We are very happy to announce the release of our first collaboration with master calligrapher, designer and illustrator Gabriel Martínez Meave from México. The first in the series of new designs is Wordless Script, an emotional calligraphic typeface published by Sudtipos. Speechless. Breathless. Wordless. There are letters that transcend simple functionality and sheer legibility, to be recognized instead by their style, their charm, their emotion. It’s like when we don’t remember the exact sentences, but we recall the tone of the voice of a loved one: it just doesn’t matter WHAT he or she said, but HOW he or she said it. Wordless Script is the font of choice for writing those things that go beyond words. Based on the connected-scripts of late 18th-century England, this typeface preserves the irregular finish and gestural strokes of the pointed nib. It is, so to speak, a personal rendition of the English roundhand as originally executed with the bird’s quill. Imbued with a Rococo, neoclassical, romantic spirit, Wordless radiates the gallantry of a time when the celebrated «douceur de vivre» that Talleyrand was so fond of was still alive and well; echoes of which still haunt us in our eclectic 21st-century, which has once again come to appreciate these magnificent styles of old. Wordless features alternate variants of most letters, ligatures and multiple calligraphic endings, ideal for elegant labels, high-end packaging and personalized stationery, as well as compositions for selected brands, exquisite titlings, verses, letters and short texts, like those meant to be read with the eyes only or intended for whispering into someone’s ear.

Dederon Serif has been specifically designed for book setting. Preliminary sketches were drawn in 2004. Its inspiration – particularly its weight and width proportions – can be traced to the Liberta typeface from the TypoArt type foundry in former Eastern Germany. After a careful study of the model, the design of Dederon branched off into its own direction, finding its distinctive voice and becoming a wholly original type family. Dederon Serif kept most of the elements typical for the Old Style Roman lettering, such as the angle of the stress, the medium x-height, and lower contrast. In large sizes, the typical shapes of the letters stand out – the calligraphic feel characteristic for the Czech typefaces by Oldrich Menhart, the unusual serifs hinting at the angle of the pen, the shapes of the stems, or the terminals of dots and ears. Upon finishing the serif version, a Serif-serif variant called Dederon Serif was added. The construction principles are also derived from the Old Style Roman model, which lends the lettering its open, humanist feel. Yet the design also conforms to the rules of the modern Serif serif. Most characteristics of Dederon Serif match the serif version – the weight of individual cuts, the width proportions, x-height, ascenders' and descenders' length, and the slope of the italics. Each version of Dederon Open Type Std contains the standard Western Latin character set and the Central European characters; a number of basic and accented ligatures, small caps; old style, small caps and caps, table, fraction and superscript numerals; expert glyphs and alternative characters. This brings the total to a comfortable 820 glyphs per weight, permitting truly professional use in the most demanding projects.

Dederon Serif has been specifically designed for book setting. Preliminary sketches were drawn in 2004. Its inspiration — particularly its weight and width proportions — can be traced to the Liberta typeface from the TypoArt type foundry in former Eastern Germany. After a careful study of the model, the design of Dederon branched off into its own direction, finding its distinctive voice and becoming a wholly original type family. Dederon Serif kept most of the elements typical for the Old Style Roman lettering, such as the angle of the stress, the medium x-height, and lower contrast. In large sizes, the typical shapes of the letters stand out — the calligraphic feel characteristic for the Czech typefaces by Oldrich Menhart, the unusual serifs hinting at the angle of the pen, the shapes of the stems, or the terminals of dots and ears. Upon finishing the serif version, a sans-serif variant called Dederon Sans was added. The construction principles are also derived from the Old Style Roman model, which lends the lettering its open, humanist feel. Yet the design also conforms to the rules of the modern sans serif. Most characteristics of Dederon Sans match the serif version — the weight of individual cuts, the width proportions, x-height, ascenders' and descenders' length, and the slope of the italics. Each version of Dederon Open Type Std contains the standard Western Latin character set and the Central European characters; a number of basic and accented ligatures, small caps; old style, small caps and caps, table, fraction and superscript numerals; expert glyphs and alternative characters. This brings the total to a comfortable 820 glyphs per weight

ITC Legacy¿ was designed by American Ronald Arnholm, who was first inspired to develop the typeface when he was a graduate student at Yale. In a type history class, he studied the 1470 book by Eusebius that was printed in the roman type of Nicolas Jenson. Arnholm worked for years to create his own interpretation of the Jenson roman, and he succeeded in capturing much of its beauty and character. As Jenson did not include a companion italic, Arnholm turned to the sixteenth-century types of Claude Garamond for inspiration for the italics of ITC Legacy. Arnholm was so taken by the strength and integrity of these oldstyle seriffed forms that he used their essential skeletal structures to develop a full set of sans serif faces. ITC Legacy includes a complete family of weights from book to ultra, with Old style Figures and small caps, making this a good choice for detailed book typography or multi-faceted graphic design projects. In 1458, Charles VII sent the Frenchman Nicolas Jenson to learn the craft of movable type in Mainz, the city where Gutenberg was working. Jenson was supposed to return to France with his newly learned skills, but instead he traveled to Italy, as did other itinerant printers of the time. From 1468 on, he was in Venice, where he flourished as a punchcutter, printer and publisher. He was probably the first non-German printer of movable type, and he produced about 150 editions. Though his punches have vanished, his books have not, and those produced from about 1470 until his death in 1480 have served as a source of inspiration for type designers over centuries. His Roman type is often called the first true Roman." Notable in almost all Jensonian Romans is the angled crossbar on the lowercase e, which is known as the "Venetian Oldstyle e."" Featured in: Best Fonts for Logos

Update November 2022: ULGA Grid now features an oblique variant. It’s also been expanded into a family of different but related designs with the addition of ULGA Grid Solid and ULGA Grid Rounded typeface families. All variants and new designs are monospaced, sharing the same width as the original ULGA Grid font and matching character sets. The character set has also been enlarged and now supports Western Europe, Vietnamese, Central/Eastern Europe, Baltic, Turkish and Romanian. ULGA Grid is a modular, monospaced typeface reminiscent of the old Letraset LCD & Quartz typefaces from the 1970/80s with lots of alternative characters and ornaments to bring a fresh twist to the genre. The idea’s seed germinated while I was going through a phase of binge watching my favourite 1980/90s sci-fi movies (classics such as Terminator, Total Recall and RoboCop). However, perception and reality don’t always align. Thirty years later, when compared to today’s technology, some visual elements look kind of outdated, almost Retro Futuristic. The initial design process started out in Adobe Illustrator when I constructed letters from a few geometric shapes within a square block. Just playing around with different shapes was so engrossing that it wasn’t long before there were enough characters for a basic typeface. The project grew again as I experimented with designs within the shapes and set paragraphs of text in patterns, resulting in over a hundred alternative characters and ornaments, some of which double up as border designs. This typeface may be square but it’s anything but boring. What it lacks in legibility ULGA Grid makes up for in style and the end result is a surprisingly versatile typeface that you'll have fun using for a wide range of display purposes including CD covers, posters, packaging, advertising, brochures and film titles. Ironically, the fixed grid structure frees the characters to create patterns of text not possible with variable widths.

ITC Legacy¿ was designed by American Ronald Arnholm, who was first inspired to develop the typeface when he was a graduate student at Yale. In a type history class, he studied the 1470 book by Eusebius that was printed in the roman type of Nicolas Jenson. Arnholm worked for years to create his own interpretation of the Jenson roman, and he succeeded in capturing much of its beauty and character. As Jenson did not include a companion italic, Arnholm turned to the sixteenth-century types of Claude Garamond for inspiration for the italics of ITC Legacy. Arnholm was so taken by the strength and integrity of these oldstyle seriffed forms that he used their essential skeletal structures to develop a full set of sans serif faces. ITC Legacy includes a complete family of weights from book to ultra, with Old style Figures and small caps, making this a good choice for detailed book typography or multi-faceted graphic design projects. In 1458, Charles VII sent the Frenchman Nicolas Jenson to learn the craft of movable type in Mainz, the city where Gutenberg was working. Jenson was supposed to return to France with his newly learned skills, but instead he traveled to Italy, as did other itinerant printers of the time. From 1468 on, he was in Venice, where he flourished as a punchcutter, printer and publisher. He was probably the first non-German printer of movable type, and he produced about 150 editions. Though his punches have vanished, his books have not, and those produced from about 1470 until his death in 1480 have served as a source of inspiration for type designers over centuries. His Roman type is often called the first true Roman." Notable in almost all Jensonian Romans is the angled crossbar on the lowercase e, which is known as the "Venetian Oldstyle e."" ITC Legacy® Sans font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Cute FS Kitty is the type equivalent of Bagpuss: plump, cute, cuddly and not fond of exercise. So don’t go giving it a run-out on body copy; FS Kitty is an all-caps font made for showing off in posters and headlines, and on products, point-of sale and especially sweets. Blubber Kitty had been quietly curled up in Phil Garnham’s sketchbook for a year before he brought it out to be brushed up. “It was in the mix as a basic form when I started thinking about FS Lola. It was a twisted, bubbly beauty – quite squishable and huggable. The working file was called Blubber. “At that time it was a basic construction of strokes. I created the ‘A’ first, purely as a shape to play with, not as type. I flipped it for ‘V’, and copied that for a ‘W’. I flipped the ‘W’ for an ‘M’... I thought, ‘This looks a bit wacky, but I like it,’ and just carried on. The most tricky characters were the ‘B’ ‘P’ and ‘R’. I must have drawn about 20 kinds of B for this, just to get it to fit.” Variety “When the regular weight of Kitty had been designed,” says Jason Smith, “it just felt like a natural progression to go on and explore how far we could go with it: Light, Solid, Headline, Shadow.” Phil Garnham thinks there’s still more to come. “There are some really individual characters in this font that I think have yet to be exploited: the Greek Omega symbol, the strange face in the ampersand. Like Bagpuss, Kitty has kept a low profile so far. “We know people are using Kitty. In fact, it was the first of any of our fonts that we sold on the day it was released. But I still haven’t seen it out there in the wild. It’s going to be a exciting moment.”

PF Champion Script Pro is perhaps the most advanced and powerful calligraphic family ever made. It received an award for Excellence in Type Design from the International Type Design Competition ‘Modern Cyrillic 2009’ which was held in Moscow. Most recently, it received another award from the 3rd International Eastern Type Design Competition - Granshan Awards 2010. This typeface was first presented in June 2007 at the 3rd International Conference on Typography and Visual Communication (ICTVC) and was met with rave reviews. It is based mainly on the manuscripts of the 18th century English calligrapher Joseph Champion. Developed over a period of two and a half years, each one of the 2 weights is loaded with 4300 glyphs(!), offering simultaneous support for all European languages based on the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic scripts. Furthermore, a wide selection of alternate forms and ligatures is included for all languages, in order to accommodate diverse design aesthetics. These alternates are either applied automatically through an advanced programming scheme, or manually through several OpenType features. An attempt was made to design a contemporary script typeface with classic roots, by following certain guidelines, i.e. lowercase characters were designed so they are less inclined, have a higher x-height and are less condensed than the original. Several characters were stripped-off their connecting lines in order to enhance legibility. Four sets of alternate swashed capitals as well as a plethora of ornaments and frames (117) was included. Small caps and their alternate forms were designed to replace the capitals which disrupt the flow of text within a sentence with their extravagant swashes. All characters were carefully designed with the proper weight in order to sustain harsh printing conditions (on special papers), a situation which affects mainly the light connecting parts of calligraphic typefaces. Finally, it was programmed in such a way as to preserve handwriting qualities, by designing an extensive array of ligatures and alternate glyphs in all languages, never before released or incorporated within the same font.

Awwam refers to the region of Awwam which is now thought by most scholars to be Ma'rib or the famous temple of Awwam otherwise known as Mahram Bilqis. The Awwam temple—Arabic Haram Bilqis or Mahram Bilqis—is a Sabaean temple near Ma'rib in today's Yemen. It was built by Mukarrib ‘Yada'il Dharih I’ between the 7th and 5th century B.C. Also, one of the most frequent titles of the God ‘Almaqah’ was the Lord of Awwam. Almaqah was the main God of the ancient Yemeni kingdom of Saba' and also the kingdoms of D’mt and Aksum in Eritrea and Northern Ethiopia. Different members of the ruling dynasties of Saba' regarded themselves as Almaqah’s children. Awwam is a wide and headline Arabic display typeface. The main trait of this typeface is the wide, curved, and streamlined design of its wide kashida, letters, and ligatures. This feature renders it as one of the modern stylish typefaces used for headlines, titles, headers, banners, and captions. Among the distinguished letters of Awwam typeface are the “Alef”, “Qaaf”, “Waaw”, “Yaa”, “Gheen”, and others. Moreover, Awwam typeface has a character set which supports Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and simple Latin letters/numerals with a limited range of specific Arabic and Latin ligatures. This typefac comes in two styles (i.e., Awwam, and Awwam-Pro) with a single weight (i.e., regular) and nearly 650 distinctive glyphs for each style. Due to its ultra-wide design, Awwam typeface is mostly appropriate for headings and titles in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. It can be graphically and visually exploited in books, novels, magazines, newsletters, pamphlets, posters, and interfaces of other objects such as clothes and equipment. Moreover, it can be pleasingly used for signs, books’ covers, advertisement light boards, and titles of flyers, and books of children and adults. In brief, Awwam typeface is one of the new wide Arabic typefaces which can be utilized efficiently in diverse graphic, typographic, and artistic works for different languages and cultures.

Maclean's is a weekly Canadian newsmagazine with a broad editorial mission. A typical issue covers everything from violence on the other side of the globe to the largest pumpkin grown in a local county. In 2001, Maclean's invited Rod McDonald to become part of the design team to renovate" the 96-year-old publication. The magazine wanted to offer its readers a typographic voice that was professional, clean, and easy to read. Above all, the typeface had to be able to speak about the hundreds of unrelated subjects addressed in each issue while remaining believable and uncontrived. A tall order, perhaps? Now add in that this would be the first text typeface ever commissioned by a Canadian magazine. McDonald, who some have called Canada's unofficial "typographer laureate," took on the challenge. McDonald used two historic models as the basis for Laurentian's design: the work of French type designer Claude Garamond, and that of the English printer and type founder, William Caslon. From Garamond Laurentian acquired its humanist axis, crisp serifs and terminals that mimic pen strokes. Caslon's letters are less humanistic, with a more marked contrast in stroke weight and serifs that appear constructed rather than drawn. These traits also made their mark on Laurentian. Using these two designs as a foundation, McDonald drew Laurentian with the narrow text columns and small type sizes of magazine composition in mind. He gave his letters strong vertical strokes and sturdy serifs, a robust x-height and a slightly compressed character width A tall order, per McDonald's genius is evident in the face's legibility, quiet liveliness and in the openness of the letters. The result is a typeface that not only met Maclean's demanding design brief, but also provides exceptional service in a wide variety of other applications. Laurentian is available in three weights of Regular, Semi Bold and Bold, with complementary italics for the Regular and Semi Bold, and a suite of titling caps."

Attention all Space Marines! The battle for legibility in the galaxy is over! Introducing Battlemaze—the font that will help you obliterate any enemy with its heavy techno headline design. Inspired by the legendary Japanese industrial logo designs and fused with the futuristic 1980s computer printer fonts, Battlemaze is the ultimate weapon in your typography arsenal. With its tightly folded line treatment, this font is built to withstand the most intense space battles. Whether you’re fighting on a distant planet or defending your ship from alien invaders, Battlemaze will never let you down. And if you’re looking for an added advantage, check out its ligatures—the “B” flips when it comes before a “J” period, or comma. So gear up, Space Marines! It’s time to unleash the power of Battlemaze and conquer the galaxy with its angled “A” and “V” glyphs. Trust us, your enemies won’t know what hit them! Most Latin-based European, and some Cyrillic-based writing systems are supported, including the following languages. A Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Komi-Permyak, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Macedonian, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Russian, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

This all started with a love for Minister. This is a font designed by Carl Albert Fahrenwaldt in 1929. In the specimen booklet there’s a scan from Linotype’s page many years ago. They no longer carry the font. I’ve gone quite a ways from the original. It was dark and a bit heavy. But I loved the look and the readability. This came to a head when I started my first book on all-digital printing written from 1994-1995, and published early in 1996. I needed fonts to show the typography I was talking about. At that point oldstyle figures, true small caps, and discretionary ligatures were rare. More than that text fonts for book design had lining OR oldstyle figures, lowercase OR small caps—never both. So, I designed the Diaconia family (using the Greek word for minister). It was fairly rough. I knew very little. I later redesigned and updated Diaconia into Bergsland Pro —released in 2004. It was still rough (though I impressed myself). In 2006, I found myself needing a readable sans serif. So I went to Bergsland Pro, and eliminated the serifs. I named the font Brinar. I kept a flare in place for the serifs and cupped the ends. I was stunned. People loved it. It’s remained my bestseller until very recently. So, at the end of 2016 I decided that Brinar really needed some help. The flares were basically random. The stem width and modulation variances all needed to be fixed. My old OpenType feature code was quite limited and clumsy. So, I created the 6-font Biblia family. I cleaned up or redesigned all the glyphs. I updated the fonts to the 2017 set of features: small caps, small cap figures, oldstyle figures, fractions, lining figures, ligatures and discretionary ligatures. These are fonts designed for book production and work well for text or heads.

DT PaperType has evolved and morphed over time from quite distant origins. I previously created DT Paperside. It was neither Papyrus nor SSI Countryside, but was inspired in some ways by the Papyrus form, although untextured and smoother, and had the more open dimensions and proportions, similar to that of Countryside SSi, with its larger easily readable lowercase body, and more consistent, shorter stems. DT Paperside had an open scripted feel which was pleasing to the eye and easy to read. DT PaperType has since been crafted from of the original Paperside font. The Organic flow and comfortable form of Paperside has been retained, but it has been shifted very much from the feel of a script font, into a quality, extremely readable, organic and friendly, serif font, retaining its clarity, while adding a great deal of pose and class. This font is primarily suited to body text, and as such is extremely readable. It does however also make an excellent Display font, and comes with a full set of over sized Caps that drop below the line to stand out on a headline when required. Paperside can also automatically enhance the first letter of most sentences, and changes other letters to suit their position within words, and the letters they appear beside. Now comes with an italic that curves and softens various letters. For best results, use this ‘smart font’ with Contextual Ligatures turned on. Mulitiple Stylistic Alternatives are included. Inspiration for this fonts predecessor (Paperside) came from two other fonts. Papyrus: designed by Chris Costello and created in 1982, it is a hand-drawn textured typeface, emulating texts written in biblical times. One of the most used (and misused) fonts of all times. Owned by Letraset, and currently published by the Internation Typeface Corporating (ITC). Countryside SSi: The serif font of an unknown designer, currently licensed by Southern Software Inc. Feel free to preview some other Dragon Tongue fonts that are yet to be released, at https://www.dragon-tongue.com/fonts