Update November 2022: ULGA Grid now features an oblique variant. It’s also been expanded into a family of different but related designs with the addition of ULGA Grid Solid and ULGA Grid Rounded typeface families. All variants and new designs are monospaced, sharing the same width as the original ULGA Grid font and matching character sets. The character set has also been enlarged and now supports Western Europe, Vietnamese, Central/Eastern Europe, Baltic, Turkish and Romanian. ULGA Grid is a modular, monospaced typeface reminiscent of the old Letraset LCD & Quartz typefaces from the 1970/80s with lots of alternative characters and ornaments to bring a fresh twist to the genre. The idea’s seed germinated while I was going through a phase of binge watching my favourite 1980/90s sci-fi movies (classics such as Terminator, Total Recall and RoboCop). However, perception and reality don’t always align. Thirty years later, when compared to today’s technology, some visual elements look kind of outdated, almost Retro Futuristic. The initial design process started out in Adobe Illustrator when I constructed letters from a few geometric shapes within a square block. Just playing around with different shapes was so engrossing that it wasn’t long before there were enough characters for a basic typeface. The project grew again as I experimented with designs within the shapes and set paragraphs of text in patterns, resulting in over a hundred alternative characters and ornaments, some of which double up as border designs. This typeface may be square but it’s anything but boring. What it lacks in legibility ULGA Grid makes up for in style and the end result is a surprisingly versatile typeface that you'll have fun using for a wide range of display purposes including CD covers, posters, packaging, advertising, brochures and film titles. Ironically, the fixed grid structure frees the characters to create patterns of text not possible with variable widths.

Xavier Dupre’s Molto font family is a tonal master, creating tenderness in a slab serif and tempering toughness with flourishes. Slab serifs created their original niche by their ability to grab attention and overwhelm, which caused them to be seen as strong, dominant, and desired fonts, especially in advertising. Slab serifs are the result of placing defined edges on something meant to take up an inordinate amount of space, rather than meant to be graceful. Molto updates this concept to allow a greater, and gentler, range in the lighter weights. Molto’s nine weights are defined by their intended use. The two extreme weights (Hair and Fat) act as display partners for magazines, titles, and posters. The Hair weight is runway ready with its sturdy serifs, breathy internal space, and stable lettershapes that were designed both to perform and impress. Molto’s Fat weight packs maximum punch in a believable way. Its wide and deliberate curves contrast against thin connections and landing strip stems. Molto can be put to perfect use in a fashion magazine using swashy Hair headlines set against its darkest weight. Molto’s seven intermediate weights, with their classic and legible shapes, are meant for texts of all sizes. The notches on diagonals, distinct numerals, and acute terminals grant benefits from caption sizes up to headings. Molto’s refined light weights and punchy heavy weights set the stage for a swashy surprise — alternate capital letters act as refined garments laid atop its concrete skeleton. The Molto font family rejects saving space in favour of intensifying shapes, placing maximum weight on the edges for better legibility and impact. Latin-based digital and printed designs will benefit from Molto’s design voice and breadth. This means UI, video, and online text, and print materials like dictionaries, packaging, advertising, and branding can all put Molto’s robust forms to multipurpose use. Molto successfully creates balance in a slab serif design: an opinionated and striking type family, stalwart in captions and exuberant in display, thanks to swashes which add some originality to the slab category.

Whatever the medium, Girard’s love for typography was the common thread that wove his work together. We are honored that the Girard family has entrusted us to celebrate and expand upon the legacy of this design icon with this collection of fonts. The Girard Slab family gracefully synthesizes illustrative sensibilities into a practical typographic framework. Slab’s three widths and four weights ensure versatility in a modern editorial setting while its gentle curves transcend the sterility of traditional typography to add an unprecedented warmth and personality. From boutique chocolate packaging to the titling sequence for an indie vegan superhero cartoon, Girard Script deftly adds a contemporary sophistication to text and display settings. Inspired by a workhorse lettering style that helped Alexander Girard implement thousands of design elements in his overhaul of the Braniff identity system, Girard Sky pulls its weight in any contemporary application. In Girard Sansusie, each character stands alone as an illustrative element while coming together with its counterparts as a whimsical yet functional typeface. FEATURES: The ligatures feature substitutes specially-drawn letter combinations that combine two, three or even four characters to create smoother transitions and simulate lettering sensibilities. Girard Slab’s three widths and four weights ensure versatility in a modern editorial setting while its gentle curves transcend the sterility of traditional typography to add an unprecedented warmth and personality. Copious alternate characters and “smart” OpenType programming allow Sansusie to escape the rigid confines of typography to come alive as if flowing from Girard’s sketchpad. This animation shows a sampling of the swash characters available in the font. GIRARD CREDITS: Typeface Design: Alexander Girard, Ben Kiel, Ken Barber, Laura Meseguer Typeface Production: Ben Kiel Typeface Direction: Christian Schwartz, Andy Cruz, Ken Barber Like all good subversives, House Industries hides in plain sight while amplifying the look, feel and style of the world’s most interesting brands, products and people. Based in Delaware, visually influencing the world.

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.

Imagine America in the 1930s. A gangster flick with Al Capone, a crime novel featuring Philip Marlowe. Our hero in a fedora sits in a classy bar, orders a double bourbon, lights a cigar and eyes the evening paper. He turns the pages, reading about a bank heist over on Third Avenue, a scandal involving a baseball player, a small ad for a general practitioner and a large spread about a famous law firm. What do the bottle of booze and the majestic facade of the bank have in common? The elegant baseball uniform and trustworthy attorneys? - Copperplate Gothic - When Frederick William Goudy created his legendary typeface in 1901, it went on to literally become the symbol of early 20th century America. Tiny serifs, characteristically broad letterforms, and particularly bold titles decorated calling cards at 6-point size, enormous bronze-cast logos, newspaper headlines, restaurant menus and more. This was the golden age of Copperplate, lasting up until the arrival of die neue Typografie and monospaced grotesques in the 1960s. Then the typeface almost completely disappeared. It made a partial comeback with the advent of the personal computer; digitizations of varying quality appeared, and one version even became a standard font in Adobe programs. This may have played a role in Copperplate later being used in DIY projects and amateur designs, which harmed its reputation. Copperplate New has been created to revive the faded glory of the original design. Formally, the new typeface expands the existing weight and proportional extremes. The slight serifs are reduced even further, making the typeface sans-like at smaller point sizes and improving readability. In contrast, at large point sizes it retains all of its original character. Decorative inline & shadow styles have been added and both have been created in all five proportions, making it easy to adapt the typesetting to the format you need. Despite these changes and innovations, Copperplate New remains true to Goudy’s original design and represents a snazzy way to evoke a golden era in American culture. Specimen: http://carontwice.com/files/specimen_Copperplate_New.pdf

La vie est une fleur dont l'amour est le miel Fleur is the French for flower and I've chosen this language for a good reason. Over the past 5 years, I've had the opportunity to travel a lot to Paris and I've always tried to catch every moment and detail of this delightful city through the eyes of the designer inside me. Paris is full of surprises, mainly for us, artists. In fact, I believe the city is a museum itself. Every corner of any street has something inspiring. But, there’s something I particularly love and I want to address here: The Palais Garnier. Built between 1861 and 1875, this opera house is a dream made true for many of us, who love somptuosité. Garnier, the architect of this magnificent building, said that the style he proposed was not Grecian nor Roman/baroque, he created something new and called it Napoleonic: Luxurious at its best. Fleur is inspired in this palace which, in fact, has some similar letters inside. Garnier put his name at the ceiling of the Rotonde des Abonnés: Letters are interlacing each other with nicely done art nouveau curves. I thought I could take this idea and achieve something very delicate and imposing at the same time if the font consisted entirely of caps with the logic of a didone and a bit of art-nouveau. This mix of elegance and flamboyance gave birth to Fleur which has a wide range of uses but was mainly intended for perfumes, fashion magazines, storefronts, book covers or logos. Not only you'll find many decorative glyphs, but also a vast amount of unique ligatures will make you really adore this font. Get Fleur and profite de la vie TECHNICAL As suggested above, the font has many open-type coded alternates and a vast amount of unique ligatures. Install the font in applications that support them, like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.

It's been a while... more than three months we developed our brand new font. We call them "Meastro". Fun fact though, we want to call it "Maestro", but you know... we were afraid of the copyright thing. Meastro Script is a fun, bold, luscious, retro display script font. We crafted this font very carefully and make them very smoothly attach to each other. Especially, on the script version. You can see every character's tail beautifully connected one to another without using ligatures' help. This font takes full advantage of the Open Type format with several automatic ligatures that occur as you type for your preferred design. Moreover, the manual stylistic alternates allow you to choose the letters you prefer. Alternates occur automatically as you type in supported programs when you have "Ligatures" or "Stylistic Alternates" turned on. Meastro is Created with a ton of stylistic alternates, swashes, and ligatures, and also comes with layerable fonts to recreate the effect without uncomfortable overlaps of the extruded shadow effect. On this pro pack, you will also get the Meastro Display font! On this font you will meet the unique blocky and squared design, making your design feel classic and retro-like. Combine them and “boom”, you will be the “Maestro” of the vintage design! This retro typeface is perfect for logotypes, t-shirts, vintage badges, retro quotes, branding, packaging, posters, signboards, social media needs, etc. ——— Meastro features: A full set of uppercase and lowercase characters Layered Style Numbers and punctuation Multilingual language support PUA Encoded Characters OpenType Features +553 Total Glyphs (Script) +235 Total Glyphs (Display) +238 Stylistic Alternates +30 Ligatures +69 Swashes and more (Shiny and Graffiti Spray Effect Included!) ——— ⚠️To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternates, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe InDesign & CorelDraw X6-X7, Microsoft Word 2010, or later versions. There are additional ways to access alternates/swashes, using Character Map (Windows), Nexus Font (Windows), Font Book (Mac), or a software program such as Pop Char (for Windows and Mac).

Plakato, a stencil love affair Plakato is a family of display fonts, consisting of various eye-catching styles, each of them very bold. Plakato is an identity toolkit, a heavyweight building block in case you need a strong personality, a small stencil font family to cut out your best ideas and grab all the attention. But just as with many other creations, its outcome is as divers as its multiple origins. Plakato comes in 16 eye-catching styles. The default stencil style comes in Regular & Italic. They both have 2 variations: one version, named Plakato Stencil, automatically creates borders around the text, putting any text into a graphic stencil in this way. Another version, the extruded three-dimensional version, guarantees even more attention for your message. Next to this there is also the Inline version, which is an optical play with a lot of lines. Plakato Inline has a supportive background layer, a separate font in case you want to add a background in a different colour. Then there is Plakato Paper, a manually teared version of Plakato offering a more physical look. This small family of eye-catching display fonts also contains a Neon font, an independent design in Plakato style, which can actually be used for making neon signs due to its construction. Plakato Neon comes with its own Dingbat font for that extra flush-flush. Plakato has also been redrawn on a C64, and with all its accompanying limitations been ported back and turned into a font: Plakato Game. Also this font comes with its own Dingbat font, full of emoji’s and icons for oldskool pleasure. Last but not least there is Plakato Build, constructed out of blocks. As if that wasn’t enough, there are various dynamic versions in the Plakato Play package, which offer a whole new range of possibilities for typographic expression, with new animation and interaction opportunities.

Lust Sans is the penultimate exploration of producing a high-contrast sans wholly influenced by its bracketed ancestor. The aspect of this endeavor I enjoyed the most was finding sneaky ways to infuse warmth and whimsy into the letterforms when you least expect it. The result, however, is subtle and uniquely balances against Lust and Lust Didone without becoming cold and overbearing. To accomplish this, Lust Sans has 6 weights. What I found during development was, based on any setting where Lust or Lust Didone were in the same layout, the amount of contrast shown with Lust Sans needed to be adjusted. Expanding the weight offering, produces opportunities for Lust Sans to modulate the rhythm of the layout comfortably while keeping contrast—this is even more obvious with the Italics. I love those. You will too. If you don’t, you do not have a soul. Not sorry. The Lust Collection is the culmination of 5 years of exploration and development, and I am very excited to share it with everyone. When the original Lust was first conceived in 2010 and released a year and half later, I had planned for a Script and a Sans to accompany it. The Script was released about a year later, but I paused the Sans. The primary reason was the amount of feedback and requests I was receiving for alternate versions, expansions, and ‘hey, have you considered making?’ and so on. I listen to my customers and what they are needing… and besides, I was stalling with the Sans. Like Optima and other earlier high-contrast sans, they are difficult to deliver responsibly without suffering from ill-conceived excess or timidity. The new Lust Collection aggregates all of that past customer feedback and distills it into 6 separate families, each adhering to the original Lust precept of exercises in indulgence and each based in large part on the original 2010 exemplars produced for Lust. I just hate that it took so long to deliver, but better right, than rushed, I imagine.

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.

You stand, poised at the brink. If you do not choose the right, the best typeface, this may be one of the greatest disasters in your history. The whole root and core and brain on which and around which your project is built seems about to perish into an ignominious end. But I do not for a moment fail to believe that Winsel shall prevail for you. This bold new face, founded from the tested mind of insigne design, will in the moment of need wield for you the full might of its ancestors. The entire strength of the British Empire’s vernacular poster lettering spanning the 1920’s to the 1950’s drives the very heart of every feature and weight this font has to offer. Winsel’s expanded design is sharp and angular, based on pointed brush strokes. Its thick, sturdy appearance will draw and direct your reader’s mind to the weight and importance of your messages and titling. Within the font’s full forces work a range of styles to achieve victory in the contest ahead: thick weights that are compact and muscular for carrying a heavier load and lighter, finer weights to lead you through your more sensitive operations. It stands equipped with OpenType features, ready to support most European Latin-based languages and providing features such as Small Caps and Titling Caps in all nine of its weights. Well-honed for the task ahead, Winsel has been crafted to ride out the storm of mediocrity and to outlive the merits of inconsequence, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. There has never been in all the world such an opportunity for you. With Winsel, you shall go on till the end. You shall write on the beaches. You shall write on the landing grounds. You shall write with growing confidence and growing strength in print or on the air. Every morn has brought forth a noble chance. Your chance this day is Winsel.

The Tazugane Gothic typeface family is the first original Japanese typeface created by Monotype. Designed by Akira Kobayashi, Kazuhiro Yamada and Ryota Doi of the Monotype Studio, the Tazugane Gothic typeface offers ten weights and was developed to complement the classic Latin typeface, Neue Frutiger. The design of the Tazugane Gothic typeface balances an original, humanistic style with elements of traditional Japanese handwriting. The two typefaces work together in a natural, seamless and adaptable manner so that Japanese and Latin texts can be used side-by-side for a wide range of applications, including in magazines, books and other print media; on digital devices; in branding and corporate identity systems; and in signage for buildings, highways and mass transit. Tazugane Gothic was updated to support the “Reiwa” new era symbol. Reiwa can be written as two kanji: 令和. This update to Tazugane Gothic includes Reiwa designed as a single ligature and is encoded as U+32FF. The inspiration for the Tazugane Gothic typeface is as elegant as its design. Since antiquity, cranes have been regarded in East Asia as auspicious birds for their noble appearance and elegance in flight. The typeface is named Tazugane Gothic in honor of the longevity of the crane, with the goal that it will be used for many years to come. The combination of the Tazugane Gothic typefaces’ traditional and humanistic elements, along with its intended ability to complement popular Latin typefaces, makes it one of the most uniquely flexible designs for applications where Japanese and Latin texts can be used together. The typeface family was created to have wide appeal, with a pleasing and consistent experience for readers, for use on screen, in print, in signage, packaging and advertising. Tazugane Gothic has 10 weights. The Light, Book, Regular, Medium and Bold weights are considered best for text sizes. The Ultra Light, Thin, Heavy, Black and Extra Black weights are recommended for headline sizes.

P22 ST.G Shrift is a font series based on the type designs of Stefan George with an italic version designed by Colin Kahn. Stefan George (1868-1933) was a German poet who led the revolt against realism in German literature. All of his works were privately published and the typefaces that were used reflected his neo-classic and anti-industrial (progessive) aesthetics; oftentimes consisting of his own hand lettering designs. The original font was cast in 1907 by a small foundry in Germany and was used primarily for the works of George as well as other books including a monumental edition of Dante's Divine Comedy. The ST.G Shrift Fonts contained in this set are derived from 3 known variations of the original roman typeface, St.G., found in various books published in Berlin in the early 20th century. ST.G Shrift One contains the most idiosyncratic characters, while ST.G Shrift Two uses more familiar characters as well as a redesign of characters including the t and the k to be more in keeping with modern san-serif designs. The OpenType version of the roman contains both one and two and expands on them by including central European characters, small caps, and small caps titling figures. The Small Caps titling figures are derived from the first version of the typeface. Below is a features list (accessible through the type palette in Adobe programs) and their functions: ST.G Shrift Opentype Features: Small Caps: Changes Lowercase to Small Caps Titling Figures: Changes Uppercase to Titling Caps, and Small Caps to Small Caps Titling Figures Contextual Alternates: Changes Character Set to match ST.G One and changes Small Caps to Titling Small Caps Ornaments: Changes < > and ? (greater, less and bullet) to ornaments ST.G Shrift Italic is an art nouveau version of the roman. The OpenType version includes central European characters, small caps, titling caps, titling small caps and ornaments.

While researching the history of Onitsuka Tiger's branding and graphic design, I came across an odd, yet highly appealing piece of custom lettering on the company's ONICK ski boots from the 1970s. Reminiscent of aspects of the typeface Black-Out by Eli Carrico (released by my type foundry Wordshape), yet vertically compressed with razor-sliced counters and odd stencil element that makes up one of the legs of the "K", the ONICK lettering is a potential source for an intriguing modular font. I immediately thought of Ryoichi Tsunekawa as a potential collaborator to bring this piece of lettering to full-fledged life in the contemporary context. Based in Nagoya, Tsunekawa runs an independent type foundry called Dharma Type, including three specialized foundry sub-labels: Flat-It, devoted to display lettering; Prop-A-Ganda, a series of fonts inspired by and based on retro propaganda posters, movie posters, retail sign lettering & advertisements in the early 20th century; and Holiday Type, a series of decorative and retro scripts for holiday use. The past year has seen a flurry of notice of his work abroad, having been featured in both MyFonts' "Creative Characters" and YouWorkForThem's newsletter. As the work of most Japanese type designers is almost wholly unnoticed abroad, for Tsunekawa to be interviewed by two of the most popular type distribution companies in the world is definitely something beyond the norm. Perhaps it is because he works independently, or perhaps it is due to the charm and friendliness with which his typefaces are infused. Either way, this attention is both welcome and appreciated. Beyond mere charm, Tsunekawa's work is nuanced, detailed, and accessible due to its high level of finish. His fonts stand apart from his contemporaries in Latin typeface design in Japan due to his fascination with pop, vernacular and historical lettering from "non-pure" sources- whereas type designers like Kunihiko Okano and Akira Kobayashi have spent years analyzing the essence of Western letterform construction and unlocking the essence of Latin forms, Tsunekawa views surface and the awkward nature of his sources as being of value, as well. His irreverence for the formal doctrines of history imbue his typeface designs with a rugged inventiveness that would be missed by most- glyphs without source designs are guessed at and approximated, often in a manner wildly divergent from what Western eyes would assume. It is in these moments that I find sheer delight in Tsunekawa’s work and what make me most pleased to invite him aboard Neojaponisme and Onitsuka Tiger’s type development project. His assorted typefaces show an eclecticism in finish and as holistic systems- Tsunekawa's return email to me about the proposed type project showed a digital sketch of how a completed typeface family from the source lettering might look, rendered with an effortlessness and dedication to detail that belies a skilled craftsperson. Further development showed Tsunekawa’s rigor- the typeface in development rapidly featured glyphs ignored by many: a full set of fractions, Eastern European diacritics and accents, superior and inferior numerals, alternate characters, and custom ligatures - all designed with regulated, detailed spacing. ONICK is a typeface Tsunekawa should be proud of- an homage to a moment in history rendered in the absolute best fashion. We are proud to present it to the world! --Ian Lynam