Have you ever searched for a font that looked like it was really someone's handwriting, only to find that it was too feminine or too hard to read? I used to want a font like that, too, until I discovered that a font like that had been residing in my attic, in letters to me from my late grandfather. Not only was I thrilled to have a font like this at hand, but also one that would be a memory of my grandfather every time I used it. He was a hard-working man, raising a family during the Depression, yet was still fun-loving, kind, and generous. We called him Grandhappy. As a wedding present, I received from him rolling pins and a cutting board made of 8 different kinds of wood that he pieced together. In this font, the bullet is a rolling pin in honor of that! Other than the fact that this is a font from the hand of one greatly loved, my favorite thing is that although a True Type Font, it has some features of an Open Type font. There are many alternative letter choices available through the use of little-used keys on the keyboard and alt codes. This font was chosen to portray Jay Gatsby's handwriting in The Great Gatsby (2013).

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.

This is Range Sans, the sans-serif counterpart to Range Serif . It can be categorized as a grotesque, with the idiosyncratic angular details from the serif family making themselves known in the arches and bowls of the lower case. The range of weights is larger than Range Serif, with two more weights at the lighter end of the spectrum. The weights from light to black correspond to their seriffed sisters, so can be interchanged with them freely while maintaining a similar text color and vertical metrics. This is useful for adding emphasis; Range Sans is deliberately lacking an italic, but the italics from Range Serif work better than you might expect in running text, particularly for the light and regular weights. Range Sans has a contemporary, somewhat geometric look that lends itself to uses such as corporate identities, minimalist graphic design, and logos. The middle weights do work well in running text, however, with the angled details being less noticeable at small sizes. Designed for demanding typography, supporting most Latin-based languages, Range Sans is equipped with true small caps for all weights, an array of numeral styles (proportional- and tabular- lining and oldstyle figures, small cap figures, numerators, denominators, superscripts and subscripts/scientific inferiors), automatic fractions, a set of useful arrows, case-sensitive forms, and a range of currency symbols including recent additions: Turkish Lira, Indian Rupee and Russian Ruble.

Wakerobin takes its charming swagger from the hand-painted billboard, poster and signage lettering of the mid-19th century. These showy styles did everything they could to stand out from the background cacophony of advertising, with signwriters using sharp and high contrast serif letters, squared block shapes, or art nouveau forms to grab the attention of passersby. Wakerobin embraces the spirit of these letterforms, bringing these various styles together in one typeface - as if users had their own sign painter on hand. Just as lettering artists had to adapt to a variety of sizes - from wide streetcar lettering to compressed forms that squeezed into narrow Victorian windows - the variable version of Wakerobin scales up and down in width to fit whatever environment the user’s working in. The static fonts come in three widths and five weights. As well as its adaptability, Wakerobin is bursting with vintage flavour, making it hard to ignore. Its distinctive, spiky serifs would be right at home on food and drinks packaging, as well as shop windows, adverts, and any other place that calls for some typographic showmanship. It performs particularly well in busy environments, or anywhere with a lot of visual noise - just as its historic predecessors did. And while Wakerobin is first and foremost a display typeface, it’s surprisingly elegant when used at text size, or in the lighter end of the weight spectrum.

Palatino Arabic is a collaboration between Lebanese designer Nadine Chahine and Prof. Hermann Zapf. The design is based on the Al-Ahram typeface designed by Zapf in 1956 but reworked and modified to fit the Palatino nova family. The design is Naskh in style but with a strong influence of the Thuluth style as well. This is evident in the swash-like finials and the wide proportions of the letterforms. It is designed for use in print in both large and small sizes. The counters are wide open to allow for better readability in small sizes as well as to maintain an open and friendly appearance. The font has 1091 glyphs and includes a large number of extra ligatures and stylistic alternates as well as the basic Latin part of Palatino nova and support for Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. It also includes proportional and tabular numerals for the supported languages. Palatino Arabic wins Type Directors Club award. Each year, the New York-based Type Directors Club judges typeface designs from all over the world in their TDC2 contest. Linotype is pleased to announce that a very new typeface of its own is among 2008’s winners: Palatino Arabic. A collaboration between Nadine Chahine and Prof. Hermann Zapf, this face is an extension of Zapf’s Al-Ahram Arabic type from 1956 recreated to join the Palatino nova family.

A tessellation is a shape that can be used to completely fill the plane. Simple examples are isosceles triangles, squares, and hexagons. Tessellation patterns are eye-catching and visually appealing, which is the reason that they have long been popular in a variety of decorative situations. These Tessie fonts have two family members, a solid style that must have different colors when used and an outline style. They can be used separately or they can be used in layers with the outline style on top of the solid style. For rows to align properly, leading must be the same as point size. To see how patterns can be constructed, see the “Samples” file here. Shapes that tessellate and also resemble real-world objects are often called Escher-like tessellations. This typeface contains many Escher-like tessellations that resemble animals including horses, goats, rabbits, fish, frogs, and other vertebrates. Most or all of these shapes were discovered/created by the font designer during the past twenty years in the process of designing maze books, coloring books, and a book about tessellations. (Earlier tessellation fonts from IngrimayneType, the TessieDingies fonts, lack a black or filled version so cannot do colored patterns. The addition of a solid style that must be colored makes these new fonts a bit more difficult to use but offers far greater possibilities in getting visually interesting results.)

A tessellation is a shape that can be used to completely fill the plane—simple examples are isosceles triangles, squares, and hexagons. Tessellation patterns are eye-catching and visually appealing, which is the reason that they have long been popular in a variety of decorative situations. These Tessie fonts have two family members, a solid style that must have different colors when used and an outline style. They can be used separately or they can be used in layers with the outline style on top of the solid style. For rows to align properly, leading must be the same as point size. To see how patterns can be constructed, see the “Samples” file here. Shapes that tessellate and also resemble real-world objects are often called Escher-like tessellations. This typeface contains many Escher-like tessellations that resemble flying birds. Most or all of these shapes were discovered/created by the font designer during the past twenty years in the process of designing maze books, colorings books, and a book about tessellations. (Earlier tessellation fonts from IngrimayneType, the TessieDingies fonts, lack a black or filled version so cannot do colored patterns. The addition of a solid style that must be colored makes these new fonts a bit more difficult to use but offers far greater possibilities in getting visually interesting results.)

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.

Over the past few years, every designer has seen the surprising outbreak of blackletter types in marketing campaigns for major sports clothing manufacturers, a few phone companies, soft drink makers, and more recently on entertainment and music products. In such campaigns, blackletter type combined with photos of usual daily activity simply adds a level of strength and mystique to things we see and do on a regular basis. But we couldn't help noticing that the typography was very odd in such campaigns, where the type overpowers all the other design elements. This is because almost all blackletter fonts ever made express too much strength and time-stamp themselves in a definite manner, thereby eliminating themselves as possible type choices for a variety of common contemporary design approaches, such as minimal, geometric, modular, etc. So extending the idea of using blackletter in modern design was a bit of a wild goose chase for us. But we finally found the face that completes the equation no other blackletter could fit into: Leather is a digitization and major expansion of Imre Reiner's forgotten but excellent 1933 Gotika design, which was very much ahead of its time. In its own time this design saw very little use because it caused problems to printers, where the thin serifs and inner bars were too fragile and broke off too easily when used in metal. But now, more than seventy years later, it seems like it was made for current technologies, and it is nothing short of being the perfect candidate for using blackletter in grid-based settings. Leather has three features usually not found in other blackletter fonts: - Grid-based geometric strokes and curves: In the early 1930s, blackletter design had already begun interacting back with the modern sans serif it birthed at the turn of the century. This design is one of the very few manifestations of such interaction. - Fragile, Boboni-like serifs, sprout from mostly expected places in the minuscules, but are sprinkled very aesthetically on some of the majuscules. The overall result is magnificently modern. - The usual complexity of blackletter uppercase's inner bars is rendered simple, geometric and very visually appealing. The contrast between the inner bars and thick outer strokes creates a surprising circuitry-like effect on some of the letters (D, O, Q), wonderfully plays with the idea of fragile balances on some others (M, N and P), and boldly introduces new concepts on others (B, F, K, L, R). Our research seems to suggest that the original numerals used with this design in the 1930s were adopted from a previous Imre Reiner typeface. They didn't really fit with the idea of this font, so we created brand new numerals for Leather. We also expanded the character set to cover all Western Latin-based languages, and scattered plenty of alternates and ligatures throughout the map. The name, Leather, was derived from a humorous attempt at naming a font. Initially we wanted to call it Black Leather (blackletter...blackleather), but the closer we came to finishing it, the more respect we developed for its attempt to introduce a plausible convergence between two entirely different type categories. Sadly for the art, this idea of convergence didn't go much further back then, due to technological limitations and the eventual war a few years later. We're hoping this revival would encourage people to look at blackletter under a new light in these modern times of multiple design influences.

TT Backwards useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options About TT Backwards: TT Backwards is an experimental font project inspired by the USSR typography and fonts of the late 70s and early 80s. Shop signs, posters, and book design—this is where we drew the inspiration for our project. TT Backwards consists of two complementary font subfamilies, a Script and a Grotesque, each of them includes 5 typefaces in 5 different weights (Thin, Light, Regular, Bold, Black). TT Backwards Script is a noncontrast almost monolinear solid script inspired by shop signs, poster and book design of the USSR. TT Backwards Script features a large number of Latin and Cyrillic ligatures (more than 70 items), which allows to make the script versatile and sophisticated to the max. And thanks to the implementation of a huge number of context alternates, all lowercase letters are joined softly and without breaks, and they meet the uppercase letters beautifully and correctly. TT Backwards Script supports the following OpenType features: liga, case, ordn, frac, sups, sinf, numr, dnom, tnum, onum, pnum. TT Backwards Sans is a narrow grotesque, which takes us back to the book design of late 70s and early 80s with its ductile characters. It is created considering its use in the small text size. TT Backwards Sans has a number of pronounced peculiarities: high x-height, exaggerated extenders, and big visual compensators and ink traps. Apart from the basic visual solution, TT Backwards Sans contains two experimental stylistic sets, which markedly change the overall visual perception of the text. SS01 alters high-frequency symbols of the Cyrillic alphabet, and SS02 significantly changes the high-frequency symbols of the Latin alphabet. FOLLOW US: Instagram | Facebook | Website TT Backwards OpenType features: case, ordn, frac, sups, sinf, numr, dnom, tnum, pnum, liga, zero, salt, ss01, ss02. TT Backwards language support: Acehnese, Afar, Albanian, Alsatian, Aragonese, Arumanian, Asu, Aymara, Banjar, Basque, Belarusian (cyr), Bemba, Bena, Betawi, Bislama, Boholano, Bosnian (cyr), Bosnian (lat), Breton, Bulgarian (cyr), Cebuano, Chamorro, Chiga, Colognian, Cornish, Corsican, Cree, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Embu, English, Erzya, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Gaelic, Gagauz (lat), Galician, German, Gusii, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiri Motu, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Innu-aimun, Interlingua, Irish, Italian, Javanese, Judaeo-Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish, Kalenjin, Karachay-Balkar (lat), Karaim (lat), Karakalpak (lat), Kashubian, Khasi, Khvarshi, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kongo, Kumyk, Kurdish (lat), Ladin, Latvian, Laz, Leonese, Lithuanian, Luganda, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Macedonian, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malay, Manx, Maori, Mauritian Creole, Minangkabau, Moldavian (lat), Montenegrin (lat), Mordvin-moksha, Morisyen, Nahuatl, Nauruan, Ndebele, Nias, Nogai, Norwegian, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Palauan, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rheto-Romance, Rohingya, Romanian, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Russian, Rusyn, Rwa, Salar, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Scots, Sena, Serbian (cyr), Serbian (lat), Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Shona, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Swiss German, Swiss German, Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Tatar, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Tsonga, Tswana, Turkish, Turkmen (lat), Ukrainian, Uyghur, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Xhosa, Zaza, Zulu.

Before Bodoni, there was Didot. With the publication by Francois Ambroise Didot of Paris in 1784 of his prospectus for Tasso’s La Gerusalemme Liberata, the rococo typographical style of Fournier de Jeune was replaced with a spartan, neo-classical style that John Baskerville pioneered. The typeface Didot used for this work was of Didot’s own creation and is considered by both G. Dowding and P. Meggs to be the first modern face. Three years later, Bodoni of Parma is using a very similar face. Just as Bodoni’s typeface evolved over time, so did that of the Didot family. The eldest son of Francois Ambroise Didot, Pierre, ran the printing office; and Firmin ran the typefoundry. Pierre used the flattened, wove paper, again pioneered by Baskerville, to permit a more accurate impression and allow the use of more delicate letterforms. Firmin took full advantage of the improved paper by further refining the typeface introduced by his father. The printing of Racine’s Oeuvres in 1801 (seen in our gallery image #2) shows the symbiotic results of their efforts, especially in the marked increase in the sharpness of the serifs when compared to their owns works of only six years earlier. It has been suggested that one reason Bodoni achieved greater popularity than Didot is the thinner hairlines of Didot were more fragile when cast in metal type and thus more expensive for printers to use than Bodoni. This ceased to be a problem with the advent of phototypesetting, opening the door for a renewed interest in the work of the Didot family and especially that of Firmin Didot. Although further refinements in the Didot typeface were to come (notably the lower case ‘g’ shown in 1819), we have chosen 1801 as the nominal basis for our presentation of HiH Firmin Didot. We like the thick-thin circumflex that replaced the evenly-stroked version of 1795, possible only with the flatter wove paper. We like the unusual coat-hanger cedilla. We like the organic, leaf-like tail of the ‘Q.’ We like the strange, little number ‘2’ and the wonderfully assertive ‘4.’ And we like the distinctive and delightful awkwardness of the double-v (w). Please note that we have provided alternative versions of the upper and lower case w that are slightly more conventional than the original designs. Personally, I find the moderns (often called Didones) hard on the eyes in extended blocks of text. That does not stop me from enjoying their cold, crisp clarity. They represent the Age of Reason and the power of man’s intellect, while reflecting also its limitations. In the title pages set by Bodoni, Bulmer and Didot, I see the spare beauty of a winter landscape. That appeals to a New Englander like myself. Another aspect that appeals to me is setting a page in HiH Firmin Didot and watching people try to figure out what typeface it is. It looks a lot like Bodoni, but it isn't!

TT Jenevers useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options Please note! If you need OTF versions of the fonts, just email us at commercial@typetype.org About TT Jenevers: TT Jenevers is a modern serif with Dutch flavor. The font family features the characteristic details peculiar to Dutch serifs—these are the asymmetrical shape of serifs and an irregular slant of ovals. For example, in the letter “o” there is no slant, but it is present in p-q. In TT Jenevers, both lowercase and uppercase characters are of a large size, which makes it a rather display typeface. At the same time, the big half-ellipse of the lowercase characters does not allow the letters to stick, which allows the implementation of TT Jenevers in text arrays. The italics of the TT Jenevers are slightly narrower as compared to upright faces—this is done to ensure a greater density of the text array. The italics of the TT Jenevers are slightly narrower as compared to upright faces—this is done to ensure a greater density of the text array. TT Jenevers font family consists of 12 fonts (6 upright and 6 true Italics), each of which has more than 830 characters. The typefaces include small capitals for Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, 33 ligatures, standard and old-style figures, stylistic alternates, arrows, hands, and card suits. We have prepared two dissimilar stylistic sets, which allow changing the nature of TT Jenevers to a more hand-written one, or adding a futuristic touch to the typeface. FOLLOW US: Instagram | Facebook | Website TT Jenevers OpenType features: ordn, case, c2sc, smcp, frac, sups, sinf, numr, dnom, onum, tnum, pnum, lnum, liga, dlig, salt, ss01, ss02, zero. TT Jenevers language support: Acehnese, Afar, Albanian, Alsatian, Aragonese, Arumanian, Asu, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Banjar, Basque, Belarusian (cyr), Belarusian (lat), Bemba, Bena, Betawi, Bislama, Boholano, Bosnian (cyr), Bosnian (lat), Breton, Bulgarian (cyr), Cebuano, Chamorro, Chichewa, Chiga, Colognian, Cornish, Corsican, Cree, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Embu, English, Erzya, Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gaelic, Gagauz (lat), Galician, Ganda, German, Gusii, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiri Motu, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Innu-aimun, Interlingua, Irish, Italian, Javanese, Jola-Fonyi, Judaeo-Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish, Kalenjin, Karachay-Balkar (lat), Karaim (lat), Karakalpak (lat), Kashubian, Kazakh (lat), Khasi, Khvarshi, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Komi-Permyak, Komi-Zyrian, Kongo, Kumyk, Kurdish (lat), Ladin, Latvian, Laz, Leonese, Lithuanian, Luba-Kasai, Luganda, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Macedonian, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malay, Maltese, Manx, Maori, Mauritian Creole, Minangkabau, Moldavian (lat), Montenegrin (lat), Mordvin-moksha, Morisyen, Nahuatl, Nauruan, Ndebele, Nias, Nogai, Norwegian, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Palauan, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rheto-Romance, Rohingya, Romanian, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Russian, Rusyn, Rwa, Salar, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Sasak, Scots, Sena, Serbian (cyr), Serbian (lat), Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Shona, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Swiss German, Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Talysh (lat), Tatar, Teso, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Tsakhur (Azerbaijan), Tsonga, Tswana, Turkish, Turkmen (lat), Udmurt, Ukrainian, Uyghur, Vastese, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Zaza, Zulu.

❧ Useful links: Luther’s Manuscripts at the UNESCO Memory of the World at Google Arts and Culture Martin Luther font on Kickstarter (with Film about the creation) Each letter of the Martin Luther font is strictly based on original samples found in Martin Luther’s 500 year old handwritten manuscripts. Letters that occur more often for example vowels have two or more different versions stored in the font. (➶ Figure 4) These alternative forms are exchanged automatically by the font as you type, and create a vivid look that comes close to actual handwriting. The font avoids that two identical letters are placed next to each other like, for example the two “o” in the word “look”. ➸ What Historic Sources is the Font based on? Two historic documents were used to base the font on. The notes Luther took before giving his speech in Worms in 1521 and a 6 page letter he wrote immediately after to Emperor Charles V., summarising his speech (➶ Figure 2). Both documents have been added to the UNESCO “Memory of the World” and can be seen at the Google Arts and Culture website. ➸ The Creation of a Handwriting Font The creation of a handwriting font is very different from the creation of a regular font. Harald Geisler has specialised in recreating handwriting in preceding projects with Albert Einstein’s, Sigmund Freud’s and his own handwriting. His experience working with Archives and Museums has gone into this project. First Geisler analyses the movement in the writing to understand how each letter is drawn. This involves partially learning how to write like a person. In this process not the outlines of the sample are reproduced but the original movement path of the handwriting (➶ Figure 3). In a second step width and contrast is added to reproduce Martin Luther’s characteristic impetus and the writing tools used at the time. (Link: Youtube Playlist showcasing the creation of individual letters) How about signs that can’t be found in archives? Some Glyphs can not be found in 500 year old manuscripts, for example the @-sign. Towards the end of the creation one collects a profund amount of details about how a writer moves on paper and addresses certain tasks moving the pen. Keeping this knowledge in mind an improvisation can be based on similar letter forms. For example the @ sign is based on of the movement of a lowercase a and parenthesis. ➸ Features of the Martin Luther font ❶ Extensive Documentation of the creation of the font, including high quality reproduction of the used manuscripts. ❷ Additional texts from Historian Dr. Henning Jürgens and Palaeographer (and Luther handwriting expert) Prof. Ulrich Bubenheimer ❸ Alternating Letters - in handwriting every word looks a bit different. To avoid that two identical letterforms are placed next to each other (for example in the word look) the font actively changes between different versions of letters as you type. ❹ Ligatures - characteristic writing forms when two letters are combined (for example “ct”) (➶ Figure 5) ❺ Terminal Letterforms - renders a special letterform when letter is at the end of a word. (➶ Figure 8) ❻ ‘’’Initial and Medial Letterforms''' - some letterforms are different when placed in the beginning or middle of a word, for example the lowercase s. ❼ Luther Rose - is a seal Luther used to authorise his correspondence. Today it is a widely recognized symbol for Luther. When you enter the numbers of Luthers year of birth and death 14831546 using the Martin Luther PRO font, it will render a stylised version of the Luther Rose. (➶ Figure 7) ❽ Historic letter-forms - letter-forms that are specific to medieval writing around 1500. For example the long-s or h with a loop at the bottom. (➶ Figure 6) ⚑ Multi language support - see the technical information tab for a full list of supported languages. (➶ Figure 11) ➸ The different Styles explained ❋ Martin Luther PRO - this includes all features listed above and is geared towards writing texts that are more readable today. It features alternating letters to create a natural handwriting look as well as two stylistic sets accessible through the OpenType menu. Historic forms are available through the glyph picker. ❋ Martin Luther Historic - this font creates a historically correct reproduction (i.e. with long-s) of Luther’s medieval latin handwriting. It features alternating letters to create a natural handwriting look as well as two stylistic sets accessible through the OpenType menu. ❋ Martin Luther Expert-1 - Dedicated access to the first set of letters only. ❋ Martin Luther Expert-2 - Dedicated access to the second set of letters only. ❈❈❈ Family Pack - recieve all fonts at a discounted price. ❈❈❈ ➸ Kickstarter The creation and development of the Martin Luther font was financed by 500 supporters on ➸Kickstarter.

Introducing Dienstag Variable, the latest addition to insigne's popular Montag family of fonts! With its extended sans-serif style, Dienstag boasts a sleek and sophisticated look that's perfect for a wide range of projects. Whether you're designing a website, creating branding materials, or producing print publications, Dienstag's refined elegance is sure to make a lasting impression. Compared to Montag, Dienstag has a slightly more formal feel, thanks to its lack of rounded terminators. But that doesn't mean it's any less versatile – in fact, Dienstag's four original weights have now been expanded to ten, giving you even more flexibility in your designs. With OpenType features that include simplified versions of many characters, you can easily create unique and eye-catching titles that stand out from the crowd. But Dienstag is just one part of the larger Montag superfamily, which also includes Mittwoch, and Donnerstag. Each font in this collection offers its own unique style and flair, giving you a wealth of options to choose from when it comes to your next project. Whether you're looking for a bold and dynamic font or a more refined and understated style, you're sure to find the perfect fit in the Montag family. So why wait? Check out Dienstag and the rest of the Montag superfamily today, and start creating designs that are sure to captivate and inspire! With its elegant style and versatile functionality, Dienstag is the perfect choice for designers who demand the best.

A tessellation is a shape that can be used to completely fill the plane—simple examples are isosceles triangles, squares, and hexagons. Tessellation patterns are eye-catching and visually appealing, which is the reason that they have long been popular in a variety of decorative situations. These Tessie fonts have two family members, a solid style that must have different colors when used and an outline style. They can be used separately or they can be used in layers with the outline style on top of the solid style. For rows to align properly, leading must be the same as point size. Shapes that tessellate and also resemble real-world objects are often called Escher-like tessellations. This typeface contains Escher-like tessellations of birds. A number of years ago I decided to see how many of the 28 Heesch types of tessellations I could use to make birds standing on the backs of other birds. I found standing bird patterns for all 17 of the types that had either translated or glided edges. The TessieStandingBirds typefaces contain the standing-bird shapes that I discovered. At first glance they seem to be quite similar, but small differences matter in how they fit together. Most of the patterns require more than one character. The sample file here shows how pieces fit together to give tessellating patterns. (Earlier tessellation fonts from IngrimayneType, the TessieDingies fonts, lack a black or filled version so cannot do colored patterns.)

A typeface that celebrates marching to the beat of your own drum. Snare is a jazzy little display type that presents like a stencil but behaves in its own way.Featuring angled section breaks and variable heights, Snare keeps each character’s footprint steady as as its heights change, revealing unique crossbars, periscoping capitals and deep-sinking descenders. Because each character follows its own rules, the more each word grows, the more it shows the beautiful rhythm of variety. Or stretch individual characters to shape the contours of your words. Beyond just being playful, fun to dress in colors, and delightfully useful for tight spaces,Snare’s lanky verticals and nervous energy reflect the time it was created. In this second pandemic spring, Snare brings up the drumroll-expectant heartbeat of our uncertainty, and the wish that when we can all meet again, our newfound weirdnesses will find a home in the world. The Snare font family includes one uppercase alphabet with two lowercase variants and comes in ten standard weights-which-are-just-really-heights (.otf) and as a variable type(.ttf) for designers using compatible platforms. Snare was designed by Alexander Wright and In-House International and developed byRodrigo Fuenzalida at FragType. In-House International’s foundry was launched in the summer of 2020 to offer bold, experimental, display typefaces that tell a story. Our previous releases have been featured on Design Milk, DesignBoom, Slanted and all sorts of exciting places.

Kъnig – the old Bulgar runes The writing kъnig emerged in the places of ancient Thraco-Bulgarian migrations in ante-deluvial times and developed in stages paralleling the other ancient writings. There have been many interactions and loanings between kъnig and these other writings. The root of the word kъnig (OBg: кънигъı) comes from the Old Chinese k'üen 'scroll' (ModCh: 纸卷 zhǐjuǎn) [57]. The word was loaned directly in the Bulgar language (*kün'ig > *küniv) restoring two individual Old Chuvash forms: 1. *k'ün'čьk > кўнчěк kind of ornament on a woman's garment; *k'ün'-gi / *k'ün'-üg > k'ün'iv book, codex, which is evidenced by the Hungarian könyv book and Mordvinian konov paper borrowings; 2. *k'ün'i- > *k'ün'i-gi > к'әn'iγь > кънигъı. This word has been preserved in Sumerian as kunuku (inscription) and kəniga (writing, knowledge). It is inherited from Bulgar to Slavic: книга (Bulgarian and Russian), књига (Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian), kniha (Czech and Slovak), książka (Polish), and non-Slavic: könyv (Hungarian) languages. Kъnig letters (kъni) have been known from archeological finds for more than 100 years already; however, until recently, no attempt has been made to decipher them, find their phonological value, or connect them to their natural successors: the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets. The oldest mention on the Bulgar runes is found in the mid-9th c. AD work On the Letters by the Bulgarian writer Chernorizets Hrabъr. Being already a Christian, he wrote pejoratively about the pagan Bulgars

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

Introducing “Balbek” – A modern “condensed” sans serif ligature typeface. Designed by graphic designer Martin Katibi. The balbek font is an eye catching heavy and condensed sans serif type face. The inspiration for this font were other condensed sans serif such as Gabo Drive and Impact. The Balbek font is great for use on headlines, advertisements, product packaging, newspapers and posters. Balbek fully supports multilingual characters, it also come with a full set of alternative uppercase letters, ligature and small cap. All these features will make your next project standout. The font comes in eight styles, which are Regular, Cut, Outline and Soft. Each of these font styles comes with an oblique version. If you are looking for something modern and eye catching for you next project, Balbek is the font for you. WHAT YOU GET: Balbek Regular.otf Balbek Oblique.otf Balbek Cut.otf Balbek Cut Oblique.otf Balbek Outline.otf Balbek Outline Oblique.otf Balbek Soft.otf Balbek Soft Oblique.otf BALBEK INCLUDES A FULL SET OF: Uppercase and lowercase letters. Numbers. Punctuation. Ligatures. Alternates. Small Caps. Multilingual symbols. Here is a short list of some of the unique ligatures: AB AD Æ AF AH AK AL AM AN AP EH EK EM ET FT HE LH LK LM MB MD ME MM MP NE NN Œ TE TH TT TU THE Th ZH ZK ZM æ ? fj ? ? ft ? œ tt ty We hope you enjoy using the Balbek Font.

Because we know that you will never get tired of using them and that you will always need a new tool for Identity Design, we created Identa. Conceived to translate corporate and humanist ideals in its typographic form, it seeks a dialogue between neutrality and contemporaneity. With a pragmatic attention to functionality that does not forget aesthetics. It is a Sans serif model, accessible and well-founded. All-terrain, workhorse that seeks to be reliable and durable. It solves any type of content with efficiency, intelligence and professionalism. Its clean forms and x-height make it a very competent face for both short identifiers and long text bodies, ideal for display use where legibility and personality must match new design needs within a company. It is available in eight styles, ranging from its White version to the darker Vantablack, each optimally set with its respective italic variables, and a Dingbats font designed to solve everyday cases. Each font contains 737 glyphs, macro and micro aesthetic details inspired by current visual communication systems and trends. The dingbats font includes 303 signs and is a set of icons and symbols that can be used in multiple environments, both for print and digital media. This typeface family seeks to meet the needs of brand designers looking to create an assertive appearance, whatever the case. It is a solid and self-confident typeface, without appearing overly constructed; on the contrary, its nuance makes it look fresh.

Nexa Slab is a geometric slab serif font whose design is based on the already popular best-seller Nexa . The font family contains 3 basic forms: italics, obliques and uprights, each of which has 8 different weights. This visual richness makes it the ideal slab serif font family for the web as well as for print, for motion graphics, logos, t-shirts and so on. It is also great for headings, fitting nicely with both small and large typesetting text blocks. Nexa Slab draws from the rich traditions of the classic Neo-Grotesque slab serif fonts such as Lubalin Graph, Rockwell and Memphis, which conceal the richness of typesetting text in its crucial advertising function. Just like these fonts, it’s design is subject to rational, carefully thought-out, thick and thin bars with a low contrast between them. The letters are characterized by the strict geometry and square proportions of the original, extra-fortified by suitably balanced slab serifs. Nexa Slab is serious without being rigid and inflexible, finished and lacking in nothing, systematic without being monotonous, and though it may seem at first glance to be more suitable for short, direct messages; in the hands of a master designer... it can build and create exquisite and harmonic designs. Open Type Features: Lining figures (proportional and tabular) The “f” ligature set Alternate characters (a, g, y) Automatic fractions Automatic numerators Automatic denomerators Automatic subscript and superscript Automatic ordinals Extended language support (most Latin-based scripts supported)*

The history of Able’s connection with the Harry Potter phenomenon is really up in the air. It’s a catch-22 in this business - you either promote your own work and negotiate expensive exclusive licenses, or you work with a promoter and sell your designs to anyone and everyone. It could have been an in-house designer at Rowling’s publisher, Scholastic, or a freelancer who proposed Able for the headings and such. The responsible party licensed it from T26, and JK Rowling’s storytelling made it a star. (I suppose it’s ironic that there’s a whole lot of unwritten history in the typography business.) Able’s rise to fame really is a classic love story between reading and type design. If the books weren’t so popular, Able might still be waiting for some Mexican fast food chain to pick it up for packaging design. The movie deal certainly made the font all the more recognizable, what with its merchandising campaign. Popularity can also cripple a great decorative face. It’s always being recognized as “The Harry Potter Font.” It might just have to wait a few decades for the Potter phenomenon to subside to be freed from the “Chamber of Pigeonholed Fonts.” In the meantime, I’m sure that a lot of fledgling graphic design apprentices are reading their new Potter books, being charmed by the idea of type design when they’re not turning the pages too fast to notice.

Take your reader far away to a tropical morning, where the inviting aroma of a fresh roast introduces them to a gentle breeze and the first, warm light of day. Take them there with Barcis. This organic face with its tall x-height and neo-humanist attributes shows its free spirit through unique terminals, calligraphy-inspired strokes, and a rich variety of OpenType alternates All insigne fonts are loaded with OpenType options. Barcis is geared up for pro typography. The font features many numeral sets, with fractions, old-style figures, superiors and inferiors. OpenType-capable programs like Quark or the Adobe suite allow you to quickly change ligatures and alternates. You can see these options shown in the .pdf brochure. Barcis also features the glyphs to aid a variety of languages, together with Central, Eastern and Western European languages. In all, Barcis supports around forty languages that utilize the Latin script, earning Barcis the pick for for multi-lingual publications and packaging. Barcis features three different widths and seven weights from exceptional Light-weight to dense Black. Each of these individual fonts offers its own authentic italics and alternate glyphs as well. With its high versatility, Barcis is without a doubt an amazing titling font, a great choice for journals, a solid option for web use, or even for clearly defining your mark in logotype. Bring Barcis into your library, and use it to carry your audience away.

Amherst is a family of blackletter-inspired typefaces. This family, created by British designer Richard Yeend in 2002, is unique in that it mains the feel of blackletter/medieval type without relying directly on historical forms. Amherst is split into two different sub-families, Amherst and Amherst Gothic. Amherst is very geometric interpretation of Fraktur. Fraktur was a style of German type very popular in central Europe from 1517 until the early 20th Century. Its letters appear "broken" at certain angles and joints. Still, we recommend using it primarily for display purposes. Amherst is available in three weights: Regular, Bold, and Heavy. Amherst Gothic is very loosely inspired by late medieval letterforms, often called Texturas or Gothics. However, the letterforms of Amherst Gothic seem just as inspired by the Art Deco movements of the 1920s and by contemporary sans serif type design as anything else. Nevertheless, certain letters in this typeface do appear more "gothic" than others, especially A, D, M, Y, d, r, and x. Amherst Gothic is made up of three fonts, Amherst Gothic Split, Amherst Gothic Split Alternate, and Amherst Gothic Italic. Amherst Gothic Split has in-lined characters, and appears very ornamented. The alternate characters in Amherst Gothic Split Alternate are quite medieval in their appearance. Amherst Gothic Italic is the least medieval-looking of the set; its characters are very round, and more geometric. All six styles of the Amherst Family are OpenType format fonts, and include old style figures.

A display fontface for titles inspired on Latin America, Ethnic, Native, Tribal, Mysthical, Handmade, Aboriginal, Pre-Hispanic, Pre-Columbian, Textured. By mid-1997 I was developed the early type edition was called «Muisca Sans» as my work for the degree in Graphic Design (Universidad Nacional de Colombia), based on the concept of pre-Columbian figures characteristics within some of the very few visual elements recovered from the Muisca culture, ancient pre-Columbian tribe disappeared before the arrival of the Spaniards in what is now central Colombia. In fact, the name of the capital Bogotá (the capital of Colombia) goes back to Bacatá as primary or village downtown of what was once the imperial capital of tribe Muisca. Although this unfinished early typographic project has not yet been published, Tequendama is the evolution of the first one. Tequendama reminds the myth of Muisca culture and religion of this tribe. The god Bochica, a wise old man with a white beard heard the cries of his tribe suffered against flooding of their land losing harvests before the divine punishment resulted by the offended god Chibchacun. However Bochica appeared wearing a white robe sitting on a huge rainbow and he broken the mountain towards the southwest wise old man with a golden staff broke the mountain to drain the flooded savanna. This emblematic and iconic place would later be called as «Salto de Tequendama». Tequendama name also been adopted to a nearby province to Bogotá.

With open palms, place your hands together at the center of your chest, close your eyes and bow the head slightly. Namaste! Welcome to a beautiful spiritual journey. Namaste is a font collection, designed by Coto Mendoza, consisting of two variants: a capital sans and a script font (based on watercolor calligraphy strokes). Each variant comes in 5 weights—Thin, Light, Regular, Bold and Black—and 2 versions: Essential and Pro. The script font, in its Pro version, provides a wide range of OpenType features such as swashes, alternates, ligatures and different stylistic sets. The Namaste family also includes a set of ornaments inspired by Hindu and Buddhist symbols—that Coto Mendoza saw virtually everywhere on her trip to India—like Mandalas and Yantras, and others found in textiles and monuments. Namaste is the perfect choice for wellness, healing and therapy oriented products. Its smooth shape and soft curves allow the user to create beautiful designs for essential oils, bath salts, quartz crystals, mindfoodness, candles, incense and aromatherapy products packaging. The font is well-suited for publishing design (short text); self-help and healing handbooks; tarot and divination cards; and women’s empowerment and spirituality publications. Namaste is an ideal typeface for yoga (and other body disciplines) center branding; holistic centers; and group meditation, womb blessing and circle of women invitations. Namaste is a beautiful journey full of love and inspiration. Namaste: a spiritual journey.

ITC Don't Panic's distressed shapes and craggy outlines evoke the feeling you get when you're just barely in control of a situation. This is type design on the edge. ITC Panic is further down the emotional track, when you've actually lost control and there is no hope in sight. Thompson says the inspiration for these faces arrived one day in the mail. I received an envelope that looked like it had a rough trip; the type that was stamped on it had a tired, ragged appearance. Ironically, the haggard envelope woke me up. I got excited and wanted to replicate the look as a font of type." Thompson designed ITC Don't Panic, then stood back and looked at it and decided it cried out for a more agitated companion. ITC Don't Panic gave birth to the positively psychotic offspring, ITC Panic. Both are all-cap designs with alternate characters in the unshift position. Creating an authentically disturbed appearance proved to be a challenge for Thompson. "I tried to design agitated characters, but they looked staged. So I tried multiple photocopies, but that didn't work. Eventually, I laser-printed the basic characters, wadded up the lasers, then flattened them out and stomped on them with heavy boots. The end result was scanned and used as the basis for the rest of the design." Thompson's work on web sites and multimedia has influenced his interest in type and typography that transcends the cool, unemotional nature of the computer."

www.Stat-Type.com Complementary Type Family Stat Display Pro Stat Text Pro is an information design sans serif type family which was developed as a complementary to Stat Display Pro. Stat Text Pro retains many characteristics of its display counterpart, while giving readability a greater importance. It has simpler letter shape details which enable it to accomplish a constant rhythm whiles being read. Its main intended use is to accompany Stat Display Pro in places where longer passages of text are needed. In this way the visual character of the composition is retained and at the same time readability of text is given attention. As its display counterpart it has a large character set with multiple weights, which are defined by optimal size ratio, wide aperture and balanced counters. It contains nearly 700 glyphs, including diacritics, ligatures, small caps, old–style figures, arrows and more. This enables it to achieve wide language support. It consists of four weights (Light, Regular, Medium, Bold) which are accompanied by their corresponding obliques. Stat Text Pro type family has higher than average x height (72% of cap height) which is accompanied by matching ascender and descender size ratios. The development of the type family was based on research in legibility to achieve highly legible letter shapes, while not diminishing their visual character. A detailed description of Stat Pro type family is available at Stat-Type.com where a DEMO font can be downloaded.

Many street nameplates in Britain use versions of Kindersley serif capitals designed by David Kindersley in the 1950s. K-Type Kindersley Sans is an unfussy alternative to the signage stalwart, perfectly suited to newer environments and more contemporary tastes. Kindersley Sans is a humanist sans-serif that conserves the Gill-inspired character and some of the calligraphic qualities of Kindersley’s lettering, it retains the Roman proportions and its Britishness, but traditional prettiness and intricacy are discarded in favour of a clean modernity. For purposes where Transport (MOT) is considered too formal and Kindersley too old-fashioned, Kindersley Sans offers an open and amiable up-to-date alternative. The typeface is comfortably spaced and carefully kerned to deliver beautiful results with ease, and although designed with nameplates in mind, it excels as an all-purpose text face in print and on screen. The tail of the uppercase Q has minimal descent to avoid constriction. Kindersley Sans includes a lowercase designed for signage with short descenders to prevent unsightly congestion. A generous x-height assists legibility, and characters are designed for easy reading and distinctiveness. The curved foot of the lowercase L distinguishes it from the uppercase i. The six fonts contain a full complement of Latin Extended-A characters, Welsh diacritics and Irish dotted consonants, so European language nameplates need not be a source of frustration. The ascent and descent of accented characters has been kept to an acceptable minimum.

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."

STF Eclectic One is a visual cornucopia of symbols, like the junk drawer in your kitchen. Stuff you'll need someday for a graphic element, bullet or dingbat application. Perfect for website icons! The Eclectic family is legendary, with a cult-like following among the inititated. As one of the first dingbat fonts available on the web, it gain popularity after its design in the early 1990s. With over 150 characters in the complete set, you'll find yourself using Eclectic One almost daily to add spice to your otherwise san-serif typographic existence. This font is essentially a soap opera of typographic image elements, created for projects when I couldn't find the "thingbat" I needed. Almost more of a collection of illustrations, there are many characters which connect to form patterns, and of course it's like a "small neutral European country" army knife for the creative community. EcOne features complete hour, quarter, and half-hour notations in an analog clock design glyph, recycled/recyclable symbols, a registration mark, a toaster, globes, sideways diamond arrows, spaceships, stoplights, the "running man," several atomic references, da buzz saw, target icons, the unusual smiley face floating in a ball (with a drop shadow, no less!), and the fish skeleton which complements the fallout shelter symbol, and more. Make your own juxtapositions! One reviewer proclaims "for whatever you do, Eclectic One is an excellent dingbat source." Available in Mac and PC formats. License it today!

An exquisite Didot font in 18 series Ambroise is a contemporary interpretation of various typefaces belonging to Didot’s late style, conceived circa 1830, including the original forms of g, y, &; and to a lesser extent, k. These unique glyphs are found in Gras Vibert, cut by Michel Vibert. Vibert was the appointed punchcutter of the Didot family during this period. It is the Heavy, whom sources were surest that Jean François Porchez has been used as the basis for the design of the typeface family. In the second half of the 19th century, it was usual to find fat Didots in several widths in the catalogs of French type foundries. These same typefaces continued to be offered until the demise of the big French foundries in the 1960s. Ambroise attempts to reproduce more of what we see printed on paper in the 19th century; a more accurate representation of Didot punches. So, the unbracketed serifs are not truly square straight-line forms but use tiny transitional curves instead. The result on the page appears softer and less straight, particularly in larger sizes. The illustrious Didot family of type founders and printers Every variation of the typeface carries a name in homage to a member of the illustrious Didot family of type founders and printers. The condensed variant is called Ambroise Firmin. The extra-condensed is called Ambroise François. Ambroise Pro brought back to life: fifteen years in the making! Club des directeurs artistiques, 48e palmarès Bukva:raz 2001

A tessellation is a shape that can be used to completely fill the plane. Simple examples are isosceles triangles, squares, and hexagons. Tessellation patterns are eye-catching and visually appealing, which is the reason that they have long been popular in a variety of decorative situations. These Tessie fonts have two family members, a solid style that must have different colors when used and an outline style. They can be used separately or they can be used in layers with the outline style on top of the solid style. For rows to align properly, leading must be the same as point size. To see how patterns can be constructed, see the “Samples” file here. Shapes that tessellate and also resemble real-world objects are often called Escher-like tessellations. This typeface contains Escher-like tessellations of birds. Quite a few of them resemble swimming birds, but there are also some that resemble flying birds or birds in other positions. Most or all of these shapes were discovered/created by the font designer during the past twenty years in the process of designing maze books, coloring books, and a book about tessellations. (Earlier tessellation fonts from IngrimayneType, the TessieDingies fonts, lack a black or filled version so cannot do colored patterns. The addition of a solid style that must be colored makes these new fonts a bit more difficult to use but offers far greater possibilities in getting visually interesting results.)

ITC Werkstatt is a result of the combined talents of Alphabet Soup's Paul Crome and Satwinder Sehmi, along with Ilene Strizver and Colin Brignall. It is inspired by the work of Rudolph Koch, the renowned German calligrapher, punchcutter, and type designer of the first third of this century, without being based directly on any of Koch's typefaces. Werkstatt has obvious affinities with the heavy, woodcut look of Koch's popular Neuland, but also with display faces like Wallau and even the light, delicate Koch Antiqua. Brignall began by drawing formal letters with a 55mm cap height, which Sehmi reinterpreted using a pen with a broad-edge nib. “Not an easy process,” says Brignall, “since one of the features of Koch's style is that while it was calligraphic in spirit, most of the time his counter shapes did not bear any resemblance to the external shapes, as they would in normal calligraphy. This meant that Sehmi could not complete a whole character in one go, but had to create the outside and inside shapes separately and then ink in the center of the letters.” The process was repeated, only without entirely filling in the outlines, for the Engraved version. Crome handled the scanning and digitization, maintaining the hand-made feel while creating usable digital outlines. “The collaboration of artisans with particular skills,” says Brignall, “in a modern-day, computer-aided studio environment, seems very much in step with the 'workshop' ethos that Rudolph Koch encouraged and promoted so much.”

The Richie™ typeface grew out of a lettering experiment inspired by the work of Czech type designer Oldrich Menhart (1897-1962). Menhart’s typefaces were primarily text designs with a strong personal calligraphic influence. Monotype Studio designer, Jim Ford, wondered what a display typeface from Menhart might look like, and began drawing bold script characters with a broad-tipped chisel marker. “It was a familiar but laborious exercise,” explains Ford, “I tried to achieve an authentic – yet controlled – randomness that would serve as the foundation of a typeface.” Ford first drew a large suite of characters using the marker. All the drawings were then carefully adjusted, and scanned. Ford then pieced together a typeface from the best versions of letters, and refined those further. The result is a rugged, somewhat eccentric and playful script built on an obvious hand-drawn foundation. In a world of smooth scripts, the Richie design is heavy, chunky and rough. Its hand-made feel and vigorous rhythm put the power of raw brush lettering into the typographer’s hands. OpenType® fonts of Richie include standard, contextual and discretionary ligatures, in addition to contextual and stylistic alternates, old style, lining and superior figures, plus a large complement of swash characters. The name “Richie”? It grew out of Ford’s original premise for the design. “I wondered what it might it look like if ‘Old Richie’ had designed a heavy display face or script.”