❧ Useful links: Luther’s Manuscripts at the UNESCO Memory of the World at Google Arts and Culture Martin Luther font on Kickstarter (with Film about the creation) Each letter of the Martin Luther font is strictly based on original samples found in Martin Luther’s 500 year old handwritten manuscripts. Letters that occur more often for example vowels have two or more different versions stored in the font. (➶ Figure 4) These alternative forms are exchanged automatically by the font as you type, and create a vivid look that comes close to actual handwriting. The font avoids that two identical letters are placed next to each other like, for example the two “o” in the word “look”. ➸ What Historic Sources is the Font based on? Two historic documents were used to base the font on. The notes Luther took before giving his speech in Worms in 1521 and a 6 page letter he wrote immediately after to Emperor Charles V., summarising his speech (➶ Figure 2). Both documents have been added to the UNESCO “Memory of the World” and can be seen at the Google Arts and Culture website. ➸ The Creation of a Handwriting Font The creation of a handwriting font is very different from the creation of a regular font. Harald Geisler has specialised in recreating handwriting in preceding projects with Albert Einstein’s, Sigmund Freud’s and his own handwriting. His experience working with Archives and Museums has gone into this project. First Geisler analyses the movement in the writing to understand how each letter is drawn. This involves partially learning how to write like a person. In this process not the outlines of the sample are reproduced but the original movement path of the handwriting (➶ Figure 3). In a second step width and contrast is added to reproduce Martin Luther’s characteristic impetus and the writing tools used at the time. (Link: Youtube Playlist showcasing the creation of individual letters) How about signs that can’t be found in archives? Some Glyphs can not be found in 500 year old manuscripts, for example the @-sign. Towards the end of the creation one collects a profund amount of details about how a writer moves on paper and addresses certain tasks moving the pen. Keeping this knowledge in mind an improvisation can be based on similar letter forms. For example the @ sign is based on of the movement of a lowercase a and parenthesis. ➸ Features of the Martin Luther font ❶ Extensive Documentation of the creation of the font, including high quality reproduction of the used manuscripts. ❷ Additional texts from Historian Dr. Henning Jürgens and Palaeographer (and Luther handwriting expert) Prof. Ulrich Bubenheimer ❸ Alternating Letters - in handwriting every word looks a bit different. To avoid that two identical letterforms are placed next to each other (for example in the word look) the font actively changes between different versions of letters as you type. ❹ Ligatures - characteristic writing forms when two letters are combined (for example “ct”) (➶ Figure 5) ❺ Terminal Letterforms - renders a special letterform when letter is at the end of a word. (➶ Figure 8) ❻ ‘’’Initial and Medial Letterforms''' - some letterforms are different when placed in the beginning or middle of a word, for example the lowercase s. ❼ Luther Rose - is a seal Luther used to authorise his correspondence. Today it is a widely recognized symbol for Luther. When you enter the numbers of Luthers year of birth and death 14831546 using the Martin Luther PRO font, it will render a stylised version of the Luther Rose. (➶ Figure 7) ❽ Historic letter-forms - letter-forms that are specific to medieval writing around 1500. For example the long-s or h with a loop at the bottom. (➶ Figure 6) ⚑ Multi language support - see the technical information tab for a full list of supported languages. (➶ Figure 11) ➸ The different Styles explained ❋ Martin Luther PRO - this includes all features listed above and is geared towards writing texts that are more readable today. It features alternating letters to create a natural handwriting look as well as two stylistic sets accessible through the OpenType menu. Historic forms are available through the glyph picker. ❋ Martin Luther Historic - this font creates a historically correct reproduction (i.e. with long-s) of Luther’s medieval latin handwriting. It features alternating letters to create a natural handwriting look as well as two stylistic sets accessible through the OpenType menu. ❋ Martin Luther Expert-1 - Dedicated access to the first set of letters only. ❋ Martin Luther Expert-2 - Dedicated access to the second set of letters only. ❈❈❈ Family Pack - recieve all fonts at a discounted price. ❈❈❈ ➸ Kickstarter The creation and development of the Martin Luther font was financed by 500 supporters on ➸Kickstarter.

There is plenty of lyric and literature about looking over one's shoulder in contemplation. What would you have done differently if you knew then what you know now? This is the kind of question that comes out of nowhere. When it does and whether its context is personal or professional make very little difference. It's a question that can cause emotions to rise and passions to run hot. It can trigger priority shifts and identity crises. It's never easy to answer. Three years ago, I published a font called Semilla. My aim with that was to distill the work of Bentele, a lettering artist from early 1950s Germany. Picking such an obscure figure back then was my way of pondering the meaning and efficiency of objectivity in a world where real human events and existences are inevitably filtered through decades of unavoidably subjective written, printed and oral history. And maybe to pat myself on the back for surviving surprises mild and pleasant. Having been fortunate enough to follow my professional whims for quite some time now, I took another, longer look at my idea of distilling Bentele's work again. I suppose the concepts of established history and objectivity can become quite malleable when personal experience is added to the mix. I say that because there I was, three years later, second-guessing myself and opining that Bentele's work can be distilled differently, in a manner more suited to current cultural angles. So I embarked on that mission, and Bowling Script is the result. I realize that it's difficult to reconcile this soft and happy calligraphic outcome with the introspection I've blathered about so far, but it is what is. I guess even self-created first world problems need to be resolved somehow, and the resolution can happen in mysterious ways. Bowling Script is what people who like my work would expect from me. It's yet another script loaded with all kinds of alternation, swashing and over-the-top stuff. All of that is in here. These days I think I just do all that stuff without even blinking. But there are two additional twists. The more noticeable one is ornamental: The stroke endings in the main font are of the typical sharp and curly variety found in sign painting, while the other font complements that with ball endings, sometimes with an added-on-afterwards impression rather than an extension of the actual stroke. In the philosophical terms I was mumbling earlier, this is the equivalent of alternate realities in a world of historical reduxes that by their very nature can never properly translate original fact. The second twist has to do with the disruption of angular rhythm in calligraphic alphabets. Of course, this is the kind of lettering where the very concept of rhythm can be quite flexible, but it still counts for something, and experimenting with angular white space in a project of a very dense footprint was irresistible. After playing for a bit, I decided that it would interesting to include the option of using optically back-slanted forms in the fonts. Most scripts out there, including mine, have a rhythm sonically comparable to four-to-the-floor club beats. So the weirdly angled stuff here is your chance to do the occasional drumroll. Everyone knows we need one of those sometimes. Bowling Script and Bowling Script Balls fonts comes with 1600 characters and features extended Latin-based language support. There are also a basic version of both fonts without all the alternates and extra OpenType features. Bowling family ships in cross-platform OpenType format. We also want to present “Mute”, a visual essay narated by Tomás García and Valentín Muro, about digital life created specially to introduce Bowling Script.

Power Grotesk is a sans serif typeface with details that give typography that has its own characteristics from the thinnest to the thickest that is slightly widened. The goal is to create a typeface with legibility and good contrast between black and white so that it is suitable for different sizes. The typeface has a special feature that aids in reading and reproducing, trapping the right-sized ink for the text to work. The geometric shapes and structures reflect the inspiration and influence of medieval typography. Power Grotesk moves between the vast historical material that makes up modern typography, combining contemporary details with classic styles.

Columbia Titling is a titling-caps display family based on wide Clarendon-style wood type and industrial signage design from the late-19th and early-20th Century. Columbia Titling includes a small set of OpenType features, including both tabular and proportional figures, special superscript ordinal suffixes, underlined superscript alternate letters, and OpenType fractions. Columbia Titling can have a ‘period feel’ depending on its use, but is fresh enough to use in contemporary designs, like magazine headlines, invitations, or stationery. The typeface — released in four weights — takes its name from the historic S.S. Columbia, a steamboat launched in 1903. Lettering found on the ship’s wheelhouse provided initial inspiration for Columbia Titling.

Prelo was designed to be a neutral, highly readable typeface for identity, editorial and information design. With nine weights and nine true italics from Hairline to Black, Prelo is a workhorse typeface full of OpenType features such as small caps, tabular figures, central European characters and historical figures, among others. Like other DSType fonts, most of the diacritics were designed to fit the gap between the x-height and the caps height, avoiding some common problems with the accented characters. The curves are soft and smooth, providing legibility even in very poor conditions, and the neutrality allows this typeface to be used with any serif companion.

Scala Jewels is a set of four highly decorative typefaces, based on the bold capitals of Scala. Whereas Crystal and Pearl are modelled on historic examples, Diamond and Saphyr are original designs. Scala Jewels offers the possibility to set decorated borders, designed in the style of each of the four variations. There are corners and different sorts of long and short elements. One of the best ways to use Scala Jewels is as a two- or three-line drop cap at the start of a chapter. The award-winning Scala family (1990-1993) is a worldwide bestseller and has established itself as a ‘classic’ among digital fonts.

Rail Line JNL is a font for the railroad enthusiast for making their own model train car emblems. The logos contained in this font are or may be the property of the various rail companies, their assigns and/or successors. Outside of non-profit hobby use or for historical/educational purpose under the Fair Use rules, any commercial application of these logos must be obtained by written permission by the respective logo owner or owners. Jeff Levine fonts provided Rail Line JNL strictly as a hobby font. We assume no liability for the use, misuse or misrepresentation of any of the logos contained within the font file.

Kolm Keltek is a collection of ornaments organized into two font files. The ornaments can be divided into two groups: Friezes (borders) and Rapports (patterns). All ornaments belong to the Celtic culture. These ornaments are taken from manuscripts. This makes the font exclusive and unique among other digital collections of ornaments. These patterns perfectly suit to be used in the design of invitations, diplomas, certificates or other printed materials in historical style design. Kolm Keltek - Demo Guide contains basic examples of how to combine the ornaments that significantly facilitates the use of the collection. Kolm Keltek is one of the many high-quality ornamental fonts offed by the 2D Typo foundry.

Heinrich Wieynck’s blackletter font, carefully redrawn and redesigned for modern use. Due to its proportions, this blackletter font can also be used for body texts. This font contains the letter ‚long s‘ which can be reached in two ways. Either you use the OpenType feature ‚historical forms‘, or you type the summation sign on your keyboard. There are two graphic elements implemented, a corner element and a pearl for framing. The corner can be set by [alt] + [shift] + 1 for the outline, and [alt] + v for the filling. The pearl, set on a path, is accomplished by [alt] + [shift] + p for the outline, and [alt] + p for the filling.

ITC Ludwig has an edge. It's nervous, tense - maybe even a little scary. Drawn by Italian designer Giuseppe Errico, ITC Ludwig refuses to be confined to a traditional baseline. Its twisted lowercase g" and an "e" that could double as an upside-down "a" both add to the design's spooky personality. As a young man, Errico studied to be a fine artist. He became a graphic designer only after a “long reflection period,” he says. His early training is evident in many of ITC Ludwig's suggestive qualities. There is far more to this face than cranking up the “distort” knob in Fontographer. Reflection and personal expression are at its core."

Inspired by Art Deco packaging, Rosa fits comfortably into that classic genre. It’s namesake in the collection of La Sociéte Parisienne de Savons is described thusly: In mythological legend, Chloris, the goddess of Spring flowers transformed the body of a nymph into the first Rose. Aphrodite gave her beauty. Dionysus, the god of wine gave her a sweet fragrance and the Three Graces, charm, joy and radiance. Equally compatible with Machine Age, Streamline, Moderne and even Memphis design motifs, it presents the unique option of serving as both the typographic and decorative components of a design. Use Rosa to evoke a sense of elegance, high style and historical context.

Günther Zainer, (or Zeyner or Zeiner), was the first printer to operate in the city of Augsburg. He was active from 1468 to his death in 1478. In that single decade he was responsible for printing 80 works. Most of these editions were for the clergy but he also printed the first Calendar and large-scale illustrated book intended for the wider public. This font is based on one of his more interesting and peculiar fonts. And it has been enlarged to include over a 1,000 defined glyphs for modern use and also for historical purposes many glyphs recommended by the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative organization have also been included.

To design Mr Black, we used old ('70-'80) dry transfer lettering sheets that were used by my grandfather who was a military cartographer. We had only two almost used-up sheets. The letters didn't transfer so well but we liked the way they were damaged. All of the characters have a very high resolution so they can be used in a large scale. Mr Black doesn't have lowercases but has up to three alternate uppercase for each letter. Checkout Mr Tiger if your looking for lowercase letters with the same distortion effect. We designed it for our book for children, “Who eats Whom”

The design of Zwoelf stems from a letter created by Oleg Pashchenko for the poetry book called “They Talk.” Modified in several ways, the lettering gained readability and a more neutral look. This typeface combines Modern and Gothic styles, ugliness and beauty, the horrifying and the funny. Typographers may highlight any of this. Zwoelf features elements that can be found in both Roman and Gothic styles, but has no real historical prototype. It creates coarse body copy that feels like blackletters. The type is well-suited for use with rough line graphics. Zwoelf is a good choice for short texts, headings, witchcraft potion recipes, madrigals, spells and treasure map naming.

Quant is a contrasted typeface with a fresh and well-reasoned appearance. It owes allegiance to classical structure but is a free design and does not refer to any historical model. Although it has strong qualities as a reading type, its distinct and powerful ductus makes it superb for headlines and in display sizes. Quant is well-equipped for ambitious typography. The Quant family consists of 8 styles, comes in OpenType format with extended language support for more than 40 languages. All weights contain small caps, proportional lining figures, tabular lining figures, proportional old style figures, lining old style figures, matching currency symbols, fraction and scientific numerals.

Monocto is an upright italic, clearly evidenced by the lowercase letters a, e, f, g, i, k, l, v, w, x, y and several capitals. On one hand, the design is inspired by an historical German running hand written with a pen angle of 45°, and on the other, by rational, utilitarian monospace types, similar to those designed for the mechanical typewriter during the Industrial Revolution. As the writing tool touches the paper, a double-square with broken corners is produced, which then, according to ductus, transforms itself into letter components that are either 90°-verticals or 45°-diagonals. The systematic geometry of Monocto offers unexpected design possibilites.

Pyke is a versatile serif typeface inspired by the Didone style of Giambattista Bodoni. After a detailed legibility study, Sofie Beier produced the typeface in three optical sizes; Micro, Text, and Display. The work goes beyond historic revival creating the complexities and subtleties of this classic style fit for users in the modern era. Details include six weights with true italics, specific sizes; Micro for small point sizes of 8 or less, Text for 9–14 points, and Display for larger print sizes, over 530 characters per style with 14 opentype features, and language support for Western, South, and Central Europe. Check out Karlo which is a great pair for Pyke.

This font is a collection made with the largest part of the ornaments contained in the GLC foundry medieval and renaissance period fonts. It was made for the use of customers who wish to embellish their works without buying our complete catalog! It is used to embellish and animate as variously as web-site titles, posters and fliers design or greeting cards, all various sorts of presentations, menus, certificates, letters. It was specially drawn to accompany our medieval and renaissance fonts, like 1462 Bamberg, 1509 Leyden, 1538 Schwabacher, 1543 Humane Jenson, 1557 Italique, 1589 Humane Bordeaux, 1592 GLC Garamond and others, giving them an historical additional genuine touch...

The Raphael of Flowers is what they called Pierre-Joseph Redouté a couple hundred years ago. The Belgian native became famous in France, where he painted floral watercolors for both Marie Antoinnette and Empress Josephine. But what cemented his legacy was his perfection of a stipple engraving technique that brought his art to the masses. Botanical Scribe is modeled after the neat, cursive hand-inscribed legends on these antique prints. Because it simulates handlettering, the font retains a warm, organic quality not seen in fancy modern scripts while remaining both elegant and legible. (Its many ligatures lends to this authenticity.) Good for formal invitations or historical simulations.

A highly intrincated set of ornaments inspired from the work of Johann Georg Schwandner (1716-1791). An accurate historical revival and interpretation of Iza W, at Intellecta Design. State-of-art to use in headings, chapter initials from books, magazines and other publications. In Barocque and Renaissance inspired layouts, or modern mixed proposals. If you’re taking a formal approach to your Christmas designs, Schwandner Ornaments from Intellecta Design will provide unparalleled elegance and sophistication. The ornaments and fleurons in this set are intricately drawn, adding a touch of the Victorian era to cards, envelopes, gift tags, and place cards worthy of the grandest holiday feas

Cenizas is another masterpiece of rough-and-tumble script from the prolific Argentine duo of Koziupa and Paul. Although the overall 'wildness' of Cenizas is reminiscent of popular mid-twentieth-century English display scripts, Koziupa's Latin brush humor and ingenuity remain evident in the underlying structure of the design. Casual, care-free and adventurous, Cenizas can be a great choice for design applications relating to active behavior, like outdoor sports and travel. It also is enough of a rough script to be quite useful in a variety of other design contexts, such as the covers of art books or historical novels, museum literature, music sleeves and posters, or even map designs.

Shock and Awe is a family of two display typefaces drawn up from lettering that has been at the centre of major historical events. Enola Gay is based upon nose art from the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, in 1945. Tomahawk is based upon the fuselage lettering of the original (then) General Dynamics manufactured Tomahawk cruise missile. Tomahawk missiles were introduced into military service in the 1970s and have been deployed by US and UK 'coalition' forces in a number of conflicts, including both the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Aesthetic production by Marcus McCallion.

Fantasy draws on a series of historical calligraphic traditions: Roman capitals, Lombardic initials, enlightenment era ornamentation and refinement. The user is invited to deploy their imagination playing with the alternates, ornaments and frames in different universes like publications and stationery. Fantasy Pro is the fully-featured OpenType version with two styles of capitals and plenty of swash alternates and ornaments. Each of these varieties is available as a separate font in addition to Fantasy Std, a set of unadorned standard characters for smaller settings. Use professional software that widely support Open Type features. Otherwise, you may not have access to some glyphs. Give a touch of magic to your work!

Like its feline namesake from Kipling’s “Jungle Book”, Baghira has an elegant, smooth appearance and an impressive set of large, sharp teeth. With smoothly drawn curves, precisely placed corners, and rectangular dots, Baghira is a design rooted in the here and now. Its true italics gently allude to calligraphic roots, but overall, Baghira doesn’t follow any historical model. This cool cat sets his own standards. Designed by Christian Gruber & Moritz Kleinsorge, the Baghira font family consists of 8 fonts, with 4 weights ranging from Regular to Bold. Its character set contains 800 characters per style and is suited to quality typography in editorial design, corporate design and advertising.

Karlgeorg Hoefer designed Beneta in 1991, inspired by the Littera beneventana, the script of the Benedictine scribes from the 10th to the 12th century. During this time, scribes began to use wider pens and set them at a 45 degree angle to the paper, which caused their scripts to have radical stroke contrasts. This script was mainly used for books and certificates but disappeared by the end of the 13th century. Beneta revives the characteristics of this historic script, changing a line of text into an almost ornamental space. Beneta should be used in middle to larger point sizes for shorter texts and headlines.

The Destrubia is made with the concept of a modern contemporary font display that gives a unique impression because it has a curvy and distortion shape. This font is good for logo design, Social media, Movie Titles, Books Titles, short text even long text letters, and good for your secondary text font with the script, sans, or serif. Featured: Standard Uppercase & Lowercase Numeral & Punctuation Multilingual : ä ö ü Ä Ö Ü ß ¿ ¡ Alternate & Ligature PUA encoded We recommend programs that support the OpenType feature and the Glyphs panel such as Adobe applications or Corel Draw. so you can use all the variations of the glyphs. Hope you enjoy our fonts!

Inspired by Rudolf Engelhardt's Journal-Kursiv, released by Ludwig Wagner, Leipzig, in 1913, Kursivfraktur was freshly drawn and redesigned, and comes as one of those rare beautiful italic blackletter fonts. This font contains the letter long s which can be reached in two ways. Either you use the OT feature historical forms, or you type the integral sign [ ∫ ] on your keyboard. There are two graphic elements implemented, a corner element and a straight element for framing. The corner element lies on the Product sign [ ∏ ], the straight element you will find on the pi-key [ π ]. Furthermore it is recommended to activate the discretionary ligatures OT feature.

Sequel 100 Wide is a static sans-serif or neogrotesque with generous horizontal proportions. A variant of the original Sequel Sans, it considerably expands the stylistic scope of the Sequel superfamily. In addition to its wider letterforms, it has got a larger x-height, slightly shifting the historical flavor from the 1950s to the 1960s. Yet, at its core, it’s as clean and functional as the main font family, with perfectly horizontal stroke endings and vertical terminals. Six weights from 45 (Regular) to 95 (Black), matching italics, and limitless possible interpolations by means of two Variable Fonts offer a rich typographic palette for any situation.

The Golden Age of the Greek Civilization. The world’s history carved on stone. Hellenica Pro was created based on numerous photos from archaeological sites and several other historical references dating back to 1100 B.C. In order to capture the essence of this writing, there are a few alternate forms used at lowercase, uppercase and/or accented positions. These alternates come from different regions in Greece. For instance, uppercase Theta was used by the Cretans and the Korinthians, whereas uppercase Delta by the Ionians. PF Hellenica Pro comes in 3 versions: Light, regular and bold. The new ‘Pro’ version has been expanded to include 3 major scripts: Latin, Greek and Cyrillic.

This font, was created -- inspired from the original manuscript of the French revolutionary song “La Marseillaise”, becoming later the French national anthem, composed in one night (1792 April 25th) by the 32 year old French captain, Rouget de Lisle. It is a “Pro” font containing Western (including Celtic) and Northern European, Icelandic, Baltic, Eastern, Central European and Turkish diacritics. The numerous alternates and ligatures make the font look as close as possible to the real historic hand. Using an OTF software, the features allow variations of each character without anything to do but to select contextual alternates and standard ligatures and/or stylistic alternates options.

A flower became crushed in the door frame of the studio (a fancy shed at the end of an overgrown garden)... pretty pale yellow stamens scattered on the floor... I sprinkled some on the scanner and arranged them into a light and airy font for springtime. There are two alphabets, both uppercase, but one with doubled uprights for variety, and to provide a hint of extra weight. I didn't want to distort the natural shapes, or make up any of my own, so some letterforms are pretty quirky, and some characters just weren't possible... but there's a hidden bunch of flowery and grassy ornaments.

Conceived as an exploration of geometrical type designs of the early twentieth century, Canaro was — in its first design stages — heavily rooted in that time period. During its development and the effort to give it a modern appearance, it turned into a contemporary font with a strong historical background, defined by legibility and functionality. In addition, the lack of spurs provide a unique but unobtrusive character and support the contemporary impression. Typographic features like alternative glyphs, ligatures, oldstyle numbers, arrows, fractions and other special characters, round up the family. Canaro is available in nine weights plus matching italics. Ranging from sharp and elegant thinner cuts to sporty and athletic heavy weights.

Introduction Introducing Reins – Serif Typeface, a masterpiece that exudes classic elegance with a modern twist. Initially, it captivates with its timeless appearance and style. Versatility at its Best Moreover, it’s incredibly versatile, adapting seamlessly to a multitude of projects. From logos to editorial designs, it enhances every artwork it graces. Furthermore, it brings out the richness in your content, making each word profoundly striking. Classic Appeal This typeface carries a classic appeal, gracefully bridging the past and the present. Coupled with a sense of nostalgia, it remains relevant and attractive for contemporary designs. Therefore, each character stands out, adding a touch of historical elegance.