Up until the advent of vinyl plotters, computers and a myriad of other typesetting and printing changes the world has experienced over the past few decades, the art of hand lettering flourished. An early 1900s book on show card writing displayed a nice example of a Grotesk typeface (a popular style of sans serif of the time). This has been redrawn digitally as Simply Grotesk JNL and is available in four varieties - regular, oblique, condensed and condensed oblique.

Since the release of these fonts most typefaces in the Scangraphic Type Collection appear in two versions. One is designed specifically for headline typesetting (SH: Scangraphic Headline Types) and one specifically for text typesetting (SB Scangraphic Bodytypes). The most obvious differentiation can be found in the spacing. That of the Bodytypes is adjusted for readability. That of the Headline Types is decidedly more narrow in order to do justice to the requirements of headline typesetting. The kerning tables, as well, have been individualized for each of these type varieties. In addition to the adjustment of spacing, there are also adjustments in the design. For the Bodytypes, fine spaces were created which prevented the smear effect on acute angles in small typesizes. For a number of Bodytypes, hairlines and serifs were thickened or the whole typeface was adjusted to meet the optical requirements for setting type in small sizes. For the German lower-case diacritical marks, all Headline Types complements contain alternative integrated accents which allow the compact setting of lower-case headlines.

The versatile neo-grotesk typefamily, inspired by the swiss academia with a contemporary mood. The shape of the letters are more pliable compared to classics grotesk typefaces. -- Taking inspirations from classic grotesk letterforms, both from the European tradition (specifically the Swiss school) and the American tradition, HypeType's Arcadia Grotesk is modernized with its shorter ascenders and descenders to give more compact blocks of text and with its more contemporary and dynamic forms. -- hype-type.com // kidstudio.it

Albeit Grotesk Caps is a graphic geometric all caps display font family of four weights (Light, Regular, Medium and Bold) with slightly exaggarated diacritics for better readability making it ideal for headlines.

a naive grotesque font

Das Grotesk was inspired by earlier nineteenth-century grotesques, but it is much more related to American gothic designs such as those by M.F. Benton. Due to their pure geometric structure, most grotesque typefaces tend to have a rather monotonous and lifeless appearance, thus failing to express the ideals of the modern creed. Das Grotesk on the other hand is a lively design with several distinguishable characteristics which attract attention when set at large sizes, whilst they become subtle and blend evenly at small sizes, fostering a neutral identity. This is a very legible and space-saving typeface with a narrow structure. It was designed with slanted curved ends and sheared terminals applied on several straight strokes. It has two-storey ‘a’ and ‘g’ but includes single-storey alternates. The family consists of 14 weights ranging from Extra Thin to Black (including true-italics). It provides simultaneous support for Latin, Cyrillic and Greek and is loaded with several advanced typographic features such as small caps. Download its complehensive PDF Specimen Manual for further details.

Wood Type Grotesk JNL was re-drawn from a set of vintage wood type purchased from a closed rubber stamp shop. Although the style of lettering is referred to in old type catalogs as a "grotesk" face, in truth the lettering has charm and effectively gets the printed point across to the reader. This typeface is available in both regular and oblique versions.

a stout font with the streamline art deco visual

Wood Condensed Grotesk JNL is a more condensed version of the type style found in Wood Type Grotesk JNL. The font was a popular sans used for large posters or broadsheets as well as newspaper titles where more copy needed to be fit into limited space.

The versatile neo-grotesk typefamily, inspired by the swiss academia with a contemporary mood. The shape of the letters are more pliable compered to classic grotesk typefaces. The Expanded series enlarges horizons... and type! -- Taking inspirations from classic grotesk letterforms, both from the European tradition (specifically the Swiss school) and the American tradition, HypeType's Arcadia Grotesk is modernized with its shorter ascenders and descenders to give more compact blocks of text and with more contemporary and dynamic forms. -- hype-type.com // kidstudio.it

The original metal Neue Haas Grotesk™ would, in the late 1950s become Helvetica®. But, over the years, Helvetica would move away from its roots. Some of the features that made Neue Haas Grotesk so good were expunged or altered owing to comprimises dictated by technological changes. Christian Schwartz says Neue Haas Grotesk was originally produced for typesetting by hand in a range of sizes from 5 to 72 points, but digital Helvetica has always been one-size-fits-all, which leads to unfortunate compromises."""" Schwartz's digital revival sets the record straight, so to speak. What was lost in Neue Haas Grotesk's transition to the digital Helvetica of today, has been resurrected in this faithful digital revival. The Regular and Bold weights of Helvetica were redesigned for the Linotype machine; those alterations remained when Helvetica was adapted for phototypesetting. During the 1980s, the family was redrawn and released as Neue Helvetica. Schwartz's revival of the original Helvetica, his new Neue Haas Grotesk, comes complete with a number of Max Miedinger's alternates, including a flat-legged R. Eight display weights, from Thin to Black, plus a further three weights drawn specifically for text make this much more than a revival - it's a versatile, well-drawn grot with all the right ingredients. The Thin weight (originally requested by Bloomberg Businessweek) is very fine, very thin indeed, and reveals the true skeleton of these iconic letterforms. Available as a family of OpenType fonts with a very large Pro character set, Neue Haas Grotesk supports most Central European and many Eastern European languages.

Albeit Grotesk Stencil Caps is a graphic geometric stencil-style all caps display font family of four weights (Light, Regular, Medium and Bold) with slightly exaggarated diacritics for better readability making it ideal for headlines.

Albeit Grotesk Rounded Caps is a graphic geometric rounded all caps display font family of four weights (Light, Regular, Medium and Bold) with slightly exaggarated diacritics for better readability making it ideal for headlines.

A circa-1920s book on lettering entitled "Book of Alphabets" by Regan Publishing displayed an example of a Grotesk typeface (a popular style of sans serif of the time). This design was re-drawn digitally as Not So Grotesk JNL and is available in four varieties - regular, oblique, condensed and condensed oblique. Not So Grotesk JNL is the perfect companion font family to use alongside Simply Grotesk JNL.

BF Konkret Grotesk Pro, designed by Guido Schneider, is a contemporary grotesque with a straightforward style – but a very individual touch. Inspired by classic grotesque typefaces, Konkret Grotesk Pro impresses with its unique character and rhythm: It’s elegant and edgy, flexible and forceful. The Pro family supports up to 220 Latin-based languages. Each of the 16 fonts contains more than 1500 glyphs, including small caps, 7 figure sets, fractions, many ligatures, currency symbols, alternates, special characters and other useful symbols. 11 style sets give you the option to individualize and adjust the typeface to the requirement of your design, without changing the general visual feeling. In this way you can also switch the simply slanted styled Italic into a “real Italic”. BF Konkret Grotesk Pro is a typeface family that can adapt to many requirements without losing its character and expression. The range of 8 weights provides all possibilities. Due to the lovingly designed details, Konkret Grotesk Pro works both in small sizes as well as in display applications. Thus, Konkret Grotesk Pro is ideally suited for contemporary and demanding typographic tasks, both in the fields of editorial design, branding, posters and advertising. (The new Pro edition is the extended and optimized version of the previous BF Konkret Grotesk.)

FF Bauer Grotesk is a revival of the metal type Friedrich Bauer Grotesk, released between 1933 and 1934 by the foundry Trennert & Sohn in Hamburg Altona, Germany. The geometric construction of the typeface, infused with the art deco zeitgeist of that era, is closely related to such famous German designs as Futura, Erbar, Kabel and Super Grotesk that debuted a few years earlier. However, FF Bauer Grotesk stands out for being less dogmatic with the geometry, lending the design a warmer, more homogenous feeling. The oval “O” is a good example of that, as well as characteristic shapes like the capital M or the unconventionally differing endings of “c” and “s” which make for a less constructed look. The design was started by Thomas Ackermann, and he collaborated with Felix Bonge to evolve his original ideas into this fresh, modern geometric typeface family. FF Bauer Grotesk contains 6 weights with accompanying italics, and a wide range of OpenType typographic features including small caps, figure styles, fractions and contextual alternates. NEW: the new FF Bauer Grotesk W1G versions features a pan-European character set for international communications. The W1G character set supports almost all the popular languages/writing systems in western, eastern, and central Europe based on the Latin alphabet including Vietnamese, and also several based on Cyrillic and Greek alphabets.

The first weights of Neue Haas Grotesk were designed in 1957-1958 by Max Miedinger for the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei in Switzerland, with art direction by the company’s principal, Eduard Hoffmann. Neue Haas Grotesk was to be the answer to the British and German grotesques that had become hugely popular thanks to the success of functionalist Swiss typography. The typeface was soon revised and released as Helvetica by Linotype AG. As Neue Haas Grotesk had to be adapted to work on Linotype’s hot metal linecasters, Linotype Helvetica was in some ways a radically transformed version of the original. For instance, the matrices for Regular and Bold had to be of equal widths, and therefore the Bold was redrawn at a considerably narrower proportion. During the transition from metal to phototypesetting, Helvetica underwent additional modifications. In the 1980s Neue Helvetica was produced as a rationalized, standardized version. For Christian Schwartz, the assignment to design a digital revival of Neue Haas Grotesk was an occasion to set history straight. “Much of the warm personality of Miedinger’s shapes was lost along the way. So rather than trying to rethink Helvetica or improve on current digital versions, this was more of a restoration project: bringing Miedinger’s original Neue Haas Grotesk back to life with as much fidelity to his original shapes and spacing as possible (albeit with the addition of kerning, an expensive luxury in handset type).” Schwartz’s revival was originally commissioned in 2004 by Mark Porter for the redesign of The Guardian, but not used. Schwartz completed the family in 2010 for Richard Turley at Bloomberg Businessweek. Its thinnest weight was designed by Berton Hasebe.

Since the release of these fonts most typefaces in the Scangraphic Type Collection appear in two versions. One is designed specifically for headline typesetting (SH: Scangraphic Headline Types) and one specifically for text typesetting (SB Scangraphic Bodytypes). The most obvious differentiation can be found in the spacing. That of the Bodytypes is adjusted for readability. That of the Headline Types is decidedly more narrow in order to do justice to the requirements of headline typesetting. The kerning tables, as well, have been individualized for each of these type varieties. In addition to the adjustment of spacing, there are also adjustments in the design. For the Bodytypes, fine spaces were created which prevented the smear effect on acute angles in small typesizes. For a number of Bodytypes, hairlines and serifs were thickened or the whole typeface was adjusted to meet the optical requirements for setting type in small sizes. For the German lower-case diacritical marks, all Headline Types complements contain alternative integrated accents which allow the compact setting of lower-case headlines.

Since the release of these fonts most typefaces in the Scangraphic Type Collection appear in two versions. One is designed specifically for headline typesetting (SH: Scangraphic Headline Types) and one specifically for text typesetting (SB Scangraphic Bodytypes). The most obvious differentiation can be found in the spacing. That of the Bodytypes is adjusted for readability. That of the Headline Types is decidedly more narrow in order to do justice to the requirements of headline typesetting. The kerning tables, as well, have been individualized for each of these type varieties. In addition to the adjustment of spacing, there are also adjustments in the design. For the Bodytypes, fine spaces were created which prevented the smear effect on acute angles in small typesizes. For a number of Bodytypes, hairlines and serifs were thickened or the whole typeface was adjusted to meet the optical requirements for setting type in small sizes. For the German lower-case diacritical marks, all Headline Types complements contain alternative integrated accents which allow the compact setting of lower-case headlines.