Le Typorium présente une nouvelle famille de caractères calligraphiques basés sur une écriture étudiée à travers les manuscrits et autographes de Georges Brassens, poète et musicien (1921-1981). Son tracé, rigoureux et appliqué, souvent minutieux, est à l’image d’une œuvre unique et singulière, immédiatement reconnaissable. Le script Brassens offre des fonctionnalités OpenType telles que des caractères alternatifs pour les majuscules et les minuscules afin de renforcer la fluidité d’une écriture manuelle, des chiffres alternatifs, des fractions et un jeu de caractères accentués étendu pour prendre en charge de nombreuses langues étrangères. Trois graisses ont été créées afin d’offrir une large palette de possibilités graphiques. 60 images d’un poète qui a cassé sa pipe à l’âge de 60 ans., classées en trois séries de vignettes (pictogrammes, symboles, portraits), elles illustrent l’univers imagé et la richesse symbolique de la poésie de Georges Brassens où les représentations mythologiques et allégoriques y tiennent une part importante. Georges Brassens est un poète, auteur-compositeur-interprète né à Sète le 22 octobre 1921, mort à Saint-Gély-du-Fesc le 29 octobre 1981 et enterré au cimetière Le Py de Sète. Auteur de plus de deux cents chansons populaires, il met en musique et interprète ses poèmes en s’accompagnant à la guitare. Outre ses propres textes, il met également en musique des poèmes de François Villon, Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine, Paul Fort, Antoine Pol, ou encore Louis Aragon. Il reçoit le Grand Prix de Poésie de l’Académie Française e 1967. Un grand nombre d’écoles, salles de spectacle, voies, parcs et jardins portent également son nom, dont à Paris le parc Georges-Brassens, tout proche de l’impasse Florimont où il vécut ses premières années parisiennes, de sa maison de la rue Santos-Dumont et du café Les Sportifs Réunis – Chez Walczak – rue Brancion qui lui inspira « Le Bistrot ». À Sète, l’Espace Georges Brassens ainsi que de nombreux festivals et associations redonnent vie au poète et à son œuvre. The Typorium presents a new calligraphic typeface family based on a writing studied through the manuscripts and autographs of Georges Brassens, poet and musician (1921-1981). Its layout, rigorous and applied, often meticulous, is in the image of a unique and singular work, immediately recognizable. Brassens script offers OpenType features such as alternate characters for upper and lower case to enhance the fluency of handwriting, alternate numbers, fractions and an extended accented character set to support many foreign languages. Three weights have been created to offer a wide range of graphic possibilities. 60 images of a poet who broke his pipe (French expression for passing away) at the age of 60, classified into three series of vignettes (pictograms, symbols, portraits), they illustrate the imagery world and the symbolic richness of Georges Brassens poetry where mythological and allegorical representations hold an important part. Georges Brassens is a poet, singer-songwriter born in Sète on October 22, 1921, died in Saint-Gély-du-Fesc on October 29, 1981 and buried in Le Py cemetery of Sète. Author of more than two hundred popular songs, he sets to music and performs his poems, accompanying himself on the guitar. In addition to his own texts, he also sets to music poems by François Villon, Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine, Paul Fort, Antoine Pol, or Louis Aragon. He received the Grand Prix of Poetry from the Académie Française in 1967. A large number of schools, theaters, streets, parks and gardens also bear his name, including in Paris the Georges-Brassens park, very close to the impasse Florimont where he lived his first years in Paris, his house in the rue Santos-Dumont and the café Les Sportifs Réunis - Chez Walczak - rue Brancion which inspired "Le Bistrot". In Sète, the Espace Georges Brassens as well as numerous festivals and associations bring the poet and his work back to life.

Zebramatic - A Lettering Safari Zebramatic is a font for editorial design use, to create headlines and titles in eye-catching stripes. Constructed to offer flexible and a variety of graphical possibilities, Zebramatic type is easy to use. The font is offered in three styles: POW, SLAM and WHAM. These styles work both as ready-made fonts and as patterns to create unique, individualized type. The font design’s full potential is unleashed by layering glyphs from two or all three styles in different colors or shades. Working with the different styles I was reminded of the late Jackson Pollock poured paintings—in particular the documentation of his painting process by Hanz Namuth and Paul Falkernburg in the film Jackson Pollock 51. In Pollock’s pictures the complex allure arises from how he layered the poured and dripped paint onto the canvas. Similar joyful experience and exciting results emerge by layering the different styles of Zebramatic type. Texture In the heart of the Design is Zebramatics unique texture. It is based on an analog distorted stripe pattern. The distortion is applied to a grade that makes the pattern complex but still consistent and legible. You can view some of the initial stripe patterns in the background of examples in the Gallery. Zebramatic POW, SLAM and WHAM each offer a distinct pallet of stripes—a unique zebra hide. POW and WHAM use different distortions of the same line width. SLAM is cut from a wider pattern with thicker stripes. The letter cut and kerning is consistent throughout styles. Design Concept Attention-grabbing textured or weathered fonts are ideal for headlines, ads, magazines and posters. In these situations rugged individuality, letter flow, and outline features are magnified and exposed. Textured fonts also immediately raise the design questions of how to create alignment across a word and deal with repeated letters. Zebramatic was conceived as an especially flexible font, one that could be used conveniently in a single style or by superimposing, interchanging and layering styles to create a unique type. The different styles are completely interchangeable (identical metrics and kerning). This architecture gives the typographer the freedom to decide which form or forms fit best to the specific project. Alignment and repetition were special concerns in the design process. The striped patterns in Zebramatic are carefully conceived to align horizontally but not to match. Matching patterns would create strong letter-pairs that would “stick out” of the word. For example, take the problematic word “stuff”. If Zebramatic aligned alphabetically, the texture of S T and U would align perfectly. The repeated F is also a problem. Imagine a headline that says »LOOK HERE«. If the letters OO and EE have copied »unique« glyphs - the headline suggests mass production, perhaps even that the designer does not care. Some OpenType features can work automatically around such disenchanting situations by accessing different glyphs from the extended glyph-table. However these automations are also repeated; the generated solutions become patterns themselves. Flip and stack To master the situation described above, Zebramatic offers a different programmatic practice. To eliminate alphabetic alignment, the letters in Zebramatic are developed individually. To avoid repetition, the designer can flip between the three styles (POW, SLAM, WHAM) providing three choices per glyph. Stacking layers in different sequences provides theoretical 27 (3*3*3) unique letterforms. A last variable to play with is color (i.e. red, blue, black). Images illustrating the layering potential of Zebramatic are provided in the Gallery. The design is robust and convenient. The font is easily operated through the main font panel (vs. the hidden sub-sub-menu for OpenType related features). The process of accessing different glyphs is also applicable in programs that do not support OpenType extensively (i.e. Word or older Versions of Illustrator). International Specs Zebramatic is ready for your international typographic safari. The font contains an international character set and additional symbols – useful in editorial and graphic design. The font comes in OpenType PostScript flavored and TrueType Format.

A smooth contemplative Antiqua with aspiring to the sky ascenders, inspired by the Quietism philosophy. Clarity of the mind is achieved by bringing the body into a state of calm and contemplation, and this is reflected in the design – the quiet horizontal serifs (body) are opposed to the peaky soaring ascenders (mind). The design also features four optical size subfamilies with different x-height and contrast, oldstyle diagonal stress, oldstyle figures by default, smooth details and slightly dark texture. Variable axes: Weight, Contrast, X-Height. Scripts: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic. Languages: 480+. The complete list of supported languages: michaelrafailyk.com/quietism Kerning: 4553 class-to-class pairs. Hinting: Not applied. Format: TTF – OpenType with TrueType outlines. Variable Font: Quietism Variable provides more options than static versions, and has three axes: Weight (Thin–Black), Contrast (Low-High), and X-Height (Low-High). Variable fonts includes thousands of styles that you can access using a sliders on graphic editor or via CSS on web browser. Mixing different axes gives you extra styles not represented by static fonts. Optical Size: The typeface is represented by four subfamilies: Text (low contrast, high x-height – for paragraph 10-20 pt), Deck (medium contrast, medium x-height – for subheading 20+ pt), Display (high contrast, medium x-height – for heading 72+ pt), Poster (high contrast, low x-height – for big size 120+ pt). Small Caps: Lowercase letters and Oldstyle Figures are replaced with Small Capitals forms. Capitals to Small Caps: Uppercase letters, all figures, and some punctuation are replaced with Small Capitals forms. Case Sensitive Forms: ()[]{}‹›«»-–—•·#%‰@ and Arrows are centered on capitals. Oldstyle figures are replaced with Lining figures. Oldstyle Figures: 0123456789 #%‰. Designed to work with lowercase letters. Used by default. Lining Figures: 0123456789 #%‰. Figures are the same height as uppercase letters (cap height). Proportional Figures: Lining, Oldstyle, Small Caps, Capitals to Small Caps. Tabular Figures: Lining, Oldstyle, Small Caps, Capitals to Small Caps. Ordinals: adehnorst. Superscript, Subscript, Numerator, Denominator: 0123456789. Fractions: ¼½¾⅐⅑⅒⅓⅔⅕⅖⅗⅘⅙⅚⅛⅜⅝⅞⅟ (precomposed). Any other fractions (even those typed through a slash) will also be displayed correctly, with the automatic replacement to Numerator + fraction + Denominator. Slashed Zero: All 0 figures. Contextual Alternates: Number sign character (#) before uppercase letters is replaced by its version centered on capitals. Hyphen character (-) between two uppercase letters is replaced by its version centered on capitals. First of two TT letters is replaced by its alternate form. Letters vwy before the letters fijmnprtuvwxy are replaced with an alternate shorter versions that fits better in the context. Contextual Alternates (Greek): ΆΈΉΊΌΎΏ. Greek uppercase accented characters lose their tonos accent and retain only dieresis in All Caps and Small Caps modes. Turned on by default. If you need tonos accents in All Caps then turn off Contextual Alternates (calt) feature. Stylistic Alternates: FTГТИЦЩцщ and their versions with diacritical marks. Stylistic Set 01 “Arrows”: Left <- Right -> Up Left Right <-> Up Down North West South East \> South West Stylistic Set 02 “Round-Square Cyrillic”: ДИЙЍЛФвгджзийѝклнптцчшщьъю characters are replaced with its Bulgarian or Russian forms. Stylistic Set 03 “Cyrillic Tse Shcha short tails”: ЦЩцщ characters are replaced with its alternate form with short tail. Stylistic Set 04 “Cyrillic I full serifs”: ИЙЍӢ characters are replaced with its alternate form with inner serifs. Stylistic Set 05 “FT bent inward serif”: FTГ characters and their versions with diacritical marks are replaced with its alternate form with right head serif that bent inside. Stylistic Set 06 “Small Caps centered on Capitals”: Small Caps are vertically centered on uppercase letters. Standard Ligatures: fi fl fb ff fh fj fk ffb ffh ffi ffj ffk ffl. Discretionary Ligatures: Th ct st. Localized Forms: 52 character substitutions for Azeri, Bulgarian, Catalan, Dutch, German, Kazakh, Macedonian, Moldavian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Tatar, Turkish. Glyph Composition/Decomposition (Diacritics): Full Latin and based Vietnamese set of diacritics (571 characters). Precomposed.

Amazing Slab is a typeface family designed by Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli as a development of the Amazing Grotesk family designed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini. Mixing an egyptian serif, low contrast approach with the curved endings and open shapes of humanist sans grotesques, it was developed to embody the energetic and friendly nature of the startup scene: a feeling of innovation, information and energy, with a desire for simplicity and straightforward communication. The basic design shapes for the font come from the strong personality of the extrabold letterforms drawn by Francesco Canovaro for his StartupItalia logo, that informed the display design of the four darkest weights (from medium to black). Each of these weights, has been paired with an inline version, designed by Mario De Libero, to extend the range of uses for the typefaces, from bold signage to logo design, to editorial titling. The lighter range of the family features two weights (regular and light) that are designed for text use, complemented by the thin and extralight weights that are better suited to big point size, for editorial and signage use. All the weights of Amazing Slab, as well the matching true italics forms, feature an extended charset of over 900 glyphs, covering 211 languages using latin, cyrillic and greek alphabets, and sporting a complete set of Open type features including positional numbers, annotation and case-sensitive forms, standard ligatures and a wide array of stylistic sets to customize glyph shapes for logo and display usage. With its friendly, energetic mood and its versatile range of application use, Amazing Slab is born to make every design project look simply... amazing! Suggested uses: old signage, logo design, editorial titling, display 21 styles: 8 weights, 8 italics, 4 inline styles, 1 variable font 965 glyphs in each weight Useful OpenType features: Small Capitals; Standard Ligatures; Discretionary Ligatures; Stylistic Alternates; Stylistic sets 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06; Ordinals; Fractions; Tabular Figures; Old-style Figures; Slashed Zero; Circled Numbers; Case Sensitive Forms; Numerators; Denominators; Subscript; Superscript; Scientific Inferiors; 211 languages supported: extended Latin, Cyrillic, Greek English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Javanese (Latin), Turkish, Italian, Polish, Afaan Oromo, Azeri, Tagalog, Sundanese (Latin), Filipino, Moldovan, Romanian, Indonesian, Dutch, Cebuano, Malay, Uzbek (Latin), Kurdish (Latin), Swahili, Greek, Hungarian, Czech, Haitian Creole, Hiligaynon, Afrikaans, Somali, Zulu, Serbian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Shona, Quechua, Albanian, Catalan, Chichewa, Ilocano, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Neapolitan, Xhosa, Tshiluba, Slovak, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Sicilian, Sotho (Southern), Kirundi, Tswana, Sotho (Northern), Belarusian (Latin), Turkmen (Latin), Bemba, Lombard, Lithuanian, Tsonga, Wolof, Jamaican, Dholuo, Galician, Ganda, Low Saxon, Waray-Waray, Makhuwa, Bikol, Kapampangan (Latin), Aymara, Zarma, Ndebele, Slovenian, Tumbuka, Venetian, Genoese, Piedmontese, Swazi, Zazaki, Latvian, Nahuatl, Silesian, Bashkir (Latin), Sardinian, Estonian, Afar, Cape Verdean Creole, Maasai, Occitan, Tetum, Oshiwambo, Basque, Welsh, Chavacano, Dawan, Montenegrin, Walloon, Asturian, Kaqchikel, Ossetian (Latin), Zapotec, Frisian, Guadeloupean Creole, Q’eqchi’, Karakalpak (Latin), Crimean Tatar (Latin), Sango, Luxembourgish, Samoan, Maltese, Tzotzil, Fijian, Friulian, Icelandic, Sranan, Wayuu, Papiamento, Aromanian, Corsican, Breton, Amis, Gagauz (Latin), Māori, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Alsatian, Atayal, Kiribati, Seychellois Creole, Võro, Tahitian, Scottish Gaelic, Chamorro, Kashubian, Faroese, Rarotongan, Sorbian (Upper Sorbian), Karelian (Latin), Romansh, Chickasaw, Arvanitic (Latin), Nagamese Creole, Saramaccan, Ladin, Palauan, Sami (Northern Sami), Sorbian (Lower Sorbian), Drehu, Wallisian, Aragonese, Tuvaluan, Zuni, Montagnais, Hawaiian, Marquesan, Niuean, Yapese, Vepsian, Bislama, Hopi, Megleno-Romanian, Creek, Aranese, Rotokas, Tokelauan, Mohawk, Warlpiri, Cimbrian, Sami (Lule Sami), Jèrriais, Arrernte, Murrinh-Patha, Kala Lagaw Ya, Cofán, Gwich’in, Seri, Sami (Southern Sami), Istro-Romanian, Wik-Mungkan, Anuta, Cornish, Sami (Inari Sami), Yindjibarndi, Noongar, Hotcąk (Latin), Meriam Mir, Manx, Shawnee, Gooniyandi, Ido, Wiradjuri, Hän, Ngiyambaa, Delaware, Potawatomi, Abenaki, Esperanto, Folkspraak, Interglossa, Interlingua, Latin, Latino sine Flexione, Lojban, Novial, Occidental, Old Icelandic, Old Norse, Slovio (Latin), Volapük

I spend a lot of time following two obsessions: packaging and hand lettering. Alongside a few other minor obsessions, those two have been my major ones for so many years now, I've finally reached the point where I can actually claim them as “obsessions” without getting a dramatic reaction from the little voice in the back of my head. When you spend so much time researching and studying a subject, you become very focused, directionally and objectively. But of course some of the research material you run into turns out to be tangential to whatever your focus happens to be at the time, so you absorb what you can from it, then shelf it — like the celebrity bobblehead that amused you for a while, but is now an almost invisible ornament eating dust and feathers somewhere in your environment. And just like the bobblehead may fall off the shelf one day to remind you of its existence, some of my lettering research material unveiled itself in my head one day for no particular reason. Hand lettering is now mostly perceived as an American art. Someone with my historical knowledge about lettering may be snooty enough to go as far as pointing out the British origins of almost everything American, including lettering — but for the most part, the contemporary perspective associates great lettering with America. The same perspective also associates blackletter, gothics and sans serifs with Germany. So you can imagine my simultaneous surprise and impatience when, in my research for one of my American lettering-based fonts, I ran into a German lettering book from 1953, by an artist called Bentele. It was no use for me because it didn't propel my focus at that particular time, but a few months ago I was marveling at what we take for granted — the sky is blue, blackletter is German, lettering is American — and found myself flipping through the pages of that book again. The lettering in that book is upbeat and casual sign making stuff, but it has a slightly strange and youthful experimentation at its heart. I suppose I find it strange because it deviates a lot from the American stuff I'm used to working with for so long now. To make a long story short, what’s inside that German book served as the semilla, which is Spanish for seed, for the typeface you see all over these pages. With Semilla, my normal routine went out the window. My life for a while was all Bezier all the time. No special analog or digital brushes or pens were used in drawing these forms. They're the product of a true Bezier process, all starting with a point creating a curve to another point, which draws a curve to another point, and so on. It’s a very time-consuming process, but at the end I am satisfied that it can get to pretty much the same results easier and more traditional methods accomplish. And as usual with my fonts, the OpenType is plenty and a lot of fun. Experimenting with substitution and automation is still a great pleasure for me. It is the OpenType that always saves me from the seemingly endless work hours every type designer must inevitably have to face at one point in his career. The artful photos used in this booklet are by French photographer and designer Stéphane Giner. He is very deserving of your patronage, so please keep an eye out for his marvelous work. I hope you like Semilla and enjoy using it. I have a feeling that it marks a transition to a more curious and flexible period in my career, but only time will tell.

Quill-formed roman/gothic with an olde-worlde flavor. Some background in the designer's own words: "A series of fonts came to mind which would be rooted in the medieval era -for me, a period of intense interest. Prior to Gutenberg's development of commercial printing with type on paper in the mid-1400s, books were still being written out by hand, on vellum. At that time, a Bible cost more than a common workman could hope to earn in his entire lifetime. Men like William Tyndale devoted their energies to translating the Scriptures for the benefit of ordinary people in their own language, and were burned to death at the stake for doing so. Those in authority correctly recognized a terminal threat to the fabric of feudal society, which revolved around the church. "This religious metamorphosis was reflected in letterforms: which, like buildings, reflect the mood of the period in which they take shape. The medieval era produced the Gothic cathedrals; their strong vertical emphasis was expressive of the vertical relationship then existing between man and God. The rich tracery to be seen in the interstices and vaulted ceilings typified the complex social dynamics of feudalism. Parallels could be clearly seen in Gothic type, with its vertical strokes and decorated capitals. Taken as a whole, Gothicism represented a mystical approach to life, filled with symbolism and imagery. To the common man, letters and words were like other sacred icons: too high for his own understanding, but belonging to God, and worthy of respect. "Roman type, soon adopted in preference to Gothic by contemporary printer-publishers (whose primary market was the scholarly class) represented a more democratic, urbane approach to life, where the words were merely the vehicle for the idea, and letters merely a necessary convenience for making words. The common man could read, consider and debate what was printed, without having the least reverence for the image. In fact, the less the medium interfered with the message, the better. The most successful typefaces were like the Roman legions of old; machine-like in their ordered functionality and anonymity. Meanwhile, Gutenberg's Gothic letterform, in which the greatest technological revolution of history had first been clothed, soon became relegated to a Germanic anachronism, limited to a declining sphere of influence. "An interesting Bible in my possession dating from 1610 perfectly illustrates this duality of function and form. The text is set in Gothic black-letter type, while the side-notes appear in Roman. Thus the complex pattern of the text retains the mystical, sacred quality of the hand-scripted manuscript (often rendered in Latin, which a cleric would read aloud to others), while the clear, open side-notes are designed to supplement a personal Bible study. "Tyndale is one of a series of fonts in process which explore the transition between Gothic and Roman forms. The hybrid letters have more of the idiosyncrasies of the pen (and thus, the human hand) about them, rather than the anonymity imbued by the engraving machine. They are an attempt to achieve the mystery and wonder of the Gothic era while retaining the legibility and clarity best revealed in the Roman form. "Reformers such as Tyndale were consumed with a passion to make the gospel available and understood to the masses of pilgrims who, in search of a religious experience, thronged into the soaring, gilded cathedrals. Centuries later, our need for communion with God remains the same, in spite of all our technology and sophistication. How can our finite minds, our human logic, comprehend the transcendent mystery of God's great sacrifice, his love beyond understanding? Tyndale suffered martyrdom that the Bible, through the medium of printing, might be brought to our hands, our hearts and our minds. It is a privilege for me to dedicate my typeface in his memory."