The famous roman type cut in Venice by Nicolas Jenson, and used in 1470 for his printing of the tract, De Evangelica Praeparatione, Eusebius, has usually been declared the seminal and definitive representative of a class of types known as Venetian Old Style. The Jenson type is thought to have been the primary model for types that immediately followed. Subsequent 15th-century Venetian Old Style types, cut by other punchcutters in Venice and elsewhere in Italy, are also worthy of study, but have been largely neglected by 20th-century type designers. There were many versions of Venetian Old Style types produced in the final quarter of the quattrocento. The exact number is unknown, but numerous printed examples survive, though the actual types, matrices, and punches are long gone. All these types are not, however, conspicuously Jensonian in character. Each shows a liberal amount of individuality, inconsistency, and eccentricity. My fascination with these historical types began in the 1970s and eventually led to the production of my first text typeface, Iowan Old Style (Bitstream, 1991). Sometime in the early 1990s, I started doodling letters for another Venetian typeface. The letters were pieced together from sections of circles and squares. The n, a standard lowercase control character in a text typeface, came first. Its most unusual feature was its head serif, a bisected quadrant of a circle. My aim was to see if its sharp beak would work with blunt, rectangular, foot serifs. Next, I wanted to see if I could construct a set of capital letters by following a similar design system. Rectangular serifs, or what we today call "slab serifs," were common in early roman printing types, particularly text types cut in Italy before 1500. Slab serifs are evident on both lowercase and uppercase characters in roman types of the Incunabula period, but they are seen mainly at the feet of the lowercase letters. The head serifs on lowercase letters of early roman types were usually angled. They were not arched, like mine. Oddly, there seems to be no actual historical precedent for my approach. Another characteristic of my arched serif is that the side opposite the arch is flat, not concave. Arched, concave serifs were used extensively in early italic types, a genre which first appeared more than a quarter century after roman types. Their forms followed humanistic cursive writing, common in Italy since before movable type was used there. Initially, italic characters were all lowercase, set with upright capitals (a practice I much admire and would like to see revived). Sloped italic capitals were not introduced until the middle of the sixteenth century, and they have very little to do with the evolution of humanist scripts. In contrast to the cursive writing on which italic types were based, formal book hands used by humanist scholars to transcribe classical texts served as a source of inspiration for the lowercase letters of the first roman types cut in Italy. While book hands were not as informal as cursive scripts, they still had features which could be said to be more calligraphic than geometric in detail. Over time, though, the copied vestiges of calligraphy virtually disappeared from roman fonts, and type became more rational. This profound change in the way type developed was also due in part to popular interest in the classical inscriptions of Roman antiquity. Imperial Roman letters, or majuscules, became models for the capital letters in nearly all early roman printing types. So it was, that the first letters in my typeface arose from pondering how shapes of lowercase letters and capital letters relate to one another in terms of classical ideals and geometric proportions, two pinnacles in a range of artistic notions which emerged during the Italian Renaissance. Indeed, such ideas are interesting to explore, but in the field of type design they often lead to dead ends. It is generally acknowledged, for instance, that pure geometry, as a strict approach to type design, has limitations. No roman alphabet, based solely on the circle and square, has ever been ideal for continuous reading. This much, I knew from the start. In the course of developing my typeface for text, innumerable compromises were made. Even though the finished letterforms retain a measure of geometric structure, they were modified again and again to improve their performance en masse. Each modification caused further deviation from my original scheme, and gave every font a slightly different direction. In the lower case letters especially, I made countless variations, and diverged significantly from my original plan. For example, not all the arcs remained radial, and they were designed to vary from font to font. Such variety added to the individuality of each style. The counters of many letters are described by intersecting arcs or angled facets, and the bowls are not round. In the capitals, angular bracketing was used practically everywhere stems and serifs meet, accentuating the terseness of the characters. As a result of all my tinkering, the entire family took on a kind of rich, familiar, coarseness - akin to roman types of the late 1400s. In his book, Printing Types D. B. Updike wrote: "Almost all Italian roman fonts in the last half of the fifteenth century had an air of "security" and generous ease extremely agreeable to the eye. Indeed, there is nothing better than fine Italian roman type in the whole history of typography." It does seem a shame that only in the 20th century have revivals of these beautiful types found acceptance in the English language. For four centuries (circa 1500 - circa 1900) Venetian Old Style faces were definitely not in favor in any living language. Recently, though, reinterpretations of early Italian printing types have been returning with a vengeance. The name Vendetta, which as an Italian sound I like, struck me as being a word that could be taken to signifiy a comeback of types designed in the Venetian style. In closing, I should add that a large measure of Vendetta's overall character comes from a synthesis of ideas, old and new. Hallmarks of roman type design from the Incunabula period are blended with contemporary concerns for the optimal display of letterforms on computer screens. Vendetta is thus not a historical revival. It is instead an indirect but personal digital homage to the roman types of punchcutters whose work was influenced by the example Jenson set in 1470. John Downer.

Jesus Saves is a font based on the familiar old logo that has “JESUS” hidden within a maze-like set of multi-branched vertical bars. The characters appear to be an alien, cryptic language at first sight, perhaps even a Japanese, Chinese, or Korean language, thanks to the unusual figures created by the combinations of various letters. It is a teaser for the eyes, as well as a visual feast of De Stijl-type art. It is an attention-getting font that is cool to look at, an eye puzzle that is enticing to decipher. It’s a great font to use for striking logos (see Gallery Images) by the judicious use of ligatures, where in word settings ligatures may be used at the beginnings of words, the middle or the endings of words. Jesus Heals is the missing spaces from the Jesus Saves font, sort of like a doughnut hole font! If you use this font to fill in the spaces in the Jesus Saves font, it becomes whole, or healed, thus the name. Jesus Lives is a raised block/3D or three dimensional version of Jesus Heals. For color combinations in apps that support layering, Jesus Lives synchs and has perfect kerning register with Jesus Heals, as Jesus Heals has with Jesus Saves. The digitization was done by fontmeister John Bomparte.

Revista is a typographic system that brings together all the features to undertake any fashion magazine-oriented project. The font harmoniously blends different styles into a single big family, which consists of a Didone uppercase and small caps family—including 4 variants ranging from a monolinear Thin to Black with matching italics—and an Inline Black variant that works as a decorative alternative to the Didone fonts. Revista Stencil, one of its versions, comes with the same number of variants. Revista also comes with a Script Family that includes 5 weights, ranging from Thin (monolinear) to Black, contrasting in a tidily untidy way with many ligatures and alternates. You can choose between using stylistic alternates—if you want to give your designs a different untidy look, in the style of the modern calligraphy—or switching between different options if you are looking for a hand-written style. We highly recommend using the default contextual alternates and discretionary ligatures in order to take more advantage of this great font family. Revista includes 2 sets of dingbats, varying from zodiac signs symbols to technology symbols, and complementary ornaments in 3 different weights: Thin (monolinear), Regular and Black. All these features make Revista an ideal typeface for users to design to their liking! Photo by Fervent-adepte-de-la-mode

Linex Sweet was designed by Albert Boton in the late 1990s. It's a smallish family of three weights; the middle weight has an italic companion face. With its soft corners and slightly quirky head-serifs, Linex Sweet is a friendly design that sees much use. Several years later, Boton began sketching a new design, based on the original Linex Sweet but with a little more authority and grace. Linex Sans is the result. A mix of crisp angles and soft shapes, this new addition to the extended Linex family is both inviting and elegant. The subtle calligraphic overtones distinguish the design from more traditional sans serif designs. A three-weight family with a complementary italic for the Regular weight, Linex Sans is a versatile communications tool in both text and display sizes. It offers that mix of sophistication and joie de vivre that characterizes the designs of Albert Boton. Boton began his professional career as a carpenter. Fortunately for designers and typographers, he quickly turned from pounding nails to hammering out graphic design and constructing great letterforms as a profession. In his long career, he has created hundreds of distinctive, highly useful and award-winning designs. And even though he is now retired from active business, Boton continues to create fresh, new typeface designs. Add Linex Sans to the list.

In 1968, Adrian Frutiger was commissioned to develop a sign and directional system for the new Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Though everyone thought he would want to use his successful Univers font family, Frutiger decided instead to make a new sans serif typeface that would be suitable for the specific legibility requirements of airport signage: easy recognition from the distances and angles of driving and walking. The resulting font was in accord with the modern architecture of the airport. In 1976, he expanded and completed the family for D. Stempel AG in conjunction with Linotype, and it was named Frutiger. The Frutiger™ family is neither strictly geometric nor humanistic in construction; its forms are designed so that each individual character is quickly and easily recognized. Such distinctness makes it good for signage and display work. Although it was originally intended for the large scale of an airport, the full family has a warmth and subtlety that have, in recent years, made it popular for the smaller scale of body text in magazines and booklets. The family has 14 weights and 14 companion fonts with Central European characters and accents. Another 14 Cyrillic companion fonts are available as well. See also the new revised version Frutiger Next from the Linotype Platinum Collection. Featured in: Best Fonts for Logos

This font is based on an alphabet published by Luca Pacioli in his 1509 mathematical treatise De divina proportione. In this book, Pacioli describes how to build the Roman alphabet geometrically using lines, squares and circles. Pacioli was not the first or the last man in his era to describe the building of letters mathematically. Felice Feliciano did this before Pacioli, and Albrecht Dürer further developed these forms years after. According to Pacioli, the thick strokes should be 1/9th of the height, and the thin strokes should have 1/2 the weight of the thick strokes. I felt that this beautiful alphabet needed to be restored to its full geometric glory and set out to construct an accurate replica using Pacioli's instructions. Included in the font you'll find the letters that have the grid overlay and also the letters without the grid. The letters J, W, U, and Z were not included in the book, so I have created my own versions of these characters that fit into Pacioli's grid. Pacioli shows two different Os in the book, so I have included the second O as well as a second J, Q, and Z as OpenType stylistic alternates. Also included in the font are border patterns and a fleuron taken from the cover of the book.

Techarí comes from a commission in which the brief consisted of the creation of a typeface family to be used for the design of the third disc of the band called Ojos de Brujo based in Barcelona. This disc was called Techarí, which means “free” in Caló, the language of the Spanish gypsies. The starting point of the design was the music of this band, the meaning of the disc 's name, and three words given by the band as key concepts: ethnic, baroque and graffiti. Techarí is a mixture of lots of influences, which give it its unique personality. From its technical viewpoint designing Techarí was a challenge, on the one hand it had to have lots of personality, and on the other it had to work in text at 9 or 10 pt size. Its goal is precisely that, while keeping a strong personality it works in text size. The typeface also contains a Stencil version for use in display sizes which keeps Techarí's innovative spirit. The way it has been “cut" is unconventional, it has been carefully done to keep the freshness of the typeface by taking advantage of the letterforms' flow. Techarí extra complements the typeface by taking a classical typographic form, the ornament, and making it a contemporary graphic tool, vindicating this wonderful typographic element.