The x factor How do you make a font like FS Albert unique, distinctive? “When designing a font I try to question every letter,” says Jason Smith, “but all you need is a few that have an x factor. With FS Albert, they’re the lowercase ‘a’ and ‘g’ and the uppercase ‘I’ and ‘J’. “I remember a friend saying, ‘Why on earth have you designed the ‘a’ like that? Isn’t it too friendly for this kind of font?’ And, in a way, that’s what I wanted – honesty and warmth, because a lot of big brands at the time really needed to show a more human side.” Range of weights and styles FS Albert is a charismatic type: a warm, friendly sans serif face with a big personality. Open, strong and amenable, and available in a wide range of weights and styles, FS Albert suits almost every task you put it to. Fontsmith has crafted five finely-tuned upright Roman weights and four italic weights, as well as a special Narrow version to provide the best coverage and give headlines and text an easy-going character. The chunky kid “FS Albert was inspired by – and named after – my son, who was a bit of a chunky kid,” says Jason Smith. “I designed an extra bold weight because I always felt that the really big font heavy weights had the most personality. “I recently told Albert this story. He laughed, and forgave me for thinking he was a fat baby. He liked the big personality bit, though.” 1000s of glyphs Not content with a character set that covered Europe and the whole of the Western world, the studio decided to go further afield. There are now FS Albert character sets that cover western and eastern European languages, including those of Russia, as well as Cyrillic, Arabic and Greek scripts. In fact, the font now covers more than 100 languages, making it ideal for bringing a consistent typographic style to the communications of global brands.

Excessive photocopying, with extreme enlargements and reductions to magnify the imperfections, helped to rough the edges and give Not Sassure a non-digital quality.

Plz Print Brush is a good solid font for posters, headlines and accent words like - SALE! It gives the slightly irregular look of handlettering.

Linotype Aroma No.2 appears straightforward in form, completely sans serif, yet with a trace of humanistic features that gives it that extra edge.

Odditype is a font that surely lives up to its name... Odd, quirky, techno...yet not. Its use is as broad as your imagination.

Sew What JNL is a little novelty font that gives the appearance of letters stitched into fabric. This font contains a limited character set.

Fleurons are embellishments and here is my seventh set. This time I give you all kind of different labels. Your labeled designer Gert Wiescher

The Tomcat Bold is a playful display font. It comes in a regular and bold style which will give your design a fun touch.

The Limine family was designed to give a 3D effect; to look like engraved letters. Those letters are based on the roman capital design.

Giving a stencil treatment to a classic wood type sans serif grotesk design, Wood Stencil JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Corradine Handwriting is based in the handwriting of Manuel Corradine. Its numerous ligatures and stylistic alternatives give to the text a realistic handwriting appearance.

Decomic Oblique is one of the handmade fonts of illustrator Paul Hoppe who lives in New York. The font was digitized by Boris Kahl.

WindSong is a beautiful elongated script with extensive OpenType programming that gives a powerful solution to the design needs of the graphic design professional.

Window Treatment JNL gives a classic thick-and-thin line treatment to the Art Deco design found in the monoline font Window Dressing JNL.

Napolitanka is an elegant high contrasted font family. Contains a set of ligatures and swashes in each weight and borders as separate OTF file.

A tessellation is a shape that can be used to completely fill the plane—simple examples are isosceles triangles, squares, and hexagons. Tessellation patterns are eye-catching and visually appealing, which is the reason that they have long been popular in a variety of decorative situations. These Tessie fonts have two family members, a solid style that must have different colors when used and an outline style. They can be used separately or they can be used in layers with the outline style on top of the solid style. For rows to align properly, leading must be the same as point size. To see how patterns can be constructed, see the “Samples” file here. Shapes that tessellate and also resemble real-world objects are often called Escher-like tessellations. TessieMoreStuff contains mostly Escher-like tessellations with no clear organizing principle. Most or all of these shapes were discovered/created by the font designer during the past twenty years in the process of designing maze books, colorings books, and a book about tessellations. (Earlier tessellation fonts from IngrimayneType, the TessieDingies fonts, lack a black or filled version so cannot do colored patterns. The addition of a solid style that must be colored makes these new fonts a bit more difficult to use but offers far greater possibilities in getting visually interesting results.)

Second Reign is a decorative medieval typeface. With borders and diamonds, this magic typeface of extreme variability brings us to glorious worlds in the golden times of epic sagas. Second Reign is the typeface of a viking king or a knight order. Use it for a Middle Ages game, a fantasy headline, or as a logotype for anything of historical theme. With usage in any modern software, the letters will automatically overlap and embrace in an elegant way. To make heraldic symbols, copy these icons: 🐉 🐎 👑 🗡 🦁 🦅 🦌 + ♖ × ✝ ⚓ ＊ ⚔ † ‡ Alternatively write %A %B %C ... etc to create the heraldry. (Download required.) Dragon, Horse, Crown, Sword, Eagle, Deer, Cross, Anchor are some of the logos. Use [ ] for side borders. Example: [Royal⚔Thrones] The Second Reign family consists of four variations: The weight styles Thin, Medium and Bold, plus the decorated Border style. The font is built with advanced OpenType functionality and has a guaranteed top-notch quality, containing stylistic and contextual alternates, ligatures and more features; all to give you full control and customizability. It has extensive lingual support, covering Greek and Cyrillic, as well as all Latin-based languages, from North Europe to South Africa, from America to South-East Asia. It contains all characters and symbols you'll ever need, including all punctuation and numbers.

RRollie is a typeface family inspired on the proportions of the Roman capital in the Augusto's age, some of them can be seen in inscriptions of Pompeii; in this particular case, it has taken an inscription from a tomb of the year 15 AD. The subtlety of the serif is hardly insinuates, helping to strut the terminals of the stems. Ascenders and descenders are very short. The thickness variation is presented quite delicate, highlighting the light-dark passage and even the agile counterblocks of the typeface. These fonts can be used in many kind of graphic works by its strong personality, visual impact and readability. This font family include OpenType features: Standard and discretionary ligatures, small caps, case sensitive from, old style figures, tabular, diacritics for western languages and many others. Roberto Rollie (1935-2003) was an outstanding professional of Graphic Design, Photography and Visual Artist. He was involved in the creation of the career of Visual Communication Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts (National University of La Plata, Argentina), in the late '60s; he was a pioneer and great teacher too, who loved the Roman Capitals for its subtle and balanced design, especially for high readability and clever design. Those who, like me, knew him as a person and teacher, we are deeply grateful for having received their warmth and enthusiasm for graphic design.

March Evoked is a brand new display font pack that includes regular and outlined version. march Evoked is inspired by an early spring in Spain, with flowers in full bloom all over the capital city - Madrid. With contrast lines & curves it will give your design that chic & modern appeal you are looking for. It is perfect for logos, branding, posters, social media & all other creative projects. I invite you to check out the preview images, and I hope you will be immersed in my vision for this creative typeface that, I am sure, will work for all kinds of interesting projects you might be working on this year. If you end up publishing your designs on Instagram, tag me - https://instagram.com/silverstagco and I will make sure to showcase your design and work to my audience as well! March Evoked - Creaive Display Font Includes: Numerals & punctuation Full language support Would you like to get 5 completely free fonts worth over $75? No tricks, no hidden words, terms or anything. Just subscribe to my newsletter, make sure to check your email to approve the subscription, add me to your contacts so that the emails don't end up in spam folder and you will get 5 fonts for free. The fonts are packed with alternates, ligatures and some even come with extra goodies. https://view.flodesk.com/pages/63594052b967a943dd6cc528 Happy creating everyone!

A tessellation is a shape that can be used to completely fill the plane—simple examples are isosceles triangles, squares, and hexagons. Tessellation patterns are eye-catching and visually appealing, which is the reason that they have long been popular in a variety of decorative situations. These Tessie fonts have two family members, a solid style that must have different colors when used and an outline style. They can be used separately or they can be used in layers with the outline style on top of the solid style. For rows to align properly, leading must be the same as point size. To see how patterns can be constructed, see the “Samples” file here. Shapes that tessellate and also resemble real-world objects are often called Escher-like tessellations. TessieMoreStuff contains mostly Escher-like tessellations with no clear organizing principle. Most or all of these shapes were discovered/created by the font designer during the past twenty years in the process of designing maze books, colorings books, and a book about tessellations. (Earlier tessellation fonts from IngrimayneType, the TessieDingies fonts, lack a black or filled version so cannot do colored patterns. The addition of a solid style that must be colored makes these new fonts a bit more difficult to use but offers far greater possibilities in getting visually interesting results.)

Cabrito Flare joins the Cabrito font family, a family designed to help younglings with the recognition of letter shapes. The original fonts are part of the development of a children's book, The Clothes Letters Wear. Cabrito Flare combines the simplicity and readability of the original Cabrito with an elegant flare serif. Now, this latest addition brings a new flavor to the table. Cabrito Flare brings fluid, carefree, medium contrast fun. It takes a more calligraphic direction than most. Cabrito combines structure and handwriting. There's a fluid balance of both characteristics, and Flare is no exception. It’s a unique combination of functional elegance with a little spice and a dollop of friendly. Fifty-four well-designed fonts give you many readable options to work with while developing your design. Cabrito Flare includes a suite of OpenType features. Alternative forms, ligatures, figures, and titling caps are all here. Preview these functions in the interactive PDF manual. There are glyphs for 72 languages; more than 600 glyphs await you. Cabrito Flare is an excellent choice for websites, as well as for brochures and packaging. Like Cabrito, used by several visible brands, Cabrito Flare is also an excellent option to define your logo. Try the taste of Cabrito Flare and be sure to dip in and sample some of the other Cabrito members: Original flavor, Didone, Sans, Serif, Semi, Contrast, and Inverto.

SchmalfetteCP is the result of another collaboration between designers Jason Walcott and Rob King. King suggested that Walcott revive this wonderful and somewhat forgotten sans serif typeface from the mid 1950s. Originally designed by Walter Haettenschweiler in 1954, Schmalfette Grotesk was used for many years in the German magazine "Twen". The typeface was notoriously hard to acquire at the time and graphic designers in the USA often resorted to cutting letters from the Twen magazines and reusing them in their own designs. Later, when digital type came along several typefaces very similar were created that claimed to be digital revivals of Schmalfette Grotesk. However, they are actually only loosely based on the original. The proportions are different and in some cases a lower case was added. The original font was all caps. At Rob King's suggestion, Jason Walcott has strived to recreate the most faithful digital revival possible of the original Schmalfette Grotesk with the new version of SchmalfetteCP. In some cases small changes were made to accommodate today's digital needs (e.g. web fonts), but anyone who has ever searched for this typeface now has a version available that most closely resembles Haettenschweiler's original work. Schmalfette CP comes in OpenType format in both .ttf and .otf files and offers support for all Latin based and Eastern European languages.

Directa Serif Variable is a text type family in one single font file. It explores new possibilities for the original type family released by Outras Fontes some years earlier, which is designed to save space with the highest readability. The variable font is composed of two axes of variation: Weight (100–900) and Italic (0–1). It also contains 18 predefined styles between Thin and Heavy and their respective italics. So now you can adjust the weight of the type by interpolating it in real time using any variable font compatible app. There are hundreds of possibilities between the values of 100 (Thin) and 900 (Heavy). And if you're feeling adventurous, you can also use the Italic axis to interpolate instances between Roman (0) and Italic (1) and see what happens in the middle. This new technology can be very useful for web and video animations. Directa Serif Variable is also highly recommended for newspapers, magazines, corporate communication and so on. It has a large set of characters, including Western, Central European, Baltic, Scandinavian, Icelandic, Romanian and Turkish unicode ranges. The variable font also includes several ligatures, a complete set of small caps, sets of lining, old style and tabular figures, as well as fractions, superior and inferior numbers. These features can be easily accessed using any OpenType-compatible software.

Third Reign is a decorative medieval typeface. With braids and pearls, this swirly typeface of extreme variability brings us to the golden times of epic knight sagas. Third Reign is the typeface of a Middle Age queen or a viking ruler. Use it for a Middle Ages game, a fantasy headline, or as a logotype for anything of historical theme. With usage in any modern software, the letters will automatically overlap and embrace in an elegant way. To make heraldic symbols, copy these icons: 🐉 🐎 👑 🗡 🦁 🦅 🦌 + ♖ × ✝ ⚓ ＊ ⚔ † ‡ Alternatively write %A %B %C ... etc to create the heraldry. (Download required.) Dragon, Horse, Crown, Sword, Eagle, Deer, Cross, Anchor are some of the logos. Use [ ] for side borders. Example: [Magic⚔Thrones] The Third Reign font family consists of two styles: The decorative Border style, and the plain Regular style. The font is built with advanced OpenType functionality and has a guaranteed top-notch quality, containing stylistic and contextual alternates, ligatures and more features; all to give you full control and customizability. It has extensive lingual support, covering Greek and Cyrillic, as well as all Latin-based languages, from North Europe to South Africa, from America to South-East Asia. It contains all characters and symbols you'll ever need, including all punctuation and numbers.

Rusty Forest is a typeface that takes you back to the days of golden design, when travel and adventure were celebrated in striking posters. This font's rustic appearance, created by its brush-style strokes, evokes images of a cabin in the woods, surrounded by the beauty of nature. It's as if you can smell the campfire smoke and hear the rustling of leaves in the wind. This font is perfect for designers looking to add a touch of vintage charm to their projects, whether it be a poster for a national park or a logo for a wilderness-themed brand. Its 1950s-inspired style will transport viewers back in time to a simpler era, where the call of the wild was all one needed to feel free. The Rusty Forest family includes Bold, Italic, Bold Italic, and Regular, offer a range of options to suit different design needs. The font is built with advanced OpenType functionality and has a guaranteed top-notch quality, containing stylistic and contextual alternates, ligatures and more features; all to give you full control and customizability. It has extensive lingual support, covering all Latin-based languages, from Northern Europe to South Africa, from America to South-East Asia. It contains all characters and symbols you'll ever need, including all punctuation and numbers.

First Reign is a decorative medieval typeface. With borders and ornaments, this swirly uppercase typeface of extreme variability brings us to glorious worlds in the golden times of epic knight sagas. First Reign is the typeface of a Royal House, of vikings, kings and queens. Use it for a Middle Ages game, a fantasy headline, or as a logotype for anything of historical theme. With usage in any modern software, the letters will automatically overlap and embrace in an elegant way. To make heraldic symbols, copy these icons: 🐉 🐎 👑 🗡 🦁 🦅 🦌 + ♖ × ✝ ⚓ ＊ ⚔ † ‡ Alternatively write %A %B %C ... etc to create the heraldry. (Download required.) Dragon, Horse, Crown, Sword, Eagle, Deer, Cross, Anchor are some of the logos. Use [ ] for side borders. Example: [Magic⚔Thrones] The First Reign family consists of four beautiful styles: Decorated capital font provided in Thin, Medium and Bold, plus a Border style. The font is built with advanced OpenType functionality and has a guaranteed top-notch quality, containing stylistic and contextual alternates, ligatures and more features; all to give you full control and customizability. It has extensive lingual support, covering Greek and Cyrillic, as well as all Latin-based languages, from North Europe to South Africa, from America to South-East Asia. It contains all characters and symbols you'll ever need, including all punctuation and numbers.

Night Scream is a spine-chilling display font that brings a horrifying twist to your designs. With its big letters and bold weight, this font commands attention and instills fear. The details of the letters are carefully crafted to resemble menacing plant roots, adding a nightmarish and eerie touch to the font. Each letter in this font is bold and impactful, demanding to be noticed. The large size of the letters adds to the font's imposing presence. The root-like details in Night Scream give the font an organic and otherworldly appearance, reminiscent of sinister, twisted plant life. These details add an element of the unknown and create an atmosphere of dread, immersing the viewer into a world of dark and chilling horrors. For the best legibility you can use this font in the bigger text sizes. Enjoy the available features here. Features: Multilingual Supports PUA Encoded Numerals and Punctuations Night Scream fits in headlines, logos, movie posters, flyers, invitations, branding materials, print media, editorial layouts, headers, and any project that requires a terrifying touch. Find out more ways to use this font by taking a look at the font preview. Thanks for purchasing our fonts. Hopefully, you have a great time using our font. Feel free to contact us anytime for further information or when you have trouble with the font. Thanks a lot and happy designing.

The engraver Jean Jannon ranks among the significant representatives of French typography of the first half of the 17th century. From 1610 he worked in the printing office of the Calvinist Academy in Sedan, where he was awarded the title "Imprimeur de son Excellence et de l'Academie Sédanoise". He began working on his own alphabet in 1615, so that he would not have to order type for his printing office from Paris, Holland and Germany, which at that time was rather difficult. The other reason was that not only the existing type faces, but also the respective punches were rapidly wearing out. Their restoration was extremely painstaking, not to mention the fact that the result would have been just a poor shadow of the original elegance. Thus a new type face came into existence, standing on a traditional basis, but with a life-giving sparkle from its creator. In 1621 Jannon published a Roman type face and italics, derived from the shapes of Garamond's type faces. As late as the start of the 20th century Jannon's type face was mistakenly called Garamond, because it looked like that type face at first sight. Jannon's Early Baroque Roman type face, however, differs from Garamond in contrast and in having grander forms. Jannon's italics rank among the most successful italics of all time – they are brilliantly cut and elegant.

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

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

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

Earlier this year I visited a bakery in Newport Beach, CA and fell in love with the organic design and typography of the place. Hand-drawn menus, table cards, chalkboards, and wall quotes surrounded the charming spot. It inspired me to create a new font family based on the combination of hand drawn fonts. Included in this package are 5 font families, with 2 graphic ornament fonts. Each font family contains at least a light, medium and bold. Here is a breakdown of what's cookin' at Catalina's Bakery: Catalina Anacapa: Tall and skinny, this font comes in 3 weights for both sans and slab serif styles. It includes contextual alternatives (giving 3 versions of each letter), stylistic alternatives for select letters (A, K, P, Q, R, Y) and also includes Small Caps. Catalina Avalon: Based off Anacapa, this sub family has a high contrasting line weight. It comes in light, regular and bold as well as an inline alternative for both sans and slab serif styles. Avalon also includes opentype features such as contextual alternatives (giving 3 versions of each letter), stylistic alternatives for select letters (A, K, P, Q, R, Y) and small caps for each letter. Catalina Clemente: In a more standard width, Clemente is one of the two sub families that can be used for paragraph text as well as headlines. It's organically geometric in style and comes in ALL CAPS and lowercase, includes upright and custom italics, and has the opentype feature giving 3 versions of each letter. Catalina Script: A great compliment with the display sub-families, Catalina Script rounds out the package with a hand-drawn cursive flair. It includes contextual alternatives (giving 2 variations to each letter) as well as stylistic alternatives for many of the capital and lowercase letters. It has special ligatures for some letter combinations, and titling alternatives for all the capital letters. Catalina Typewriter: The second of the paragraph text sub-families, this typewriter inspired hand-drawn font family works great as either a display or paragraph text. It has contextual alternatives with 3 versions of each letter, and comes in both upright and custom italics versions. Catalina Extras! These two fonts go perfectly with the Catalina Family. They includes borders, frames, arrows, banners, flourishes and more. Catalina Flourish has all of it's options in a light and bold style, to use the light version type all lowercase letters, then to make something bold, used it's uppercase (or shift+) characters. For a breakdown of graphic/letter correlation, see the breakdown PDF. All of Catalina was drawn by the same hand, using the same ink and technique. While they contrast in their type styles, they work together perfectly to create one cohesive font family.

Introducing "Arrow Hero" - A Typeface of Elegance and Adventure Unleash the power of elegance and adventure with our latest font creation, "Arrow Hero." This unique serif font seamlessly blends the mystique of archers, the allure of elves, and the boldness of superheroes. Crafted with precision, this font is more than just letters; it's a journey into a world where every curve and angle tells a story of heroic feats and enchanted realms. Key Features: Elegant Serif Design: The Arrow Hero font boasts a sophisticated serif style that adds a touch of refinement to your projects. Each letter is meticulously crafted to exude an aura of strength and grace, perfectly suited for a variety of design applications. Illustrated Elements: Dive into the fantastical with Arrow Hero's unique illustrations. Arrows gracefully adorn each character, symbolizing precision and direction. Delicate elf ears and majestic wings enhance the overall aesthetic, creating a harmonious balance between the worlds of archers, elves, and superheroes. Versatile Usage: Whether you're working on branding, book covers, invitations, or digital designs, Arrow Hero is a versatile font that adapts to various contexts. Elevate your projects with a touch of magic and heroism that this font effortlessly provides. Tailored for Storytelling: Arrow Hero is not just a font; it's a storyteller. Use it to bring narratives to life, creating visual experiences that resonate with the mythical and the extraordinary. Let the characters on your screen or page become heroes in their own right, guided by the elegance of Arrow Hero. Multiple Styles: The font comes in various styles and weights, allowing you to express different moods and atmospheres within your designs. Whether you're aiming for a bold statement or a subtle enchantment, Arrow Hero has the right style for you. Elevate your design projects to new heights with Arrow Hero, where the elegance of serif meets the magic of arrows, wings, and elf ears. Download this font today and embark on a design journey that transcends the ordinary, celebrating the hero within every letter.

ITC Johnston is the result of the combined talents of Dave Farey and Richard Dawson, based on the work of Edward Johnston. In developing ITC Johnston, says London type designer Dave Farey, he did “lots of research on not only the face but the man.” Edward Johnston was something of an eccentric, “famous for sitting in a deck chair and carrying toast in his pockets.” (The deck chair was his preferred furniture in his own living room; the toast was so that he’d always have sustenance near at hand.) Johnston was also almost single-handedly responsible, early in this century, for the revival in Britain of the Renaissance calligraphic tradition of the chancery italic. His book Writing & Illuminating, & Lettering (with its peculiar extraneous comma in the title) is a classic on its subject, and his influence on his contemporaries was tremendous. He is perhaps best remembered, however, for the alphabet that he designed in 1916 for the London Underground Railway (now London Transport), which was based on his original “block letter” model. Johnston’s letters were constructed very carefully, based on his study of historical writing techniques at the British Museum. His capital letters took their form from the best classical Roman inscriptions. “He had serious rules for his sans serif style,” says Farey, “particularly the height-to-weight ratio of 1:7 for the construction of line weight, and therefore horizontals and verticals were to be the same thickness. Johnston’s O’s and C’s and G’s and even his S’s were constructions of perfect circles. This was a bit of a problem as far as text sizes were concerned, or in reality sizes smaller than half an inch. It also precluded any other weight but medium ‘ any weight lighter or heavier than his 1:7 relationship.” Johnston was famously slow at any project he undertook, says Farey. “He did eventually, under protest, create a bolder weight, in capitals only ‘ which took twenty years to complete.” Farey and his colleague Richard Dawson have based ITC Johnston on Edward Johnston’s original block letters, expanding them into a three-weight type family. Johnston himself never called his Underground lettering a typeface, according to Farey. It was an alphabet meant for signage and other display purposes, designed to be legible at a glance rather than readable in passages of text. Farey and Dawson’s adaptation retains the sparkling starkness of Johnston’s letters while combining comfortably into text. Johnston’s block letter bears an obvious resemblance to Gill Sans, the highly successful type family developed by Monotype in the 1920s. The young Eric Gill had studied under Johnston at the London College of Printing, worked on the Underground project with him, and followed many of the same principles in developing his own sans serif typeface. The Johnston letters gave a characteristic look to London’s transport system after the First World War, but it was Gill Sans that became the emblematic letter form of British graphic design for decades. (Johnston’s sans serif continued in use in the Underground until the early ‘80s, when a revised and modernized version, with a tighter fit and a larger x-height, was designed by the London design firm Banks and Miles.) Farey and Dawson, working from their studio in London’s Clerkenwell, wanted to create a type family that was neither a museum piece nor a bastardization, and that would “provide an alternative of the same school” to the omnipresent Gill Sans. “These alphabets,” says Farey, referring to the Johnston letters, “have never been developed as contemporary styles.” He and Dawson not only devised three weights of ITC Johnston but gave it a full set of small capitals in each weight ‘ something that neither the original Johnston face nor the Gill faces have ‘ as well as old-style figures and several alternate characters.