The 1907 sheet music for "Take Me Back to Dear Old Dixie" had the song title hand lettered in a decorative serif typeface with strong Art Nouveau influences. This design is now available digitally as Fancy Nouveau JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

An ad for the film "Marine Raiders" in the June 16, 1944 issue of Motion Picture Daily features the movie's title hand lettered in a bold, slab serif stencil design. This is now available as Forward March JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

In the 1909 edition of the Atkinson Sign Painters’ instruction books is an extra bold sans serif alphabet and numerals called “Advertisers’ Thick and Thin Plug”. This hand lettered display face is now available digitally as Sign Lettering JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

“9 Garcons...Un Cœur” (“9 Boys...One Heart”) is a 1948 French musical starring Edith Piaf. The hand lettered credits for the film are done in a condensed Art Deco sans alphabet, now available digitally as Stage Show JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

A light and playful sans serif type design with Art Nouveau influences was called “Tasso” within the pages of the 1893 edition of the Barnhart Bros. & Spindler type specimen book. This is now available as Nouveau Boutique JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

I was commissioned by Publish magazine to digitize Trio in 1990. Originally designed in a Light weight only, Trio is now available in Medium and Bold weights as well. Uppercase only, but each weight includes two alphabets, one more "deco," the other more "modern."

In the December, 1934 issue of Modern Screen magazine, a number of feature article headlines were hand lettered in a condensed slab serif with a relatively uniform stroke weight. This is now available digitally as Fan Magazine JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Titles hand lettered for articles appearing in the November, 1938 issue of Hollywood Magazine were done in a condensed Art Deco stencil style in just lower case. This novelty type design is now available as Deco Display Stencil JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

An ad promoting the 1919 silent film comedy “Back Stage” starring Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was hand lettered in a thick-and-thin sans style with Art Nouveau influences. This lettering is now available digitally as Picture Show JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

This came from an early-1900s lettering book. Never was an actual font, but it has a quaint look that should be useful. We hate to see alphabets just fade away, which is why we make fonts like this. We added a few touches.

The design for this typeface is based upon four sheets of an old latin book I purchased in Hanover (Germany) a couple of years ago. The letters preserve the rough edges of the original printing, I just added a few missing letters and some ligatures.

The very first Speedball-Lettering Book was published in 1915, and within its pages was a rough-hewn example of lettering with the name "Rapid Sho-Card Style". The design is now available as Antique Show Card JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

The concept of the Baroque Roman type face is something which is remote from us. Ungrateful theorists gave Baroque type faces the ill-sounding attribute "Transitional", as if the Baroque Roman type face wilfully diverted from the tradition and at the same time did not manage to mature. This "transition" was originally meant as an intermediate stage between the Aldine/Garamond Roman face of the Renaissance, and its modern counterpart, as represented by Bodoni or Didot. Otherwise there was also a "transition" from a slanted axis of the shadow to a perpendicular one. What a petty detail led to the pejorative designation of Baroque type faces! If a bookseller were to tell his customers that they are about to choose a book which is set in some sort of transitional type face, he would probably go bust. After all, a reader, for his money, would not put up with some typographical experimentation. He wants to read a book without losing his eyesight while doing so. Nevertheless, it was Baroque typography which gave the world the most legible type faces. In those days the craft of punch-cutting was gradually separating itself from that of book-printing, but also from publishing and bookselling. Previously all these activities could be performed by a single person. The punch-cutter, who at that time was already fully occupied with the production of letters, achieved better results than he would have achieved if his creative talents were to be diffused in a printing office or a bookseller's shop. Thus it was possible that for example the printer John Baskerville did not cut a single letter in his entire lifetime, for he used the services of the accomplished punch-cutter John Handy. It became the custom that one type founder supplied type to multiple printing offices, so that the same type faces appeared in various parts of the world. The type face was losing its national character. In the Renaissance period it is still quite easy to distinguish for example a French Roman type face from a Venetian one; in the Baroque period this could be achieved only with great difficulties. Imagination and variety of shapes, which so far have been reserved only to the fine arts, now come into play. Thanks to technological progress, book printers are now able to reproduce hairstrokes and imitate calligraphic type faces. Scripts and elaborate ornaments are no longer the privilege of copper-engravers. Also the appearance of the basic, body design is slowly undergoing a change. The Renaissance canonical stiffness is now replaced with colour and contrast. The page of the book is suddenly darker, its lay-out more varied and its lines more compact. For Baroque type designers made a simple, yet ingenious discovery - they enlarged the x-height and reduced the ascenders to the cap-height. The type face thus became seemingly larger, and hence more legible, but at the same time more economical in composition; the type area was increasing to the detriment of the margins. Paper was expensive, and the aim of all the publishers was, therefore, to sell as many ideas in as small a book block as possible. A narrowed, bold majuscule, designed for use on the title page, appeared for the first time in the Late Baroque period. Also the title page was laid out with the highest possible economy. It comprised as a rule the brief contents of the book and the address of the bookseller, i.e. roughly that which is now placed on the flaps and in the imprint lines. Bold upper-case letters in the first line dramatically give way to the more subtle italics, the third line is highlighted with vermilion; a few words set in lower-case letters are scattered in-between, and then vermilion appears again. Somewhere in the middle there is an ornament, a monogram or an engraving as a kind of climax of the drama, while at the foot of the title-page all this din is quietened by a line with the name of the printer and the year expressed in Roman numerals, set in 8-point body size. Every Baroque title-page could well pass muster as a striking poster. The pride of every book printer was the publication of a type specimen book - a typographical manual. Among these manuals the one published by Fournier stands out - also as regards the selection of the texts for the specimen type matter. It reveals the scope of knowledge and education of the master typographers of that period. The same Fournier established a system of typographical measurement which, revised by Didot, is still used today. Baskerville introduced the smoothing of paper by a hot steel roller, in order that he could print astonishingly sharp letters, etc. ... In other words - Baroque typography deserves anything else but the attribute "transitional". In the first half of the 18th century, besides persons whose names are prominent and well-known up to the present, as was Caslon, there were many type founders who did not manage to publish their manuals or forgot to become famous in some other way. They often imitated the type faces of their more experienced contemporaries, but many of them arrived at a quite strange, even weird originality, which ran completely outside the mainstream of typographical art. The prints from which we have drawn inspiration for these six digital designs come from Paris, Vienna and Prague, from the period around 1750. The transcription of letters in their intact form is our firm principle. Does it mean, therefore, that the task of the digital restorer is to copy meticulously the outline of the letter with all inadequacies of the particular imprint? No. The type face should not to evoke the rustic atmosphere of letterpress after printing, but to analyze the appearance of the punches before they are imprinted. It is also necessary to take account of the size of the type face and to avoid excessive enlargement or reduction. Let us keep in mind that every size requires its own design. The longer we work on the computer where a change in size is child's play, the more we are convinced that the appearance of a letter is tied to its proportions, and therefore, to a fixed size. We are also aware of the fact that the computer is a straightjacket of the type face and that the dictate of mathematical vectors effectively kills any hint of naturalness. That is why we strive to preserve in these six alphabets the numerous anomalies to which later no type designer ever returned due to their obvious eccentricity. Please accept this PostScript study as an attempt (possibly futile, possibly inspirational) to brush up the warm magic of Baroque prints. Hopefully it will give pleasure in today's modern type designer's nihilism.

The original inspiration for Blue Parrot came from a short scene in the classic film Casablanca. For just a few seconds, the exterior of Ferrari's Blue Parrot night club is shown, complete with a wonderful hand-lettered sign... all in capital letters. Blue Parrot JNL was originally released in 2006, and it wasn't long before a few people noted that the font would also look good with a lower case alphabet. The idea of adding in lower case kicked around for a couple of years until Jeff Levine finally completed a revision of the font. In this version there's also an expanded character set thanks to the creative input of Michael Hagemann of Font Mesa.

Other guys may imitate him, but the original is still the greatest! Get in with the In Crowd and check out the font created by Mister Fontastic for Dave Gibbons Original Graphic Novel, The, ah, The Originals. Yes, Dave Gibbons now comes in lower case, it's not just what he does when he gets back from the off license. Be sure and pick up The Originals from Amazon -- now available in paperback, and probably still available as a hard case, much like Dave. After the crack about the case of beer above, I'm guessing you'll find me with a broken spine in the remainder pile. See the family related to Dave Gibbons Lower: Dave Gibbons Journal & Dave Gibbons .

A sheet music edition of an early 1900s song entitled "You Taught Me How to Love You, Now Teach Me to Forget" was hand lettered in a free-form Art Nouveau style that combined varying line widths and character shapes. This unrestricted style of lettering was popularly embraced and revived by the hippie counterculture of the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s through their rock concert posters, record album covers and tee shirt graphics. It is now available digitally as Nouveau Artiste JNL. As a side note, a 1940s reprint of the sheet music was done in a popular metal typeface, which was also redrawn digitally and available as Elite Resort JNL [in both regular and oblique versions].

Lens Grotesk is a Neo-grotesque type family of 16 fonts born as a result of a very conscious research in the field of the neutral Swiss aesthetic. There's a reason for all the prominent examples of this design like Helvetica and Univers to be used on a daily basis for more than 70 years and it's a simple one - they just work. The closed terminals, the low contrast, uniform widths and proportions makes the Neo-grotesques feel just right. Although very often branded as stiff, the neutral Neo grotesques are here to stay and Lens Grotesk is our own reading of the popular style. Lens Grotesk takes the Neo-grotesk model one step further adding a pinch of Geometric sans-serif to the mix thus creating a way more modern and contemporary looking design. Characterized with more generous oval proportions and slightly more open terminals, Lens Grotesk keeps the modulation and rhythm needed for a slightly longer texts while visibly keeping everything in order. Zooming in you'll find traces of the Geometric aesthetic - the robust almost right angled approach of the arches and tails (look t, f, j, y) and the way more circular rounded shapes. Like all our fonts, Lens Grotesk is equipped with a range of OpenType features, stylistic alternatives and of course Cyrillic support. It comes in a pack of 16 fonts with 8 styles and their matching italics or one variable font file available with all full family purchases. Live Tester | Download Demo Fonts | Subscribe

Billowed is a typeface family inspired by a simple shape that tessellates in three different ways: in a single orientation, in two orientations, and in four orientations. The shape resembles a billowing sail, with two concave edges that are adjacent and two convex edges, also adjacent. Forcing letters into this template shape results in some oddly shaped letters, but the result should not be judged by individual letters but by how the words and strings of words appear. Billowed was designed as an alternating-letter font in which two sets of characters alternate. The alternating is done automatically in applications that support the OpenType feature contextual alternatives (calt). To get the ripple pattern not just horizontally but also vertically, lines should alternate between the right and left styles and leading set to the same value as the font size. Billowed is monospaced with tight letter spacing to accentuate the ripple pattern. The family includes outline styles that can be used in a layer above the solid style to add color. Undulate was not designed for any particular use but as a challenge to fit letters into a particular geometric shape. The unusual patterns that result are eye-catching and may be useful for advertising or signage and in other places where one wants attention-grabbing lettering.

Tripper is a rock-hard display font family. The six styles – from Light to Black – of this robust stencil typeface will assure your text grabs all the attention it can get. Instead of settings large amount of texts, just use this font for a small amount of words. Or even better: just one word. But most importantly: make it really, really, really big. The lightest weight is pretty condensed, and slowly expands when the weight increases. The bridges – essential to a stencil font – have the same width across all styles, so you can safely apply all styles in the same size without the risk of stencils falling apart. Due to the absence of curves throughout the whole family, Tripper is suitable for more limited, industrial applications too. Tripper comes in several flavours. Next to the basic flavour, there is a stencil family which automatically creates borders around every letter, word or line. Then there is Tripper Rough, a textured version with that intelligent random, grungy look. Together with the previously released multi-colour font Tripper Tricolor, the complete family consists of 24 styles. Tripper is equipped with a bunch of OpenType features, like different figure styles, fractions, superiors, etc. But if all the OpenType ding-dong is not enough for you, just try the ornaments. The separate ornament font comes with icons, indicators, manicules, banderoles and patterns.

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.

Baxau is a superhero-themed display font that brings strength, courage, and modernity to your projects. With a strong, bold, and bold style, this font is the perfect solution for creating an impressive and aggressive look. The Baxau font features letters that combine boldness with a modern twist, creating a fresh and energized look. Each character exudes undeniable power and charisma, delivering compelling and inspiring messages to your audience. With features such as ligature and alternate, Baxau provides unlimited flexibility and creativity. You can combine these font elements to create unique and exciting style variations. Multilingual support also allows you to use Baxau in multiple languages, so your project can reach a global audience. Baxau is the perfect choice if you need a font that is attractive, powerful, modern, and true to the superhero theme. With a strong message and features that give room for creative experimentation, this font will quickly grab the attention of your potential customers and make a memorable impression in no time. What’s Included : File font All glyphs Iso Latin 1 Alternate, Ligature Simple installations We highly recommend using a program that supports OpenType features and Glyphs panels like many Adobe apps and Corel Draw so that you can see and access all Glyph variations. PUA Encoded Characters – Fully accessible without additional design software. Fonts include Multilingual support

Yaksom is a classic serif font that exudes timeless beauty and a captivating modern style. The perfect solution for projects that require an elegant classic modernism theme. With a proportional and elegant serif design, Yaksom conveys timeless elegance in every letter. Every detail is exquisitely detailed, creating a look that embodies the refinement and elegance of an irreplaceable classic era. Yaksom is also equipped with stunning features. Beautiful ligatures add a creative touch and enrich the look of a font, while alternative variations provide unique styling options. Extensive multilingual support also ensures that Yaksom can be used fluently in multiple languages. Are you looking for a font that combines classic elegance with a dazzling modern twist? Yaksom is a perfect choice. With a stunning classic serif style, creative features such as alternate ligatures and variations, and the ability to support multiple languages, this font will quickly grab the attention of your prospects and create a stunning aesthetic impression in the blink of an eye. What’s Included : File font All glyphs Iso Latin 1 Alternate, Ligature Simple installations We highly recommend using a program that supports OpenType features and Glyphs panels like many Adobe apps and Corel Draw so that you can see and access all Glyph variations. PUA Encoded Characters – Fully accessible without additional design software. Fonts include Multilingual support

Altheria Font is a script font with an exquisite handwriting style. Designed with meticulous attention to detail, Altheria offers various alternate characters that allow you to create unique, captivating, and embellishing letterforms in your designs. With its diverse character collection, Altheria provides numerous options to add a personal touch to your design works. The ability to choose from different letter variations grants unlimited flexibility and creativity, making it perfect for crafting attractive and distinctive visuals. One of Altheria's main features is its abundance of ligatures, which enhance the font's appeal and aesthetic quality. Ligatures are specially designed character combinations that produce a smoother, more harmonious impression in writing. Thus, Altheria offers not only beautiful letter shapes but also provides exceptional visual balance among interconnected characters. Furthermore, Altheria supports multiple languages, allowing you to utilize this font in various multilingual projects. This makes it an incredibly versatile option for design purposes that aspire to exude a luxurious and elegant impression. Altheria is highly suitable for a wide range of design projects, including but not limited to book covers, fashion magazines, business cards, wedding invitations, and much more. The font imparts a unique luxury and elegant appeal to every applied design. With Altheria, you can create attention-grabbing works that elevate the aesthetic value of each design project you undertake.

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.

Compendium is a sequel to my Burgues font from 2007. Actually it is more like a prequel to Burgues. Before Louis Madarasz awed the American Southeast with his disciplined corners and wild hairlines, Platt Rogers Spencer, up in Ohio, had laid down a style all his own, a style that would eventually become the groundwork for the veering calligraphic method that was later defined and developed by Madarasz. After I wrote the above paragraph, I was so surprised by it, particularly by the first two sentences, that I stopped and had to think about it for a week. Why a sequel/prequel? Am I subconsciously joining the ranks of typeface-as-brand designers? Are the tools I build finally taking control of me? Am I having to resort to “milking it” now? Not exactly. Even though the current trend of extending older popular typefaces can play tricks with a type designer’s mind, and maybe even send him into strange directions of planning, my purpose is not the extension of something popular. My purpose is presenting a more comprehensive picture as I keep coming to terms with my obsession with 19th century American penmanship. Those who already know my work probably have an idea about how obsessive I can be about presenting a complete and detailed image of the past through today’s eyes. So it is not hard to understand my need to expand on the Burgues concept in order to reach a fuller picture of how American calligraphy evolved in the 19th century. Burgues was really all about Madarasz, so much so that it bypasses the genius of those who came before him. Compendium seeks to put Madarasz’s work in a better chronological perspective, to show the rounds that led to the sharps, so to speak. And it is nearly criminal to ignore Spencer’s work, simply because it had a much wider influence on the scope of calligraphy in general. While Madarasz’s work managed to survive only through a handful of his students, Spencer’s work was disseminated throughout America by his children after he died in 1867. The Spencer sons were taught by their father and were great calligraphers themselves. They would pass the elegant Spencerian method on to thousands of American penmen and sign painters. Though Compendium has a naturally more normalized, Spencerian flow, its elegance, expressiveness, movement and precision are no less adventurous than Burgues. Nearing 700 glyphs, its character set contains plenty of variation in each letter, and many ornaments for letter beginnings, endings, and some that can even serve to envelope entire words with swashy calligraphic wonder. Those who love to explore typefaces in detail will be rewarded, thanks to OpenType. I am so in love with the technology now that it’s becoming harder for me to let go of a typeface and call it finished. You probably have noticed by now that my fascination with old calligraphy has not excluded my being influenced by modern design trends. This booklet is an example of this fusion of influences. I am living 150 years after the Spencers, so different contextualization and usage perspectives are inevitable. Here the photography of Gonzalo Aguilar join the digital branchings of Compendium to form visuals that dance and wave like the arms of humanity have been doing since time eternal. I hope you like Compendium and find it useful. I'm all Spencered out for now, but at one point, for history’s sake, I will make this a trilogy. When the hairline-and-swash bug visits me again, you will be the first to know. The PDF specimen was designed with the wonderful photography of Gonzalo Aguilar from Mexico. Please download it here http://new.myfonts.com/artwork?id=47049&subdir=original

The idea of a brand-new grotesk is certainly rather foolish – there are already lots of these typefaces in the world and, quite simply, nothing is more beautiful than the original Gill. The sans-serif chapter of typography is now closed by hundreds of technically perfect imitations of Syntax and Frutiger, which are, however, for the most part based on the cool din-aesthetics. The only chance, when looking for inspiration, is to go very far... A grotesk does not afford such a variety as a serif typeface, it is dull and can soon tire the eye. This is why books are not set in sans serif faces. A grotesk is, however, always welcome for expressing different degrees of emphasis, for headings, marginal notes, captions, registers, in short for any service accompaniment of a book, including its titlings. We also often come across a text in which we want to distinguish the individual speaking or writing persons by the use of different typefaces. The condition is that such grotesk should blend in perfectly with the proportions, colour and above all with the expression of the basic, serif typeface. In the area of non-fiction typography, what we appreciate in sans-serif typefaces is that they are clamorous in inscriptions and economic in the setting. John Sans is to be a modest servant and at the same time an original loudspeaker; it wishes to inhabit libraries of educated persons and to shout from billboards. A year ago we completed the transcription of the typefaces of John Baskerville, whose heritage still stands out vividly in our memory. Baskerville cleverly incorporated certain constructional elements in the design of the individual letters of his typeface. These elements include above all the alternation of softand sharp stroke endings. The frequency of these endings in the text and their rhythm produce a balanced impression. The anchoring of the letters on the surface varies and they do not look monotonous when they are read. We attempted to use these tricks also in the creation of a sans-serif typeface. Except that, if we wished to create a genuine “Baroque grotesk”, all the decorativeness of the original would have to be repeated, which would result in a parody. On the contrary, to achieve a mere contrast with the soft Baskerville it is sufficient to choose any other hard grotesk and not to take a great deal of time over designing a new one. Between these two extremes, we chose a path starting with the construction of an almost monolinear skeleton, to which the elements of Baskerville were carefully attached. After many tests of the text, however, some of the flourishes had to be removed again. Anything that is superfluous or ornamental is against the substance of a grotesk typeface. The monolinear character can be impinged upon in those places where any consistency would become a burden. The fine shading and softening is for the benefit of both legibility and aesthetics. The more marked incisions of all crotches are a characteristic feature of this typeface, especially in the bold designs. The colour of the Text, Medium and Bold designs is commensurate with their serif counterparts. The White and X-Black designs already exceed the framework of book graphics and are suitable for use in advertisements and magazines. The original concept of the italics copying faithfully Baskerville’s morphology turned out to be a blind alley. This design would restrict the independent use of the grotesk typeface. We, therefore, began to model the new italics only after the completion of the upright designs. The features which these new italics and Baskerville have in common are the angle of the slope and the softened sloped strokes of the lower case letters. There are also certain reminiscences in the details (K, k). More complicated are the signs & and @, in the case of which regard is paid to distinguishing, in the design, the upright, sloped @ small caps forms. The one-storey lower-case g and the absence of a descender in the lower-case f contributes to the open and simple expression of the design. Also the inclusion of non-aligning figures in the basic designs and of aligning figures in small caps serves the purpose of harmonization of the sans-serif families with the serif families. Non-aligning figures link up better with lower-case letters in the text. If John Sans looks like many other modern typefaces, it is just as well. It certainly is not to the detriment of a Latin typeface as a means of communication, if different typographers in different places of the world arrive in different ways at a similar result.

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.

The Neue Haas Unica™ family is an extended, reimagined version of the Haas Unica® design, a Helvetica® alternative that achieved near mythical status in the type community before it virtually disappeared. Originally released in 1980 by the Haas Type Foundry and designed by Team ’77 — André Gürtler, Erich Gschwind and Christian Mengelt— for phototypesetting technology of the day, the design was never successfully updated for today’s digital environments – until now. Toshi Omagari of Monotype Studio has given this classic a fresh, digital facelift with more weights, more languages and more letters to meet today’s digital and print needs. Available in 18 styles, the Neue Haas Unica family is remarkably appropriate for a wide range of applications, possessing a delicate gradation of weights and clear character shapes. The family's lighter weights are perfect for headlines and other large settings, as well as small blocks of copy at typical text sizes. The regular, medium and bold weights know no boundaries and the heavy and black designs are ideal for when typography needs to be powerful and commanding. Like the Neue Helvetica and Univers Next typefaces, the Neue Haas Unica family can be used just about anywhere – or for any project. In addition to its 9 tailored weights and complementary italics, the Neue Haas Unica family also possesses additional characters for Eastern and Central European, Greek and Cyrillic language support, which did not exist in the original design. A cosmopolitan typeface for today's modern, discerning design needs, the Neue Haas Unica collection is a new classic in the making—one that every designer should surely have at their disposal.

Linotype Univers is a completely reworked version of the original Univers typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1957. After a long process of painstakingly detailed revision, Frutiger and the design staff at Linotype completed this large joint project in 1997. The result: a brilliant and cohesive font family of 63 weights and styles including the 4 monospaced typewriter weights. All the existing weights were completely redrawn, with careful attention paid to making the proportions more consistent with each other and improving fine details such as curves and thick-to-thin stroke ratios. The family was expanded from 27 to 63 weights, providing a much larger framework to graphic designers for choosing just the right style. The bold and condensed weights were reworked for improved legibility and on-screen application. The stroke weights were revised for consistency within each face as well as in relationship to the other weights. By following Frutiger's original designs, the humanist character of the sans serif Univers now comes through more distinctly. The systemized numbering system has also been updated. With its sturdy, clean forms Univers can facilitate an expression of cool elegance and rational competence. In fact, the strong familial relationships between all the styles and weights make it a serviceable choice for large graphic design projects that require versatility with consistency. Frutiger was successful in staying true to his initial aims; the new Linotype Univers does indeed work in longer texts as well as for display settings. In 2010 the typeface family was extended and renamed into a more logical naming of "Univers Next" to fit better in the Platinum Collection naming.

Released on the occasion of the 2012 London Olympics, Olympukes 2012 was a new set of pictograms telling the ‘real’ story of the Olympics and extending the unofficial project that began in 2004. The occasion of the London games provided an opportunity to revisit the complex contradictions of the modern Olympics and to acknowledge the geopolitical shifts of the intervening eight years. The 2012 games arrived at a time of great economic and political uncertainty for the nation and Europe. Greece – the host of the 2004 games – was now located at Ground Zero of a disintegrating Eurozone and the United Kingdom was two years into a programme of austerity enacted by the coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Given that the previous London Olympics had been held in 1948, in a climate of recovery and austerity after a devastating World War (1948’s Olympiad was dubbed the ‘Austerity Games’) there was a sick irony to the 2012 games' arrival. The suppression of human rights in order to deliver the perfect games for PRoC’s Beijing games shocked no-one and yet, in London, the security measures seemed grossly excessive. Then again, in a country with an estimated 1.8 million cctv cameras, perhaps we shouldn’t have been so surprised. Another aspect of the Olympics that returned for 2012 was the unfettered commercialism – if you think the Games are about pure sport, about noble human endeavour, think again. Please note that Barnbrook Fonts is in no way affiliated with, or has received any endorsement from, the International Olympic Committee, the organising committees of the Olympic Games, or any national Olympic committee.

Linotype Univers is a completely reworked version of the original Univers Univers typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1957. After a long process of painstakingly detailed revision, Frutiger and the design staff at Linotype completed this large joint project in 1997. The result: a brilliant and cohesive font family of 63 weights and styles including the 4 monospaced typewriter weights. All the existing weights were completely redrawn, with careful attention paid to making the proportions more consistent with each other and improving fine details such as curves and thick-to-thin stroke ratios. The family was expanded from 27 to 63 weights, providing a much larger framework to graphic designers for choosing just the right style. The bold and condensed weights were reworked for improved legibility and on-screen application. The stroke weights were revised for consistency within each face as well as in relationship to the other weights. By following Frutiger's original designs, the humanist character of the sans serif Univers now comes through more distinctly. T he systemized numbering system has also been updated. With its sturdy, clean forms Univers can facilitate an expression of cool elegance and rational competence. In fact, the strong familial relationships between all the styles and weights make it a serviceable choice for large graphic design projects that require versatility with consistency. Frutiger was successful in staying true to his initial aims; the new Linotype Univers does indeed work in longer texts as well as for display settings. In 2010 the typeface family was extended and renamed into a more logical naming of "Univers Next" to fit better in the Platinum Collection naming.

Few projects are outside the range of PMN Caecilia® Sans. Drawn specifically for on-screen imaging, the family benefits from a large suite of weights, each with several stylistic variations. This is a design ideally suited to building digital interfaces, complex websites, apps, games, kiosks, HTML ads and large-scale brand identities. “My goal was to create a, friendly, versatile, ageless, yet discerning typeface family that will serve the needs of many users,” says Peter Matthias Noordzij. the typeface’s designer. “It is not intended to be eye-catching, but generous: enabling numerous visual and typographical expressions.” The use of Noordzij’s earlier design, PMN Caecilia, in Amazon’s Kindle® wireless reading devices, gave him the opportunity to study the behavior of the slab serif typeface in an on-screen environment. Although based on his earlier design, Noordzij incorporated fundamental changes to optimize PMN Caecilia® Sans’ digital performance. While PMN Caecilia has proven to be a steadfast serif typeface in print and on screen, the addition of a sans serif counterpart gives designers more flexibility when creating complex hierarchies. The combination of serif and sans serif makes the PMN Caecilia family a good choice for everything from print editorial projects to complicated web sites. A broad range of typefaces pair well with PMN Caecilia Sans. Humanist serif typefaces, such as Agmena™, Dante®, and Frutiger® Serif, set up dynamic typographic harmony, while designs like ITC New Veljovic™ Masqualero™ and Perpetua®, will create a striking counterpoint. And, of course, PMN Caecilia is a natural design partner – as are other slab serif typefaces, like the Aptifer™ Slab, Joanna® Nova and Soho® families.

Unlike the modest fonts in your menu content with discreetly imparting information, Carnival is conspicuous by design. Deliberately engineered to attract eyeballs, the typeface’s unmistakable silhouette produces a dramatic visual texture that stands out in print, on screen, or in any environment where your message demands to be noticed. The steady yet vibrant rhythm created by its letterforms also makes Carnival ideal for fashioning alphabet patterns and graphic devices. Flaunting a lean slender body anchored by stout stroke endings, Carnival turns conventional typographic thinking on its head by inverting the relative thickness of its stems and serifs. This reverse-contrast approach stretches all the way back to the roots of modern advertising, when similar types became the favorite for posters, packaging, and loads of consumer products during the 1800s. The striking style prevailed well into the next century, as Harold Horman, co-founder of New York City-based Photo-Lettering. Inc., modernized a version for the company’s popular film-typesetting service in the early 1940s. Digitized and expanded by Dan Reynolds in 2013, Carnival had previously been used exclusively for House Industries projects. Now you can get in on the action, and use this stunning slice of type history anytime you want your work to turn heads. SUGGESTED USES Carnival’s unique character commands attention, making it the perfect voice for promotional pieces, editorial design, labels, packaging, posters, and any other application that needs to strike the right tone. Like all good subversives, House Industries hides in plain sight while amplifying the look, feel and style of the world’s most interesting brands, products and people. Based in Delaware, visually influencing the world.

Homelessfonts is an initiative by the Arrels foundation to support, raise awareness and bring some dignity to the life of homeless people in Barcelona Spain. Each of the fonts was carefully digitized from the handwriting of different homeless people who agreed to participate in this initiative. Please Note: these fonts include only the latin alphabet; no accented characters, no numbers or punctuation. MyFonts is pleased to donate all revenue from the sales of Homelessfonts to the Arrels foundation in support of their mission to provide the homeless people in Barcelona with a path to independence with accommodations, food, social and health care. Luis Serra was born in Alicante. There he grew up and even started a family His life was there. But at the age of 35 he split up with his wife and decided to go to Barcelona in search of a new life. And it wasn’t easy for him. He had to turn his hand to all kinds of jobs and didn’t manage to find the stability he needed. Luis is a shy, retiring person who takes great pleasure in the little things in life such as walking in the mountains or celebrating the victories of his football team, Barça. After four years living in Barcelona, Luis found himself in a position he’d never imagined. “The street’s much worse now, there’s more trouble, there’s more tension,” says Luís. In the street he had to learn, as he always had, to move fast, to find a place to sleep and something to eat. Luís is one of those people who don’t let circumstances mould him, but adapts to them and always tries to do his best.

The new sans-serif Franzi typeface family – as neutral as can be, but at the same time individual and striking. Its unmistakable character lies in the detail, with no effect pushing itself to the fore. As a wide-running typeface with a relatively large x-height, the typeface family is perfectly suited to small text sizes but, with its elegant details, it leaves nothing to be desired in display applications either. Originally designed with constructed, often rectangular elements, Franzi has gradually been rounded during the development process and is now less hard in order to guarantee optimal legibility. Franzi Variable is designed alongside the italic and the weight axes. The italics are softly and elegantly drawn, while the upright characters appear much more severe. The design appeal reveals itself in the two-storey ‘a’ – a tribute to legibility in body copy; however, for those who prefer the geometric in applications, an alternative single-storey ‘a’ is also available. All styles have small caps, superscript and subscript lowercase letters, lining, non-lining and small caps figures, fractions as well as several ligatures, alternative fonts, symbols and arrows. The Latin uppercase letters are also available as discreet swash variants. In addition to the extended Latin alphabet, the typeface family also includes the complete Greek, Cyrillic and International Phonetic Alphabet IPA. Franzi was created as a further development of an order to produce a sign for a therapy practice in Vienna’s Franz-Hochedlinger-Gasse – hence the name, which is more common as an abbreviation for Franziska than as a diminutive for the male name Franz: Franzi is therefore a hybrid typeface name which has female tendencies.

Who doesn't want or need an expansive contemporary extended sans that has a sense of style and swagger… what if it had a lowercase, small caps and various numeral options… how could you say no? This was the foundational argument I made for myself when I drew the initial alphabet on my birthday last year (something I do each year, draw a new font, kind of a fun OCD thing). I wanted to see a wide, utilitarian sans that had more to it than just a basic character set and didn't resemble standard geometric models. As I continued sketching, the letterforms were being influenced more by my 'lettering tendencies' than the normal mechanical trappings of drawing flat, wide letters. The letters have retained aspects of letters created by hand — stresses, modulation, naturally ending terminals. Truncation and quick clipping of strokes became antithetical to the letterforms I drew, so I continued this once I brought the design into the computer. I kept it precise and dependable, but made every attempt to keep a conscientiously crafted typeface and not let it devolve into a grid-based drone. As such, it works just as well looking back in time as much as it does assuming a lead role in a sci-fi movie. Halogen does deliver and opts not to take a short cut and provide an anemic offering of glyphs — a modern typeface offered today must provide more than just the basics and this one does — lowercase, smallcaps, old style numerals, tabular forms, stylistic and titling alternates, fractions, case-sensitive features, and even an alternate uppercase ordinal set is included. So go make cool print and digital things with it, now.

Speakeasy is a 5-font combo thematically built as a toolset for designing menus and liquor labels as well as coffees, restaurants and signs when the desire is to communicate with style. Originally put together to be used by the most famous speakeasy in Buenos Aires, this set contains a script, a minor (almost flat) wedge serif, a flare serif, a sans serif, and a bold Didone. The seed for the script was found in a German lettering book, and the other fonts reflect the familiar advertising and announcement styles of the early 20th century. The Speakeasy script comes with two different ways to connect the letterforms. Also included are many alternates, swashes, endings and flourishes — all accessible via OpenType features or glyph palettes. Speakeasy Modern and Speakeasy Flare are small cap fonts, and come with a few alternates. Speakeasy Sans and Speakeasy Gothic come with full sets of majuscules and minuscules, but contain small caps and a few alternates as well. A few rules and ornaments are also sprinkled throughout the set. This combination of fonts worked wonderfully for the project that called for it. Hopefully it will work just as well for your project.