The Garamond family tree has many branches. There are probably more different typefaces bearing the name Garamond than the name of any other type designer. Not only did the punchcutter Claude Garamond set a standard for elegance and excellence in type founding in 16th-century Paris, but a successor, Jean Jannon, some eighty years later, cut typefaces inspired by Garamond that later came to bear Garamond’s name. Revivals of both designs have been popular and various over the course of the last 100 years. When ATF Garamond was designed in 1917, it was one of the first revivals of a truly classic typeface. Based on Jannon’s types, which had been preserved in the French Imprimerie Nationale as the “caractères de l’Université,” ATF Garamond brought distinctive elegance and liveliness to text type for books and display type for advertising. It was both the inspiration and the model for many of the later “Garamond” revivals, notably Linotype’s very popular Garamond No. 3. ATF Garamond was released ca. 1918, first in Roman and Italic, drawn by Morris Fuller Benton, the head of the American Type Founders design department. In 1922, Thomas M. Cleland designed a set of swash italics and ornaments for the typeface. The Bold and Bold Italic were released in 1920 and 1923, respectively. The new digital ATF Garamond expands upon this legacy, while bringing back some of the robustness of metal type and letterpress printing that is sometimes lost in digital adaptations. The graceful, almost lacy form of some of the letters is complemented by a solid, sturdy outline that holds up in text even at small sizes. The 18 fonts comprise three optical sizes (Subhead, Text, Micro) and three weights, including a new Medium weight that did not exist in metal. ATF Garamond also includes unusual alternates and swash characters from the original metal typeface. The character of ATF Garamond is lively, reflecting the spirit of the French Renaissance as interpreted in the 1920s. Its Roman has more verve than later old-style faces like Caslon, and its Italic is outright sprightly, yet remarkably readable.

Elegant and round Having harboured a desire for a rounded font within the Fontsmith library for some time, Phil Garnham recognised that FS Emeric offered the perfect skeleton around which to design it. Most new rounded fonts rely on scripts or other in-app automation to form their characters. For all their warmth and approachability, they too often conjure images of jelly sweets and sausages. Not so FS Aldrin, where every curve and transition has been crafted by hand, giving a distinctive look and elegant feel. Design highlights FS Aldrin enjoys wide-open ‘lunar’ counters and soft, tube-like terminals. These improve legibility, especially on backlit signage and screens. The open proportions and circular strokes are juxtaposed against a more serious technical aspect that exists within each counter shape. The lighter weights feel precise and efficient, perfect for notes on blueprints or technical drawings. The heavy weights are equally crafted but more playful by their rotund nature, and are perfect for strong headlines or packaging projects. UI icons A suite of 268 icons complement the typeface beautifully and extend the design language in all directions. They cover a range of commonly used applications and themes ranging from ecommerce to weather, and also serve as a solid starting point for a bespoke brand icon set or UI. In addition, born of FS Aldrin’s astronomical theme and playful nature is a special collection of space-themed icons, including rockets, shuttles and lunar modules (hint: if you type the word BUZZ with ligatures enabled, an astronaut appears). Earth to Buzz Buzz Aldrin was the pilot of Apollo 11’s lunar module, the one that put man on The Moon for the very first time. Early on in the project’s life, FS Aldrin emerged as the ideal hook on which to hang the font’s space helmet (hardly surprising given Phil’s fascination with space travel and astronomy). An approach was made to Buzz’s management to see if he would sanction the association. Not only was the great man himself happy to see his name on a typeface, he also asked to use it in his upcoming keynote talks, book launches and online projects.

Fantini is the revival and elaborate update of a typeface called Fantan, made in-house and released in 1970 by a minor Chicago film type supplier called Custom Headings International. In the most excellent tradition of seriously-planned American film faces back then, CHI released a full complement of swashes and alternates to the curly art nouveau letters. Fantan didn't fare much among the type scene's big players back then, but it did spread like electricity among the smaller ones, the mom-and-pop type shops. But by the late 1980s, when film type was giving up the ghost, most smaller players in the industry were gone, in some cases along with little original libraries that existed nowhere else and became instant rarities on their way to be forgotten and almost impossible to resurrect for future technologies. Fantini is the fun and curly art nouveau font bridging the softness and psychedelia of the 1960s with the flirtatious flare of the 1970s like no other face does. Elements of psychedelia and funk flare out and intermix crazily to create cool, swirly letters packed with a lot of joy and energy. This is the kind of American art nouveau font that made its comeback in the late 20th century and is now a standard visual in the branding drive of almost every consumer product, from coffee labels to book and music covers to your favorite sugar or thirst-crunching fix. Alongside Fantini's enormous main font come small caps and three extra fonts loaded with swashy alternates and variations on plenty of letters. All available in all popular font formats. Fantini Pro, the OpenType version, packs the whole she-bang in a single font of high versatility for those who have applications that support advanced type technologies. In order to make Fantini a reality, Canada Type received original 2" film specimen from Robert Donona, a Clevelander whose enthusiasm about American film type has never faltered, even decades after the technology itself became obsolete. Keep an eye out for that name. Robert, who was computer-reluctant for the longest time, has now come a long way toward mastering digital type design.

Anultra Slab is, you guessed it... An ultra bold slab serif! Anultra Slab is a hard hitting headliner, designed to be set LARGE. Because it's a single weight typeface, no compromises were necessary to get it interpolatable with other weights, so it is as bold and tight as I intended. Features include automatic fractions, case-sensitive forms, ligatures, stylistic alternates for non-descending J and Q, and a 3D 'xtrude' style, which can be layered behind the regular to create two colour, photo-lettering style text. Very seventies. Very cool. A companion typeface, Alight Slab , is available at the other end of the weight scale, but there are no weights in between. You're no middle-weight designer, so why use middle-weight fonts?!

Cinematica was specially designed for film credits in communication pieces. Due to its space saving qualities, geometric elegance of its shapes, and eight wights; it allows a wide range of uses. Its geometry makes Cinematica able to harmonize and unify any text, incorporating the necessary signs for composition in English, Spanish, Italian, French, German and Portuguese. The Regular weight also incorporates statements that usually appear in film credits (such as "directed by", "produced by", etc.) that have been programmed as predetermined ligatures and can be accessed by typing a short sequence of signs to avoid typing the full phrase. To make the most of the alternatives proposed, use applications that support Open Type. Take a look at the User Guide.

If you are like me, you love to doodle in a sketchbook when traveling abroad to capture the indescribable moments that a camera or video would miss. Years ago, on a trip to Spain, I penned out this fanciful handwritten script and just fell in love with it. I came across that old sketchbook recently, and the love affair was renewed. Gonte brings back all of the magic and charm of that trip, and I hope that it will bring a little magic to whatever flights of fancy you might use it for. Double letter Ligatures, Contextual Swashes to start and finish letterforms, and Stylistic Alternates for the lowercase v and w all lend to keeping the carefree hand-penned style.

Ingram BT might be described as Deco, or Arts & Crafts, in style. Created by Alex Marshall, it is a very condensed design with high-waisted uppercase glyphs that feature dots rather than straight lines for the middle hairlines. There are two sets of alternate glyphs accessible via stylistic and contextual OpenType features. The contextual alternates offer the most interesting glyph substitutions. There are also oldstyle and tabular figures, superiors and inferiors, as well as unlimited fractions. Ingram is a very handsome, casual typeface, with a slightly rough finish. The compact lowercase remains very readable at text sizes and it is a pleasure to turn on the earth tone colors and typeset left and right justified paragraphs! The extended character set supports Baltic and Central European languages.

Kolyada is a modernist semi-serif with a friendly nature. This type is well-suited for use in retail, magazines, logotypes, books, etc. It comes with 4 styles, from Ultra Light to Medium, each with its Upright Italics.