In May of this year, I went to Japan with my (then 11 year old) son Sam. It was his dream to visit Japan, probably because of my tall tales, stemming from the time I was a tour guide! Sam really wanted to try all kinds of Japanese delicacies and one day, when walking around Tokyo, we came across a little stall selling Taiyaki. Taiyaki are fish-shaped waffle/cakes with a red bean or sweet potato filling. They are really delicious! This nice ‘oriental looking’ font was made with a broken popsicle stick and Chinese ink. You are now wondering why I always use Chinese ink and not Japanese ink. Well, I have a stash of the Chinese stuff and it’ll last me a lifetime!

Her father named her Estella Dawn, or morning star. She truly shines bright, for as the owner of Stella Roberts Fonts, she has dedicated part of her net profits to helping her siblings pay for their medication; they both suffer from Cystic Fibrosis and diabetes. Calm in spirit, loyal to friends and family, nurturing and caring-- Stella has been a friend of Jeff Levine's for years. His Estella JNL font was dedicated to her, as is this other namesake font, Morningstar JNL. The design is a cross between retro-techno and a slight calligraphic touch.

Everyone likes getting a handwritten letter. At least, they would if anyone still hand wrote letters. We heard a story about a type designer who gets a Christmas card from his niece. He’s been out of touch with her for years and is both delighted and surprised to receive a handwritten note. His first thought is “How sweet; how very nice to hear from her.” His second thought is,”Great font potential; I could use this.” And he did. Carissa has a fresh, spontaneous feel, with a wonderful use of uppercase letters (B and R, etc.) within the lower case. Useful as a personal font or for an off-beat menu...

Among the world of Chinese commercial fonts, M Qing Hua has a relatively high flexibility to be used in different areas, for instance, media of advertising. Its design concept is to combine the neatness of Hei typeface with the roundedness of Yuen typeface. The typeface tries to revitalize the boring traditional design by adding energy, simplicity and modernness to it, which could be shown in the small features in strokes like delicate and curvy finishings. More is the appropriate mix of masculinity and femininity, so as to enable a more effective communication, stronger visual attractiveness and higher affections.

Among the world of Chinese commercial fonts, M Qing Hua has a relatively high flexibility to be used in different areas, for instance, media of advertising. Its design concept is to combine the neatness of Hei typeface with the roundedness of Yuen typeface. The typeface tries to revitalize the boring traditional design by adding energy, simplicity and modernness to it, which could be shown in the small features in strokes like delicate and curvy finishings. More is the appropriate mix of masculinity and femininity, so as to enable a more effective communication, stronger visual attractiveness and higher affections.

Boy, they're everywhere. One of your neighbors is probably one of them, Freaking super-heroes (TM, ©, ®, SM blah blah blah) are more ubiquitous in cities these days than Simon Cowell is on talent shows. Notice how that guy on the subway -- the one with the boy scout haircut? -- see how he keeps his shirt buttoned all the way up? He's not sweating either... that's 'cause he's probably from some dead planet that exploded twenty years ago. His REAL parents wrapped him in blankets and, when he turned 18, his Ma on Earth turned those same blankets into Long Underwear for her foster son. He's probably wearing his long underwear right now. That's why he's smiling at you through his horn rimmed glasses. He thinks you don't know. Thinks he's special. Thinks he's a super-hero (TM, ©, ®, SM blah blah blah). Ain't that Super?

This pearl by Kevin King was the best faux chinese font I've ever come over, and now it can be used for setting themed text and menus in many more languages! :) Kevin King says: "I have said before you know - I can if I want to (Stamp! Scowl!). Cod Chinese of the worst kind, I wanted a "Chinese" font for a project and couldn't find what I wanted. I painted this font with a Chinese brush and imported the resultant mess - it's been a while since I did any Chinese calligraphy - add that to the fact that I don't read or speak Chinese..." ALL fonts from CheapProFonts have very extensive language support: They contain some unusual diacritic letters (some of which are contained in the Latin Extended-B Unicode block) supporting: Cornish, Filipino (Tagalog), Guarani, Luxembourgian, Malagasy, Romanian, Ulithian and Welsh. They also contain all glyphs in the Latin Extended-A Unicode block (which among others cover the Central European and Baltic areas) supporting: Afrikaans, Belarusian (Lacinka), Bosnian, Catalan, Chichewa, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Kashubian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Maori, Polish, Saami (Inari), Saami (North), Serbian (latin), Slovak(ian), Slovene, Sorbian (Lower), Sorbian (Upper), Turkish and Turkmen. And they of course contain all the usual "western" glyphs supporting: Albanian, Basque, Breton, Chamorro, Danish, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galican, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish (Gaelic), Italian, Northern Sotho, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romance, Sami (Lule), Sami (South), Scots (Gaelic), Spanish, Swedish, Tswana, Walloon and Yapese.

A soft spoken sorceress whispers sweet somethings in your shell-like ear. Her words excite and enthrall, tantalize and tease, they soothe and seduce, stimulate and sustain you, they awaken and arouse you, they entice and engorge you, they -- oh, I'm sorry, what was I supposed to be saying? Oh yeah, from the pages of DC Comics' Vertigo title, THE WITCHING HOUR, and Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo's STEAMPUNK, Comicraft is happy to make available one of our most requested fonts... Hey, what happened to that cute girl with the white hair? And, Hey, Where's my wallet?!?

The display typeface that is based on the shapes of traditional Chinese hieroglyphic characters. Designing the font for imitations in the Chinese style the author nevertheless demonstrates serious attitude and thoroughness using the table of keys of the regular Kaishu script. As a result the font looks stylistically authentic and genuine. The typeface was designed by Aleksandra Egorova, the young type designer from St. Petersburg, and released by ParaType in 2008 .

Corporate design and branding across global markets requires a universal typographic identity. The timeless, world-famous classic Neue Helvetica® typeface is now available as World fonts in the six most important styles. With support for a total of 181 languages, Monotype’s Neue Helvetica® World typeface family is suitable to meet the typographic and linguistic demands of large international brands, corporations, publishing houses, and software and hardware developers. Neue Helvetica World’s language support covers the pan-European area (extended Latin alphabet, Cyrillic and Greek) as well as Arabic, Hebrew, Armenian, Georgian, Thai and Vietnamese. The Cyrillic alphabet contains not only the standard options, but also the complete Unicode block u+0400. In addition, a large number of new global currency symbols have been included such as the Russian ruble, Turkish lira, Indian rupee and Azerbaijani manat. Neue Helvetica World is offered as OpenType font with TrueType (.ttf) or PostScript CFF (.otf) outlines. The files size are reasonably small, ranging from 140 to 270 KB depending on format and style. The uprights each include 1708 glyphs and the italics have 1285 glyphs (some scripts, such as Arabic, do not have an italic design). Typeface pairings for further global support Should the language support of Neue Helvetica World still not be sufficient for your markets, there are numerous other typefaces available which perfectly complement Neue Helvetica World. These are our recommendations for South and East Asia languages: - Devanagari: Saral Devanagari - Japanese: Tazugane Gothic or Yu Gothic - Korean: YD Gothic 100 or YD Gothic 700 - Simplified Chinese: M Ying Hei PRC or M Hei PRC - Traditional Chinese: M Ying Hei HK or M Hei HK Please contact a Monotype representative for other pairing recommendations or typographic consultations.

Ascender™ Uni is a proportionally spaced comprehensive Unicode-compatible font with support for the Unicode Standard, v2.1 (supporting most major code pages and character sets in modern use). Ascender Uni is a 39MB TrueType (TTF) font with approximately 53,000 glyphs. The Latin and related glyphs (designed by Steve Matteson) are Sans Serif, with Gothic ideographs drawn in Japanese style, and complementary styles for other scripts. There are also versions of Ascender Uni that provide localized support for Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. OpenType layout support is included for Arabic (initial, medial, final, isolate, and required ligature forms, as well as basic mark positioning), and vertical writing for CJK locales (consisting mostly of Latin, symbol, punctuation, and kana glyph variants). Character Set: Latin-1, WGL Pan-European (Eastern Europe, Cyrillic, Greek and Turkish), Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Arabic. NOTE: Not all applications provide complete support for all the glyphs in this Unicode font.

Helena derived her curves from the old Chinese Tangram puzzle. She sure is playful, though sometimes she bites furiously. No worries! Helena may seem to be a tad crazy, but all in good moderation. Don’t go overboard, use her well and I can assure you … she’ll be worth all your effort.

Lianhua is a handwritten font with a soft touch, given by a Chinese ink brush. There are lots of Chinese western fonts having a strong, sharp visual feeling, like the strokes of Chinese characters, so I decide to do the opposite: soft. Because except for Yang, there is also Yin in Chinese culture. The name 'Lianhua' means lotus in Chinese. This font is flexible and widely-used, it's suited for book titles, posters, brochures, flyers, even for menus of a Chinese restaurant. The total glyphs in this font is 351, including basic Latin letters and symbols, Latin-Expand A, 10 ligatures and 2 alternate letters, which are the letter g and letter y.

Kempoka is a Japanese word describing someone who practices Kempo. Kempo, or Chuan Fa in Chinese, is a martial art with roots in China and Japan. I thought of this brush font just before my weekly kempo-training and I figured the name suited the font style. Kempoka comes with alternates and ligatures, and has a black belt in diacritics!

Qipao is a display monospace handwriting font. The typeface is a distinct hand drawn font using a felt marker. The Qipao name is derived from the traditional Chinese dress that Manchu women wore in China in the 17th century and became known as the qipao (旗袍), meaning “banner gown”. Qipao is great for display work, invitations, writing, architecture, posters, logos and headings.

Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed. Elegant but with that distance that well-defined forms seem to impose. Her voice, however, was sweeter, closer, and when she spoke her name, like a slow whisper, one felt like what she had come to say could be read in her image. Rufina's story can only be told through a detour because her origin does not coincide with her birth. Rufina was born on a Sunday afternoon while her father was drawing black letters on a white background, and her mother was trying to join those same letters to form words that could tell a story. But her origin goes much further back, and that is why she is pierced by a story that precedes her, even though it is not her own. Maybe her origin can be traced back to that autumn night in which that tall man with that distant demeanor ran into that woman with that sweet smile and elegant aspect. He looked at her in such a way that he was trapped by that gaze, even though they found no words to say to each other, and they stayed in silence. Somehow, some words leaked into that gaze because since that moment they were never apart again. Later, after they started talking, projects started coming up and then coexistence and arguments, routines and mismatches. But in that chaos of crossed words in their life together, something was stable through the silence of the gazes. In those gazes, the silent words sustained that indescribable love that they didn't even try to understand. And in one of those silences, Rufina appeared, when that man told that woman that he needed a text to try out his new font, and she saw him look at her with that same fascination of the first time, and she started to write something with those forms that he was giving her as a gift. Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed, wrote her mother when Rufina was born.

ITC Obelisk is the work of British designer Phill Grimshaw. He classified his typeface as glyphic" in style, meaning chiseled rather than calligraphic in form. ITC Obelisk is a legible, elegant text typeface."

Oyuki's Ghost is a scary typeface made with a steel pen and Chinese Ink. The name comes from a painting by Maruyama Okyo (1733–1795), which depicts his mistress who died young. Maruyama Okyo claimed she haunted him in his sleep. The font comes with extensive language support.

ITC Greengate is the result of a time-traveling, intercontinental collaboration--one between 21st century South African designer Richard Every, and early 20th century Scottish artist Jessie Marion King. Jessie Marion King (1875-1949) began her professional career as a book designer and illustrator, but over time her creativity found its outlet in many forms, including posters, jewelry, ceramics, wallpaper, fabrics, murals, interior design and costumes. After eventually settling in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, she founded Green Gate Close, a center for women artists. Although her style is reminiscent of the Art Nouveau artist, Aubrey Beardsley, King's aesthetic was an offshoot of the “Glasgow Style,” a Scottish hybrid of the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau. Often, her illustrations included hand lettering. It was just this kind of lettering that gave Richard Every his inspiration for ITC Greengate. When he saw some children's book illustrations that King created in 1898, he knew on the spot he had to complete the hand lettering as a typographic font. He began working on the typeface in 1996, but it took six years to be released as an ITC typeface. Every simplified and harmonized King's letterforms slightly and, most importantly, added a suite of lowercase characters. The result is a somewhat earthy Art Nouveau design, with a character quite distinct from typical digital revivals. Every's career has been as diverse as King's. He was born in Durban, South Africa and studied graphic design at ML Sultan Technikon in Durban. He's been an art director, freelance designer, the owner and manager of a nightclub and co-manager of a South African band. “Through it all,” he says, “typography has always been one of my passions.”

Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed. Elegant but with that distance that well-defined forms seem to impose. Her voice, however, was sweeter, closer, and when she spoke her name, like a slow whisper, one felt like what she had come to say could be read in her image. Rufina’s story can only be told through a detour because her origin does not coincide with her birth. Rufina was born on a Sunday afternoon while her father was drawing black letters on a white background, and her mother was trying to join those same letters to form words that could tell a story. But her origin goes much further back, and that is why she is pierced by a story that precedes her, even though it is not her own. Maybe her origin can be traced back to that autumn night in which that tall man with that distant demeanor ran into that woman with that sweet smile and elegant aspect. He looked at her in such a way that he was trapped by that gaze, even though they found no words to say to each other, and they stayed in silence. Somehow, some words leaked into that gaze because since that moment they were never apart again. Later, after they started talking, projects started coming up and then coexistence and arguments, routines and mismatches. But in that chaos of crossed words in their life together, something was stable through the silence of the gazes. In those gazes, the silent words sustained that indescribable love that they didn’t even try to understand. And in one of those silences, Rufina appeared, when that man told that woman that he needed a text to try out his new font, and she saw him look at her with that same fascination of the first time, and she started to write something with those forms that he was giving her as a gift. Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed, wrote her mother when Rufina was born. Photo (Fragilité): Karin Topolanski / Post: Raw (www.raw.com.uy) - María Pérez Gutiérrez

Song ASC is a Traditional Chinese family with Big 5 support. Song ASC features a serif stroke style. The Song ASC font character set supports Latin-1 and Traditional Chinese (code page 950).

Hairline fonts are very clean, shining, elegant and even luxurious. They look great in fashion magazines, in the expansive world of beauty and glory. Messner is an extra-light all-caps face, especially suitable for larger sizes. Simplicity, purity and readability of its classic forms were on the first place in the creation process. Messner was a resource for designing the Kammerlander family and their combination looks very natural.

M Circus HK is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

M Ngai HK is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

M Lave HK is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

M Cascade HK is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

M Yoyo HK is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

M Windy PRC is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

M Stream HK is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

M Rocky HK is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

M Computer HK is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

Lüdickital is a handwriting script design. Lüdicke wasn´t satisfied with existing scripts which he though of too stylish and uneven. He simply digitized his own handwriting and developed a regular and a bold.

M J Ngai HK is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

M Bitmap Round HK is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

M Bitmap Square HK is a graphic style Traditional Chinese typeface. Graphic font designs have strong personalities and visual impact. Graphic style Traditional Chinese fonts feature decorative elements and pronounced graphics characteristics, suitable for catching attention in display applications.

I have always liked Scandinavian folklore, although I have to admit that I didn’t know about the Fossegrim. Fossegrim is a fiddle or harp playing water sprite - usually friendly, but he has been known to lure children and women in deep water with his music. Fossegrim font is a little bit weird as well: I made it using a broken bamboo satay skewer and Chinese ink. It comes with extensive language support and a set of alternates for the lower case letters.