Clear Sans™ is a… wait for it… rational geometric sans serif. It is intended to fill a niche… to provide an alternative to the somewhat based-on-vernacular signage, somewhat geometric sans. I hear the word vernacular thrown around too much and too loosely. If a typeface is based in the vernacular, based on hand-painted or hand-crafted signage, then it should be based on the movements of the hand, retain that warmth and not on a pretty geometric model. For me, clean, geometric and precise doesn't have to be cold and expressionless. The original skeleton was hand-painted in 2008 to help determine and inform my decisions going forward. The typeface was completed shortly afterwards at the behest of an old friend for their identity. As usual, I expanded it, but considered retiring it since there were so many things similar out there. Years later, I had a chance to rediscover it and came to the conclusion that it could be improved, expanded in a logical and useful way, and introduced. I would be lying if I didn't admit that the rise of webfonts and embedded type in applications influenced many of the decisions I made about reworking Clear Sans™. Completely new Text and Screen fonts were developed that utitlize larger x-heights, space-saving widths, logical (and simplified) weight offerings… to name a few alterations. Even the pricing of each variant was considered to produce a more reasonable and simple solution for the developer, designer, professional and novice. Clear Sans™ is a departure from my previous sans serifs, but the influences of Aaux Next, Akagi Pro and Halogen are evident. Enjoy a light-hearted mini-site devoted to Clear Sans™

Clear Sans™ is a… wait for it… rational geometric sans serif. It is intended to fill a niche… to provide an alternative to the somewhat based-on-vernacular signage, somewhat geometric sans. I hear the word vernacular thrown around too much and too loosely. If a typeface is based in the vernacular, based on hand-painted or hand-crafted signage, then it should be based on the movements of the hand, retain that warmth and not on a pretty geometric model. For me, clean, geometric and precise doesn't have to be cold and expressionless. The original skeleton was hand-painted in 2008 to help determine and inform my decisions going forward. The typeface was completed shortly afterwards at the behest of an old friend for their identity. As usual, I expanded it, but considered retiring it since there were so many things similar out there. Years later, I had a chance to rediscover it and came to the conclusion that it could be improved, expanded in a logical and useful way, and introduced. I would be lying if I didn't admit that the rise of webfonts and embedded type in applications influenced many of the decisions I made about reworking Clear Sans™. Completely new Text and Screen fonts were developed that utitlize larger x-heights, space-saving widths, logical (and simplified) weight offerings… to name a few alterations. Even the pricing of each variant was considered to produce a more reasonable and simple solution for the developer, designer, professional and novice. Clear Sans™ is a departure from my previous sans serifs, but the influences of Aaux Next, Akagi Pro and Halogen are evident. Enjoy a light-hearted mini-site devoted to Clear Sans™

I hate the idea of revivals. I have publicly said I choose not to do revivals because they make me uncomfortable. This is as close as I have been to crossing my own line. To be direct, Rhythm is based on the ATF typeface, Ratio (I just recently learned the foundry of origin). I came across this typeface from a printed specimen years ago when I was in school and held onto it. It was unique and I loved how well integrated the inline worked within both the flourish and serif of the glyphs—it was old, but not, reminiscent, but fresh. My specimen was limited in the glyph offering (it was c. 1930ish) and I realized a lot would need to be done to ‘finish’ it and bring it to contemporary expectations. I didn't want to do ‘retro’ and tried to avoid the visual trappings associated with it. What I did want to do is interpret what I had in the specimen and reinterpret it digitally, refining its construction and extending its typographic equity along the way. The ‘One’ and ‘Two’ (and their matching ‘Solids’) styles diverge providing various elaborations that coordinate well between rigid bracketed serifs and compact tails. I further expanded the glyph offering to include a full diacritic set, old style numerals, fractions, stylistic alternates, swashes, titling alternates and controlled flourishes that adhere to the efficient framework of the script. And yes, I refer to it as a ‘script’ because calling it a ‘cutesy serif’ seems wrong :) I hope this is seen less as a slavish revival and more as a championing of a really unique typeface. The Original Typeface was Adastra, designed by Herbert Thannhaeuser for the Foundry D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt, Germany.

HWT Konop is a monospaced (fixed-width) typeface that is also square! Designed by Mark Simonson (Proxima Nova) as square characters that can be arranged vertically or horizontally and in any orientation. To a traditional letterpress job printer, a font like this wouldn’t make much sense. But to a modern letterpress printer it is an unusual and creative design toolkit. The bold gothic style is reminiscent of gothic wood types but more geometric. Since the characters are meant to be used in any orientation, the usual optical adjustments, such as making verticals thicker than horizontals and making tops smaller than bottoms are set aside. This results in a quirky but charming design. To provide more design options, Simonson came up with a modular system consisting of three sizes: 12-line, 8-line, and 6-line. These three sizes can be used together like Lego® bricks, with endless arrangements possible. And the sidebearing match so that characters always align when different sizes are used together. The digital version of Konop replicates the wood type version as much as possible, including the three different size designs. It includes OpenType stylistic sets that allow most characters to be rotated in place, 90° left, 90° right, or 180°, just like the wood type version. Extra characters not available in the wood type version are included with the digital fonts. The set of 3 is priced just $5 more than one single font, so order via "Package Options" HWT Konop is named for Don Konop, a retired Hamilton Manufacturing employee, who worked from 1959 to 2003. In addition to serving on the Two Rivers Historical Society Board from 2004 to present-day, he was also instrumental as a volunteer in helping with the museum’s move to its current home in 2013.

Looking for something new for setting powerful headlines? Need a font that can create logos with ease? How about something masculine, a design with authority and panache? Then ITC’s newest typeface, ITC Sportbet™, may be the perfect choice. ITC Sportbet is a design that should be set tight, creating an arresting graphic image as well as words. Although a capital-only typeface, it benefits from a large suite of alternate characters that enable individual words and headlines to be customized with a distinctive personality. In addition to the obvious power of ITC Sportbet’s square-jawed character shapes, it’s fun to use. Exchange one or two letters with their alternative designs and a brand new headline or logo appears. ITC Sportbet was designed by Dane Wilson, the principal of the London-based design firm of Dane Design. Although this is his first commercial typeface design, Wilson has ample experience creating logos and custom typefaces for corporate branding. In fact, Sportbet grew out of such a project. “The idea initially came from wanting to provide a client with a stylish, modern and graphically impactful corporate identity logo font,” recalls Wilson. “Although the first sketches looked promising as a typeface, because of time and budget constraints, developing an entire alphabet would be overambitious.” Not to be deterred, Wilson continued to work on the design when time permitted. He eventually completed the font and started final application tests. The results looked good to Wilson, but he felt that the design was missing something. “I hit upon the idea of breaking out the left side of all the closed counters,” Wilson wrote about the design. “This simple device gave Sportbet the kick it needed.” Although one weight and a capital-only typeface, Wilson’s ITC Sportbet should prove to be a powerful and versatile communicator.

Shueitai is a typeface that has been undergoing development for more than a century, starting from the days when Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) was still known as Shueisha. As Japan underwent rapid modernization during the early years of the Meiji era, Shueisha, believing that printing was a business befitting a modern civilized society, began operations with a focus on letterpress. Before long the company expanded into developing its own typefaces. In 1912 it completed a full range of Mincho type, in sizes from Sho-go (#0 size, 42pt) through Hachi-go (#8, 4pt), which it called "Shueitai" a new style that came to form one of the two mainstreams of Japanese typefaces and continues to have a significant influence on font design even today. The Shueitai typeface is distinguished by abundant variations matching the size of type and the changing demands of the times. Whether it is the spirited and powerful Sho-go, the delicate and flowing San-go (#3, 16pt), or the bright and solidly reassuring Shuei-Mincho L, all Shueitai typefaces share a vibrant brushwork that adds an expression of eloquence and a burst of brilliance to every printed word. Currently, Shueitai is composed of 17 kinds of fonts useful for various purposes. The world has witnessed vast changes in the environment surrounding the printed world, with the tran-sition first from letterpress to Desktop Publishing, and most recently to e-books. But no matter how this environment might evolve, the written word remains the basis of communication, and the importance of beautiful and readable typefaces stays unchanged. In preparation for the changes that will inevitably come during the future, DNP will continue to evolve the Shueitai designs from now on. Through its continual reinvention, Shueitai, a typeface consistently adopted at the vanguard of the industry, perhaps represents Japanese innovation at its very best.

After my son was born, I found myself reading him a lot of books. A LOT of books. Some were good, some were great, but I found myself wanting to develop something using my skills and interests to make something that only I could make. In short, I realized my son needed to be indoctrinated—I mean, introduced into the wonderfully wild world of fonts. So, I set about to make a board book to teach about typography, called “The Clothes Letters Wear.” You can learn more about the book here. I’ve made the captivating illustrations bright and colorful, and the use of different letter forms makes for a fascinating read to delight ages young and young at heart. And, as an added bonus, this children’s book has a custom designed font. I’m always looking for an excuse to design a new font, and this book created the perfect alibi. Drum roll, please. I now give you … Cabrito (“little goat” en Español). This new serif typeface incorporates the latest research on typographic legibility for children, features to make it—well, extra legible. A little background: studies show that Bookman Old Style is one of the most readable typefaces, and as a consequence or perhaps the reason why, it is used thoroughly for children’s books. This font became my initial inspiration for the typeface. Then, I found more legibility research saying that (brace yourselves) Comic Sans is also very legible for beginning readers, much due to the large x-height and softer, easily recognizable forms. In addition, forms that are closer to handwriting also seem to be more legible. Once I threw all that into my cauldron and stewed it a bit, the result was a pleasantly rounded typeface that includes not-so-strictly geometric, handwriting-inspired forms for the b, d, p, and q. Es guapo! Cabrito’s slender weights are simple and fun, with extras that turn any “bah humbug” into a smile. Add lighter touches to your project with the typeface’s included sparkles or rainbows (not included). Splash a little more color on the page with the firmer look of the thicker weights. Cabrito’s upright variations across all weights are matched by optically altered italics, too, giving you even more variety with the font family. This modern typeface’s bundle of alternates can be accessed in any OpenType-enabled software. The fashionable options involve a significant team of alternates, swashes, and meticulously refined aspects with ball terminals and alternate titling caps to decorate the font. Also bundled are swash alternates, old style figures, and small caps. Peruse the PDF brochure to check out these options in motion. OpenType-enabled applications like the Adobe suite or Quark allows comprehensive control of ligatures and alternates. This font family also provides the glyphs to aid a variety of languages. Cabrito is a welcoming, everyday font family by Jeremy Dooley. Use it to convey warmth and friendliness on anything from candy and food packages to children’s toys, company IDs or run-of-the-mill promotional material. Cabrito’s unique appearance and high legibility make it equally at home in print as it is on a screen.

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!

High atop the mountain of fonts, a new structure has been raised--one solid and strong against the challenges of time. Civane is a victorious conqueror among fonts, standing above the clutter and the mundane. Its firm structure joins effortlessly with graceful calligraphy in a new flowing, inscriptional typeface. Civane is inspired by monuments of great civilizations, whose lofty inscriptions remain chiseled into the very stones and columns of their structures. The font’s medium contrast with its flared stroke ends lead the reader to feel the solemn presence found in these great obelisks and shrines. Even Civane’s thinnest weight holds a quiet power over its audience. Still, its classic lines provide a beautiful flow between the strong letters, allowing the reader’s eye to move easily across the page. Civane supports OpenType features and comes with upright italics, alternates, ligatures, old-fashioned figures, titling and small caps. Preview all these features in the interactive PDF manual. The font family has 48 fonts, with three widths and eight weights. The font family also includes glyphs for 72 languages; over 550 glyphs per font stand ready for you to command throughout your design. Civane is built for advertising and display typesetting as well as title and small text, making it an excellent choice for websites as well as flyers and packaging. Use it for defining your brand or for creating designs that evoke academia, militaria, monuments, automobiles, signs, and so on. Its 48 well-designed fonts are well-equipped to help you leave your mark on history. Production assistance from Lucas Azevedo and ikern.

Based on Element by Max Bittrof, Stamm takes the next step in adaptation to modern environment. Using it's own construction logic it makes the design far more consistent and considerably expands the character set, supporting hundreds of languages, including Vietnamese and extended Cyrillic. Generous amount of OpenType features allows various localization options, automatic fractions, super- and subscripts, oldstyle and tabular figures, small caps and ligatures to suit almost every need. There are 15 Stylistic Sets available to customize the font (some of them duplicate locl-features in case they're not supported by applications): ss01 (Traditional glyphs): changes modern shapes used by default to old-style forms; ss02 (Alternate historical glyphs): changes the shape of several characters to a more obscure historical form; ss03 (Catalan middle dot): replaces middle dot between two l's by Catalan variant for better spacing; ss04 (German ligatures): activates historical ch, ck and tz ligatures used in German blackletter typesetting; ss05 (Dutch IJ-acute): replaces j after i-acute with j-acute; ss06 (Marshallese cedilla): replaces commas under certain letters with cedillas; ss07 (Romanian/Moldovan comma): changes cedilla-glyphs to comma-glyphs; ss08 (Turkish i): replaces regular i with dotted Turkish variant; ss09 (Cyrillic alternates): changes several Cyrillic glyphs to alternate variants; ss10 (Bulgarian Cyrillic): activates Bulgarian shapes; ss11 (Serbo-Macedonian Cyrillic): activates Serbo-Macedonian shapes; ss12 (Double-story a): replaces default glyph with it's double-story variant; ss13 (Alternate asterisk): replaces default asterisk with 5-pointed shape; ss14 (Enclosed figures): replaces standard figures with enclosed variants; ss15 (Slashed zero): replaces default zero with slashed variant.

Cities often have their own voice, a voice that can be read... in each location and each business, voice portraying a cultural fabric with an array of manifestations. Balneario Script is a small tribute to a coastal port and tourist city. Through the Sign Painters, in its golden age, a clear, friendly, practical, and functional way of making itself heard evolved. Far from wanting to be perfect, a typeface seeks to be close, warm, and casual. Inspired by the gestures of the brush, Balneario Script reverts to the use of “Casual Letters” so used by Sign Painters. In this adaptation, we sought to adjust its morphology to optimize its performance in small formats and extend the system to include lower case letters as part of the set. The set of fonts has two script weights in addition to an all caps version. The design emphasizes creating a harmonious morphological criterion. Friendly, rhythmic, and with a firm stroke Balneario Script is unique, ideal for headlines and short texts that need to be gestural but simple and highly functional. This typeface was designed to be used in promotional posters or for relaxed and fun Packagings. Balneario Script goes beyond constructive or functional aspects. It seeks to capture the smell of the sea, the warm summer breeze and the nostalgic feeling of a city that from its daily life, knew how to forge a unique personality. This atmosphere allows it to host millions of tourists year after year, and with them reinforce their spirit each summer.

Heller Sans JNL is based on the main letterforms of an experimental alphabet designed by Steven Heller; noted author of over 170 books on design and visual culture. Some modifications were made in turning his design into a digital font. In his own words, here is the background to this typeface: “I recently recovered this from the junk heap. It is a yellowing photostat of my first and only typeface design (1969-70). Total folly! At the time I was smitten by Art Moderne lettering. I called it “Klaus Boobala Bold” because I liked the K and B. I’ve lost the letters S through Z, which were made. The letters were drawn with compass, Techno pen (that frequently clogged). as well as a triangle and T-square. The inline and outline made no real logical sense. I based the design, in part, on Kabel, Avant Garde and it was a product of whatever I could accomplish with those tools. The caps-only alphabet was photographed and produced as a film negative that was cut in foot-long strips and spliced to fit on a Typositor reel. Sadly, the negatives made for the font were too brittle and the splice snapped apart in the Typositor. I worked on it for well over a month and used the face only once. I realized with this attempt, like so many other times I attempted different challenges, that type design — indeed mechanical drawing — was not my strong suit.” Heller Sans JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.