Coco Sharp is the newest evolution of the Coco typographic project, developed since 2013 by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini for the foundry Zetafonts, with the help of Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli. Influenced by vernacular grotesques sign-painting and modernist ideals, and inspired by the classy aesthetic of fashion icon Coco Chanel, Coco is drawn on a classic geometric sans skeleton but applies humanist proportions and visual corrections to key letters with the aim to create a warmer, subtly vintage texture on the page and on the screen. Coco Sharp drops the rounded corners of previous incarnations (Coco Gothic and Cocogoose) to pair the typeface display and logo capability with a sharper definition for text use. As in the other Coco families, a wide range of alternate letterforms allows to express different historical moods, including elegant, quirky and unexpected designs able to transform a simple word in a memorable wordmark. The other peculiarity of Coco Sharp lies in the wide choice of x-heights given to the user, both by providing a variable version and five graded sub-families, that allows designers to fine-control text readability and space usage. Large and XLarge versions provide big and easily readable lowercase letters, perfect for small point size typesetting or bold copywriting; Small and XSmall provide smaller lowercase letters with the elegant proportions of Futura and its modernist eponyms, optimized for display use or for adding a classy flare to body text; the Regular x-height offers a "one size fits all" solution that works both for texts and for display use. Alle the 60 weights of Coco Sharp come with a full set of open type features allowing faultless typesetting thanks to small capitals, positional numbers & case sensitive forms. Use Coco Sharp out of the box as a solid workhorse family or enjoy discovering the limitless possibilities of its 2000+ latin, cyrillic and greek glyphs covering over 200 languages worldwide. • Suggested uses: perfect for modern branding and logo design, editorial design, web design, packaging and countless other projects; • 62 styles: 6 weights + 6 italics x 5 different x-heights + 2 variable fonts; • 2011 glyphs in each weight; • Useful OpenType features: Access All Alternates, Small Capitals From Capitals, Case-Sensitive Forms, Glyph Composition / Decomposition, Denominators, Fractions, Kerning, Lining Figures, Localized Forms, Mark Positioning, Mark to Mark Positioning, Alternate Annotation Forms, Numerators, Oldstyle Figures, Ordinals, Proportional Figures, Stylistic Alternates, Scientific Inferiors, Small Capitals, Stylistic Set 1, Stylistic Set 2, Stylistic Set 3, Stylistic Set 4, Stylistic Set 5, Stylistic Set 6, Stylistic Set 7, Stylistic Set 8, Stylistic Set 9, Subscript, Superscript, Tabular Figures, Slashed Zero • 220 languages supported (extended Latin, Cyrillic, Greek alphabets): English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Javanese (Latin), Vietnamese, Turkish, Italian, Polish, Afaan Oromo, Azeri, Tagalog, Sundanese (Latin), Filipino, Moldovan, Romanian, Indonesian, Dutch, Cebuano, Igbo, Malay, Uzbek (Latin), Kurdish (Latin), Swahili, Greek, Hungarian, Czech, Haitian Creole, Hiligaynon, Afrikaans, Somali, Zulu, Serbian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Shona, Quechua, Albanian, Catalan, Chichewa, Ilocano, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Neapolitan, Xhosa, Tshiluba, Slovak, Danish, Gikuyu, Finnish, Norwegian, Sicilian, Sotho (Southern), Kirundi, Tswana, Sotho (Northern), Belarusian (Latin), Turkmen (Latin), Bemba, Lombard, Lithuanian, Tsonga, Wolof, Jamaican, Dholuo, Galician, Ganda, Low Saxon, Waray-Waray, Makhuwa, Bikol, Kapampangan (Latin), Aymara, Zarma, Ndebele, Slovenian, Tumbuka, Venetian, Genoese, Piedmontese, Swazi, Zazaki, Latvian, Nahuatl, Silesian, Bashkir (Latin), Sardinian, Estonian, Afar, Cape Verdean Creole, Maasai, Occitan, Tetum, Oshiwambo, Basque, Welsh, Chavacano, Dawan, Montenegrin, Walloon, Asturian, Kaqchikel, Ossetian (Latin), Zapotec, Frisian, Guadeloupean Creole, Q’eqchi’, Karakalpak (Latin), Crimean Tatar (Latin), Sango, Luxembourgish, Samoan, Irish, Maltese, Tzotzil, Fijian, Friulian, Icelandic, Sranan, Wayuu, Papiamento, Aromanian, Corsican, Breton, Amis, Gagauz (Latin), Māori, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Alsatian, Atayal, Kiribati, Seychellois Creole, Võro, Tahitian, Scottish Gaelic, Chamorro, Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), Kashubian, Faroese, Rarotongan, Sorbian (Upper Sorbian), Karelian (Latin), Romansh, Chickasaw, Arvanitic (Latin), Nagamese Creole, Saramaccan, Ladin, Kaingang, Palauan, Sami (Northern Sami), Sorbian (Lower Sorbian), Drehu, Wallisian, Aragonese, Mirandese, Tuvaluan, Xavante, Zuni, Montagnais, Hawaiian, Marquesan, Niuean, Yapese, Vepsian, Bislama, Hopi, Megleno-Romanian, Creek, Aranese, Rotokas, Tokelauan, Mohawk, Onĕipŏt, Warlpiri, Cimbrian, Sami (Lule Sami), Jèrriais, Arrernte, Murrinh-Patha, Kala Lagaw Ya, Cofán, Gwich’in, Seri, Sami (Southern Sami), Istro-Romanian, Wik-Mungkan, Anuta, Cornish, Sami (Inari Sami), Yindjibarndi, Noongar, Hotcąk (Latin), Meriam Mir, Manx, Shawnee, Gooniyandi, Ido, Wiradjuri, Hän, Ngiyambaa, Delaware, Potawatomi, Abenaki, Esperanto, Folkspraak, Interglossa, Interlingua, Latin, Latino sine Flexione, Lojban, Novial, Occidental, Old Icelandic, Old Norse, Slovio (Latin), Volapük;

Iza W and Intellecta Design are proud to announce Invitation Script, a modern and clean revival of the classic work of the Portuguese master penman Manuel de Andrade de Figueiredo, whose work can be seen in “Nova Escola para aprender a ler, escrever, e contar (...)'' (1722). Invitation Script is the third script superfamily published by Intellecta Design, after Penabico and Van den Velde Script. Invitation Script has original letters designed by Iza W. Creative direction and core programming were provided by Paulo W. Chyrllene K assisted with some work on unusual and archaic styles, resulting in a special font - Invitation Script Archaic (soon available). Invitation started out from Andrade’s script style and evolved into a voluptuous script font family. The result is a typeface ideal for beautiful headings, signatures, art work typography, titles and short pieces of hand-lettered text. Invitation family includes two multi-table Opentype fonts, three supplementary fonts for ornaments and fleurons, and the Archaic font with some of the Andrade’s original characters. Embedded in the regular fonts are additional sets of letters. Over 40 variations are available for certain letters via the Special Sets Opentype table. The two regular versions of Invitation Script contains the following: (i) An extensive set of ligatures providing letterform variations that make eye-popping designs or simulate real handwriting. These are accessible via contextual alternates and other open-type features. (ii) Many stylistic alternates for each letter (upper and lowercase, accessed via the glyph palette, encoded in the ranges of the Special Set Opentype feature). Since there are over 1100 glyphs in each font, we suggest using the glyph palette. (iii) A set of ornaments and fleurons accessed with the glyph palette or using the Ornaments feature. Additional ornaments can be found in the two Invitation Script Ornaments fonts. (iv) Initial and final letters with artistic variations accessible using the initial and final form open-type features. (v) Major kerning work: over 6000 kerning pairs, hand-set to avoid collisions and to create intricate combinations of letters, using swashes and other resources. These powerful features are all accessible in InDesign, Illustrator, QuarkXpress and similar software. We recommend exploring the magic of this font using the glyph palette. Our sample illustrations and PDF brochures showcase the power and pizzazz of this calligraphic script. Let your imagination go wild and use Invitation Script in ways that Andrade could not have foreseen. In non-OpenType-savvy applications, Invitation Script is still an exceptionally beautiful calligraphic typeface that stands up to the competition. The regular fonts contains the complete Latin alphabet, including Central European, Vietnamese, Baltic and Turkish, with a full set of diacritics and punctuation marks. --- 1 FIGUEIREDO, Manuel de Andrade de, 1670-1735 Nova Escola para aprender a ler, escrever, e contar. Offerecida á Augusta Magestade do Senhor Dom Joaõ V. Rey de Portugal. Primeira parte / por Manoel de Andrade de Figueiredo, Mestre desta Arte nas cidades de Lisboa Occidental, e Oriental. - Lisboa Occidental: na Officina de Bernardo da Costa de Carvalho, Impressor do Serenissimo Senhor Infante, 1722. - [18], 156 p., 44 f. grav. a buril : il., ; 2º (31 cm)Engraved royal coat of arms supported by angels over the city of Lisbon, engraved portrait of the author (both of the foregoing by Bernard Picart), (12)ff., 156pp., engraved calligraphic section title, 44 engraved plates. Wood-engraved culs-de-lampe and lettrines. Sm. folio. “Andrade de Figueiredo was born in Espirito Santo, where his father was Governor of the ‘Capitania.’ The fine portrait is dated 1721 and is showing Figueiredo at the age of 48. He was an eminent calligrapher and a creator of the Portuguese handwriting until the reign of Don José I (ca. 1755). His work follows the style of the great Italian masters in its use of clubbed ascenders and descenders, and of Diaz Morante, the famous Spanish writing master, in its very elaborate show of command of hand. By his contemporaries, he was known as the ‘Morante portugues’” (Ekström). “Ce livre est un manuel, composé de quatre parties, destiné à apprendre à lire, à écrire, à conter ainsi que l’orthographe. Les planches comportent des examples d’écritures, d’alphabets et de textes ornés de remarquables traits de plume exécutés d’une main sûre et enjouée” (Jammes).

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