I love geometric sans serifs, their crispness and rationality. Le Havre taps into this style, but for a while, I've wanted to create a font recalling the printed Futura of the 1940s, which seems to have an elusive quality all its own. After seeing an old manual on a World War II ship, I developed a plan for "Le Havre Metal" but chose to shelve the project due to Le Havre's small x-height. That's where Steagal comes in. When Robbie de Villiers and I began the Chatype project in early 2012 (a project which led one publication to label me the Edward Johnston of Chattanooga!), we started closely studying the vernacular lettering of Chattanooga. During that time, I also visited Switzerland, where I saw how designers were using a new, handmade aesthetic with a geometric base. I was motivated to make a new face combining some of these same influences. The primary inspiration for the new design came from the hand-lettering of sign painters in the United States, circa 1930s through 1950s. My Chatype research turned up a poster from the Tennessee Valley Authority in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which exhibited a number of quirks from the unique hand and style of one of these sign artists. Completing the first draft of Steagal, however, I found that the face appeared somewhat European in character. I turned then to the work of Morris Fuller Benton for a distinctly American take and discovered a number of features that would help define Steagal as a "1930s American" vernacular typeface--features I later learned also inspired Morris Fuller Benton's Eagle. The overall development of Steagal was surprisingly difficult, knowing when to deliberately distort optical artifacts and when to keep them in place. Part of type design is correcting optical illusions, and I found myself absentmindedly adjusting the optical effects. In the end, though, I was able to draw inspiration from period signs, inscriptions, period posters, and architecture while retaining just enough of the naive sensibility. Steagal has softened edges, which simulate brush strokes and retain the feeling of the human hand. The standard version has unique quirks that are not too intrusive. Overshoots have almost been eliminated, and joins have minimal corrections. The rounded forms are mathematically perfect, geometric figures without optical corrections. As a variation to the standard, the “Rough” version stands as the "bad signpainter" version with plenty of character. Steagal Regular comes in five weights and is packed with OpenType features. Steagal includes three Art Deco Alternate sets, optically compensated rounded forms, a monospaced variant, and numerous other features. In all, there are over 200 alternate characters. To see these features in action, please see the informative .pdf brochure. OpenType capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe Creative suite can take full advantage of the automatically replacing ligatures and alternates. Steagal also includes support for all Western European languages. Steagal is a great way to subtly draw attention to your work. Its unique quirks grab the eye with a authority that few typefaces possess. Embrace its vernacular, hand-brushed look, and see what this geometric sans serif can do for you.

“Hand Stamp Gothic Rough” is based on real vintage rubber stamp letters from Germany. A classic american gothic face mixed with a modern condensed sans serif type. Rough & dirty with a authen­tic hand stamped look for a warm analogue vintage charm. It star­ted ana­lo­gous with only a few rubber stamps and finally it was digi­tal 776 gly­phs. With 4 × A–Z, 4 × 0–9, 4 × a–z and many other alternative glyphs like @. Plus modern OpenType Features like contextual alternates (automatic generated loop for letter variation). The different variations from the dynamic pressure by hand inten­ded to show the hand-made nature and crea­tes a live­li­ness in the display font. The font has 80 decorative extras in the form of symbols & dingbats like arrows, hearts, smileys, stars, further numbers, lines & shapes. A range of figure set options like oldstyle figures, lining figures, superiors & inferiors. Additionally stan­dard liga­tures, deco­ra­tive liga­tures (type the word “show” for ☛ and “love” for ❤ … ), Ver­sal Eszett (German Capital Sharp S) and many emojis & symbols. Example of use It’s your turn … for example everywhere where it makes sense. The hand stamped font would look good at head­lines. Advertising (big headlines), Corporate Design (type for logos & branding), Edi­to­rial Design (maga­zine or fan­zine headlines), Product Design (typographical packaging) or Web­de­sign (head­line web­font for your web­site), flyer, pos­ter, music covers or web banner … How To Use – awesome magic OpenType-Features in your layout application: ■ In Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign, font feature controls are within the Character panel sub-menu → OpenType → Discretionary Ligatures … Checked features are applied/on. Unchecked features are off. ■ In Adobe Illustrator, font feature controls are within the OpenType panel. Icons at the bottom of the panel are button controls. Darker ‘pressed’ buttons are applied/on. ■ Additionally in Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator, alternate glyphs can manually be inserted into a text frame by using the Glyph panel. The panel can be opened by selecting Window from the menu bar → Type → Glyphs. Or use sign-overview of your operating system. For a overview of OpenType-Feature compatibility for common applications, follow the myfonts-help http://www.myfonts.com/help/#looks-different ■ It may process a little bit slowly in some applications, because the font has a lot of lovely rough details (anchor points). Tech­ni­cal Spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­ons ■ Font Name Hand Stamp Gothic Rough ■ Font Weights Regu­lar & Dirty (Bold) ■ Font Cate­gory Dis­play for head­line size ■ Font For­mat.otf (Open­Type Font for Mac + Win) ■ Glyph Set 776 glyphs ■ Lan­guage Sup­port Basic Latin/English let­ters, Cen­tral Europe, West European diacritics, Turkish, Bal­tic, Roma­nian, OpenType Features, Dingbats & Symbols ■ Spe­cials Alter­na­tive let­ters, sty­listic sets, automatic con­text­ual alter­nates via Open­Type Fea­ture (4× different versions of A–Z & 0–9 + a–z), Euro, kerning pairs, stan­dard & deco­ra­tive liga­tures, Ver­sal Eszett (German Capital Sharp S), 80 extras like Dingbats & Symbols, arrows, hearts, emojis/smileys, stars, further numbers, lines & shapes. ■ Design Date 2016 ■ Type Desi­gner Manuel Vier­gutz ■ License Desktop license, Web license, App license, eBook license, Ser­ver license

Introducing Sun Type, a delightful and versatile serif logo font that exudes creativity and charm. With over 150 ligature glyphs and alternate characters, this font offers a wide range of design possibilities, allowing you to craft unique and visually stunning logos and brand identities. Sun Type goes above and beyond with its extensive collection of 52 swashes, offering you the opportunity to add elegant and decorative elements to your text. These swashes effortlessly elevate your designs, giving them a touch of sophistication and individuality. Not only does Sun Type excel in its aesthetic appeal, but it also showcases its practicality by supporting a staggering 87 languages. No matter where your audience is located or what language they speak, you can confidently communicate your message with this font. Language Support : Afrikaans, Albanian, Asu, Basque, Bemba, Bena, Breton, Chiga, Colognian, Cornish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Embu, English, Estonian, Faroese, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Galician, Ganda, German, Gusi,i Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jola-Fonyi, Kabuverdianu, Kalenjin, Kamba, Kikuyu, Kinyarwanda, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lower Sorbian, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malagasy, Maltese, Manx, Meru, Morisyen, North Ndebele, Norwegian, Bokmål, Norwegian, Nynorsk, Nyankole, Oromo, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Romanian, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Rwa, Samburu, Sango, Sangu, Scottish, Gaelic, Sena, Shambala, Shona, Slovak, Soga, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Swiss, German, Taita, Teso, Turkish, Upper, Sorbian, Uzbek (Latin), Volapük, Vunjo, Walser, Welsh, Western Frisian, Zulu LigaturesAB,AC,AD,AF,AG,AI,AK,AL,AM,AN,AP,AR,AT,AU,AV,AW,AY,BA,BE,BI,BL,BO,BU,CA,CC,CE,CH,CI,CK,CL,CO, CR,CT,CU,DA,DD,DE,DI,DO,DS,DY,EA,EC,ED,EE,EF,EG,EI,EL,EM,EN,EP,ER,ES,ET,EV,EW,EX,EY,FA,FE,FF,FI, FO,FR,GA,GE,GH,GO,GS,HA,HE,HI,HO,HT,IK,IL,IM,IN,IT,IH,KE,KI,KN,KO,LA,LE,LF,LI,LK,LL,LO,LT,LY,MA,ME, MM,MO,MP,MS,MU,NC,ND,NE,NG,NK,NL,NN,NO,NS,NT,OA,OB,OC,OD,OF,OG,OI,OK,OL,OM,ON,OO,OP, OR,OS,OT,OU,OV,OW,PE,RA,RE,RF,RK,RM,RN,RO,RR,RS,SA,SC,SE,SH,SK,SS,ST,TC,TE,TH,TI,TL,TO,ST,TT,TU, TW,TY,UC,UE,UL,UM,UN,UR,US,UT,VA,VE,VO,WA,WE,WH,WN,WO,YE,YO,YS,MEN,FRO,RON,ROM,THE, AND,ING,HER,HAT,HIS,THA,ERE,FOR,ENT,TER,WAS,YOU,ITH,VER,ALL,THI,OUL,GHT,AVE,HAV,HIN,ATI, EVE,HING,WERE,FROM,THAT,THER,HAVE,THIS,MENT How to access alternate glyphs? To access alternate glyphs in Adobe InDesign or Illustrator, choose Window Type & Tables Glyphs In Photoshop, choose Window Glyphs. In the panel that opens, click the Show menu and choose Alternates for Selection. Double-click an alternate's thumbnail to swap them out. Mock ups and backgrounds used are not included. Thank you! Enjoy!

Please note! If you need OTF versions of the fonts, just email us at commercial@typetype.org TT Ricordi Allegria useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options TT Ricordi Allegria is a sleek and intelligent contemporary Florentine grotesque inspired by the half-erased lettering in Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence. TT Ricordi Allegria was drawn by Antonina Zhulkova and reflects in its graphics the transitional stage between the classic serif with varying proportions, gravitating towards the Roman capital type, and the Florentine sans serif. The font is characterized by variability in the proportions of characters, contrast between strokes, wedge-shaped triangular characters, and the absence of traditional serifs. The main visual feature of the typeface is its diversity and the ability, using different stylistic sets, to completely change the character and perception of the typeface. The drawing of the characters from the main set is strict, thanks to which the font looks stern, as if the inscription in the font was really carved out of stone. And with the help of another set, we can add roundness, or even smoothness, to the font. This is due to the fact that the letters (E R K Q J Y in Latin, and Л К Ж Э in Cyrillic) from the second set have either very noticeable "curls" or smooth, rounded "legs". In addition, the typeface includes a set of beautiful ligatures for use in display inscriptions, such as large headlines. An interesting moment when working on the typeface was the creation of the Cyrillic typeset, since the Cyrillic alphabet does not so easily fit into the concept of the Florentine grotesque and stressed semi-serif. The most difficult thing in working on the Cyrillic alphabet was to create a system of spacing for characters, as it was done in the Latin alphabet, and to make sure that when typing in Cyrillic, the drawing of the text remained beautiful. That is why the letters Д Л У Ы appearing in the font family are somewhat unusual to the eye, and the proportions of other characters in Cyrillic are not quite “classic” either. In general, the Cyrillic set looks more display than its Latin prototype, but at the same time it lacks the sense of historicity or legacy of the Soviet past, which often comes to the foreground when working on the design of the Cyrillic alphabet in this type of serifs. TT Ricordi Allegria consists of two weights (Regular and Bold) and one variable font. Each style includes over 750 characters, as well as 19 OpenType features. Interesting features of the typeface include three stylistic sets that greatly change the perception of the font, a set of bright display ligatures, a few neat icons that are suitable for breaking text and will emphasize the visual language of the font. Please note! If you need OTF versions of the fonts, just email us at commercial@typetype.org FOLLOW US: Instagram | Facebook | Website

Johann Carl Ludwig Prillwitz, the German punch cutter and type founder, cut the first classic Didot letters even earlier than Walbaum. The earliest proof of so-called Prillwitz letters is dated 12 April 1790. Inspired by the big discoveries of archaeology and through the translations of classical authors, the bourgeoisie was enthused about the Greek and Roman ideal of aesthetics. The enthusiasm for the Greek and Roman experienced a revival and was also shared by Goethe and contemporaries. »Seeking the country of Greece with one’s soul«. All Literates who are considered nowadays as German Classics of that time kept coming back to the Greek topics, thinking of Schiller and Wieland. The works of Wieland were published in Leipzig by Göschen. Göschen used typefaces which had been produced by until then unknown punch cutter. This punch cutter from Jena created with these typefaces master works of classicist German typography. They can stand without any exaggeration on the same level as that of Didot and Bodoni. This unknown gentleman was known as Johann Carl Ludwig Prillwitz. Prillwitz published his typefaces on 12th April 1790 for the first time. This date is significant because this happened ten years before Walbaum. Prillwitz was an owner of a very successful foundry. When the last of his 7 children died shortly before reaching adulthood his hope of his works was destroyed, Prillwitz lost his will to live. He died six months later. His wife followed him shortly after. The typeface Prillwitz as a digital font was created in three optical styles (Normal, Book and Display). The typeface Prillwitz Press was created especially for a printing in small sizes for newspapers. »Prillwitz Press« combines aesthetic and functional attributes which make written text highly readable. It was originally designed for a newspaper with medium contrast to withstand harsh printing conditions. Its structure is quite narrow which makes this typeface ideal for body text and headlines where space is at premium. For the Normal – even more for the Book – a soft and reader-friendly outline was created through a so-called »Schmitz« and optimized in numerous test prints. The arris character and the common maximal stroke width contrast of the known classicist typefaces (Didot/Bodoni) were edited by the study of the original prints. This was also done in order to reach a very good readability in small type sizes. This typeface is perfectly suited to scientific and belletristic works. Accordingly it has three styles: Regular, Bold and Italic as Highlighting (1). The typeface Prillwitz is a complete new interpretation and continuing development of the conservated originals from 1790. They have been kept in the German Library in Leipzig. It was always given the priority to keep the strong roughness and at the same time optimizing the readability of this striking font. The type family has all important characters for an efficient and typographic high quality work. ----------- (1) Accentuation of particular words or word orders (e.g. proper names, terms etc.). Typographic means for Highlighting could be Italic, SmallCaps or semi-bold.

A sturdy workhorse with the grace of a gazelle, the FF Pastoral typeface family marries pure craftsmanship with rapturous excesses of form. With his fifteenth release under the FontFont brand, prolific French designer Xavier Dupré has filled a typographic toolbox with plentiful options ranging from a tender, feathery Thin to a robust, healthy Black. At a glance, FF Pastoral appears deceptively simple, particularly in the middle weights. That surface serenity is intentional and allows for easy reading and quick comprehension of short blocks of copy. Upon closer inspection, FF Pastoral is complex and nuanced, carrying a balanced tension in its forms. This plays particularly well in magazine spreads and corporate logos, where uniqueness is a virtue. In creating his latest design, Dupré drew inspiration from a tasteful mix of references, combining diverse elements with a deft hand. While its letter shapes were informed by humanist-geometric hybrid Gill Sans, FF Pastoral’s proportions have been optimized for contemporary typography. Slightly condensed but generously spaced, FF Pastoral features a tall x-height, open counters, and subtle, sprightly italics slanted at just 5°. Proportional oldstyle figures are the default in the family, with tabular and lining numbers and fractions accessible through OpenType features. Elegant details evocative of calligraphy judiciously pepper the FF Pastoral glyph set. The ‘e’ bears an oblique crossbar, while the right leg of the ‘K’ and the ‘R’ are insouciantly curved in both the upright and italic variants. Further flourishes appear throughout the italics, notably in the ‘T’ and the ‘Z’, the gloriously looped tail of the ‘G’, and an extraordinary ampersand. Sharp-eyed fans of Dupré’s work may feel like they’re in familiar territory, and they would be right. An early version of FF Pastoral sprang to life in 2017 as Malis, a family in four weights on the heavier side of the spectrum. Over time, Dupré refined his original design, expanding it with four lighter styles and including true italics for all. The lightest weights are ethereal, with exquisitely delicate strokes drawing the eye in and across a line of type. The most substantial styles are tremendous in their power, allowing text to make a deep impression in print or on screen. Fully fleshed out, FF Pastoral works sublimely in a vast array of text and display settings. Dupré sees his latest FontFont offering as a ‘cultural’ typeface, perfect for the pages of an oversized coffee-table book or business communications where warmth and informality will win the day. Born in Aubenas, France (1977), Xavier Dupré is a gifted user of type as well as an award-winning type designer and lettering artist. After training in graphic design in Paris, Dupré studied calligraphy and typography at the Scriptorium de Toulouse. Since releasing FF Parango in 2001, Dupré has published such FontFont classics as the FF Absara and FF Sanuk superfamilies, FF Megano, FF Tartine, and FF Yoga. A designer of Khmer fonts as well as Latin typefaces, Dupré splits his time between Europe and Asia.

Style and elegance in 14 styles PS Fournier, created by Stéphane Elbaz, is designed in tribute to Pierre Simon Fournier. Fournier was the prolific Parisian type designer whose work is best known for its iconic representation of French transitional style. PS Fournier elegantly represents the transition to the modern era of typography. Featuring three optical sizes, PS Fournier is designed to perform in any context. The Pierre Simon Fournier heritage Pierre Simon Fournier (1712—1768) was a leading innovative type designer of the mid-18th century. Early in his career, the young Pierre Simon developed a strong aesthetic that he cultivated throughout his life. His art is representative of the pre-revolutionary “Age of Enlightenment” (Siècle des Lumières). Precursor of the Modern style, Fournier’s body of work deeply influenced his times, and created the fertile ground from which the Didot family and Giambattista Bodoni developed their own styles. During the historical period of the 18th century, Fournier exemplified the intellectual pursuits of the times with his own research on type, documenting in detail the typefounding process. He also offered a unique vision: he is the first to clearly comprehend the concept of “type family,” sorting a set of similarly styled alphabets by sizes, width, and by x-heights. In addition, Fournier is one of the earliest advocates of the point system to organize the practice of typography, the point system that contemporary typographers continue to use to this day. The refined and discreet elegance of PS Fournier With a close look at the family, one finds you’ll find that the difference between the optical sizes (Petit, standard and Grand) is more than a contrast variation between the thin and the thick; the eye can also denote a palette of distinct tones: More streamlined and robust in the smaller sizes (Petit), more refined and detailed in the larger sizes (Grand). The PS Fournier standard family is designed to adapt to any situation with its intermediate optical size, from body copy to headlines. With a bit of tracking, PS Fournier Petit will make the smallest captions perfectly readable. However, Petit family is not limited to body and captions — its “slabby robustness” will make a relevant headline choice as well. PS Fournier Grand presents a higher contrast adapted to large text sizes, displays or banners. Its refined elegance makes it a perfect choice for Design, Fashion or Luxury publications. As a “modern” type PS Fournier Grand features a larger x-height than the preexistent old style typefaces such as Garamond or Jenson. These proportions provide any basic text set in PS Fournier Grand a strong typographic texture. As a result, the PS Fournier global family is a versatile alternative to the Modern typefaces commonly used in the publishing industry. The optical sizes, the large range of weights, and the design variations make this family adaptable to captions, paragraphs, and pages, as well as to large texts and displays. A leading-edge typography in the 18th century In the spirit of modernity, Pierre Simon Fournier did not find any use for the conventional swashes still produced by peers such as Caslon or Baskerville. Nevertheless the French designer created many inventive elements to decorate the page and set delightful variations in the text itself. To this regard PS Fournier includes a large set of glyphs variations, ligatures and more than one hundred glyphs for borders, rules and ornaments or — as called in French — “vignettes.” PS Fournier: A tribute to the French modern typography era by Stéphane Elbaz

Pure and not-so-simple Maybe it’s the air of purity, openness and transparency that they transmit, but geometric typefaces are more popular than ever among leading brands. Based on near-perfect circles, triangles and squares, geometric letterforms look uncomplicated, even though making them readable is anything but – something the designers of the first wave of geometric fonts discovered nearly a century ago. Many of the world’s most recognisable brands in technology, retail, travel, food, manufacturing and other industries continue to be drawn to the straightforward, honest character that geometric fonts convey. Fontsmith set out in 2015 to develop a typeface in the same tradition, but optimised for the demands of modern brands – online and offline usage, readability and accessibility. And, of course, with the all-important Fontsmith x-factor built in. FS Lucas is the bold and deceptively simple result. Handle with care The letterforms of FS Lucas are round and generous, along the lines of Trajan Column lettering stripped of its serifs. But beware their thorns. Their designer, Stuart de Rozario, who also crafted the award-winning FS Millbank, wanted a contrast between spiky and soft, giving sharp apexes to the more angular letterforms, such as A, M, N, v, w and z. Among his inspirations were the colourful, geometric compositions of Frank Stella, the 1920s art deco poster designs of AM Cassandre, and the triangular cosmic element symbol, which led him to tackle the capital A first, instead of the usual H. The proportions and angles of the triangular form would set the template for many of the other characters. It was this form, and the light-scattering effects of triangular prisms, that lit the path to a name for the typeface: Lucas is derived from lux, the Latin word for light. Recommended reading Early geometric typefaces were accused of putting mathematical integrity before readability. FS Lucas achieves the trick of appearing geometric, while taking the edge off elements that make reading difficult. Perfectly circlular shapes don’t read well. The way around that is to slightly thicken the vertical strokes, and pull out the curves at the corners to compensate; the O and o of FS Lucas are optical illusions. Pointed apexes aren’t as sharp as they look; the flattened tips are an essential design feature. And distinctive details such as the open terminals of the c, e, f, g, j, r and s, and the x-height bar on the i and j, aid legibility, especially on-screen. These and many other features, the product of sketching the letterforms in the first instance by hand rather than mapping them out mechanically by computer, give FS Lucas the built-in humanity and character that make it a better, easier read all-round. Marks of distinction Unlike some of its more buttoned-up geometric bedfellows, FS Lucas can’t contain its natural personality and quirks: the flick of the foot of the l, for example, and the flattish tail on the g and j. The unusual bar on the J improves character recognition, and the G is circular, without a straight stem. There’s a touch of Fontsmith about the t, too, with the curve across the left cross section in the lighter weights, and the ampersand is one of a kind. There’s a lot to like about Lucas. With its 9 weights, perfect proportions and soft but spiky take on the classic geometric font, it’s a typeface that could light up any brand.

Pure and not-so-simple Maybe it’s the air of purity, openness and transparency that they transmit, but geometric typefaces are more popular than ever among leading brands. Based on near-perfect circles, triangles and squares, geometric letterforms look uncomplicated, even though making them readable is anything but – something the designers of the first wave of geometric fonts discovered nearly a century ago. Many of the world’s most recognisable brands in technology, retail, travel, food, manufacturing and other industries continue to be drawn to the straightforward, honest character that geometric fonts convey. Fontsmith set out in 2015 to develop a typeface in the same tradition, but optimised for the demands of modern brands – online and offline usage, readability and accessibility. And, of course, with the all-important Fontsmith x-factor built in. FS Lucas is the bold and deceptively simple result. Handle with care The letterforms of FS Lucas are round and generous, along the lines of Trajan Column lettering stripped of its serifs. But beware their thorns. Their designer, Stuart de Rozario, who also crafted the award-winning FS Millbank, wanted a contrast between spiky and soft, giving sharp apexes to the more angular letterforms, such as A, M, N, v, w and z. Among his inspirations were the colourful, geometric compositions of Frank Stella, the 1920s art deco poster designs of AM Cassandre, and the triangular cosmic element symbol, which led him to tackle the capital A first, instead of the usual H. The proportions and angles of the triangular form would set the template for many of the other characters. It was this form, and the light-scattering effects of triangular prisms, that lit the path to a name for the typeface: Lucas is derived from lux, the Latin word for light. Recommended reading Early geometric typefaces were accused of putting mathematical integrity before readability. FS Lucas achieves the trick of appearing geometric, while taking the edge off elements that make reading difficult. Perfectly circlular shapes don’t read well. The way around that is to slightly thicken the vertical strokes, and pull out the curves at the corners to compensate; the O and o of FS Lucas are optical illusions. Pointed apexes aren’t as sharp as they look; the flattened tips are an essential design feature. And distinctive details such as the open terminals of the c, e, f, g, j, r and s, and the x-height bar on the i and j, aid legibility, especially on-screen. These and many other features, the product of sketching the letterforms in the first instance by hand rather than mapping them out mechanically by computer, give FS Lucas the built-in humanity and character that make it a better, easier read all-round. Marks of distinction Unlike some of its more buttoned-up geometric bedfellows, FS Lucas can’t contain its natural personality and quirks: the flick of the foot of the l, for example, and the flattish tail on the g and j. The unusual bar on the J improves character recognition, and the G is circular, without a straight stem. There’s a touch of Fontsmith about the t, too, with the curve across the left cross section in the lighter weights, and the ampersand is one of a kind. There’s a lot to like about Lucas. With its 9 weights, perfect proportions and soft but spiky take on the classic geometric font, it’s a typeface that could light up any brand.

The story of Scripps College Old Style is a heart-warming and inspiring chronicle about a young librarian, a handful of students, a wealthy grandmother, a dedicated educator -- and two eminent American type designers. The story begins in 1938, when Dorothy Drake, the newly hired librarian at Scripps College, a small women's college in southern California, became an impromptu dinner companion of the American type designer Fred Goudy. By the 1990s, the original fonts that Goudy had created for Scripps College in the 1940s had become prized -- but they were seldom-used antiques. Scripps needed digital versions of the metal fonts. This goal posed two immediate challenges: finding a designer familiar with letterpress printing who was skilled at creating digital fonts, and locating the money to commission the designer's services. The first challenge was the easiest to conquer. Sumner Stone was my first and only choice," recalls Kitty Maryatt, the current curator of the Scripps College Press. "I knew he had letterpress experience, was an accomplished calligrapher, and that his typeface designs were simply exquisite. The choice was easy."The second challenge was more difficult. It took the dedication, hard work and tenacity of Maryatt to bring the beautiful Goudy designs into the twenty-first century. While Stone was eager to begin work on the project, the college had no more money for new typeface designs in the 1990s than it did in the1930s. Years of lobbying, cajoling and letter writing were necessary to obtain the college's approval for the design project. Once she had the necessary funding, the design brief posed yet a third challenge. Goudy had provided two sizes of type to the Press: 14 point and 16 point. Which would serve as the foundation for Stone's work? In addition, the Goudy fonts were quite worn. Should Stone use printed samples as his design master, or base his work on the original Goudy renderings? The 14-point master drawings were the ultimate choice, with the stipulation that the finished fonts would provide both a seamless transition from the worn metal versions and a faithful representation of the original Goudy designs. Once the budget and design brief were established, the process of converting the original Goudy drawings into digital fonts took just a little over two months. Stone delivered finished products to Scripps in the fall of 1997. The first official use of the fonts was to set an announcement for a lecture by Stone at Scripps in February of 1998. But the story is not quite finished. Maryatt was so pleased with the new digital fonts, she wanted to share them with the graphic design community. At Stone's suggestion, she contacted Monotype Imaging with the hope that the company would add the new designs to its library. An easy decision! Now Monotype Imaging is part of the story. We are proud to announce the release of Scripps College Old Style as a Monotype Classic font. The once exclusive font of metal type is now available in digital form for designers around the world. "

The famous roman type cut in Venice by Nicolas Jenson, and used in 1470 for his printing of the tract, De Evangelica Praeparatione, Eusebius, has usually been declared the seminal and definitive representative of a class of types known as Venetian Old Style. The Jenson type is thought to have been the primary model for types that immediately followed. Subsequent 15th-century Venetian Old Style types, cut by other punchcutters in Venice and elsewhere in Italy, are also worthy of study, but have been largely neglected by 20th-century type designers. There were many versions of Venetian Old Style types produced in the final quarter of the quattrocento. The exact number is unknown, but numerous printed examples survive, though the actual types, matrices, and punches are long gone. All these types are not, however, conspicuously Jensonian in character. Each shows a liberal amount of individuality, inconsistency, and eccentricity. My fascination with these historical types began in the 1970s and eventually led to the production of my first text typeface, Iowan Old Style (Bitstream, 1991). Sometime in the early 1990s, I started doodling letters for another Venetian typeface. The letters were pieced together from sections of circles and squares. The n, a standard lowercase control character in a text typeface, came first. Its most unusual feature was its head serif, a bisected quadrant of a circle. My aim was to see if its sharp beak would work with blunt, rectangular, foot serifs. Next, I wanted to see if I could construct a set of capital letters by following a similar design system. Rectangular serifs, or what we today call "slab serifs," were common in early roman printing types, particularly text types cut in Italy before 1500. Slab serifs are evident on both lowercase and uppercase characters in roman types of the Incunabula period, but they are seen mainly at the feet of the lowercase letters. The head serifs on lowercase letters of early roman types were usually angled. They were not arched, like mine. Oddly, there seems to be no actual historical precedent for my approach. Another characteristic of my arched serif is that the side opposite the arch is flat, not concave. Arched, concave serifs were used extensively in early italic types, a genre which first appeared more than a quarter century after roman types. Their forms followed humanistic cursive writing, common in Italy since before movable type was used there. Initially, italic characters were all lowercase, set with upright capitals (a practice I much admire and would like to see revived). Sloped italic capitals were not introduced until the middle of the sixteenth century, and they have very little to do with the evolution of humanist scripts. In contrast to the cursive writing on which italic types were based, formal book hands used by humanist scholars to transcribe classical texts served as a source of inspiration for the lowercase letters of the first roman types cut in Italy. While book hands were not as informal as cursive scripts, they still had features which could be said to be more calligraphic than geometric in detail. Over time, though, the copied vestiges of calligraphy virtually disappeared from roman fonts, and type became more rational. This profound change in the way type developed was also due in part to popular interest in the classical inscriptions of Roman antiquity. Imperial Roman letters, or majuscules, became models for the capital letters in nearly all early roman printing types. So it was, that the first letters in my typeface arose from pondering how shapes of lowercase letters and capital letters relate to one another in terms of classical ideals and geometric proportions, two pinnacles in a range of artistic notions which emerged during the Italian Renaissance. Indeed, such ideas are interesting to explore, but in the field of type design they often lead to dead ends. It is generally acknowledged, for instance, that pure geometry, as a strict approach to type design, has limitations. No roman alphabet, based solely on the circle and square, has ever been ideal for continuous reading. This much, I knew from the start. In the course of developing my typeface for text, innumerable compromises were made. Even though the finished letterforms retain a measure of geometric structure, they were modified again and again to improve their performance en masse. Each modification caused further deviation from my original scheme, and gave every font a slightly different direction. In the lower case letters especially, I made countless variations, and diverged significantly from my original plan. For example, not all the arcs remained radial, and they were designed to vary from font to font. Such variety added to the individuality of each style. The counters of many letters are described by intersecting arcs or angled facets, and the bowls are not round. In the capitals, angular bracketing was used practically everywhere stems and serifs meet, accentuating the terseness of the characters. As a result of all my tinkering, the entire family took on a kind of rich, familiar, coarseness - akin to roman types of the late 1400s. In his book, Printing Types D. B. Updike wrote: "Almost all Italian roman fonts in the last half of the fifteenth century had an air of "security" and generous ease extremely agreeable to the eye. Indeed, there is nothing better than fine Italian roman type in the whole history of typography." It does seem a shame that only in the 20th century have revivals of these beautiful types found acceptance in the English language. For four centuries (circa 1500 - circa 1900) Venetian Old Style faces were definitely not in favor in any living language. Recently, though, reinterpretations of early Italian printing types have been returning with a vengeance. The name Vendetta, which as an Italian sound I like, struck me as being a word that could be taken to signifiy a comeback of types designed in the Venetian style. In closing, I should add that a large measure of Vendetta's overall character comes from a synthesis of ideas, old and new. Hallmarks of roman type design from the Incunabula period are blended with contemporary concerns for the optimal display of letterforms on computer screens. Vendetta is thus not a historical revival. It is instead an indirect but personal digital homage to the roman types of punchcutters whose work was influenced by the example Jenson set in 1470. John Downer.