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.

Hermann is one of our most readable typefaces so far. Since last year, the W Design team had been examining closely the possibility of developing a text font. Thus, we dug into concepts within some of our favorite novels, such as The Steppenwolf and Brave New World, written by Hermann Hesse and Aldous Huxley respectively. Ideas like duality, surrealism, and wildness mainly appeared. With these concepts in mind, we analyzed carefully the typefaces used in both Hesse’s and Huxley’s creations; Sabon and Garamond showed up catching our attention and, of course, awakening our admiration. Consequently, the challenge was to combine the key features of these fonts with the concepts already identified. At first, we made a text font which was suitable to compose long texts. However, we realized that we needed to refine some characteristics to convey all the ideas. A full set of capital discretionary ligatures was designed, which convert Hermann in a display font when is required. We also designed swashes (from A-Z) and final forms (in letters h, k, m, n, r and x in romans, and in letters a, d, e, h, i, l, m, n, r, t, u, x and z in italics), conveying more dynamism and versatility when it comes to composing visually. Hermann was designed not only to be accurate in terms of legibility but also to be wild and bold. That is why we took a big leap and designed from the beginning a font that is inspired by the world of 20th-century novels, using the name of one of its greatest exponents, Hermann Hesse.

From the beginning “Esmeralda” was born with a strong influence of the classical “capitalis monumentalis”, carved in stone. In the same way, the origin of this majuscule writing emerged from the brush, from a way of writing made merely by hand. For this reason, these two universes were intended to lie beneath the shape of each letter, redefining them. And this combination of styles should also be reflected in a lower case set that also allows to open up the spectrum of usage possibilities. Foundational calligraphy represented a solid base for the development of lower case glyphs, ensuring proper interaction with the upper case letters. “Esmeralda” features a great number of ligatures that mix classic structures with a more contemporary impression. With more than eleven hundred glyphs, it provides a multiplicity of uses across a wide combinatory of ligatures, alternative signs, initial caps, miscellaneous and connectors; each one of them accessible through Open Type. “Esmeralda” is perfect to speak with a classical yet fresh, modern – and a little bit bold – tone of voice. Designed by Guille Vizzari, together with the tough and remarkable work of Ale Paul, in use “Esmeralda” stands out in a subtle and unexpected way that’s almost unnoticeable. Its delicate yet solid curves, serifs and endings give each composition a fine, elegant and exquisite feeling, along with a firm and sturdy look. “Esmeralda” was initially born as a typographic project developed by Guillermo Vizzari – tutored by Ale Paul and Ana Sanfelippo – under completion of the Specialization in Typography Design at University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the years 2011 and 2012.

Italiano Fushion is part of an expanding project on which we have been working for several years and is the colors ersion of ITALIANO FUSHION. Starts from the study of the great Futurist adventure of the early 1900s by great artists such as DEPERO and MARINETTI, who twisted the world of typography with shapes and colors. Italian Fushion is made up of almost 2,000 glyphs for each weight and in addition to hundreds of alternatives mainly, such as initials and endings of each word but also different alternatives for the letters I, J, Y. Thanks to the characteristics of Open Type, you can change them in automatic many of the alternatives, use it as a simple text font by changing only the I's and J's that have the typical capital dot, and giving the text a more fun breath to the composition. Italiano Fushion is suitable for large texts and to get the most out of it it is compulsory to transform the text into UPPERCASE text using the tabs of graphic applications such as Illustrator, or activate the Alternavive tabs and the various options of SS. You just need do a sandwitch between the 1 ( on the top ) and the 2 ( on the bottom ), choose the 2 different color and you hae finished. by transforming them into traces you can enrich the interaction between the two levels with nuances of pleasure. If you would like to be above layer 2, you can make the text parts transparent without swashes. Ideal for creating Logos, Head Lines, Web Titles, Posters, Epub Covers, Tatoo Projects, T-Shirts, Drink Labels ...

Since the beginning, Palsam was intended to be a super multilingual family, with a real cursive Arabic companion, and a display cut. The typeface was designed to be used for setting text and titles of contemporary Arabic content, specially magazines, and websites. The Arabic and Latin scripts were designed at the same time, to make a true authentic bilingual typeface. Both scripts have affected each other in several ways through the entire design process, which happened within ten years. Palsam has an inviting, approachable, fashionable and humanist look. Thanks to its low contrast, open apertures, detailed calligraphic strokes, and smooth counters, which also make it easy to read at smaller sizes. The main highlight for Palsam was the Cursive companion. For the first time, the calligraphic Ijaza style was used as a model for designing the Arabic cursive. Since the Ijaza is a hyper combination of Naskh and Thuluth, which makes it perfect to be a companion for the upright Naskh. Moreover this script was used in margins, and to highlight specific content inside a paragraph in older manuscripts. With true cursive companions in five weights, and many opentype features, Palsam grants all the tools needed to set complex information and editorial designs applications. More than 1000 characters are included per weight, including small caps, fractions, old style and lining numbers, ligatures, contextual ligatures, and discretionary ligatures. It supports over 40 languages that use the Latin extended, as well as Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu Languages. PalsamArabic only covers the Arabic script. The latin script was designed in collaboration with the Slovenian type designer Alja Herlah.

The design of the typeface Moskau Grotesk is based on the signage created for the Café Moskau in Berlin by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel in the beginning of the 1960s. The Café Moskau, across from the Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin Mitte was one of the prestige edifices of the former DDR (German Democratic Republic). Built in the early 1960s, it advanced over the years and changing social developments to a trademark building of the capital. The lettering display on the roof was created by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel (October 17, 1910 – September 19, 1985). He had been Professor at the School for Applied Arts in Berlin, and, in addition to the creation of many posters, book covers and postage stamps, he was responsible for the signage of the Kino International as well as for the complete graphic treatment for the Palace of the Republik. The signage for the Café Moskau with the words »RESTAURANT«, »CAFÉ«, »KONZERT« and »MOCKBA« set in capital letters, becomes the basis for the Moskau Grotesk which was developed by Björn Gogalla in 2013. This face should not be seen as an imitation. A few shortcomings were »fixed«. In favor of maintaining the core characteristics some unique features were, however, not relinquished. Lower case letters and the missing capital letters were designed from scratch. It is not surprising that the plain, unassuming geometrical direction of the basic character style forms a bridge to the architecture of the 1960s. Inspired by the then favored, diverse possibilities inherent in the architectural example and wall reliefs, two complementary pattern fonts emerged.

Brailganta Script is the font of choice for writing things beyond words. This typeface is designed with great detail to convey stylish elegance. So, it can be said, the character of the transformation is very beautiful, a kind of classic ornamental copper script. The Brailganta script provides alternative variants of most fonts, binders, and many calligraphy tips, ideal for elegant labels, high-end packaging, stationery and compositions for certain brands, beautiful titles, verses, letters and short text, intended for read only with the eyes or meant to be whispered into someone's ear. To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternative, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Indesign & CorelDraw X6-X7, Microsoft Word 2010 or a later version. (Windows), Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters using Adobe Illustrator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzwjMkbB-wQ How to use the font style set in Microsoft Word 2010 or later versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVJlZQ3EZU0 There are additional ways to access the alternative/swash, using the Character Map (Windows), Nexus Font (Windows) Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters, using the Windows Character Map with Photoshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9vacoYmBw If you need help or advice, please contact me by email Thank you for watching!

The digital font Technotyp is based on the hot metal typeface created by the German typographer and type designer Herbert Thannhaeuser (1898-1963) for the former East German type foundry Typoart in Dresden. In the typography book ‘Der Schriftsetzer’ (Fachbuchverlag, Leipzig, 1952), by Paul Fritzsche, this absolutely beautiful slab serif design is presented in all its variations. Fritzsche remarked that – because of its rather condensed form and its relatively long ascenders – the 'Werkschrift' of the Technotyp (comparable with our 'Regular') seemed to be very well suited to serve as a text face, and recommended for this purpose that the face be cut for the composing machine. However, this never happened and the entire Technotyp family was made available for hand composition only. This is finally changing and being remedied for good now: URW++ proudly presents the new digital version of this really charming font family with its distinct flavor of the 1950s, adding it to the other digital renditions of Herbert Thannhaeuser fonts at URW++, namely Garamond No. 4 and Magna. The original Typoart family had an italic style for the light version only. The new digital version of Technotyp includes italic styles for the regular, medium and bold weights as well, enhancing the family to meet today’s standards and requirements for professional type setting. To further increase its usefulness, Cyrillic faces were created, too. True to the standard for all digital fonts at URW++, the character set for Technotyp covers all West- and East European languages.

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

Plantin is a family of text typefaces created by Monotype in 1913. Their namesake, Christophe Plantin (Christoffel Plantijn in Dutch), was born in France during the year 1520. In 1549, he moved to Antwerp, located in present-day Belgium. There he began printing in 1555. For a brief time, he also worked at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands. Typefaces used in Christophe Plantin's books inspired future typographic developments. In 1913, the English Monotype Corporation's manager Frank Hinman Pierpont directed the Plantin revival. Based on 16th century specimens from the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, specifically a type cut by Robert Granjon and a separate cursive Italic, the Plantin" typeface was conceived. Plantin was drawn for use in mechanical typesetting on the international publishing markets. Plantin, and the historical models that inspired it, are old-style typefaces in the French manner, but with x-height that are larger than those found in Claude Garamond's work. Plantin would go on to influence another Monotype design, Times New Roman. Stanley Morison and Victor Larent used Plantin as a reference during that typeface's cutting. Like Garamond, Plantin is exceptionally legible and makes a classic, elegant impression. Plantin is indeed a remarkably accommodating type face. The firm modelling of the strokes and the serifs in the letters make the mass appearance stronger than usual; the absence of thin elements ensures a good result on coated papers; and the compact structure of the letters, without loss of size makes Plantin one of the economical faces in use. In short, it is essentially an all-purpose face, excellent for periodical or jobbing work, and very effective in many sorts of book and magazine publishing. Plantin's Bold weight was especially optimized to provide ample contrast: bulkiness was avoided by introducing a slight sharpening to the serifs' forms."

In 1995, FontHaus came upon a rare opportunity to create a revival of Aries, a little known and previously unavailable typeface by the legendary Eric Gill. Discovering a lost typeface by one of the major designers of the 20th Century, was the discovery of a buried treasure, and being the first type company to release it was an honor. Thirteen years later, FontHaus came across another little known typeface treasure: Diane. Designed by the legendary French designer Roger Excoffon in 1956, this remarkable script has never been faithfully recreated until now. In close collaboration with Mark Simonson, FontHaus and Mr. Simonson painstakingly researched rare type books, publications, European metal type services, and period showings from the United States, England, Germany and from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Finding full specimens of the font turned out to be quite a challenge. In most cases, only the caps and lowercase were shown. Furthermore, the more we researched Diane, many curious facts came to light. The caps in earlier specimens of Diane are completely different from specimens published later, suggesting that the face was redesigned at some point, perhaps in the mid-1960s. So we are left with two different sets of caps. The original had very elaborate, swirly strokes, very characteristic of Excoffon¹s gestural designs for posters and logos. Later on, these appear to have been replaced by a set of simpler, more traditional script caps. The original caps are criticized in one source Mark found (Practical Handbook on Display Typefaces, 1959) as being "exquisite" but "not highly legible". Perhaps this is what led to the simpler caps being introduced. Nevertheless, FontHaus's release includes not only both sets of caps, but a range of alternates and a number of new characters not originally available such as the Euro, and a magnificent alternate Ampersand to name a few.

Rahere is a humanist sans with subtle features that give the typeface a distinctive, warm appearance without distracting the reader. Legible at large and small sizes, Rahere is a versatile family suitable for a wide range of applications such as annual reports, advertising, brochures, catalogues, information signage, screen text and visual identities. For projects that need to convey a sense of authority or credibility, this is the ideal sans serif to use. The family consists of six weights ranging from light to extra bold with corresponding italics and the character set covers most of the major European languages. Each weight contains lining & non-aligning numerals in both proportional & tabular spacing. The tabular numerals share the same width across all weights and styles – a must for financial tables in annual reports. Spirited and lively, the italic lowercase is more cursive and calligraphic than the roman, although it harmonises perfectly, displaying enough character to create emphasis without looking out of place. When used on its own, for pull-out quotes or poetry, the italic exudes a charm that draws attention to the text. The typeface is named after Rahere, a 12th-century Anglo-Norman priest, who founded St Bartholomew's Hospital, London in 1123. I will always be indebted to Barts (as it is now commonly known) because in 2007 I was successfully treated for relapsed testicular cancer. Way back in 1992 I designed my first sans serif, Charlotte Sans, and although it was relatively successful, I was never really satisfied with the end result: not enough weights & italics, a small character set, lack of accented characters, and my design skills were still in their infancy. Whilst Rahere shares many common elements with Charlotte Sans, it is much more than just a reworking; it represents over 20 years of accumulated knowledge and experience as a designer.

a, g, k and y It was a forensic examination by Jason Smith of his existing designs that laid the groundwork for FS Jack. Jason made a list of unique characteristics that would give the sans serif font its typographic thumbprint, which included an unusually large x-height and slightly off-the-wall letters like the lower-case “a”, “g”, “k” and “y”. “I wanted to make something that was slightly uncomfortable,” says Jason, “and in doing so simplify the quirkiness down to a few letters.” Fernando Mello did “the rest of the cooking”, filling the design out and making the additional weights. Tipos Latinos Upon its release in 2010, FS Jack was submitted by Fernando, who is Brazilian, for the esteemed type design biennial, Tipos Latinos, where it was selected as a winner in the Families category. It went on to be selected for type exhibitions throughout Latin America and around the world. “FS Jack is a workhorse,” says Fernando, “but also very ownable and distinctive, and available in a good range of weights, crafted by Jason and I.” Corporate “FS Jack took a couple of years to get noticed and is still fairly underused,” says Jason, “which is good in a way, for our Brandfont clients that have adopted it.” FS Jack was chosen as the signature font for The Shard in London, from its signage down to business cards. Fontsmith also worked with Lloyds Bank to customise FS Jack into a bespoke font for the bank’s updated brand identity – part of Fontsmith’s Brandfont service, which you can read about here. Fat Jack Included in the FS Jack family – just – is FS Jack Poster, the super-heavy weight of the range. “That was a last minute addition,” says Fernando, “after Jason and I started talking about how much we liked Gill KO, a typeface that is almost comically fat.”

The dearJoe series of fonts came to life around the year 1999, when I created dearJoe 1, which was a first (and half-assed) attempt to convert my own handwriting into a working font. Being able to type in my own hand had always been a childhood fantasy, and even though I only partly understood the software, a working font was generated and I decided to put it on the internet for people to use in their own personal projects. Which they did: at this moment the dearJoe 1 font has been downloaded millions of times and can be found on Vietnamese riksjas, Tasmanian gyms and chocolate stores on 5th Avenue for instance. The font is not something I am particularly proud of, but it started me of in building what's now the JOEBOB graphics foundry. Inbetween creating other fonts, the dearJoe series has become a theme I revisit every once in a while, trying to create an update on how my handwriting has evolved, along with my abilities in creating fonts that mimic actual handwriting. In the last decade or so I started implementing ligatures and alternate characters, which helped a lot in coming to a result that can almost pass for actual handwriting. The 2019 dearJoe 7 font is the latest addition to this font family. All characters were scanned from handwritten notes, cherrypicking the characters and letter-combinations I liked best. They were written with a Lamy M66 B pen and only minor adjustments were made to the original scans, leaving most little flaws and rough edges as they were for a convincing ball-point on paper result. The font comes with over 150 ligatures, making sure the font has a variated and credible overall look and feel.