Houschka Alt Pro is a carbon copy of the Houschka Pro family with one key difference: the rounded signature glyphs A & W on the default positions swap places with their straight alternates. Houschka was named after Georg Houschka, a sadly defunct confectioner’s shop in Salzburg, Austria, which had a wonderful 1930s frontage and distinctively rounded letterforms in the sign above the door. Houschka Pro is the follow up to the original Houschka type family which first appeared back in 1999. Character shapes have been improved, kerning and spacing refined, and OpenType features include CE, Baltic, Turkish & Cyrillic language support plus small caps, 3 stylistic sets, contextual alternates, ligatures and 4 sets of numerals. Houschka is a clean and legible modern sans serif typeface which shares the humanist qualities of Gill Sans and Johnston but retains a uniquely charming character of its own (particularly in signature glyphs A, G, Q, W, u & w). The monolinear structure, rounded corners and rolling curves give Houschka a soft and friendly appearance.

Originally commissioned in 1979 as a new corporate typeface for Volkswagen AG, the VAG Rounded™ family’s geometric sans letterforms feature distinct rounded terminals, imparting the design with a friendly, approachable demeanor. With its design led by Gerry Barney, the VAG Rounded family remained in use for Volkswagen AG’s unified, worldwide automobile marketing for over a decade. The design was released for public use in 1989, and was bundled with many desktop publishing software titles available at the time. This opened the door for millions of computer users to work with the VAG Rounded type family. Available in four weights—from thin to black the VAG Rounded family is an apt choice for logo design, identity systems, or any application where a typographic warmth is desired. For contrast in voice, consider pairing the design with a more reserved serif typeface, or a sans serif with narrow styles, such as those found in the Alternate Gothic, Trade Gothic, or FF DIN type families.

Are you trying to find a font to get your brand globally accepted? Worry no more as Decking is the key to unlock the door. Decking is a racing-themed script font to give you artistic, firm impressions due to the balance between solid designs and unique strokes on the edges of each character. The font’s thickness is able to show you the power to any title or header you make. In addition, Decking is still suitable to apply to smaller-sized texts owing to its good legibility. The available features in this font are: Stylistic Sets Ligatures Swashes Multilingual Supports PUA Encoded Numerals and Punctuations Decking fits best for various designs, such as posters, banners, logos, book covers, headings, printed products, merchandise, social media, and more. Find out more ways to use this font by taking a look at the font preview. Enjoy your experience with this font and feel free to contact us for further product information or trouble complaints. Thank you and wish you good luck with your designs.

Inspired by the interior of a now defunct Mosler Safe Company bank vault door located inside of what is now an Irish Pub in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Mosler is a typeface that is impenetrability incarnate. This all uppercase, slab-serif brawny beauty comes in four weights - Safe, Strongbox, Vault, and Fortress, and each one is more powerful than the last. Each weight has 450 glyphs included, making for a whopping 1800 glyphs for the full family, complete with small capitals, total support for nearly 80 different languages, decorative word glyphs, and a handful of select alternates. Ranging from the low contrast of the "Safe" weight to the extreme contrast of the "Fortress" weight, Mosler is effective in a wide array of applications but serves best as a titling, headlining, or display face that need to make a mammoth statement. Features Include: 4 Weights Uppercase Only with Small Capitals Numerals, Punctuation & Symbols 450 Characters per Style Stylistic Alternates and Word Glyphs Supports 75+ Latin Languages OTF files Designed and Developed by Jason Carne

Houschka was named after Georg Houschka, a sadly defunct confectioner’s shop in Salzburg, Austria, which had a wonderful 1930’s frontage and distinctively rounded letterforms in the sign above the door. Houschka Pro is the follow up to the original Houschka type family which first appeared back in 1999. Character shapes have been improved, kerning and spacing refined, and OpenType features include CE, Baltic, Turkish & Cyrillic language support plus small caps, 3 stylistic sets, contextual alternates, ligatures and 4 sets of numerals. Houschka is a clean and legible modern sans serif typeface which shares the humanist qualities of Gill Sans and Johnston but retains a uniquely charming character of its own (particularly in signature glyphs A, G, Q, W, u & w). The monolinear structure, rounded corners and rolling curves give Houschka a soft and friendly appearance. Houschka Alt Pro is a carbon copy of the Houschka Pro family with one key difference: the rounded signature glyphs A & W on the default positions swap places with their straight alternates.

Phinney Jenson ML is a font with deep historical roots firmly planted in the fertile soil of the Italian Renaissance. Twenty years after Lorenzo Ghiberti finished his famous East Doors, the Gates of Paradise, of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and about fifteen years before Sandro Botticelli painted his “Birth of Venus,” a French printer by the name of Nicolas Jenson set up a small print shop in the powerful city-state of Venice. The fifteenth century marked the end of the plague and the rise of Venetian power, as the merchants of Venice controlled the lucrative trade of the eastern Mediterranean and sent their ships as far as London and even the Baltic. In 1470, Jenson introduced his Roman type with the printing of De Praeparatio Evangelica by Eusebuis. He continued to use his type for over 150 editions until he died in 1480. In 1890 a leader of the Arts & Crafts movement in England named William Morris founded Kelmscott Press. He was an admirer of Jenson’s Roman and drew his own somewhat darker version called GOLDEN, which he used for the hand-printing of limited editions on homemade paper, initiating the revival of fine printing in England. Morris' efforts came to the attention of Joseph Warren Phinney, manager of the Dickinson Type Foundry of Boston. Phinney requested permission to issue a commercial version, but Morris was philosophically opposed and flatly refused. So Phinney designed a commercial variation of Golden type and released it in 1893 as Jenson Oldstyle. Phinney Jenson is our version of Phinney’s version of Morris' version of Nicolas Jenson’s Roman. We selected a view of the Piazza San Marco in Venice for our gallery illustration of Phinney Jenson ML because most of the principal buildings on the Piazza were already standing when Jenson arrived in Vienna in 1470. The original Campanile was completed in 1173 (the 1912 replacement is partially visible on the left). The Basilica di San Marco was substantially complete by 1300. The Doge’s Palace (not in the photo, but next to the Basilica) was substantially complete by 1450. Even the Torre dell'Orologio (Clock Tower) may have been completed by 1470—certainly by 1500. Phinney Jenson ML has a "rough-and-ready" strength, suitable for headlines and short blocks of text. We have sought to preserve some of the crudeness of the nineteenth-century original. For comparison, see the more refined Centaur, Bruce Rogers's interpretation of Jenson Roman. Phinney Jenson ML has a strong presence that will help your documents stand out from the Times New Roman blizzard that threatens to cover us all. Phinney Jenson ML Features: 1. Glyphs for the 1252 Western Europe, 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Accented glyphs for Cornish and Old Gaelic. Total of 393 glyphs. 400 kerning pairs. 2. OpenType GSUB layout features: onum, pnum, salt, liga, dlig, hisy and ornm. 3. Tabular (std), proportional (opt) & old-style numbers (opt). 5. CcNnOoSsZz-kreska available (salt).

By the 1990s, the availability of font creation software opened the door to an explosion of creativity, experimentation and exploration into the world of digital typography by amateur and professional alike. The undisputed king of the freeware fonts was Ray Larabie through his Larabie Fonts website. It seemed at the time that Ray’s output was endless, and he amassed dozens upon dozens of fonts that ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime. In fact, Ray was the driving force of encouragement and a behind-the-scenes “mentor” who helped Jeff Levine Fonts get underway in January of 2006. As Larabie’s focus changed to higher-quality commercial type design with the launch of Typodermic, Inc., many of his “less than perfect” font experiments were withdrawn and shelved. Ray eventually turned those lost (and sometimes questionable) typefaces into a bundled zip archive released into the public domain through Creative Commons. One particular design “Boron” (circa 1996) featured computer-oriented lettering as if etched onto a circuit board. Running with this idea, and with Ray's approval, the electronic elements were stripped away, the characters cleaned up and modified, and the font reworked in Retro Checkbook JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

“Break on through to the other side” of design with Densmore, the typeface inspired by The Doors. Created with geometric shapes and a hand-drawn touch, this font pays homage to the band’s iconic logo. Featuring three styles, including the regular, blue, and pink, Densmore is perfect for any creative project. Take your design to the next level and experiment with layer effects by offsetting and changing colors. And with ligatures that automatically replace double lowercase “o” combinations with a mirrored “oo” combo, you can add a touch of cool to any project. “Light my fire” and download Densmore today! Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, 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, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, 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.

Introducing Heroid, the typeface that’s as powerful as a superhero! With its bold and daring letterforms, this font is guaranteed to make your design stand out from the crowd. Heroid comes in both regular and bold, so you can choose just how much of an impact you want to make. And with a selection of alternate caps, you can customize your design even further, making it truly one-of-a-kind. This typeface is so strong, it could punch its way through a steel door! So why settle for a plain, boring font when you can have Heroid, the typeface that’s as heroic as you are. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, 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, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, 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.

Say hello to another of my hot and trendy scripts, Hot Script! I got the inspiration for this one in the world of sign painters. My neighbourhood, and more specifically the avenue were I live, is very well known for its ''parrillas'': For those who don't know what this means, well, it may be better to live the experience rather than reading these lines. Villa Urquiza is full of restaurants with an argentinian flavour, with a ''gauchezco'' feel. Here you can taste some of the best ''asados'' in the entire world. Ok, this made me hungry, let's go back to type: These amazing venues still mantain genuine elements from the past, and try to preserve the beauty of the handcrafted. Parrillas of Buenos Aires have all their walls, windows and doors lettered with chalk or paint. I've always wanted to make a font out of that, and Hot Script is my first attempt. I believe the results are great! Hot Script follows some rules of the flat brush (see terminals, and tails especially in caps) but its contrast of thicks and thins was manually altered to make the font better for a wider range of uses. Although the sexy curves and versatility of Hot seemed to be enough, I decided to spice it a little more by creating some layers for it: Hot Script Shine Solo or Hot Script Shades Solo combined with Hot Script will give outstanding results. (Look for them combined in the posters above and dare to deny it!) Go make your project more savory! This font is Hot, hot, hot!

Take your typography to the next level with Super Sabretooth. A vigorous, rebellious brush font designed to bring the noise, start the fun, and leave any inhibitions at the door. It pushes lettering limits to the extreme and breaks down any boundaries on it's journey there. Super Sabretooth is packed full of great features & added extras, providing everything you need to create highly charged typography designs. Here's what this family consists of: Super Sabretooth • A high energy brush font containing upper & lowercase characters, numerals and a large range of punctuation. Super Sabretooth All Caps • This is a second version of Super Sabretooth, with all lowercase characters replaced with a brand new set of small-caps. Use this font as a larger & louder alternative to the regular version. Quick Tip! If you want more freedom, you can combine the two font sets together to create truly awesome customised typography, they will work in harmony as well as being strong standalone fonts. There are no rules with it - play around, mix it up, have fun, and enjoy the ride! Super Sabretooth Swashes • Still looking for even MORE features? Alrighty, check out this extra font containing 17 swashes and 9 paint splatters, designed to add the perfect finishing touch to underline & exaggerate your Super Sabretooth lettering. Simply type any a-z character in this font to generate the extras. Fonts include multilingual support for the following languages; English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Norweigen, Danish, Dutch, Turkish, Polish, Finnish, Romanian, Hungarian, Estonian, Filipino, Indonesian, Icelandic, Romansh, Welsh Thanks for checking it out, and remember: Push the Limits.

Conrad X. 'Cobb' Shinn (Sept. 4, 1887- Jan. 28, 1951) was a Fillmore, Indiana-born post card illustrator who sold a series of successful novelty postcard lines which included (among others) Charlie Chaplin, automobiles and the Dutch culture in the beginning years of the 20th Century. After serving in World War I, Shinn found the market for novelty postcards dwindling, and he also lent his artistic skills to cartoon features and illustrating many children's books [including his own, under the nickname 'Uncle Cobb'] which taught easy step-by-step drawing methods. Some time in the 1920s, he eventually migrated into the field of supplying electrotypes and stereotypes of 'stock cuts' of photos and line art to the printing trade. In the days of letterpress printing, this was the forerunner of paper clip art and its successor, electronic clip art. Purchasing many of his designs from 'journeyman' artists of the time, the diversity of Cobb Shinn's stock cuts library grew with the passing years, reflecting changing times, styles and topics. Some of the illustrators whose signed works were presented in Shinn's 'CUTalogs' [as he called his stock cuts catalogs] include Mary Clemmitt, Louis H. Hippe, E.C. Klinge, Nelson White, Harvey Fuller, Bess Livings, Lois Head, Harvey Peake and Van Tuyl. Upon his passing in 1951, it's not known how long the Indianapolis-based company existed before finally closing its doors. One of the more popular series of cartoons were the line illustrations of men and women affectionately called 'little big head guys' by many modern fans of these cuts because the heads of the characters were drawn somewhat larger than the rest of their bodies. Shinn Kickers JNL is a collection twenty-six of these illustrations, and just like a kick in the shin (as the pun in the name implies), these charming cartoons get your attention.

Introducing "Trace," a captivating display font that seamlessly marries the ancient mystique of Nordic symbols with a bold, futuristic modernity. This unique typeface transcends traditional boundaries, emerging as a striking fusion of historical symbolism and cutting-edge design. "Trace" is not merely a font; it's a visual journey that bridges the past and the future, offering a distinctive and versatile aesthetic. Inspired by Nordic symbols, "Trace" breathes new life into these ancient motifs, infusing them with a sleek and contemporary vibe. Each character carries the rich storytelling heritage of Nordic culture, interpreted through a lens of modern sophistication. The result is a font that is both timeless and forward-thinking, making it an ideal choice for those seeking a balance between tradition and innovation. As a display font, "Trace" commands attention with its bold and commanding presence. Its carefully crafted letterforms embody a sense of strength and purpose, while the subtle Nordic influences add an air of mystery and intrigue. Beyond its role as a traditional typeface, "Trace" transcends expectations by doubling as a symbol font. Unlock a treasure trove of symbolic possibilities, allowing you to weave intricate narratives or create visually stunning patterns that go beyond the constraints of traditional alphabets. Whether you're designing for futuristic branding, creating a visual language for a tech-forward project, or simply seeking a font that tells a story of cultural richness, "Trace" is your creative companion. Versatile and impactful, this font opens doors to a realm where ancient symbols and modern design converge, allowing you to explore uncharted territories in your creative endeavors. Embark on a design journey that spans centuries with "Trace. What you get, you will get: 1. Trace - Clean San serif font including Uppercase & Lowercase (ALL CAPS) characters, 2. Numbers and Punctuation 3. Support Multi language (Western Europe Latin)

The contemporary feel of the Sancoale superfamily takes a bolder turn with this futuristic slab. Built from Sancoale's successfully simple geometry, Slab's serif elements and tall x-height give the face an energetic, yet clean figure that easily complements its cousins: Sancoale Softened--a sans with blunted terminals; Sancoale Narrow; and, of course, the original Sancoale itself. The weights of each member have been balanced carefully to ensure compatibility with the others, and when used together, the combination creates a powerful design that is easy to identify. With weights ranging from the classier Thin to the authoritative Black, Slab opens the door to a range of applications. Used in different text sizes, its tech image is legible and neutral enough for longer bodies of copy--both in print and on the web. Have a more prominent need? The web font also stands out well in a headline or even as a display face. Slabís great personality puts a strong foot forward without giving its reader a kick in the teeth. Whatever the task, this font's one to capture the Zeitgeist into your work. All Insigne fonts are fully loaded with OpenType features. Sancoale Slab is also equipped for complex professional typography, including alternates with stems, small caps and plenty of alts, including "normalized" capitals and lowercase letters. The face includes a number of numeral sets, including fractions, old-style and lining figures with superiors and inferiors. OpenType-capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe suite can take full advantage of automatically replacing ligatures and alternates. You can find these features demonstrated in the .pdf brochure. Included are small caps, fractions, old-style and lining numbers, scientific superior/inferior figures, complete ordinal and inferior alphabet, and a set of symbols and arrows. The Sancoale family also includes the glyphs to support a wide range of languages, including Central, Eastern and Western European languages. In all, Sancoale Slab supports over 40 languages that use the extended Latin script, making the new addition a great choice for multi-lingual publications and packaging.

Ten years or so after his unique treatment of Garalde design with Trump Mediaeval, Georg Trump took on the transitional genre with Mauritius, which was to be his last typeface. He started working on it in 1965. The Stuttgart-based Weber foundry published a pamphlet previewing it under the name Barock-Antiqua in 1967, then announced the availability of the metal types (a roman, a bold and an italic) a year later. The global printing industry was already in third gear with cold type technology, so there weren't that many takers, and Weber closed its doors after more than 140 years in business. Subsequently, Trump’s swan song was unfairly overlooked by typography historians and practitioners. It never made it to film technology or scalable fonts. Thus, one of the most original text faces ever made, done by one of the most influential German type designers of the 20th century, was buried under decades of multiple technology shifts and fading records. The metal cuts of Mauritius seem to have been rushed in Weber’s desperation to stay afloat. So the only impressions left of the metal type, the sole records remaining of this design, show substantial problems. Some can be attributed to technological limitations, but some issues in colour, precision and fitting are also quite apparent, particularly in Mauritius Kursiv, the italic metal cut. This digital version is the result of obsessing over a great designer’s final type design effort, and trying to understand the reasons behind its vanishing from typography’s collective mind. While that understanding remains for the most part elusive, the creative and technical work done on these fonts produced very concrete results. All the apparent issues in the metal types were resolved, the design was expanded into a larger family of three weights and two widths, and plenty of 21st century bells and whistles were added. For the full background story, design analysis, details, features, specimens and print tests, consult the PDF available in the Gallery section of this page.

Prepare to be enchanted by the artistry of "Crispo," a font meticulously crafted through the delicate strokes of pointed pen calligraphy. In the world of typography, each character becomes a masterpiece, resonating with the eloquence of a brushstroke. Experience the Dynamic Elegance of Pointed Pen Mastery: Elegance with "Crispo" transcends mere quality; it embodies the essence of pointed pen calligraphy as a true masterpiece. The flowing lines and timeless grace of every character reflect the precision and artistry embedded in this refined craft. In the realm of fonts, "Crispo" emerges as a distinctive personality, each character meticulously handcrafted with a pointed pen. These letters aren't mere symbols; they roar with the passion and personality of a master calligrapher's ink, leaving an indelible mark on your creative endeavors. "Crispo" is more than a font; it's a genuine work of art inspired by the rich traditions of calligraphy. It serves as the embodiment of the pointed pen's craftsmanship, where each curve and ligature is shaped with meticulous care, inviting you to delve into the world of true artistic expression. The elegance within "Crispo" extends beyond appearances; it resides in the essence of each stroke. Every character, ligature, and swash is a testament to the beauty of pointed pen calligraphy, culminating in a font that stands unparalleled in its grace and sophistication. Whether you're crafting wedding invitations, establishing brand identities, or embarking on any project that craves distinction, "Crispo" unlocks the door to limitless creative expression. Courtesy of pointed pen calligraphy's mastery, this font becomes your brush, painting a story of elegance and distinction. "Crispo" is not just a font; it's a journey through the soul of pointed pen calligraphy. It encapsulates the brushstroke of a skilled hand, the dance of ink on paper, and the unwavering passion behind every character. Step into the enchanting world of "Crispo" and infuse your designs with the dynamic elegance and strong personality of pointed pen calligraphy.

When Aldo Novarese designed his “tipo inglese” Juliet typeface, he had a simple objective in mind: Reduce the inclination angle of the traditional 18th and 19th centuries English script in order to make the punchcutter’s job easier and the resulting metal type more durable. But when Juliet was released by Nebiolo in 1955, it was a big surprise to both typesetters and calligraphers all over Europe. Novarese’s idea of working the standard copperplate script within the limited technology of the time proved to be a marvel in optical metal sizing (Juliet was available in sizes ranging from 12 to 60 pt), but also opened the door to new calligraphic possibilities. Easier readability and a very friendly color were obvious side effects of the reduced angle. So soon after its release, calligraphers worldwide began emulating the angle reduction and experimenting with the application of the same concept to other calligraphic genres. Today, more than 50 years later, many professional calligraphers point to Novarese’s Juliet as an opening to fresh ideas and new directions in 20th century elegant calligraphy. Ambassador Script, this digital version of Aldo Novarese’s surprising masterpiece, is the result of more than a thousand hours of work. Going above and beyond its duty as a revival, it was expanded by a great number of alternates, swashes, beginning and ending forms, as well as accompanying flourishes and snap-on strokes for even more ending forms. Ambassador Script also supports almost every known Latin-based language, which makes its name all the more fitting. Ambassador Script is available in all popular font formats. The True Type and Postscript Type 1 versions come in 12 fonts, available in different piecemeal configurations or a full volume. The OpenType version collects more than 2300 characters in a single feature-rich font that can sing mightily in OpenType-supporting applications. Ambassador Script is ideal for weddings, invitations, greeting cards, book and magazine covers, or anywhere a touch of calligraphic elegance is desired.

The name of this font brings back memories of an old fried chicken restaurant in Willow Springs Illinois circa 1960’s and 1970’s, my family would all get in the car and take a long drive down to an old country road Illionis Rt 171 through a forest preserve where we’d come upon the old Willowbrook motel with a bar and restaurant next door. The restaurant was called Kegal’s, when you entered the building you had to walk through the smoky bar first to get to the restaurant, I can still see the hard wood floors with all the finish worn off from decades of foot traffic. Up until the mid 1960’s Kegal’s used to raise their own chickens behind the restaurant, back then fried chicken in the Midwest was either coated in flour or bread crumbs, Kegal’s was covered in a beautiful layer of golden bread crumbs. Before your meal arrived they’d bring a basket of dinner rolls along with crackers, bread sticks and country butter, on the side they’d serve coleslaw with a vinegar sauce, which is very common in the Midwest, the first time you try it your face puckers up like you just sucked on a lemon but you get used it over time. After waiting for what seemed like forever to a child the waitress comes out of the kitchen with a huge tray of that golden deliciousness and your mouth begins to water, in her other hand was another tray filled to overflowing with crinkle cut french fries all made by hand, I’d eat a hole handful of those french fries first then take a bite of that tender juicy farm raised chicken. Today a fine Italian restaurant occupies the old Kegal’s building and the motel is long gone, only my fond memories remain. Fast forward to 2020 and FontMesa has just made some Fried Chicken as an eight weight type font family with alternates. With the Fried Chicken slab serif font family we’ve broken some rules by removing a few of the slabs on certain letters for a unique homemade look. Fried Chicken is perfect for your next product label, t-shirt design, logo, headline or cookbook cover. Treat yourself to some good ol’ Fried Chicken today.

Before Bodoni, there was Didot. With the publication by Francois Ambroise Didot of Paris in 1784 of his prospectus for Tasso’s La Gerusalemme Liberata, the rococo typographical style of Fournier de Jeune was replaced with a spartan, neo-classical style that John Baskerville pioneered. The typeface Didot used for this work was of Didot’s own creation and is considered by both G. Dowding and P. Meggs to be the first modern face. Three years later, Bodoni of Parma is using a very similar face. Just as Bodoni’s typeface evolved over time, so did that of the Didot family. The eldest son of Francois Ambroise Didot, Pierre, ran the printing office; and Firmin ran the typefoundry. Pierre used the flattened, wove paper, again pioneered by Baskerville, to permit a more accurate impression and allow the use of more delicate letterforms. Firmin took full advantage of the improved paper by further refining the typeface introduced by his father. The printing of Racine’s Oeuvres in 1801 (seen in our gallery image #2) shows the symbiotic results of their efforts, especially in the marked increase in the sharpness of the serifs when compared to their owns works of only six years earlier. It has been suggested that one reason Bodoni achieved greater popularity than Didot is the thinner hairlines of Didot were more fragile when cast in metal type and thus more expensive for printers to use than Bodoni. This ceased to be a problem with the advent of phototypesetting, opening the door for a renewed interest in the work of the Didot family and especially that of Firmin Didot. Although further refinements in the Didot typeface were to come (notably the lower case ‘g’ shown in 1819), we have chosen 1801 as the nominal basis for our presentation of HiH Firmin Didot. We like the thick-thin circumflex that replaced the evenly-stroked version of 1795, possible only with the flatter wove paper. We like the unusual coat-hanger cedilla. We like the organic, leaf-like tail of the ‘Q.’ We like the strange, little number ‘2’ and the wonderfully assertive ‘4.’ And we like the distinctive and delightful awkwardness of the double-v (w). Please note that we have provided alternative versions of the upper and lower case w that are slightly more conventional than the original designs. Personally, I find the moderns (often called Didones) hard on the eyes in extended blocks of text. That does not stop me from enjoying their cold, crisp clarity. They represent the Age of Reason and the power of man’s intellect, while reflecting also its limitations. In the title pages set by Bodoni, Bulmer and Didot, I see the spare beauty of a winter landscape. That appeals to a New Englander like myself. Another aspect that appeals to me is setting a page in HiH Firmin Didot and watching people try to figure out what typeface it is. It looks a lot like Bodoni, but it isn't!

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