An entry in the Second Linotype Design Contest, Linotype Brewery, designed by Gustavs Andrejs Grinbergs, became part of the TakeType Collection in 1997. Brewery No 2 represents a significantly improved version of its precursor, and the typeface has been both extended and enhanced. When asked about prototypes, Grinbergs cites German typefaces of the early 20th century. It is thus not surprising that the characters of Brewery™ No 2 are based on geometrical forms. However, this is no mere synthetic Grotesque-derived typeface. It has significant contrasts in line thickness and triangular line terminals that are not unlike serifs, placing it in the middle ground somewhere between a Grotesque and serif font. The contrast between the features of a synthetic Grotesque and an Antiqua gives the characters of Brewery No 2 their distinctive charm and is the distinguishing attribute of this contemporary typeface. Additional vibrancy is provided by bevelled line endings (as in the case of the 'E' and the 'F'), the circular punctuation marks and the slight curve of the descending bar of the 'k'. Thanks to a generous x-height and its open counters, Brewery No 2 is also highly legible in small point sizes. Only in its bolder versions is another aspect of Brewery No 2 apparent; Grinbergs has here made the linking elements more rectangular and has emphasized the counters, so that the Bold variants of Brewery No 2 exhibit elements typical of a broken typeface. Brewery No 2 is available in seven finely graduated weights, ranging from Light to Black. Every variant has a corresponding, slightly narrower Italic version. In addition, the lowercase 'a' is given a closed form, the 'e' is more rounded and the 'f' has a descender. The character sets of Brewery No 2 leave nothing to be desired. In addition to small caps and ligatures, there are various numeral sets with old style and lining figures for setting proportional text and table columns. In its most extensive form (the Pan-European variant), Brewery No 2 can be used to set texts in many languages that employ the Latin alphabet and also texts in international languages that use Cyrillic or monotonic Greek orthography. Although some of the features of Brewery No 2, such as the tiny serifs, are only evident in the larger point sizes, this typeface is not just at home when used to set headlines. Brewery No 2 also cuts a good figure in short or medium length texts. This contemporary typeface with its formally elegant quality looks good, for example, on posters, in newspapers and promotional material. It can also be used for websites as it is also available as a web font.

Minnak, as a whole geometric display type is our take on Square Kufic (Makili) style Latin script fonts, comes in eleven weights with linear progression. It is an Uniwidth typeface at the core. From Hairline to Black, all multiplexed weights take up the same space in width and can be used interchangeably. Supports wide range of Open Type features, with many stylistic alternates in 12 context. Minnak is also have a close relation with pixel fonts, because in spite of its based on Makili forms, it all started as a pixel font in the drawing stage before further steps came into play. The key difference between Minnak and Makili style is that the latter must have the exact square counters with no diagonal strokes, and any other components of a letterform must conform to be proportional. Such style-specific requirements determine the overall dimensions of the glyphs and therefore, there can be only minor differences between the typefaces. In Minnak, counters are rectangular because of its narrow and condensed proportions, but the Makili form influence is still manifest. This impression is best confirmed with Medium weight where negative spaces and stem thickness are equal. Contrast and virtually no optical correction were presented, as characteristic of its genre had to have equal horizontal and vertical line thicknesses. As per the minimal and authentic look of the type, all glyphs are drawn as straight or only as 45-degree diagonal strokes. The representation of the ‘diagonalless’ approach is preserved by stylistic alternatives, making its similarity in visual aesthetics clearly visible. Marks and punctuation is another feature that doesn’t follow the strict rules of the origin style. Although not a pixel font, all building parts of the glyphs in Minnak share the same unit precision as they are designed with pixel equivalents in mind. Even space characters are designed to match glyph widths, meeting the demands of certain typesetting or multi-line lettering compositions. With its Pseudo Ancient and Runic alternates, extention parts and ornaments included in all weights, Minnak is suitable for branding, logo and monogram designs, the screen titles and headlines, packaging, posters, book covers and more, where it shines at big sizes. Its pixel font-like appearance makes it a significant choice for the modern compositions. Thanks to mostly uniform width design, it is possible to use Minnak also as a system for lettering. This feature can be used as vertical fitting of the letters between the lines. As a casual expression in Turkish, “Minnak” is one of the seven typeface designs in Esintype's ancient scripts of Anatolia project, Tituli Anatolian series — representing Seljuk period in the medieval Anatolia and their tradition of architectural stone ornamentation.

An entry in the Second Linotype Design Contest, Linotype Brewery, designed by Gustavs Andrejs Grinbergs, became part of the TakeType Collection in 1997. Brewery No 2 represents a significantly improved version of its precursor, and the typeface has been both extended and enhanced. When asked about prototypes, Grinbergs cites German typefaces of the early 20th century. It is thus not surprising that the characters of Brewery™ No 2 are based on geometrical forms. However, this is no mere synthetic Grotesque-derived typeface. It has significant contrasts in line thickness and triangular line terminals that are not unlike serifs, placing it in the middle ground somewhere between a Grotesque and serif font. The contrast between the features of a synthetic Grotesque and an Antiqua gives the characters of Brewery No 2 their distinctive charm and is the distinguishing attribute of this contemporary typeface. Additional vibrancy is provided by bevelled line endings (as in the case of the 'E' and the 'F'), the circular punctuation marks and the slight curve of the descending bar of the 'k'. Thanks to a generous x-height and its open counters, Brewery No 2 is also highly legible in small point sizes. Only in its bolder versions is another aspect of Brewery No 2 apparent; Grinbergs has here made the linking elements more rectangular and has emphasized the counters, so that the Bold variants of Brewery No 2 exhibit elements typical of a broken typeface. Brewery No 2 is available in seven finely graduated weights, ranging from Light to Black. Every variant has a corresponding, slightly narrower Italic version. In addition, the lowercase 'a' is given a closed form, the 'e' is more rounded and the 'f' has a descender. The character sets of Brewery No 2 leave nothing to be desired. In addition to small caps and ligatures, there are various numeral sets with old style and lining figures for setting proportional text and table columns. In its most extensive form (the Pan-European variant), Brewery No 2 can be used to set texts in many languages that employ the Latin alphabet and also texts in international languages that use Cyrillic or monotonic Greek orthography. Although some of the features of Brewery No 2, such as the tiny serifs, are only evident in the larger point sizes, this typeface is not just at home when used to set headlines. Brewery No 2 also cuts a good figure in short or medium length texts. This contemporary typeface with its formally elegant quality looks good, for example, on posters, in newspapers and promotional material. It can also be used for websites as it is also available as a web font.

A friend of mine says that sports are the ultimate popular drug. One of his favorite things to say is, “The sun’s always shining on a game somewhere.” It’s hard to argue with that. But that perspective is now the privilege of a society where technology is so high and mighty that it all but shapes such perspectives. These days I can, if I so choose, subscribe to nothing but sports on over a hundred TV channels and a thousand browser bookmarks. But it wasn't always like that. When I was growing up, long before the super-commercialization of the sport, I and other kids spent more than every spare minute of our time memorizing the names and positions of players, collecting team shirts and paraphernalia, making up game scenarios, and just being our generation’s entirely devoted fans. Argentina is one of the nations most obsessed with sports, especially "fútbol" (or soccer to North Americans). The running American joke was that we're all born with a football. When the national team is playing a game, stores actually close their doors, and Buenos Aires looks like a ghost town. Even on the local level, River Plate, my favorite team where I grew up, didn't normally have to worry about empty seats in its home stadium, even though attendance is charged at a high premium. There are things our senses absorb when we are children, yet we don't notice them until much later on in life. A sport’s collage of aesthetics is one of those things. When I was a kid I loved the teams and players that I loved, but I never really stopped to think what solidified them in my memory and made them instantly recognizable to me. Now, thirty-some years later, and after having had the fortune to experience many cultures other than my own, I can safely deduce that a sport’s aesthetic depends on the local or national culture as much as it depends on the sport itself. And the way all that gets molded in a single team’s identity becomes so intricate it is difficult to see where each part comes from to shape the whole. Although “futbol” is still in my blood as an Argentinean, I'm old enough to afford a little cynicism about how extremely corporate most popular sports are. Of course, nothing can now take away the joy I got from football in my childhood and early teens. But over the past few years I've been trying to perceive the sport itself in a global context, even alongside other popular sports in different areas of the world. Being a type designer, I naturally focus in my comparisons on the alphabets used in designing different sports experiences. And from that I've come to a few conclusions about my own taste in sports aesthetic, some of which surprised me. I think I like the baseball and basketball aesthetic better than football, hockey, volleyball, tennis, golf, cricket, rugby, and other sports. This of course is a biased opinion. I'm a lettering guy, and hand lettering is seen much more in baseball and basketball. But there’s a bit more to it than that. Even though all sports can be reduced to a bare-bones series of purposes and goals to reach, the rules and arrangements of baseball and basketball, in spite of their obvious tempo differences, are more suited for overall artistic motion than other sports. So when an application of swashed handlettering is used as part of a team’s identity in baseball or basketball, it becomes a natural fit. The swashes can almost be visual representation of a basketball curving in the air on its way to the hoop, or a baseball on its way out of the park. This expression is invariably backed by and connected to bold, sleak lettering, representing the driving force and precision (arms, bat) behind the artistic motion. It’s a simple and natural connective analysis to a designer, but the normal naked eye still marvels inexplicably at the beauty of such logos and wordmarks. That analytical simplicity was the divining rod behind Fan Script. My own ambitious brief was to build a readable yet very artistic sports script that can be a perfect fit for baseball or basketball identities, but which can also be implemented for other sports. The result turned out to be quite beautiful to my eyes, and I hope you find it satisfactory in your own work. Sports scripts like this one are rooted in showcard lettering models from the late 19th and early 20th century, like Detroit’s lettering teacher C. Strong’s — the same models that continue to influence book designers and sign painters for more than a century now. So as you can see, American turn-of-the-century calligraphy and its long-term influences still remain a subject of fascination to me. This fascination has been the engine of most of my work, and it shows clearly in Fan Script. Fan Script is a lively heavy brush face suitable for sports identities. It includes a variety of swashes of different shapes, both connective and non-connective, and contains a whole range of letter alternates. Users of this font will find a lot of casual freedom in playing with different combinations - a freedom backed by a solid technological undercurrent, where OpenType features provide immediate and logical solutions to problems common to this kind of script. One final thing bears mentioning: After the font design and production were completed, it was surprisingly delightful for me to notice, in the testing stage, that my background as a packaging designer seems to have left a mark on the way the font works overall. The modern improvements I applied to the letter forms have managed to induce a somewhat retro packaging appearance to the totality of the typeface. So I expect Fan Script will be just as useful in packaging as it would be in sports identity, logotype and merchandizing. Ale Paul