A sign of something better When designer Stuart de Rozario surveyed the fonts used in signage on London’s public transport systems, he reached a dead end. They seemed staid, sterile, lacking in personality, and ill-suited to use by modern brands. He was pointed in another direction entirely. ‘The driving force behind my thoughts was to design something more current and fresh without compromising legibility and clarity. A font with both personality and function, that’s versatile and large and small sizes, and effortless to read, but which also says something new.’ Speed reading Late for a meeting and can’t find your way? Trying to catch a flight? Lost in a hospital? Reading signs is a different business to reading a book or a newspaper. Text on signs needs to be deciphered quickly and effortlessly. So the legibility criteria for signage letterforms are different to those for normal reading, too. Throughout FS Millbank’s uppercase and lowercase alphabets, characters have been given features for extra definition, including: wide ink traps on the A, K, M, V, W, X and Y; a serifed i, accentuated spurs on the a, d, l u; and different x-height shapes on the b, g, p and q. Distinctive forms and generous, open internal shapes all help the quick reading of sign text, and wide, open terminals and counters allow similar letter shapes to be distinguished easily when viewed at different angles. Running down a corridor, maybe... Positive/negative Standard type tends to glow on the kind of dark backgrounds often used for signage, and look heavier than its true weight. To correct the imbalance caused by this optical trick, special weights of the typeface have to be drawn for these ‘negative’, light-on-dark applications. These are lighter than their comparable positive weights to overcome the ‘glow’ effect. After extensive tests of the negative weights, at all sizes, we achieved the right optical balance. Glowing, glowing, gone. Icons This wouldn’t be a signage typeface without its own set of icons, or symbols, to help people find what they’re looking for. So, to sit alongside the positive and negative fonts, we’ve created a comprehensive set of 172 icons, covering a wide range of applications from transport and user interface to information and directional. Designed within the typeface capital height, they sit on the baseline and are spaced centrally.

Arzachel is a humanistic sanserif with a big x-height and a specific organic look. Its design is scientifically sharp and efficient in small type sizes as well as rugged and dramatic in headlines. Arzachel’s essential feeling comes from several features: all the letters are slightly sloped, stem terminations are flared at the top, and the terminals in letters a, c, e, f… are widening with the inside parts completely flat. The stroke contrast is low in the regular weight while it increases in the black; finally the capitals have an inscriptional flavor. Despite being a sanserif (thus a product of recent typography) Arzachel’s roots stretch back to the Renaissance tradition: Olocco took inspiration from some of the early and rather weird types cut in Venice in the 15th century. Arzachel was conceived during Olocco’s MA in Reading to provide a companion for his Zenon for use in small type sizes. But instead of expanding the Zenon family with optical sizes, the designer decided on a sans with its own personality rather than a sanserif version of Zenon with chopped-off serifs.

This modern display typeface expands the Absentia collection with an impactful option for headlines, titles and logos. Graced with the geometric DNA of its distinctive lineage, the new addition emerges as a refreshing alternative for large size typesetting. Absentia Display borrows design attributes from the Sans and Slab families, in the form of slanted finials (‘a’, ‘e’, ‘C’) and one-sided serifs (‘b’, ‘F’, ‘H’). But in contrast to its relatives' measured restraint, it distinguishes itself with uninhibited boldness. Featuring stencil face breaks, basic glyph components are either abridged or completely omitted, as the shoulder of lowercase ‘m’ or the diagonal stroke of capital ‘W’. Modular letterforms set this typeface apart with a stylish appearance; round diacritic dots (‘i’, ‘Ü’) and curved transitions (‘E’, ‘L’) breathe a lighthearted attitude. Designers can scale up and go loud with Absentia Display, available in ten weights with matching italics and two variable fonts. From the refined Hairline to the robust Black, this versatile family serves a wide range of needs and styles.

Alone Together Script is a tattoo style typeface created and inspired during quarantine times. It is a variable font with size-variable swashes and OpenType features such as Stylistic Alternates for lowercase letters as well as some Contextual replacements for Final Forms of a c d e f h k l m n o q r t u v w x z and entrance stroke versions for r s and z. As for extra swashes hyphen (-) and underscore (_) have also 2 alternates. There is a font presentation video on youtube OpenType guide is also available for download here This font is a contribution to Covid relief funds and individuals who are in need: 50% of sales goes to this kind of charities. There is a challenge on social media where you can submit your artwork featuring this font with a hashtag #alonetogetherfont at @alonetogetherfont on instagram or facebook! Special thanks to the Photography and Music that is exclusive to this font : Empty streets of New York by Kelly Lockett @kellylockk "Time" soundtrack by Zoltan Valter (STU Recordings) @sturecordings sturecordings.ch

Interval Next is a modern sans serif font family that is the successor of the successful Interval Sans Pro. Designed by Olivier Gourvat, Interval Next typeface consists of 16 fonts in 8 weights — Ultra Light, Light, Book, Regular, Medium, Semi Bold, Bold, Black— and has 4 styles. This super family combines a humanist mind with its contrasted shapes and a modern look with its open counters. With its four versatile styles (Condensed, Narrow, Roman and Wide) Interval Next has a creative palette able to meet the modern typographic demands. Its OpenType features will provide you almost unlimited multilingual support as well as small caps, case sensitive forms, proportional and tabular figures, slashed zero, numerators, superscripts, denominators, scientific inferiors, circled figures, subscript, ordinals, fractions, arrows and f-ligatures. Also extremely functional for professional editorial design, Interval Next has a pro kerning and would be extremely suitable for mobile applications, e-books, web sites, headlines, posters, signage and many more. Interval Next covers a large spectrum of languages such as West European, East European and the Cyrillic.

Precious Sans Two is a complete reworking of the 2002 design which was only ever available in PostScript format. Over a decade later G-Type’s Nick Cooke decided to re-appraise the typeface, scrutinise the old letterforms and overhaul the family. Make no mistake though, Precious Sans Two is no rudimentary re-release; nearly every character has been redrawn, re-proportioned, respaced and improved. Precious Sans Two is now in cross-platform compatible OpenType format with extended Latin language support for Western & Central Europe, the Baltics & Turkey. The original quirkier glyphs (f, g, I) have been retained as an OT style set feature and the typeface now contains small caps and an extensive set of discretionary ligatures as well as both proportional & tabular figures. The character set is further enhanced with the addition of 20 directional single and double arrows in each of the six weights which range from Thin through to Black, all with accompanying italics. Precious Sans Two is a distinctively modern typeface, well equipped for advanced typographic use in print, web and digital publishing environments.

Folkwang is an unusual roman type with a lowercase that resembles an upright italic. Unusual top serifs are contrasted by almost no foot serifs. Originally released by the Klingspor foundry in 1955, this face originated from Hermann Schardt while he was the director of the Folkwang Werkkunstschule in Essen Germany circa 1949. According to British book designer and printing historian John Dreyfus in the 1955 Penrose Annual: Folkwang “…is a lovingly made piece of work which could have easily have been little more than an act of awe-struck reverence for the calligraphic techniques rediscovered by Edward Johnston and spread abroad in Germany by Anna Simons. Of special interest is the serif treatment of the lower-case letters: at the feet the terminals are mostly left bare, but the ascenders and the cross-strokes of the f and t are given elaborate curving serifs which in the mass create an effect unusual in a page of letters made as movable types, resembling rather more a piece of intaglio engraving. The ligatures ch and ck are original and successful.”

The year 1914 marked the appearance of Washington Ludlow's first typograph machine. This remarkable invention permitted typesetters to quickly cast a full line of lead type in one operation using supplied brass matrices, a procedure which was for the time a major technological improvement over the usual hand-set foundry type methods. Casting type the Ludlow way necessitated the creation of an entire range of new Ludlow typefaces, a development which made Ludlow not only a major manufacturer of printing machinery, but also one of the world's leading sources of professional type design. Renowned typographers such as Douglas C. McMurtrie and Ernest F. Detterer created original faces at Ludlow's request. Robert Hunter Middleton was Ludlow's design director for over fifty years, and during his distinguished career produced an entire library of typefaces representing virtually every known typographic style. He is recognized as one of the most prolific type designers of all time. Today, new Ludlow computer fonts are in preparation, including optically-correct versions of many classic Ludlow typefaces, drawn directly from the originals in the Ludlow company library.

Although better known for his residential buildings, Richard Neutra’s commercial projects nevertheless resonate the same holistic ecology—unity with the surrounding landscape and uncompromising functionalism. His attention to detail even extended to the selection of signage for his buildings. It is no wonder that Neutra specified lettering that was open and unobtrusive, the same characteristics which typified his progressive architecture. House Industries brings the same linear geometry to Neutraface without sacrificing an unmistakably warm and human feel. FEATURES AUTOMATIC SMALL CAPS: If you specify “Small Caps”, InDesign and Photoshop will automatically substitute the true small caps charac- ters as well as the corresponding figures and punctuation for any lowercase characters. NEUTRAFACE TEXT ALTERNATES: Neutraface Text contains several stylistic alternate characters. LIGATURES: This feature is on by default. It will substitute a long list of “f” and “t” ligatures. For example, open InDesign or Photoshop and type “ff” or “tt”. 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.

Hostilica is a semi-serif family designed by mixing classic serifs in the age of romanticism era with contemporary modern shape and curves. It gives a warm, friendly, and inviting feeling without losing a formality of text fonts. Every weight was designed carefully to provide a unique look while maintained the unity of the type family. A thin weight gives your content an elegant, luxurious design feel. While the regular weight, designed for body text, gives your content a warm and friendly design feel. The bold weight will make your headlines stand-out with its fat counters and curves. Therefore, Hostilica will accomodate all your design needs, from text to display, from catchy to luxury. The italics of each weight will spice up your design project especially with letter 'f,s,r,k, and y'. Those italic versions paired with alternate and discretional ligatures will add an organic feeling to your designs. The italic styles are designed by emulating a handwriting stroke, and will give a more personal feel while still maintained a formal sense.