fine-tuned companion Monterchi Text has been developed to excel in body use, with a larger x-height and wider spacing - clear and legible even at small sizes. The use range of the family is enriched by Monterchi Serif and Monterchi Sans that feature different contemporary interpretations of the same classical geometric skeleton, allowing for layered editorial design and variation. All the fifty fonts in the Monterchi Type System feature an extended character set of over 1100 glyphs covering over 200 languages using the Latin alphabet, as well as Greek and Russian Cyrillic. Open Type features include small caps, positional figures, alternate letterforms, stylistic sets and discretionary ligatures. With his elegant, historical aesthetic, Monterchi embodies the spirit of early Renaissance and the humanist obsession with constructed and geometric beauty - still managing to function as a workhorse family, ready to help any designer in need of a timeless classic look, or looking for the right ligature to transform a simple word into a striking wordmark.

I've always been in love with fat didones. That’s the reason of Posh. In search of something unique, I started this family back in 2013 with the aim of creating the fattest yet readable bodonian typeface in the market: It was a challenge, because roman fonts need generous counters (or what some call white spaces) and taking them to the extreme of inexistence attempted against the construction of many glyphs. Ears, dots, terminals and serifs always need some extra space so I had to find the exact point of boldness to make characters which have those attributes work well in the middle of those which haven't. (1) After a while, I felt I was again ‘in my element’: Big contrasted letters, sexy and elegant curves, and that Lubalinesque feeling that characterise my fonts. (2) Words written with Posh are a explosion of elegance and sensuality due to the fact that its didone attributes were exaggerated. Since it’s full of alternate glyphs, one can change and choose them until a nice block of ‘‘black’’ is achieved. (3) To accompany the regular style, I designed Posh Inline, a font with the same quantity of glyphs than the regular one; an all caps style called Posh Capitals, and also a really playful Italic version. I hope you find this one delicious like I do! This font is dedicated to all who understand letters are not just meant to be read, but also to be appreciated in group and individually. Enjoy it. NOTES (1) In example, it can be easy to design a fat letter ‘n’ with almost no counter, but really tough to make a satisfactory letter ‘s’ with serifs to match that ‘n’. (2) Also, it wasn't my first attempt in fat didones. Take a look at my font Reina, made in 2012. (3) Posters above show many words with ball terminals that seem to dance above and below the words in order to fill those “undesired” blank spaces.

Attention fellow beings of the universe, do you seek a typeface that embodies the essence of futuristic design? Look no further than Axaxax! With its detached, rounded lines reminiscent of neon tubes, plotters, circuitry, and lasers, this font will bring a touch of intergalactic flair to your message. The stark, precise design of Axaxax is perfect for those seeking a technologically advanced voice. Available in a variety of weights from Ultra-Light to Bold, Axaxax is the font of choice for those seeking to boldly go where no font has gone before. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.