ION B is a part of the ION superfamily, which consists of 3 families: condensed (ION A), normal (ION B) and wide (ION C), each having a compelling range of 10 weights. Styles Thin to Black have 436 glyphs supporting more than 70 Latin-based languages and the three heaviest weights, named U1, U2 and U3 have 94 basic glyphs. ION glyphs are based on the classic 7-segment display, but for readability and aesthetic reasons, some alphabetic characters don't follow this matrix strictly. In case you like things in order, don't worry, there’s a stylistic set that replaces all characters with their strict alternatives. The special characters, such as #, @ or % are composed of special segments, but are designed to fit seamlessly within the whole character set. ION was designed with the needs of contemporary graphic design in mind. There are alternative characters, discretionary ligatures, slashed zero, superior & inferior numbers, fractions, ordinals and three handy stylistic sets. The ten styles of ION B are accompanied with a special 11th style called Cells, allowing you to design a special underlying layer of black or outlined cells. This way you can create various containers and boxes for your text, highlight what’s important or go wild and draw a space invader, using the cells as building blocks. Learn more about the OpenType features and Cells at www.urtd.net/ion.

Alimentary (adjective): relating to nourishment or sustenance. If you've seen my other fonts, you know I tend to lean into food-based names. This name has to do with food and science combined, so it's double nerdy in the ways I like to be nerdy! I started with Alimentary Medium, which was inspired by my shorter, wider font MacGuffin - I wanted something taller, narrower, with a hip and retro feel. When I finished the Medium weight, I felt like I wanted a Light weight. Then a Heavy weight. Then I figured, "what the heck," and made an outline version of the Medium weight too. In the end, I wound up with four members of the Alimentary family, each with over 700 glyphs! Not only do they all have the basics (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, and tons of punctuation), but they also each have 330 characters for European language support, and a limited selection of Greek, Coptic, and Cyrillic characters. Plus a double handful of alternates and ligatures to add a little variety to your designs! And of course, all of the Alimentary fonts are super-smoothed, with reduced nodes and clean curves, so whether you're cutting them out, printing them, engraving them, or using them in a way I haven't even thought of, these fonts will be sharp and crisp!

First introduced by the American Type Founders Company in 1906, Railroad Gothic was the quintessential typographic expression of turn-of-the-century industrial spirit—bold and brash in tone, and a little rough around the edges. A favorite for the plain speak of big headlines, Railroad Gothic quickly gained popularity among printers. Its condensed but robust forms were likely a source of inspiration for later families of industrial sans serifs. The design feels like a cleaned-up version of some earlier Victorian gothics, notable for their uneven proportions and awkward letterforms. ATF offered a number of sizes of Railroad Gothic as metal type, with cuts varying in design considerably from size to size. Creating this new digital version involved interpreting the characteristics of different sizes and making some aesthetic choices: where to retain the design’s familiar unstudied gawkiness, and where to make improvements. The new ATF® Railroad Gothic features a measured, harmonious interpretation of the original, and has been extended with four new weights (each bolder than the last). The heaviest weights are carefully designed to keep counters open, no matter how dense the overall effect may be, maintaining legibility at any display size. This contemporary rendition of a historic American design boasts a full Latin character set, including glyphs undreamed-of in the heyday of railroads.

Amorie is a tall and skinny hand drawn font. It comes in various weight and styles, and with an array of opentype options. Built to appear completely hand crafted, different designers could produce completely different results, selecting either Modella (classic and chic), Nova (fun and fancy) or SC (Small Caps and all business.) Each style comes in light, medium and bold and has an accompanying italics version. Opentype for this font includes Contextual Alternatives, which produces three versions of each character, making sure no two identical letters appear next to each other thus giving your design a fully authentic look. There are also stylistic alternatives, which offer different style to a select few characters, including capital letters: A, K, R, Q, Y and lowercase letters: a, e, k, t, y. Lastly, is a large set of swashes, 3 for each letter they accompany. For the most part this includes the whole uppercase alphabet as well as lower case letters with an ascender or descender. Amorie includes a large set of graphic extras, including stylish frames, arrows, line breaks, corners, flourishes and more. The complete package gives you one unbeatable font family. If you do not use Opentype but are using a program that includes a full glyph panel, you will be able to access each of the style variations you want.

A tessellation is a shape that can be used to completely fill the plane. Simple examples are isosceles triangles, squares, and hexagons. Tessellation patterns are eye-catching and visually appealing, which is the reason that they have long been popular in a variety of decorative situations. These Tessie fonts have two family members, a solid style that must have different colors when used and an outline style. They can be used separately or they can be used in layers with the outline style on top of the solid style. For rows to align properly, leading must be the same as point size. To see how patterns can be constructed, see the “Samples” file here. Shapes that tessellate and also resemble real-world objects are often called Escher-like tessellations. This typeface contains many Escher-like tessellations that resemble animals including horses, goats, rabbits, fish, frogs, and other vertebrates. Most or all of these shapes were discovered/created by the font designer during the past twenty years in the process of designing maze books, coloring books, and a book about tessellations. (Earlier tessellation fonts from IngrimayneType, the TessieDingies fonts, lack a black or filled version so cannot do colored patterns. The addition of a solid style that must be colored makes these new fonts a bit more difficult to use but offers far greater possibilities in getting visually interesting results.)

A tessellation is a shape that can be used to completely fill the plane—simple examples are isosceles triangles, squares, and hexagons. Tessellation patterns are eye-catching and visually appealing, which is the reason that they have long been popular in a variety of decorative situations. These Tessie fonts have two family members, a solid style that must have different colors when used and an outline style. They can be used separately or they can be used in layers with the outline style on top of the solid style. For rows to align properly, leading must be the same as point size. To see how patterns can be constructed, see the “Samples” file here. Shapes that tessellate and also resemble real-world objects are often called Escher-like tessellations. This typeface contains many Escher-like tessellations that resemble flying birds. Most or all of these shapes were discovered/created by the font designer during the past twenty years in the process of designing maze books, colorings books, and a book about tessellations. (Earlier tessellation fonts from IngrimayneType, the TessieDingies fonts, lack a black or filled version so cannot do colored patterns. The addition of a solid style that must be colored makes these new fonts a bit more difficult to use but offers far greater possibilities in getting visually interesting results.)

The branding agency's client wanted an ultra modern"" typeface that was ""futuristic without being gimmicky or ephemeral,"" according to the design brief. Designer Sebastian Lester took on this intriguing custom font assignment, but soon, a bureaucratic decision cancelled the project. ""I was left with a sketchbook full of ideas and thought it would be a shame not to see what came of them,"" says Lester. He decided to finish the design on his own. Lester's research confirmed that the principal ingredient of an ""ultra modern"" typeface was simplicity of character structure: a carefully drawn, monoline form, open letter shapes and smooth, strong curves. To conceive a typeface that crossed the line from modern to futuristic, Lester decided to amplify these qualities. About a year after Lester's initial conceptual work, two highly functional and versatile typefaces emerged. These are Neo Sans and Neo Tech, designs Lester describes as ""legible without being neutral, nuanced without being fussy, and expressive without being distracting."" Both the Neo Sans and the more-minimalist Neo Tech families are available in six weights, ranging from Light to Ultra. Each has a companion italic, and Neo Tech offers a suite of alternate characters. While engineered to look modern as tomorrow, Neo Sans and Neo Tech display the functional and aesthetic excellence that earns them a place in the list of classic designs from the Monotype typeface library.