Based on the lettering used on Alan Turing’s famous code-breaking machine at Bletchley Park, the “Bombe”, and the subsequent British answer to the German Enigma machine, the Typex. Research done at Bletchley Park on their restored and antique machines provided the inspiration. The unusual shapes for the capitals have all been retained - the square O, the monospaced characters and other eccentricities that make it unique. This reference material was then extended to the numerals (which did not exist in the original) and a full international character complement. The initial design of the bombe was produced in 1939 at the UK Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park by Alan Turing, with an important refinement devised in 1940 by Gordon Welchman. It was based on a device that had been designed in 1938 in Poland at the Biuro Szyfrów (Cipher Bureau) by cryptologist Marian Rejewski, and known as the "cryptologic bomb" (Polish: bomba kryptologiczna). The Bombe was used to break the German Enigma code on a daily basis, and was a vital part of the Allied war effort. The British “Typex" (alternatively, Type X or TypeX) machines were an adaptation of the commercial German Enigma with a number of enhancements that greatly increased its security. It was used from 1937 until the mid-1950s, when other more modern military encryption systems came into use.

OkayCursive began over coffee, in a local flower shop, where my wife takes a floral arrangement class. I discovered a book there, with old photographs from Paris of flower shop displays. What caught my eye in the background of one of these photos, was the hand-painted lettering on a sign. Inspired, I quickly sketched some of the letters on a napkin and stuck it in my pocket. I began to sketch more over the next few days, looking to construct a full-out cursive font with this distinct French look. I wanted my design to be creative & free flowing, but I also wanted it to be at least somewhat proper. So, I consulted some schoolbooks for reference on the correct cursive forms. After more drawing, I began to create the final vector art. Gradually, these ideas -- plus many hours of careful kerning and metrics -- came together to form OkayCursive. Use OkayCursive any time you want fancy, legible, and luxurious text. Works great if you are designing a logo, or use it to create some beautiful titling. Use it for advertisement copy, or even for short to medium-length bodies of text -- go ahead and have fun with it. OkayCursive is extended, containing the full West European diacritics & a full set of ligatures, making it suitable for multilingual environments & publications.

SchmalfetteCP is the result of another collaboration between designers Jason Walcott and Rob King. King suggested that Walcott revive this wonderful and somewhat forgotten sans serif typeface from the mid 1950s. Originally designed by Walter Haettenschweiler in 1954, Schmalfette Grotesk was used for many years in the German magazine "Twen". The typeface was notoriously hard to acquire at the time and graphic designers in the USA often resorted to cutting letters from the Twen magazines and reusing them in their own designs. Later, when digital type came along several typefaces very similar were created that claimed to be digital revivals of Schmalfette Grotesk. However, they are actually only loosely based on the original. The proportions are different and in some cases a lower case was added. The original font was all caps. At Rob King's suggestion, Jason Walcott has strived to recreate the most faithful digital revival possible of the original Schmalfette Grotesk with the new version of SchmalfetteCP. In some cases small changes were made to accommodate today's digital needs (e.g. web fonts), but anyone who has ever searched for this typeface now has a version available that most closely resembles Haettenschweiler's original work. Schmalfette CP comes in OpenType format in both .ttf and .otf files and offers support for all Latin based and Eastern European languages.

Astrum Heart is a very decorative script font using elegant caligraphic handwritten letters, that are all mutually interconnected, creating a unique look & feel of a personalized human handwritting. It’s clean and prefined lines makes Astrum Heart very appealing and modern, although it being very classical in it’s core essence. Capital letters are projected in a way to contain a stylized heart in it’s construction. Heart, as a symbol of love, makes this font unique for writting love letters, Valentine Day postcards, wedding invitations, etc. Idea for the creation of this font had originally came up from the need to create a beautiful design for Saint Valentine’s Day, but none of the existing fonts cut it - so I decided to create a new and unique typeface to fill this need. Letters and other characters are recognizeable by prefined ornaments, incorporated in a very subtle way. Whitespace between capital letters, lower-case letters, numbers and other characters are done in a way to minimize the need for kerning. Font Astrum Heart, besides being a celebration of class and exclusivity, is a very luxurious and elegant handwritten font. Words consisting of lower-case letters have the possibility of being decorated by adding a small heart at the beginning, anywhere between the letters, or at the end of the word. Character set for this font contains all western and central-european latin characters.

Fushar is a bold comic color font family which comes in 5 layer-styles easy to compose in a multicolor manner and 3 OpenType-SVG color styles to make the work faster and easier. Character set covers Latin alphabet of European languages, Vietnamese and Pinyin with standard ligatures, digits, punctuation, currencies and other symbols - the total of 555 glyphs. The idea came from a custom logotype I made several years ago for a local charity organisation that helps children. The logotype was based on bold letters with light that make the "balloon" effect visible in "Holes" style. Later I expanded the family with "Cuts" and all the derivative fonts that make the whole color family. The purpose was to create a funny, friendly and playful script that would embrace the beauty of the Arabic script which is available in Fushar Arabic. The Latin character set is a useful addition and is available in multilingual bundles. Solid, Cuts and Holes are classic one-color styles which can be used separately to compose a simple text. With Shadows and Lights they can produce a multicolour design, as shown on the images above. To save the time, there are three already prepared combinations in the new OpenType-SVG color format. The features include contextual alternates, standard ligatures, fractions, ordinals, case-sensitive forms, proper mark attachment, superscript (1, 2, 3) & localizations.

Antikor is "mono geometric sans" family consist of 3 styles, 55 fonts with real italics... All fonts of family contains 800+ glyphs, and equipped with many typographic features. (Styles: Mono, Text and Display) Antikor Text is designed for those who prefer to use monospaced fonts not only in coding but in many different media of graphic design. The idea came from creating a typeface with monospaced aesthetic without disturbing aspects of monospaced typefaces . Antikor text has proportional spacing and precise kerning to avoid poor rhythm and track in reading text. It also provides wide range of useful features with extended glyph sets and opentype features. Antikor Mono is geometric sans monospaced typeface with all typographic features except spacing and kerning. As other styles it has many opentype features and extended character set including SmallCaps, Stylistic Alternatives, Scientific Numbers, Fractions, Oldstyle Numbers, Case Sensitive Forms, Arrows, Circled numbers and etc... It is designed to meet all the needs of the monospaced text medias... As Antikor is a versatile family, Antikor Display is a very alternative typeface with playful calligraphic curves. It is designed with the idea of creating a contrast and eye catching touch in display use of typography. It creates tasty contrast against the serious and solid monospace look. Each style has 11 weights ranging from Hairline to ExtraBold + real italics, consist of 22 fonts.

The engraver Jean Jannon ranks among the significant representatives of French typography of the first half of the 17th century. From 1610 he worked in the printing office of the Calvinist Academy in Sedan, where he was awarded the title "Imprimeur de son Excellence et de l'Academie Sédanoise". He began working on his own alphabet in 1615, so that he would not have to order type for his printing office from Paris, Holland and Germany, which at that time was rather difficult. The other reason was that not only the existing type faces, but also the respective punches were rapidly wearing out. Their restoration was extremely painstaking, not to mention the fact that the result would have been just a poor shadow of the original elegance. Thus a new type face came into existence, standing on a traditional basis, but with a life-giving sparkle from its creator. In 1621 Jannon published a Roman type face and italics, derived from the shapes of Garamond's type faces. As late as the start of the 20th century Jannon's type face was mistakenly called Garamond, because it looked like that type face at first sight. Jannon's Early Baroque Roman type face, however, differs from Garamond in contrast and in having grander forms. Jannon's italics rank among the most successful italics of all time – they are brilliantly cut and elegant.

Künstler Grotesk ML is one of a number of typeface designs that attempts to reconcile Germany’s blackletter tradition with the international familiarity of roman letterforms in a simple, robust design suitable for meeting the demands of a modern industrial economy, while rejecting the extraneous ornamentation of the departing Victorian era. It is an all-cap design with a number of playful ligatures. It has an appealing boldness that reverses well. Künstler means ‘artist’ in German. I had always assumed it was a person’s name until I came across the translation. Lesson: conjecture is not fact. Grotesk refers to a sans serif letterform tradition. Kunstler Grotesk was originally released by Bauer'sche Giesserei of Frankfurt am Main circa 1900. Künstler Grotesk 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 350 glyphs, 260 kerning pairs. 2. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: pnum, salt, dlig (19) and hist. 3. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. 4. Redesigned mathematical operators. 5. Included tabular (std) & proportional (opt) numbers. 6. Refined various glyph outlines. 7. Made CcNnOoSsZz-kreska available (salt). 8. Incorporated alternate glyphs in lower case.

Essay is an elegant serif typeface intended for setting books, with many stylistic alternates and other typographic goodies, designed by Stefan Ellmer. It is a highly legible text face with a natural flow of reading. This is enhanced by a slight slant of the roman, the combination of open and closed apertures and the amalgamation of organic strokes and counters with a static, fully straight baseline. Essay Text Regular looks back to the spirit of the french Renaissance, when the roman typographic letterforms came to full emancipation. Departing from that historical reference, Essay Text gets rid of all sentimental antiquity and becomes a contemporary interpretation of the “archetypes” of that period. Essay Text Italic refers to that more vaguely, resulting in a formalised look with fairly upright and open shapes and little cursiveness. As in the Renaissance, before the mating of roman and italic, Essay Text Italic works as a separate text face and a perfect secondary type. The name Essay derives from the literary meaning of the word, attempt or trial. Therefore, the typeface Essay can be seen as an attempt to express an opinion about reading, the omnipresence of history, the importance of calligraphy and the importance to deviate from that calligraphic source; as well as an attempt to crystallise lettershapes in balance between convention and the designer’s personal idiom.

Gerard Unger’s new typeface Alverata is a twenty-first-century type-face inspired by the shapes of romanesque capitals in inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, without being a close imitation of them. It is additionally based on the early twentieth-century model, but tweaked so as to prevent blandness and monotony. Alverata performs beautifully in both screen and on paper, delivering excellent legibility. Its letters are open and friendly in small sizes and lively and attractive in large sizes. They are robust, and show refinement in their detail. It is an extensive type family, with versions for both formal and informal applications. Alverata consists of three different fonts: Alverata, Alverata Informal and Alverata Irregular, that variate in form and width, but maintain the same spirit. The ‘irregular’ version is particularly inspired by the Insular letterforms, the uncials, and their constantly changing positioning. Alverata PanEuropean includes Greek and Cyrillic relatives. The typeface strikes a balance among Europe’s diversity of languages, combining contemporary typographical practices with features of medieval letterforms, from the time when Europe came into being. Visually, some written languages, such as Czech and Maltese, differ quite strongly from languages like English and German, notably because of their many accented characters. While other typefaces will show this difference, Alverata removes it. As a result, Alverata enables harmonious convergence of languages.

The idea for this completely new font design with overlapping characters came when Axel Stoltenberg, longtime IKARUS program developer at URW + +, visited a restaurant. As it can be seen quite often , the daily specials were offered handwritten with chalk on a blackboard applying a writing technique never been available before for digital fonts: each character is partly covered by its predecessor creating a three-dimensional effect. The implementation of this unusual notation for digital setting required a lot of programming and testing until all necessary character variants were produced and set properly always using the correct form. In order to achieve this, the OpenType Pro font ThreeDee contains about 12,400 characters and all the necessary OpenType features (GSUB ) for the automatic setting in OTF savvy application programs. The slightly playful basic design for ThreeDee was created by Anna Stoltenberg , the daughter of Axel, specially devised for the innovative representation and support of its special nature. The shadow generated with IKARUS even intensifies the 3D effect. As is well-known, making use of the embedded OTF features, i.e. the automatic access to all the 12,400 character variants , a corresponding text / layout program ( InDesign, Quark Xpress, current Open / LibreOffice or MS Word etc. ) is required. ThreeDee is a headline font that will unveil all its charisma and exceptional quality at appropriate, larger sizes.

The branding agency's client wanted an ultra modern"" typeface that was ""futuristic without being gimmicky or ephemeral,"" according to the design brief. Designer Sebastian Lester took on this intriguing custom font assignment, but soon, a bureaucratic decision cancelled the project. ""I was left with a sketchbook full of ideas and thought it would be a shame not to see what came of them,"" says Lester. He decided to finish the design on his own. Lester's research confirmed that the principal ingredient of an ""ultra modern"" typeface was simplicity of character structure: a carefully drawn, monoline form, open letter shapes and smooth, strong curves. To conceive a typeface that crossed the line from modern to futuristic, Lester decided to amplify these qualities. About a year after Lester's initial conceptual work, two highly functional and versatile typefaces emerged. These are Neo Sans and Neo Tech, designs Lester describes as ""legible without being neutral, nuanced without being fussy, and expressive without being distracting."" Both the Neo Sans and the more-minimalist Neo Tech families are available in six weights, ranging from Light to Ultra. Each has a companion italic, and Neo Tech offers a suite of alternate characters. While engineered to look modern as tomorrow, Neo Sans and Neo Tech display the functional and aesthetic excellence that earns them a place in the list of classic designs from the Monotype typeface library.

The branding agency's client wanted an ultra modern"" typeface that was ""futuristic without being gimmicky or ephemeral,"" according to the design brief. Designer Sebastian Lester took on this intriguing custom font assignment, but soon, a bureaucratic decision cancelled the project. ""I was left with a sketchbook full of ideas and thought it would be a shame not to see what came of them,"" says Lester. He decided to finish the design on his own. Lester's research confirmed that the principal ingredient of an ""ultra modern"" typeface was simplicity of character structure: a carefully drawn, monoline form, open letter shapes and smooth, strong curves. To conceive a typeface that crossed the line from modern to futuristic, Lester decided to amplify these qualities. About a year after Lester's initial conceptual work, two highly functional and versatile typefaces emerged. These are Neo Sans and Neo Tech, designs Lester describes as ""legible without being neutral, nuanced without being fussy, and expressive without being distracting."" Both the Neo Sans and the more-minimalist Neo Tech families are available in six weights, ranging from Light to Ultra. Each has a companion italic, and Neo Tech offers a suite of alternate characters. While engineered to look modern as tomorrow, Neo Sans and Neo Tech display the functional and aesthetic excellence that earns them a place in the list of classic designs from the Monotype typeface library.

Multicolored Fonts Many years ago, when Xerox Corporation still had its own font department, I came to Los Angeles in 1985 to train the IKARUS program. One day Bill Kienzel, head of the Xerox font department at the time, said we should go to the Hollywood Hills together; he knew people there who were experimenting with multicolored fonts. After a little wandering through the winding streets of the many hills, we reached a somewhat overgrown, simple family house standing under trees. A group of very inspired designers were waiting for us there. They immediately showed us the works they created using photomechanical tricks. They were fascinating. The American colors and the whole look seemed noble and enchanting. The problem was that this process was very difficult to implement and required a lot of effort on individual letters. They dreamed of a colored font that could be used for normal typesetting. We thought back and forth about how to save the individually colored letters in a common font, but soon gave up because we didn't see a technical option. So this idea and the memory of the time in Hollywood lay dormant in the back of my mind for many years, until at the beginning of this year 2023 I received an order to produce an outline typeface and the story came back to me. Suddenly I knew how to solve the problem from back then: if only the areas that should have the same color in all letters were saved in their own separate fonts, they could be colored independently of each other and later placed on top of each other. I implemented this in the 5 fonts that are now available with the 3 variants “Outside”, “Middle” and “Inside”. Together with the background, 4 colors can be combined with each other. This method works in text programs such as Word or InDesign. In Photoshop or Illustrator, the individual surfaces can also be colored by converting them into paths if the additional “Complete” variants (which contain all 3 contours) are used. There is also a “Basic” variant that can be used to achieve special effects such as overlay, bleed, etc. The first 5 fonts in this series are all based on the principle of contouring. Anyone who claims that you don't need any special fonts because they can be created automatically from any font using common programs is wrong or is only telling only half the truth. Anyone who has ever dealt with this knows that many individual adjustments to the design are necessary after contouring. This has happened in the 5 fonts that are now available and have very different styles. The dream from back then has come true. The user can set any text, long or short, in multiple colors, freely design the color scheme and apply all the usual typographic settings. Volker Schnebel, November 2023

The four weight semi-condensed Bartholemé family came into existence as a family expansion based on the designer's earlier concept, Bartholemé Open. This hybrid family was inspired by and loosely based on a number of contemporary mid-twentieth century type concepts having Old Face or Modern influence. Those inspirational type designs were primarily designed for various proprietary photolettering technologies of the time. The award-winning* Bartholemé Open and its companion design Bartholemé small capital open were inspired by various Shaded, Inline and Handtooled type models from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Most of those inspirational type designs were designed as titling fonts with all capital sets only. To set it apart from the earlier models, Bartholemé Open is semi-condensed intentionally designed with a lowercase. Design qualities include a large x- height, tightly curved ample counters, crisp serifs and tight bracketing. The overall plan of the family was originally intended for display usage in titling and short passages of text. At higher output resolutions all fonts read well at smaller point sizes. The Bartholemé family works well on its own, but also is compatible with type styles possessing qualities that complement or enhance its own. The Bartholemé family consists of a Regular weight complementing a Bold weight, along with Medium complementing an Extra Bold weight. The companion true-drawn italics are based on the Bartholemé roman design. * Award for Design Excellence bukva: raz! Type Design Competition of the Association Typographique Internationale, 2001

Martin Wilke’s underrated yet influential deco classic from 1932 has both feet firmly planted in the high traditions of Western European calligraphy while carefully and subtly introducing some traits from the sweeping geometric/minimalist vision of the time. In a way, it was one of the representatives of the European anti-type typefaces of that era, when print media was searching for the elusive aesthetic balance between humanism and geometry. This typeface enjoyed some popularity in Germany for a few years, and went on to influence further type designs in Holland and Italy. After the second World War, the black hole that swallowed a big chunk of Europe’s print culture, new influences and technologies overtook the scene, and selective historical emphasis ensued, highlighting some of the era’s designs and overlooking others. Further selective picking in the digital era all but buried Wilke’s body of work - unfairly so, because he was just as important in German type history as Bernhard, Post, Schneidler, Tiemann and Trump. The original metal Wilke Kursiv came in one weight. This digital version goes a long way in expanding on that original offering. Now Wilke’s masterpiece comes in three weights, and with a full Pro treatment including swash caps, small capitals, five types of figures, automatic fractions, and plenty of other OpenType niceties. Each of the Wilke Kursiv Pro fonts comes with over 700 characters, and contains support for most Latin-based languages. Also available are three non-Pro fonts in each weight.

I have improved and added diacritics to this elegant alphabet, and generally cleaned it up to a professional standard. It is well suited to logos, menus, invitations and other things wanting a touch of elegance. Nick Curtis says: "I came across this particular treatment for swash caps in an old book on letterhead design. The original had been handlettered, but I though it might be convenient to have a ready-made font to accomplish the same effect, and here it is. As an extra added feature, the “§” sign is an ampersand with a long tail." ALL fonts from CheapProFonts have very extensive language support: They contain some unusual diacritic letters (some of which are contained in the Latin Extended-B Unicode block) supporting: Cornish, Filipino (Tagalog), Guarani, Luxembourgian, Malagasy, Romanian, Ulithian and Welsh. They also contain all glyphs in the Latin Extended-A Unicode block (which among others cover the Central European and Baltic areas) supporting: Afrikaans, Belarusian (Lacinka), Bosnian, Catalan, Chichewa, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Kashubian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Maori, Polish, Saami (Inari), Saami (North), Serbian (latin), Slovak(ian), Slovene, Sorbian (Lower), Sorbian (Upper), Turkish and Turkmen. And they of course contain all the usual “western” glyphs supporting: Albanian, Basque, Breton, Chamorro, Danish, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galican, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish (Gaelic), Italian, Northern Sotho, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romance, Sami (Lule), Sami (South), Scots (Gaelic), Spanish, Swedish, Tswana, Walloon and Yapese.

When Patricia Lillie was growing up, she thought the coolest thing in the world would be finding her own name listed in a library catalog. The fantasy came true in 1986 when her first children's book was published. Five more followed. The thrill of seeing her work on library shelves hasn't abated, but today, Lillie is just as likely to see one of her typefaces on the cover of a book. She has created several display faces and image fonts. My first typeface designs were based on lettering I'd done while working for a library, doing graphics work for the children's section," she explains. "I currently do a lot of web design, but type is my favorite thing." The Tickles (ITC Tickle and ITC Tickle Too) are Lillie's first ITC typeface releases. "I was playing around with a Sharpie marker one day and liked the way the letters looked," she recalls. "I started redoing the letters from scratch in Fontographer to see what developed, and liked those letters too." ITC Tickle is a bi-form font (with both cap and lowercase letters of the same size) that clearly breaks a typographic rule or two. ITC Tickle Too has the same basic lettershapes, but they've grown clusters of stipples that give a three-dimensional quality to the design. The result is a friendly, offbeat display family that's guaranteed to add a giggle to your work."

The original Frutiger typeface was designed in the early 1970s by Adrian Frutiger and his studio for the way finding system of the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Soon after the airport was opened, a huge demand for the typeface arose from companies wanting to employ it in other signage systems, as well as in printed matter. The Frutiger typeface came out as part of the Linotype library in 1977. Epitomizing functionality and clarity both in signage and as a bread-and-butter typeface in print, Frutiger became a modern classic. Neue Frutiger® is the 2009 version of the Frutiger typeface family. It was revised and improved by Akira Kobayashi in close collaboration with Adrian Frutiger. While Frutiger Next, the 1999 revision, introduced a new concept (including a larger x-height, a more pronounced ascender height, narrower letter-spacing and, most notably, an italic with calligraphic traits), Neue Frutiger returns to the original 1977 design. The result is a well-balanced range of 10 finely-graded weights. Despite the various changes, the ‘New Frutiger’ still fits perfectly with Frutiger and serves to harmoniously enhance the styles already in existence. Neue Frutiger Variable are font files which are featuring two axis and have a preset instance from UltraLight to ExtraBlack and Condensed to Extended. Featured in: Best Fonts for Resumes, Best Fonts for Websites, Best Fonts for PowerPoints, Best Fonts for Tattoos

Fushar Arabic is a bold comic color font family which comes in 5 layer-styles easy to compose in a multicolor manner and 3 OpenType-SVG color styles to make the work faster and easier. Character set covers Latin A-Z all caps, Arabic, Persian and Urdu with 230 ligatures, European, Arabic and Persian / Urdu localized digits, punctuation, currencies and other symbols - the total of 729 glyphs. The idea came from a custom logotype I made several years ago for a local charity organisation that helps children. The logotype was based on bold letters with light that make the "balloon" effect visible in "Holes" style. Later I expanded the family with "Cuts" and all the derivative fonts that make the whole color family. The purpose was to create a funny, friendly and playful script that would embrace the beauty of the Arabic alphabet. Solid, Cuts and Holes are classic one-color styles which can be used separately to compose a simple text. With Shadows and Lights they can produce a multicolour design, as shown on the images above. To save the time, there are three already prepared combinations in the new OpenType-SVG color format. The features include required ligatures, discretionary ligatures, proper mark attachment, contextual alternates, case-sensitive forms, ordinals, localised Persian/Urdu numerals, superscript (1, 2, 3) & fractions. Now you can buy Extended Latin character set (uppercase and lowercase) at Fushar font family page on MyFonts. European languages, Vietnamese and Pinyin included.

One day, when I was walking with my daughter Greta, I stopped in front of the windowshop of a bookshop, that caught my attention, but Greta was pretty irritated, as always when it comes to books: she is dyslexic. All things written are basically a nightmare for her!So one thing came to my mind: if the great Louis Braille, with visual impairment, invented an instrument that allowed blind people to read, write and play,there had to be a tool that made it easier for dyslexics to do the same things. So, I proposed to Greta to create together a font to help her and other dyslexics. We worked on it, becoming a bit of graphic designers, inventors and guinea pigs at the same time.We brought some initial changes to the mirror letters "pq bd", based on some examples already available on the market, that improved reading times, strenghtening our willing to go ahead. That's how "GretaDS" is born, a completely new font, from the "handwritten" family, which marks a difference on the mirror letters, making them easily recognizable, as well as the lowercase couple rn (RN) which can be confused with the letter "m", not to mention the capital "I" (vowel i) indistinguishable from the lowercase "l" (L)We hope, that other graphic designers will follow its flow, modify and improve the path, and make the most of its energy, to offer dyslexics a tool that make reading as easy as drinking a glass of water.

‘Skiart Serif Subtle’ is now available online. Originally inspired by the san serif font ‘Skia’ by Mathew Carter for Apple. ‘Skiart’ was designed to feel more like a serifed font, but without any serifs. It took a step between sans serif and serif fonts. Next on the path towards a serif font came Skiart Serif Mini, with tiny serifs added. This was a true serif font, all be it on the small side. Skiart Serif Subtle is less of a serif than Skiart Serif Mini, in that it doesn’t have actual 'serifs' as such. It has a subtle flare where a serif might normally be found. It remains fully readable and feels as clean and normal as any of the best body copy serifs, and yet still has the strong solid bones of all the other Skiart font families. If compared to one of the more commonly used serifs like ‘Times New Roman’, the ‘Skiart Serif Subtle’ lowercase is more open with a taller x-height, increasing its readability and friendliness. The serifs are smaller and less distracting. They are not pretending to be ligatures. Where ‘Times’ makes its p q b d forms out of a barely touching oval and stem, the ‘Serif Subtle’ forms are much more firmly attached, appearing clearly as single letters. The standard setting for the a’s and g’s are round single story, feeling warmer and more inviting in the ‘Serif Mini’ font. Much more friendly than the stuffy double-storied versions in fonts such as ‘Times’ etc.

Franca is a neo-grotesk family in nine weights plus matching italics. The inspiration for the design came through the constant interest in new interpretations of the classic grotesk model and a study of "neutral“ typefaces like Helvetica, Univers or Normal Grotesk. During the studies, additional attention was given to the American representatives of the genre, resulting in the initial impetus for a reinterpretation, combining both paths into one contemporary design. This is reflected in the name, blending together the names of the most popular typefaces of each genres, (Fran)klin and Helveti(ca). Due to its large x-height and plain design, the family is perfectly suited for all kinds of text. Its mid-weights are optimized for usage in long paragraphs, while the bolder weights, due to a short descender and ascender, create a compact and confident look in headlines or short copy. In order to create strong and dynamic italics, the oblique glyph shapes come with a faint calligraphic hint, defined by a higher stroke contrast and a steeper connection between stems and arcs in, for example, h n m and u. This is followed by different standard shapes for a and y, supporting the dynamic movement of the lowercase in general. A wide range of OpenType features such as ligatures, old style figures, fractions, case-sensitive shapes and many more, are available for professional and contemporary typesetting. This is completed with eleven alternative glyph sets, enabling a quick customization of the typeface. The family supports up to 92 languages and comes with 500+ glyphs per font.

ATF Alternate Gothic is a new, significant digital expansion of Morris Fuller Benton’s classic 1903 type design. Originally available in one bold weight, the metal typeface came in three slightly different widths for flexibility in copy-fitting layouts.  ATF Alternate Gothic has impact at any size. Its letterforms are instantly familiar: Benton’s original metal type family was used throughout the 20th century in newspapers, magazines, and advertising, providing “strong and effective display” in a compact space. Monotype issued its own metal version for machine typesetting, and Alternate Gothic likely served as inspiration for Linotype’s ubiquitous Trade Gothic® Bold and Bold Condensed. ATF Alternate Gothic expands on the characteristics that perhaps made Trade Gothic so popular, providing a wider range of weights and widths to address the needs of today’s designers and technologies. The space-saving clarity of ATF Alternate Gothic brings readability to the world of advertising typefaces. With its finely graded range of ten weights, with four widths of each weight (40 fonts total), this extensive type family can be used to pack a lot into a narrow space, and the range makes it easy to create variations of an advertisement or announcement for different formats and media. The tall x-height and narrow proportions, combined with a relatively low waist and springy, tension-filled forms, make ATF Alternate Gothic strong and effective in display. All ten weights have been carefully spaced for readability, caps and lowercase work well together, while attention-grabbing all-caps settings are clear and never crowded, no matter how narrow.

Gerard Unger’s new typeface Alverata is a twenty-first-century type-face inspired by the shapes of Romanesque capitals in inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, without being a close imitation of them. It is additionally based on the early twentieth-century model, but tweaked so as to prevent blandness and monotony. Alverata performs beautifully in both screen and on paper, delivering excellent legibility. Its letters are open and friendly in small sizes and lively and attractive in large sizes. They are robust, and show refinement in their detail. Unger’s Alverata is an extensive type family, with versions for both formal and informal applications, and with Greek and Cyrillic relatives. Alverata consists of three different fonts: Alverata, Alverata Irregular and Alverata Informal, that vary in form and width, but maintain the same spirit. The Irregular version is particularly inspired by the Insular letterforms, the uncials, and their constantly changing positioning. Alverata strikes a balance among Europe’s diversity of languages, combining contemporary typographical practices with features of medieval letterforms, from the time when Europe came into being. Visually, some written languages, such as Czech and Maltese, differ quite strongly from languages like English and German, notably because of their many accented characters. While other typefaces will show this difference, Alverata removes it. As a result, Alverata enables harmonious convergence of languages.  For the development of the Greek letterforms, Unger collaborated with Gerry Leonidas (University of Reading) and Irene Vlachou (Athens), and with Tom Grace on the Cyrillic letterforms.

This all started with a love for Minister. This is a font designed by Carl Albert Fahrenwaldt in 1929. In the specimen booklet there’s a scan from Linotype’s page many years ago. They no longer carry the font. I’ve gone quite a ways from the original. It was dark and a bit heavy. But I loved the look and the readability. This came to a head when I started my first book on all-digital printing written from 1994-1995, and published early in 1996. I needed fonts to show the typography I was talking about. At that point oldstyle figures, true small caps, and discretionary ligatures were rare. More than that text fonts for book design had lining OR oldstyle figures, lowercase OR small caps—never both. So, I designed the Diaconia family using the Greek word for minister. It was fairly rough. I knew very little. I later redesigned and updated Diaconia into Bergsland Pro—released in 2004. It was still rough (though I impressed myself). Now, with 4-font Biblia Serif family 13 years later, I’ve cleaned up, made the fonts more consistent internally, added more functional OpenType features, and brought the fonts into the 21st century. I used the 2017 set of features: small caps, small cap figures, oldstyle figures, fractions, lining figures, ligatures and discretionary ligatures. These are fonts designed for book production and work well for text or heads. Finally, in 2021, I went over the fonts entirely and remade them in Glyphs.

The ideal typeface for cartography The Swiss designer/typographer Felix Arnold designed Cisalpin during the late 1990s, after he had challenged himself to create a contemporary typeface that could be used for cartographic uses. Arnold came to the subject of cartographic typefaces after analyzing many maps and atlases, and discovering that there was no standard typeface for these types of documents. Like any good cartographic type, Cisalpin is very legible at small sizes. While he was drawing this typeface on his computer, Arnold used a reduction glass to refine his design, making it work in these situations. Cisalpin is a linear sans serif face, with slight resemblance to renaissance serif types. The various weights are all clearly differentiated from one another. And because space is often a premium on maps, Cisalpin runs narrow. Words close in around themselves to help them become more identifiable. The letterforms in Cisalpin are durable, and can maintain their readability when placed over complex backgrounds. They have open interior forms, flattened curves, tall x-heights, and a capital height that almost reaches the tops of the ascenders. Cisalpin also has pronounced Italics, with a very clear angle of inclination. Each letterform in the family has been optimized so that they cannot be easily mistaken for another. This again helps minimize the misunderstandings that often occur because of illegibility. Although Cisalpin was developed for use in cartography, it may be used for countless other purposes; any font that can work well in small sizes on a map could be used almost anywhere else!

Alfie™ is lively, friendly, inviting and easy on the eyes. What more could you want in a script? How about four flavors of the same design? Alfie Script is a delightful connecting script with a touch of comfortable elegance. Use it for everything from social announcements to headlines and packaging. Alfie Casual is a little more laid-back with letters standing on their own. It works great in short blocks of text copy, subheads and navigational links. Alfie Informal has spirited serifs and its own demeanor, while Alfie Small Caps does a fine job of supporting its other siblings. There’s an immediacy to words and messages set in these lighthearted confections. Jim Ford was practicing drawing with a new brush pen when the inspiration for Alfie came to him. He had filled several pages in a notebook with letters and, at one point, realized that there might be a typeface among them. As it turned out, there were four. The process, however, wasn’t choosing one design and modifying it. The makings of all the designs were on the pages. It was just a matter of culling out the right collection of characters to build the foundations for the four flavors of Alfie. Because they share the same family roots, each design in the Alfie family can be paired and intermixed. Ford admits that there’s a hint of Emil Klumpp’s 1950s Murray Hill typeface (https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/bitstream/murray-hill/) in the Alfie family. Just enough to give the design a 50s vibe. (Some fashions never go out of style.)

Homelessfonts is an initiative by the Arrels foundation to support, raise awareness and bring some dignity to the life of homeless people in Barcelona Spain. Each of the fonts was carefully digitized from the handwriting of different homeless people who agreed to participate in this initiative. MyFonts is pleased to donate all revenue from the sales of Homelessfonts to the Arrels foundation in support of their mission to provide the homeless people in Barcelona with a path to independence with accommodations, food, social and health care. Loraine was born in London. She was an ordinary, hardworking family person, with nothing to worry about beyond paying the rent at the end of the month or keeping the fridge full. Until in 2009 she came to Barcelona on holiday. Soon after she arrived her passport was stolen from her and she had a series of problems with the British embassy. Somebody had made illegal use of her passport. So Loraine found herself in a strange place, unable to get home. She didn’t know anyone there and her circumstances meant she couldn’t ask for help from England, either. She had to sell all her possessions and, in time, learn to speak Spanish. “Living in the street is a wonderful adventure,” she says. In the street she discovered a new city, a new country and a new culture. “There are lots of people who prefer to sleep under the stars.” She also made lots of friends who helped her in a completely unfamiliar world.

Pietro Aretino (1492 – 1556) Was an Italian author, playwright, poet, satirist and blackmailer, who wielded influence on contemporary art and politics. The most vigorous and versatile vernacular writer of the 16th century He was a very versatile writer, famous for his Lascivious Sonnets – which caused great scandal at the time – but also for his satirical verses, addressed to all the powerful people in Italy, without forgetting the many plays that he wrote for the theatre. Part of the charm of his letters is that through them you may know the whole of Venetian society from the top to the bottom. The little-known church of San Luca in Venice (in St Mark's district) has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries for people who are decidedly not devout: journalists, writers, free thinkers. In 1556 Pietro Aretino, a unique character of the Italian and Venetian Renaissance period was buried there. Such strong of personality, has contributed to generate the powerful wind of change that emerged from the italian renaissance. We have inspired on that talent searching for a new sight the famous Venetian typefaces. Probably looking for more vigour and contemporary digital style. This typeface is slightly condensed, lighter and has more contrast between the thick and thin letter-strokes, it has concave bracketed serif. Their ascender and descenders strokes are very shorts. Aretino family is completed by four weigh: Regular, SemiBold, Bold and ExtraBold, while Italics has three weighs. These fonts came with a full OpenType features and CE languages.

Smart, legible and elegant, Gravesend Sans is a based on the unique typeface used for the iconic grass-green signage for the Southern Railway. In existence from 1923 to 1948, when the network was nationalised, the Southern Railway linked London with the Channel ports, South West England, the South coast resorts and Kent. The same design was also used for the ‘hawkeye’ signs on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, differentiated by black letters on a yellow background. Reference for each letter was taken from vintage ‘target’ station nameplates and other platform signage. The rarest letters were the Q, seen in Queens Road Battersea, the X, seen in East Brixton, and the Z, used in Maze Hill, site of an infamous train crash in 1958. Being hand-made, the letters often differ in width and thickness. There was no lower case. The Bluebell Railway, a heritage steam line, runs over part of the old Southern Railway network and uses a very similar type. The design of the numbers differed considerably, but here have been taken from the Device 112 Hours font Smokebox. As well identifying platforms, they were used on the front of the steam engine’s smokebox, hence the name, and stylistically are more in keeping with the letters than some of the squarer versions that can be seen in old photographs. William Caslon IV is credited with the first Latin sans-serif type, shown in a 1816 Caslon specimen book. ‘Two Lines English Egyptian’, as it was called, was caps-only, and there are several other correlations between that type design and this one. Includes a selection of authentic arrows and manicules, plus abbreviated ligatures such as ‘St.’ (Saint or Street) ‘Rd.’ (Road) and ‘Jn.’ (Junction). The Cameo version includes many graphic banner elements that can be freely combined.

Ariata™, from Malou Verlomme, is three typefaces in one. Like phases of the moon, they gracefully meld from one to the other. The “Text” weights are sturdy designs that perform as well in blocks of copy as they do in the occasional headline. The “Display” versions of Ariata are delicate but confident designs that shine in large sizes, while the “Stencil” typefaces are eye-catching and provocative. Each version is available in four weights, from a forthright regular to a robust black, making for a family that is comfortable taking on a wide variety of tasks. The individual designs can be combined with each other to create a distinctive, yet cohesive typographic statement, or stand on their own as confident communication tools. If you want a little more variety, Ariata’s solid glyphic shapes will serve as a dynamic counterpoint to just about any Humanistic sans. Space economical and distinctly original, Ariata easily creates commanding headlines, pull-quotes and subheads. Packaging, game branding, posters, book jackets and advertising design are all also within its comfort zone. While primarily intended for print applications, Ariata’s full-bodied x-heights, generous counters and clear apertures make for a design that is also at home in many digital environments. Verlomme is an award-winning Senior Type Designer at Monotype. He has a degree in graphic design from l'École Duperré in Paris, and an MA in Typeface Design from the University of Reading. He taught type design at several universities in Paris and still occasionally lectures and gives workshops. His typeface Camille has the honor of being part of the collection at France’s Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP). Verlomme also designed Placard® Next, Madera™ and Johnston100, London’s new underground branding typeface. Click here to see all of https://www.monotype.com/studio/malou-verlomme Malou Verlomme’s typeface designs.

Auchentaller was inspired by a travel poster by Josef Maria Auchentaller in 1906. To our knowledge, it was never cast in type. Grado lies on the northern Adriatic, between Venice and Trieste. At one time the port for the important Roman town of Aquileia. With the decline of the Roman Empire, the upper Adriatic region came under the rule of the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Lombards, the Franks, the Germans, the Venetians and finally, in 1796, the Austrian Hapsburgs. So it remained until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1919, following World War I, when the seaport of Trieste was awarded to Italy. With Trieste came Montefalcone, Aquileia and Grado. The area was marked by years of political tension between Italy and Yugoslavia, exemplified by the d'Annunzio expedition to capture Fiume (Rijeka) in September, 1919. Some basic discussion of the period from 1919 to 1939 may be found in Seton-Watson’s Eastern Europe Between The Wars (Cambridge 1945) and Rothschild’s East Central Europe Between The Two World Wars (Seattle 1974). In 1965 I was traveling by train from Venice to Vienna. Crossing the Alps, the train stopped for customs inspection at the rural Italian-Austrian border, just above Slovenia. We were warned not to get off the train because there were still shooting skirmishes in the area. Through all this, Grado remained literally an island of tranquility, connected to the mainland by a only causeway and lines on a map. Auchentaller not only painted the beach scene at Grado, he moved there, living out the rest of his life in this comfortable little island town. His travel illustration contains the text from which the design of our font Auchentaller is drawn. The text translates: "Seaside resort : Grado / Austrian coastal land". Please see our gallery images to see a map locating Grado, as well as Auchentaller’s painting of the resort. Auchentaller is a monoline all-cap font, light and open in design , with a lot of typically art nouveau letter forms. Included in our font are a number of ligatures. As is frequently seen in designs by German speakers, the umlaut is embedded in the O & U below the tops of the letters. This approach led to two whimsies: a happy umlauted O and a sad umlauted U. This font has a clean, crisp look that is very appealing and very distinctive. Auchentaller 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. Add glyphs to complete standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page. Special glyphs relocated and assigned Unicode codepoints, some in Private Use area. Total of 336 glyphs. 2. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: pnum, liga, salt & ornm. 3. Added 116 kerning pairs. 4. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. 5. Revised ‘J’. 6. Minor refinements to various glyph outlines. 7. Inclusion of both tabular & proportional numbers. 8. Inclusion of both standard acute and Polish kreska with choice of alternate accented glyphs for c,n,r,s & z. Please note that some older applications may only be able to access the Western Europe character set (approximately 221 glyphs). 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.

Upton is a modern and condensed sans serif. The initial inspiration for its design came from lettering Wim Crouwel created for a poster design. It also takes some cues from neutral grotesks like Helvetica and Akzidenz. Because of its narrow letterforms, Upton is best applied to headlines and poster-sized typography. Upton’s italics were designed with high-quality compensation for all circles and strokes. Upton ships in two different formats. Depending on your preference, you can install the typeface as two Variable Fonts or use the family’s 14 static OpenType font files instead. Those weights run from Extralight to Extrabold. While the static-format fonts offer a good intermediary-step selection, users who install the Variable Font have vastly greater control over their text’s stroke width. The weight axes in Upton’s Variable Fonts allow users to differentiate between almost 1,000 possible font weights. That enables you to fine-tune your text’s exact appearance on-screen or in print. In its fonts, Upton has several ligatures. That includes optional “discretionary ligatures,” which bring a unique tone to display usage. For instance, the fonts include optional ligatures for the letter combinations “E-T”, “F-l”, “L-E-T-T-E”, “L-E-T-T”, “L-E-T”, “L-E-L-O”, “L-U”, “i-j”. and “m-m”. There are also many alternate glyphs. Stylistic Set 1 substitutes in new forms for “G”, “R”, “a”, “f”, “g”, “i”, “r”, “t”, and “y”. Six more Stylistic Sets have alternates for the “æ”, “g”, “k”, “o”, “K”, “O”, and “Q”. Additional OpenType features activate other useful features, such as fractions, numbers in circles, or symbols.

EngelNewSans is sans serif family of 12 weights and an upgrade of the typeface Engel also published by Die Gestalten Verlag. The project began with an extension to the original Engel character set and freshening up the typeface to suit the OpenType format. EngelNewSerif came about as a sibling to EngelNewSans as a corresponding serif family also of 12 weights, matching those of EngelNewSans. Both families are designed for a wide usage in running text and headlines. EngelNewSans is an evolved version of the original Engel typeface, which undergone improvements to the individual letterforms and the overall look which resulted in this sans serif type family with a more mature confident character and with softer, rounder and more harmonious shapes. The characteristics between the two could perhaps, very fittingly, be compared to a person showing different sides to their personality at different stages in life. With EngelNewSans portraying the more mature role while the original Engel shows traits of a cool teenager with rough edges, not yet fully developed. To make the light weights function with serifs attached for EngelNewSerif, the same low stroke contrast as seen in EngelNewSans was applied. Further discovery found that the serifs and the stem width had to be optically similar for the light weights not to appear too fragile. In the heavy weights however, the stroke contrast was higher than in the Sans versions, this was done to open up the counters and make room for the serifs to breathe. The intention of the families is to motivate an element of play and give the designer a larger selection to work with.

SHE'S DEAD, FRANK It's the year 1991, BC (Before Comicraft) when REM were still making records and Frank Miller’s memorable run on Marvel Comics’ DAREDEVIL was just over ten years old. Comicraft’s Richard Starkings found himself working in Anaheim, California for Graphitti Designs. Graphitti had produced the first hardcover edition of Miller’s Batman tale, DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and was now putting together the sequel to Miller’s DAREDEVIL — ELEKTRA LIVES AGAIN! Richard was not engaged to letter this book, the pages of Frank’s incredible original art that came through Graphitti’s studio were already lettered by Marvel Stalwart, Jim Novak. However, there were some cover elements that needed to be added, based on the logo originally rendered by Frank’s brother, Steve. Starkings set about the task of creating an alphabet that could be used to develop Steve’s idea for the trade dress -- the cover elements, the back cover copy and credits on the interior pages. This was long before Macintosh computers and font programs made this work considerably easier, so Rich sat down with a pencil and a sheet of vellum and rendered an alphabet that could be used as the basis for the text that was needed... Those sketches have languished in a drawer for nearly thirty years, but now, finally, Comicraft’s John Roshell has dusted off those old letterforms and Elektrakuted a font based on those designs, a font we HAD to call ELEKTRAKUTION! As for Elektra; she’s dead, Frank. Features: Ten weights (Light, Regular, Bold; Rough Light, Regular & Bold; Inline, Inline Rough, Outline & Outline Rough) with upper & lowercase characters, Western & Central European accents and Greek characters.

In 1939 the Stephenson Blake Company bought a very popular script called Undine Ronde and began marketing under the name Amanda Ronde. Although Undine/Amanda was quite popular and can be seen in many advertisements from the 1930s and 1940s, there seems to be no surviving record stating the original foundry or designer. We thought that six and half decades of dust layers over the once-popular typeface were enough, so here and now you have its complete and expanded digital incarnation, Adore. It is quite easy to see why this typeface was popular. A round script with graceful meaty curves is rarely found and can be used in plenty of applications. Wedding paraphernalia, chapter titles, posters, poetry, book covers, religious literature... you name it, Adore can fit it. Aside from its totality being unmatched by currently available designs, Adore also possesses some of the most unique and imaginative letter shapes. The narrow loops on the B, P and R, the minuscule-like Z, the looped b and d, the descending h... all these shapes contribute to a breathtaking and adorable calligraphic work unlike any other. The original design came in a basic alphabet, but we have updated it for current digital technologies, and expanded it to include plenty of alternates and ligatures, as well as some ornaments. The Postscript Type 1 and True Type versions come in two fonts, the second containing the alternates and extras, while the Open Type version is a single font containing all the alternates and extras in conveniently programmed features, easily accessible at the push of a button in OpenType-supporting software. We also encourage you to take a look at Typodermic's Mecheria font, which is further experimentation with the same letter forms, resulting in a quirky, friendly, curly, angular gothic-like creature.

The dearJoe series of fonts came to life around the year 1999, when I created dearJoe 1, which was a first (and half-assed) attempt to convert my own handwriting into a working font. Being able to type in my own hand had always been a childhood fantasy, and even though I only partly understood the software, a working font was generated and I decided to put it on the internet for people to use in their own personal projects. Which they did: at this moment the dearJoe 1 font has been downloaded millions of times and can be found on Vietnamese riksjas, Tasmanian gyms and chocolate stores on 5th Avenue for instance. The font is not something I am particularly proud of, but it started me of in building what's now the JOEBOB graphics foundry. Inbetween creating other fonts, the dearJoe series has become a theme I revisit every once in a while, trying to create an update on how my handwriting has evolved, along with my abilities in creating fonts that mimic actual handwriting. In the last decade or so I started implementing ligatures and alternate characters, which helped a lot in coming to a result that can almost pass for actual handwriting. The 2019 dearJoe 7 font is the latest addition to this font family. All characters were scanned from handwritten notes, cherrypicking the characters and letter-combinations I liked best. They were written with a Lamy M66 B pen and only minor adjustments were made to the original scans, leaving most little flaws and rough edges as they were for a convincing ball-point on paper result. The font comes with over 150 ligatures, making sure the font has a variated and credible overall look and feel.

ITC Christoph's Quill is just about everything you could want in a typeface: it's distinctive, beautiful, and exceptionally versatile. According to designer Russell Bean, ITC Christoph's Quill is the culmination of experimentation with a graphics tablet that spanned several years. Then one day, as if by magic, it all just fell into place. The design seemed to flow from my pen." Bean was born in Australia and, except for a brief stint with a photo-lettering firm in Southern California, has spent most of his career working down under. "I can recall a deep fascination for the written word," he says. "Even before learning to spell, read or write, I think I recognized that this was a means of visual communication." Bean's first job was in a small ad agency as a trainee in the production department, where he learned art techniques and how to handle print, as well as "the value of visual impressions," he says. His career path meandered from one design job to another, but always in the general direction of fonts and typefaces. Today, his workload consists of logo design commissions, font editing, typography and print production consultation to a select group of loyal clients - still leaving time, notes Bean, "to pursue my type design ambitions." ITC Christoph's Quill began life as a simple, visually striking font of caps, lowercase, punctuation and numerals. To this Bean added a bold weight, for when a little more strength is desirable. Next came a flock of alternate characters. Finally, Bean drew a set of decorative caps, a suite of logos, and a sprinkling of beginning and ending swashes. The net result is a type family that can add a signature flourish to a vast range of projects: from invitations and menus to logos, signage, packaging and more."

Drawn by George Ryan and named after Robert Givens, the co-founder and first president of Monotype Imaging, the Givens Antiqua™ typeface speaks with elegance and subtle authority. The design's open proportions, generous x-height and soft serifs lend Givens Antiqua a gracious quality that invites reading. I didn't work from any single design model," Ryan recalls. "The face grew out of my experimenting with several characters from a hand-lettered headline in a magazine. I worked on the shapes and forms for some time before I put the drawings in a drawer." At that point Ryan had finished the basic alphabet in two weights, but had not yet tackled the italics. A new project came along that demanded his full attention, and it was two years before he revisited the drawings. He liked what he saw and decided to finish the job. "The italics were the most problematic designs in the family," says Ryan, "but once I had their basic shapes and proportions, the rest was basically a production project." Another year of sketching, testing, editing and reworking characters ensued before Givens Antiqua was ready for release. The result is a four-weight family of roman designs and small caps, with complementary italics for the lightest three weights and a suite of swash caps for the italic designs. Givens Antiqua and Givens Antiqua Light show a modest stroke weight stress and a light, even text color. Givens Antiqua Bold is an effective emphasizer for text copy and an authoritative communicator at display sizes. The Black weight performs best at large sizes and makes a powerful statement without shouting, while the italic swash capitals possess enough vitality to serve as standalone initial letters."