Lapis was Jim Rimmer's venture into a territory he'd earlier explored with his Lancelot and Fellowship faces. This time he stayed much longer, dug pretty deep, and had plenty of fun in there. The end result is the kind of mosaic of influences only a guy like Jim could consider, gather, manage and apply in a way that ultimately makes sense and works as a type family. On the surface Lapis seems like something that can be billed as what Jim would have called an "advertising text face". But under the hood, it's a whole other story. On top of the calligraphic, nib-driven base Jim usually employed in his faces, Lapis shows plenty of typographic traits from a variety of genres, from Egyptian to Latin, from blackletter angularity to Dutch-like curvature, with an overall tension even reminiscent of wood type. There are some Goudy-informed shapes that somehow fit comfortably within all this. Then it's all strung together with a mix of wedged, tapered and leaning serifs, placed with precision to reveal expert spontaneity and a great command of guiding the forms through counterspace. In the fall of 2013, the Lapis fonts were scrutinized and remastered into versatile performers for sizes large and small. The three weights and their italic counterparts have been refined and expanded across the board to include small caps, alternates, ligatures, ordinals, case-sensitive forms, six kinds of figures, automatic fractions, and a character set that covers an extended range of Latin languages. Each of the Lapis Pro fonts contains over 760 glyphs. For more details on the fonts' features, text and display specimens and print tests, consult the Lapis Pro PDF availabe in the Gallery section of this page. 20% of Lapis Pro's revenues will be donated to the Canada Type Scholarship Fund, supporting higher typography education in Canada.

The most space-saving sans serif This font saves more space than any of its kind! Slim proportions, but not “condensed” Characters which nearly touch Sparse ascenders and descenders Distinct forms How close to each other can the characters of a font get? Theoretically, as close as you want. But obviously, the words should still be legible. And as any designer knows, body clearance of characters also depends on other parameters such as point size and line spacing. In practice, there are always situations in which as much information as possible has to be positioned in as little space as possible. The ingoFont ÉconoSans is made for exactly this purpose. Even the name of the font implies its function: French for the infinitive “to save” is “économiser.” Now if that doesn’t sound good… The shapes of the upper and lower case letters are completely matter-of-fact, the way a modern font has got to be. The letters c e, and s are wide open to their neighbors. An especially distinguished trait of this font is the design of the “triangular” characters v w y x k z and A V W Y Z K X M N. And the open form of B R and P is also not typical in a sans serif. The distance between letters is kept tight and often the characters nearly touch, but only nearly. With ÉconoSans you gain approximately 20% more text in a line than with »Tahoma«, and even still more than 10% compared to »Helvetica«. ÉconoSans also includes tabular figures as well as ligatures. Among the ligatures, the double mm is especially unusual and is hardly familiar, but can contribute greatly to saving space without catching the reader’s eye.

This family was inspired from the set of font faces used in Amsterdam by Daniel Elzevir to print the famous “Tractatus de corde...” the study on earth anatomy by Richard Lower, in 1669. The punch cutter was the famous Dutch Kristoffel Van Dijk. In our two styles (Normal & Italic), font faces, kernings and spaces are scrupulously the same as in the original. This Pro font covers Western, Eastern and Central European languages (including Celtic), Baltic and Turkish, with standard and “long s” ligatures in each of the two styles. The Roman (Normal) style contains a U stylistic alternate, and the Italique style A.

Almost every type designer feels the need, from time to time, to interrupt his or her serious work on complex text type systems for something more playful. In Luc(as)'s case this has often meant designing more typefaces. In the early 1990s, while working on Thesis, Luc(as) drew several display faces which were based on the shapes of TheSans but were either de(con)structive versions or experimental variations. Jesus Loves You All is a heretic thorny typeface vaguely based on the outlines of TheSans. Jesus Loves You was given a remarkable three-dimensional treatment in Abbott Miller's Dimensional Type project.

Circulaire is a set of initial caps designed by Sjoerd Hendrik de Roos in 1926, and digitized in 2009 by Hans van Maanen. Unusual serifs, spurs and swashes make for interesting continuity points in the familiarly angled shapes, while adding a unique calligrapher's touch to the beheld forms. As far as initials go, this set contains the extra touch of personality needed to lead into a paragraph, which is preferable to the usual swashed italics that are widely used. Circulaire is available in all popular font formats and includes extended support for a wide variety of Latin-based languages.

Controlled casualness is the watchword in this new handwriting script from the prolific young French designer Éric de Berranger, who also designed the sans serif type family ITC Octone. ITC Berranger Hand has its roots in chancery calligraphy, yet its surface looks like contemporary informal lettering that was written quickly with a felt-tip pen on slightly absorbent paper. The counters of some letters appear to almost fill in from ink spread, yet Berranger Hand is admirably readable at small sizes. The capital letters are restrained, without swashes, so they can be used together in all-caps combinations.

Lempicka is a ligature-rich typeface duo with support for Latin and Greek. Lempicka Display and Small Caps are a pair of light, clean fonts with strong Art Deco character. Lempicka Display has over 150 ligatures and alternates (in Greek, too!), so it's extremely customizable and versatile. Lempicka Small Caps is Display's little sister: the perfect complement for creating hierarchy in a layout.⁠⠀ This is a beautiful typeface for wedding invitations and personal stationery, as well as unique logo design and branding projects. The name of this type family is an homage to Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka.

Medina Gothic is a three-weight sans serif inspired by Latin American moderne. It was designed in response to the 2002, Altos de Chavon design conference in The Dominican Republic, which celebrated utilitarian driven gestures in graphic design. "There’s a rigor to Medina Gothic that takes care of all sorts of tenets of a hard-working, highly legible, objective font. But at the same time, it’s human. All the curved terminals and open counter forms make for a sort of kindness. For all the discipline, it doesn’t sacrifice its friendliness." – William Morrisey, Professor of Typography, Parsons The New School for Design.

French Art Deco lettering found within the pages of the 1934 publication L'Art du Tracé Rationnel de la Lettre (roughly translated to “The Rational Path Art of the Letter”) have provided a number of designs well-suited for digital revival. A hand lettered sans with varying character widths was the basis for Colmar JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. As the source of the lettering design was a French publication, the typeface is named for the city of Colmar, which (according to Wikipedia) is the third-largest commune of the Alsace region in north-eastern France.

Bitstream typeface based on Koch Antiqua by Rudolph Koch (Klingspor, 1922). Koch Antiqua, also known as Locarno and Eve, is the most popular face of one of the great lettering artists of the 20th century. This delicate display face has a small x-height, very tall ascenders, and main strokes that taper gracefully downward. Koch-Antiqua appeared extensively in advertising between the wars. A refined letterform, it is best used sparingly for a distinctive look in advertising, book, and job work. Two weights of Cyrillic version including alternative lc characters were developed by Isabella Chaeva and released in 2008 by ParaType.

Architype Konstrukt is a collection of avant-garde typefaces deriving mainly from the work of artists/designers of the inter-war years, whose ideals have helped to shape the design philosophies of the modernist movement in Europe. Due to their experimental nature character sets may be limited. Architype Aubette is based on Theo van Doesburg’s 1928 signage lettering for the Café Aubette in Strasbourg. A collaborative project with Jean and Sophie Arp, the design and decoration of the entire restaurant and leisure complex was one of the largest projects to exemplify 1920s avant-garde, and the theories of Dutch De Stijl.

The type family in four basic styles was designed in ParaType (ParaGraph) in 1992 by Tagir Safayev. Based on Frutiger, of Mergenthaler Linotype, 1976 by Adrian Frutiger. Frutiger font was originally designed for use on signs at the new Charles de Gaulle Airport at Roissy. The straightforward sans serif shapes are suited well for both text and display setting. Six additional styles were added in 1998-2000. Multilingual versions of 6 styles (Light, Demi and Extrabold) include Armenian alphabet designed by Manvel Shmavonyan in 1997. Two condensed Cyrillic styles (Demi Condensed and Bold Condensed) designed by Manvel Shmavonyan in 2005.

Skaryna 2017 Title is a revival of the original typeface designed and cut by Francisk Skaryna in 1517–1519. Skaryna 2017 Title is designed to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the original work by Francisk Skaryna (lat. Franciscus Scorina de Poloczko) — scientist and educator from Polotsk (current Belarus). The original designs contain only Cyrillic characters. So Latin and additional characters were added to make the legacy of Francisk available for the World. The revival was designed to stay close to the original and remain a little bit inaccurate as early Renaissance printing technologies were. This project was sponsored by Anton Bryl.

Hi Designers. Everyone will try these soft and sweet typography at least once. All the angles and sharpness are transformed with soft and smooth. Each of these 18 styles has a unique personality and can be combined to showcase the designer's emotion more smoothly. Here is the advantage of being able to stay new without being bored. Of course, it can also be used in typography design for kids. And these soft styles include the following Ligatures. - La, Le, Lo, da, de, do, fi, fl, me, mo, mu, ne, no, nu, ta, te, th, to, tt

Pacaembu is a sans serif typeface that finds its roots in Brazilian football. This seven weight family began as a study of the stone lettering found in the Paulo Machado de Carvalho Municipal Stadium, affectionately known as the Estádio Pacaembu, a real gem of the Art-Deco style inaugurated in 1940. These art-deco letters, like football itself, were brought to Brazil by Europeans and out there in the tropics found a totally unique personality. Pacaembu is a celebration of Brazilian Football, it’s unique flavours, moves, sights and colors which have been delighting fans for generations.

If you think nostalgia isn't what it used to be, this will change your mind. A ritzy new font family from Studio K that will transport you back to the era of afternoon tea dances performed to the strains of the Palm Court Orchestra or the Bath Pump Room Quartet: a celebration of the golden age of dance from Busby Berkeley to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Enjoy!

Farm Doodles... perfect collection of illustrations to be used for everything from the farm to table movement to the current weddings on a farm trend. 30 illustrations of farm animals... beehive, fish, bunny, chickens, cows, goat, sheep, pig and horse. Farm buildings, weather vane, windmill, tractor, milk can, hay bale, trees. And food... tomato, carrots, peas, spinach, apples, beets. Mix and match with other Outside the Line illustration fonts.

This rollicking romp through the alphabet is based on an offering from the irrepressible M. Draim, seen in La Lettre dans le Décor & la Publicité Modernes, published by Monrocq Frères of Paris in 1932. Its animated and friendly demeanor will add personality to any headline it graces. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

The unusual mix of Art Deco lettering with a smattering of Art Nouveau characters found within Dance Partner JNL comes from a movie poster for the 1935 RKO picture "Roberta" starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The musical was based on the hit 1933 stage play that introduced the song "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes". The play itself was based on the Alice Duer Miller novel "Gowns by Roberta".

Bosque Line is a condensed display font that has an attractive appearance that brings you to a modern urban feel. Inspired by the long exposure of tree trunks in forest, Bosque line letters are designed with tall and clean shapes. Alternate and ligature features are available to make your work more attractive. It's perfect for your projects such as: posters, logos, book covers, social media posts and many more. Thank you!

Sheet music for the 1915 song "Is There Still Room for Me Neath the Old Apple Tree" had the title hand-lettered in a condensed, square sans serif. Although far from the more decorative lettering styles of the Art Nouveau period, this type of simple understatement was also a popular choice for the illustrators of the day. It is presented digitally as Nouveau Square JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

The newest addition to the Outside the Line collection of picture Doodle fonts... Christmas Doodles. The perfect font for that quickie Christmas party flyer. It includes gifts, gift tags, gingerbread man, gingerbread house, candy canes, hot cocoa, bow, crackers, 2 kinds of trees, poinsettia, jingle bell, ornaments, snowflakes and a star. This font works well with Holiday Doodles and Holiday Doodles Too which have some Christmas icons in them.

Stone and steel FS Benjamin is a flared serif typeface designed by Stuart de Rozario. Consisting of 12 styles ranging from Light, Book, Regular, Medium, SemiBold and Bold with Italics it has clear, delicate letterforms, punctuated with brutal chiselled angles. With a pure and crafted feel to the forms the typeface has traditional roots but has been designed to work in a contemporary setting. Archetypal proportions in terms of x-height to cap height and ascender to descender ratio, allow the typeface to feel familiar and be legible in all platforms. Delicate brutalism Inspired by the contrasts of London and named after Big Ben, FS Benjamin was designed by Stuart de Rozario and founder, Jason Smith. Walking around London Jason was inspired by the juxtaposition of the old and the new. Glass and steel architecture can often be found amongst traditional signage and coats of arms seen around the City. These surroundings sparked an idea to create a modern design based on an alphabet that would traditionally be carved from stone. “Much of the typography we see today is so similar. I thought what if we created a typeface with traditional roots but modernised it to sit amongst the punk and noise of the streets of London? Old with new. Business with busyness. This is what London is all about.” Jason Smith

Berenjena is a captivating font family designed by type designer Javier Quintana Godoy in Santiago de Chile. Berenjena has the right combination of comfort in reading and a lyric spirit. This helps keep readers in the delicate atmosphere in which novels and tales can display all their charm. Most typefaces created for books cannot reach this. Either they are too expressive so they tire the eyes of the reader, or they are dull and reading becomes a tedious task. Berenjena was designed for text use bearing in mind this concept of subtle balance. Berenjena (Spanish for aubergine or eggplant) gives your text that spicy environment in which words shapes are easy to read while letterforms maintain their capricious feeling. It comes in roman and cursive declined in four weights: Blanca, Fina, Gris, Negra. All Berenjena character sets include extensive diacritics coverage for more than 200 languages plus the usual contextual features. The Berenjena Pro fonts (available at PampaType.com) include smalls caps, elegant ligatures, cute swashes, every kind of figures, and all contextual sorts. Berenjena will give your design a very individual character. It wears captivating details of calligraphic poetry which link subtlety to vernacular sign painting from Santiago de Chile. See a pdf of Berenjena here http://origin.myfonts.net/s/aw/original/306/0/156716.pdf or visit PampaType.com for more information.

The engraver Jean Jannon ranks among the significant representatives of French typography of the first half of the 17th century. From 1610 he worked in the printing office of the Calvinist Academy in Sedan, where he was awarded the title "Imprimeur de son Excellence et de l'Academie Sédanoise". He began working on his own alphabet in 1615, so that he would not have to order type for his printing office from Paris, Holland and Germany, which at that time was rather difficult. The other reason was that not only the existing type faces, but also the respective punches were rapidly wearing out. Their restoration was extremely painstaking, not to mention the fact that the result would have been just a poor shadow of the original elegance. Thus a new type face came into existence, standing on a traditional basis, but with a life-giving sparkle from its creator. In 1621 Jannon published a Roman type face and italics, derived from the shapes of Garamond's type faces. As late as the start of the 20th century Jannon's type face was mistakenly called Garamond, because it looked like that type face at first sight. Jannon's Early Baroque Roman type face, however, differs from Garamond in contrast and in having grander forms. Jannon's italics rank among the most successful italics of all time – they are brilliantly cut and elegant.

DESCRIPTION With Skill I wanted to create something wild. Something that splashed the letters with life. To do this, I knew I'd have to break the barrier between analog and digital, so I took my best brush and started to play. Throughout the years as a type-designer I've met and become fan of many calligraphers. My belief that only a good calligrapher can make good typography (1) has become even stronger. I'm now absolutely sure that only practice improves the skill, especially in this field. So, with this in mind, I started a font which was a challenge for me because sometimes the gap between paper and screen can be gigantic. Skill is another of my attemps (2) to capture the spirit of the pointed brush, its expressiveness, the passions and fears of the artist. This font is about freedom. Freedom everywhere. Movement, velocity, passion. To achieve this, many alternates and ligatures per glyph were designed. Use it on magazines, posters, book covers, music albums, t-shirts, skates, tattoos. NOTES (1) This is mostly referred to script fonts, though text fonts made by designers with a deep calligraphic background have at least to me, an extra charm. (2) See my fonts Live and Indie. TIPS Thanks to Open-Type, the font gives the user the chance to play and get many wonderful results: In example, using the font with “discretionary ligatures” activated will give more life to the written word. Some letters will jump of the base, while others will ligate or not with the following (typical of gestural calligraphy). Adobe Illustrator is recommended. STYLES Skill is the most complete style. It has all the alternates and ligatures that can be seen in the posters and more! Skill Standard is a variant with no decorative glyphs. It has the basic alphabet and some ligatures for better legibility.

A smooth contemplative Antiqua with aspiring to the sky ascenders, inspired by the Quietism philosophy. Clarity of the mind is achieved by bringing the body into a state of calm and contemplation, and this is reflected in the design – the quiet horizontal serifs (body) are opposed to the peaky soaring ascenders (mind). The design also features four optical size subfamilies with different x-height and contrast, oldstyle diagonal stress, oldstyle figures by default, smooth details and slightly dark texture. Variable axes: Weight, Contrast, X-Height. Scripts: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic. Languages: 480+. The complete list of supported languages: michaelrafailyk.com/quietism Kerning: 4553 class-to-class pairs. Hinting: Not applied. Format: TTF – OpenType with TrueType outlines. Variable Font: Quietism Variable provides more options than static versions, and has three axes: Weight (Thin–Black), Contrast (Low-High), and X-Height (Low-High). Variable fonts includes thousands of styles that you can access using a sliders on graphic editor or via CSS on web browser. Mixing different axes gives you extra styles not represented by static fonts. Optical Size: The typeface is represented by four subfamilies: Text (low contrast, high x-height – for paragraph 10-20 pt), Deck (medium contrast, medium x-height – for subheading 20+ pt), Display (high contrast, medium x-height – for heading 72+ pt), Poster (high contrast, low x-height – for big size 120+ pt). Small Caps: Lowercase letters and Oldstyle Figures are replaced with Small Capitals forms. Capitals to Small Caps: Uppercase letters, all figures, and some punctuation are replaced with Small Capitals forms. Case Sensitive Forms: ()[]{}‹›«»-–—•·#%‰@ and Arrows are centered on capitals. Oldstyle figures are replaced with Lining figures. Oldstyle Figures: 0123456789 #%‰. Designed to work with lowercase letters. Used by default. Lining Figures: 0123456789 #%‰. Figures are the same height as uppercase letters (cap height). Proportional Figures: Lining, Oldstyle, Small Caps, Capitals to Small Caps. Tabular Figures: Lining, Oldstyle, Small Caps, Capitals to Small Caps. Ordinals: adehnorst. Superscript, Subscript, Numerator, Denominator: 0123456789. Fractions: ¼½¾⅐⅑⅒⅓⅔⅕⅖⅗⅘⅙⅚⅛⅜⅝⅞⅟ (precomposed). Any other fractions (even those typed through a slash) will also be displayed correctly, with the automatic replacement to Numerator + fraction + Denominator. Slashed Zero: All 0 figures. Contextual Alternates: Number sign character (#) before uppercase letters is replaced by its version centered on capitals. Hyphen character (-) between two uppercase letters is replaced by its version centered on capitals. First of two TT letters is replaced by its alternate form. Letters vwy before the letters fijmnprtuvwxy are replaced with an alternate shorter versions that fits better in the context. Contextual Alternates (Greek): ΆΈΉΊΌΎΏ. Greek uppercase accented characters lose their tonos accent and retain only dieresis in All Caps and Small Caps modes. Turned on by default. If you need tonos accents in All Caps then turn off Contextual Alternates (calt) feature. Stylistic Alternates: FTГТИЦЩцщ and their versions with diacritical marks. Stylistic Set 01 “Arrows”: Left <- Right -> Up Left Right <-> Up Down North West South East \> South West Stylistic Set 02 “Round-Square Cyrillic”: ДИЙЍЛФвгджзийѝклнптцчшщьъю characters are replaced with its Bulgarian or Russian forms. Stylistic Set 03 “Cyrillic Tse Shcha short tails”: ЦЩцщ characters are replaced with its alternate form with short tail. Stylistic Set 04 “Cyrillic I full serifs”: ИЙЍӢ characters are replaced with its alternate form with inner serifs. Stylistic Set 05 “FT bent inward serif”: FTГ characters and their versions with diacritical marks are replaced with its alternate form with right head serif that bent inside. Stylistic Set 06 “Small Caps centered on Capitals”: Small Caps are vertically centered on uppercase letters. Standard Ligatures: fi fl fb ff fh fj fk ffb ffh ffi ffj ffk ffl. Discretionary Ligatures: Th ct st. Localized Forms: 52 character substitutions for Azeri, Bulgarian, Catalan, Dutch, German, Kazakh, Macedonian, Moldavian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Tatar, Turkish. Glyph Composition/Decomposition (Diacritics): Full Latin and based Vietnamese set of diacritics (571 characters). Precomposed.

AwanZaman has a three-phase story, beginning with Dr Mamoun Sakkal’s two Arabic styles and culminating with Juliet Shen’s Latin extension. AwanZaman started as simply Awan, a commission for a modern, clean, monoline typeface for writing headlines and story titles in a forward-thinking Kuwaiti newspaper. Awan was based on the geometric forms of Kufic script, while in phase two, a second typeface (Zaman) was designed to add enough calligraphic Naskh details to make it easy to read in demanding newspaper settings. Together these two phases give the typeface a warm, familiar, and progressive look, as well as an explanatory two-part name — AwanZaman. Since most editorials use typical Naskh headline fonts with an exaggerated baseline, Awan’s rational forms immediately distinguish it as a modern and progressive voice in the crowded field of Arabic editorial typefaces. As the companion Arabic typeface, Zaman has the same basic proportions and forms as Awan, but with many cursive, energetic, and playful details. And since modern monoline fonts are increasingly being used to set extended texts, more features were borrowed from Naskh calligraphy to expand the typeface’s use from headlines into text setting. When using the AwanZaman Arabic family, Awan (geometric Kufic forms) is the starting point. To add the sweeping, energetic personality of Zaman (calligraphic Naskh forms), simply activate an alternate character through the option of 20 stylistic sets available in any OpenType-savvy software. The two typefaces function as one file — the AwanZaman Arabic family — allowing users to combine features from both designs to transform the appearance of text from geometric and formal to playful and informal. The third phase of AwanZaman’s development introduced a companion Latin typeface designed by Juliet Shen to fulfil the persistent need in the Arabic fonts market for modern and geometric bilingual type families. Due to the Arabic’s monolinear strokes, AwanZaman Latin was destined to be a sans serif with a tall x-height, larger counters, and corresponding stem thickness to harmonise with the Arabic’s overall text colour and page presence. But it needed much more. One of AwanZaman’s chief assets is making the two languages look on a par when typeset side by side. Arabic and English readers will have a different sense of what that entails, but this type family defers to the Arabic — graceful and artistic with a good mix of straight stems and curved forms. Latin in general doesn’t aesthetically flow the way Arabic does, yet the tone of the Latin needed to mirror both the Arabic’s more squarish curves and formal personality of Awan and the undulating and more playful shapes of Zaman without looking outlandish. That need was met by creating some novel Latin characters, which are accessed through four stylistic sets the same way as AwanZaman Arabic. The alternates are not just clever in the way they look and how they echo the Arabic aesthetic, but also in harmonising the disparate languages and serving designers well when needing a balanced, bilingual text face with a warm and lively voice. AwanZaman is a clever, seven-weight powerhouse that makes extensive use of OpenType’s stylistic sets (20 in the Arabic and four in the Latin) so writers and designers can make the most of everything from a single glyph in display sizes down to dense text in paragraphs. As AwanZaman Arabic has no italic, neither does the Latin; contextual distinction normally handled by italics is achieved by exploiting the family’s seven weights. AwanZaman’s intricate OpenType programming supports Persian and Urdu, with features such as the returning tail of Barri Yeh treated properly. From its inception in geometry to its melding of two worlds with novel forms, AwanZaman is a personal labor by designers Dr Mamoun Sakkal and Juliet Shen, and embodies the TypeTogether ideals of serving the global community with innovative and stylish typeface solutions. The complete AwanZaman Arabic and Latin families, along with our entire catalogue, have been optimised for today’s varied screen uses.

Handy Andy Andy Lethbridge had only just completed his graphic design BA at the University of Portsmouth when he was spotted by Jason, who’d seen Andy’s exquisite hand lettering at his degree show and on Instagram. Keen to push the handwritten theme further, having recently launched a digitally-created, chalky script font (FS Sammy), Jason offered Andy a job and the chance to develop a suite of more stylised, truly hand-drawn fonts. Andy duly got out his pads, pencils and pens, and started experimenting with styles and textures. Magic followed. Imperfection perfected Most ‘handwritten’ typefaces are created entirely digitally. Not FS Shepton. From the start, the intention was to create a collection of alphabets of similar character but different texture and style – 100% hand-drawn and purposely imperfect, with the kind of inconsistent, organic shapes and textures of market stall signs, dashed off in chalk or paint. FS Shepton Regular, drawn with a wet brush pen, is solid with a rough outer edge and a casual but controlled feel. The dry brush used to create FS Shepton Light gives it more inner texture and a more formal, slanted, calligraphic style. FS Shepton Bold, drawn using a wider, looser dry brush pen, has a woody grain in the middle of its broad strokes and greater solidity where the brush moves more slowly. Fresh as a daisy Think of FS Shepton not as a family of three weights of the same font so much as a collection of three fonts penned by the same author. All of them – the light, regular and bold – were created independently as display fonts that offer something different to labelling, packaging, point-of-sale and advertising. Lovingly crafted by hand, they’re a good match for products and settings that share the same artisinal qualities: organic foods, drinks and healthcare products, as well as premium chocolate, coffee and condiments.

What do you imagine the ideal casual invitation font would look like? It has to be cheerful, inviting, legible, creative, and loads of fun. But first and foremost, it has to look like real handwriting. Fonts seeming like real handwriting are always a major task, and although Canada Type already has plenty of fonts that solve the “looks like handwriting” issue in a variety of ways, we're once again raising the bar a little higher with this one. Birthday is a massive package that crosses the traditional font/handwriting solution of 2-letter ligatures and waltzes into the land of 3-letter combinations. Plenty of them, too! The complete Postscript and True Type versions of Birthday ship with no less than five separate fonts full of nothing but ligatures. And for even more realism, an alternates font is also included in the package, for a total of seven fonts of happy handwriting that can be used anywhere and everywhere personalization is of importance to a layout. For layout artists with advanced typography tools that take advantage of the power of OpenType, Birthday Pro is a wunderkind. All the individual letter alternates are accessible through the Stylistic Alternates feature, the 2-letter ligatures through the standard Ligatures feature, and the 3-letter ligatures via the Discretionary Ligatures feature (for the technically inclined: this includes a nice liga-to-dlig crossover, where the maximum number of possible ligated letters is automatically chosen at the push of a button). If you enjoy using OpenType, Birthday Pro is definitely for you. If on the other hand you like your fonts in Postsript or True Type, it is advisable to keep a character map handy while using Birthday. You will need it to take advantage of the many, many alternates and ligatures distributed over the fonts. The next time someone asks you for the perfect casual invitation font is, look no further. And as usually is with Canada Type, quality fonts are more affordable than ever.