In the course of the re-vitalization of its Typoart typeface inventory, Elsner+Flake decided in 2006 to offer the “Kis Antiqua” by Hildegard Korger, in a re-worked form and with an extended sortiment, as an OpenType Pro-version. After consultation with Hildegard Korger, Elsner+Flake tasked the Leipzig type designer Erhard Kaiser with the execution of the re-design and expansion of the sortiment. Detlef Schäfer writes in “Fotosatzschriften Type-Design+Schrifthersteller”, VEB Fachbuchverlag Leipzig, 1989: No other printing type has ever generated as far-reaching a controversy as this typeface which Jan Tschichold called the most beautiful of all the old Antiqua types. For a long time, it was thought to have been designed by Anton Janson. In 1720 a large number of the original types were displayed in the catalog of the „Ehrhardische Gycery“ (Ehrhardt Typefoundry) in Leipzig. Recently, thanks to the research performed by Beatrice Warde and especially György Haimann, it has been proven unambiguously that the originator of this typeface was Miklós (Nicholas) Tótfalusi Kis (pronounced „Kisch“) who was born in 1650 in the Hungarian town of Tótfal. His calvinistic church had sent him to the Netherlands to oversee the printing of a Hungarian language bible. He studied printing and punch cutting and earned special recognition for his Armenian and Hebrew types. Upon his return to Hungary, an emergency situation forced him to sell several of his matrice sets to the Ehrhardt Typefoundry in Leipzig. In Hungary he printed from his own typefaces, but religious tensions arose between him and one of his church elders. He died at an early age in 1702. The significant characteristics of the “Dutch Antiqua” by Kis are the larger body size, relatively small lower case letters and strong upper case letters, which show clearly defined contrasts in the stroke widths. The “Kis Antiqua” is less elegant than the Garamond, rather somewhat austere in a calvinistic way, but its expression is unique and full of tension. The upper and lower case serifs are only slightly concave, and the upper case O as well as the lower case o have, for the first time, a vertical axis. In the replica, sensitively and respectfully (responsibly) drawn by Hildegard Korger, these characteristics of this pleasantly readable and beautiful face have been well met. For Typoart it was clear that this typeface has to appear under its only true name “Kis Antiqua.” It will be used primarily in book design. Elsner+Flake added two headline weights, which are available as a separate font family Kis Antiqua Now TH Pro Designer: Miklós (Nicholas) Tótfalusi Kis, 1686 Hildegard Korger, 1986-1988 Erhard Kaiser, 2008

A FEW THOUGHTS Indie is a trendy script, result of the wide range of possibilities that can be achieved using a pointed brush. (1) “You Only Live Once” say The Strokes, (to me, symbols of indie music) so, what would represent that sensation of volatility better than a brush? As you may already know, this time inspiration came from hipsters and indies around us: We may sometimes criticise them, we may sometimes want to be like them, but the truth is that the universo gráfico they generated these past years is gigantic, full of colour and variations. (2) Brush lettering and Sign painting are fields I've been fond of since I started as a designer. Nowadays, these styles are getting a lot of attention and maybe it’s due to the undeniable mark of life that is materialised when using a brush. This tool is so expressive that shows the passions and fears of the artist, and materialises that idea of “living the present”, so popular in this era. When you see Indie, you think of skaters, rollers, surfers, hiphop dancers, street artists, summer, and why not? California beaches. So if you feel life is only one, it’s high time you got Indie into your fonts' collection! STYLES Indie comes in 4 styles plus another one which consists only in capitals. Indie; Indie Shade; Indie Shade Solo; Indie Inline are all open-type programmed and have exactly the same glyphs and metrics, so you can combine them without probem. (I.E. You may use Indie Inline, then write the same word using Indie Shade Solo, and finally put them together). In applications such as Adobe Illustrator, the font has nice results when fi ligatures is activated. However, if you want a more casual look, activate the contextual and the decorative ligatures. NOTES 1. After several years of practicing calligraphy I can say that to me, there’s nothing more satisfying than being able to create fonts out of your own handlettering. I owe a lot of this brush-style to Carl Rohrs. He was the very first calligrapher who taught it to me. His style is unique and what he can do with a brush is truly marvelous. I'm serious. 2. In spite of some particular cases, I can say I'm happy to live in a present in which Typography is living a kind of Renaissance along with Lettering. Like it happened with W. Morris a hundred years ago, handcrafts are being revalued/reborn, and some of this may be happening thanks to these indie designers that, trying to be unique, gave new/fresh air to different areas of graphic design.

Here I am, once again digging up 60-year sign lettering and trying to reconcile it with the typography of my own time. The truth is I've had this particular Alf Becker alphabet in my sights for a few years now. But in the typical way chaos shuffles the days, Buffet Script and Whomp won the battle for my attentions way back when, then Storefront beat the odds by a nose a couple of years ago. Nevertheless, revisiting Alf Becker’s work is always a breath of fresh air for me, not to mention the ego boost I get from confirming that I can still hack my way through the challenges, which is something I think people ask themselves about more often as they get older. You can never tell what may influence your work, or in this case remind you to dig it out of dust drawers and finally mould it into one of your own experiences. On my recent visits to the States and Canada, I noticed that quite a few high-end steak houses try their best to recreate an urban American 1930s atmosphere. This is quite evident in their menus, wall art, lighting, music, and so on. The ambience says your money is well spent here, because your food was originally choice-cut by a butcher who wears a suit, cooked by a chef who may be your neighbour 20 minutes from downtown, and delivered by a waitress who can do the Charleston when the lights dim and who just wouldn't mind laughing with you over drinks at the bar later. So Steak is just that, a face for menus and wall art in those places that see themselves in the kind of jazzy, noirish world where one-liners rule and exclamation points are part of a foreign language. As is usual with my lettering-inspired faces, there is very little left of the original Alf Becker alphabet. Of course, the challenges present in bringing typographic functionality to what is essentially pure hand lettering gives the spirit of the original art a hell of a rollercoaster ride. But I think that spirit survived the adventure, and may in fact be even somewhat magnified here. This font is over 850 glyphs. It’s loaded with ligatures, swashes, ending forms, alternates, ascender and descender variations, and extended Latin language support. Steak comes in 3 versions. According to your taste you can choose Barbecue, Braised or Smoked. It’s up to you!

Bourton Text is a modern sans-serif typeface family perfect for both text type settings and display purposes. While it’s not a layering type family like its brother, Bourton, it come packed with features, extras and over 2,000 characters that make it stand on its own. HISTORY Bourton Text is a new take of the Bourton family that was one of the best-selling and favorite fonts of 2016. After countless requests for lowercase alphabet, or suggestions for a font pairing with Bourton, this new text setting family is based on the original shapes of Bourton. DESIGN & CREATION In taking Bourton Base was the starting point as they narrowest width and boldest weight. From there, lowercase shapes were designed that matched the aesthetic and details of the popular capitals. As Bourton was a heavy display font, some small tweaks were done to make it more fitting for smaller text settings, including reducing the letter-spacing and reworking some counters. Some areas needed complete reconstruction, such as the figures. The design of those began anew with a style that worked with the capitals and lowercase but also as a standalone set. Currency shapes were updated to match the numerals. Punctuation was also reimagined to work better in smaller type settings. Diacritics and extended language support was also updated and expanded to include full Latin plus language support for 219 latin based language spoken in 212 countries. Once the basic alphabet for Bourton Text Bold Narrow was formed, the font was expanded in both weight and width. Taking the weight from Bold down to Hairline, it allowed for more range in use. The typeface needed to be expanded in order to reach better as a book weight and width, in addition to a regular width, a wider version was create as well. FEATURES Once the extremes were set in place, small capital forms were designed for text and display purposes. These also allow for nested capital letters, lifted small caps and other display features offered in the typeface. One of the most popular fonts in the Bourton layering font family is Bourton Line. This led to an experimentation with rounded Bourton Text completely and thus a complete set of duplicated characters with rounded terminals. By using the Opentype Panel, a rounded font is a single click away. Every feature has been carefully thought out and updated across the entire font. In total, Bourton boasts over 2,300 glyphs, 42 font files with 3 widths and 7 weights in upright and italic.

Solantra is a solidly crafted handwritten script. I’ve long felt that beautiful writing is more pleasing to the eye than the more attention grabbing swashes and flourishes. That being said, both have their role in design and Solantra has a large slice of each. Solantra combines vintage style handwriting with all its quirks and English Roundhand of that same era. The result is a solid setting script filled with charm and personality. With default Adobe Illustrator settings for Ligatures and Contextual Alternates active, the vintage charm is in full display. Want to add more flair? There are loads of more embellished letters inside the full version. Solantro takes into account how scripts are actually written so that connections from letter to letter are more fluid and rhythmic than the average script font. In natural script/handwriting most letters end at the bottom right and move up to connect with the next. Some letters like o, v, and w, however; end at the top right. Rather than force these letters to dip down and go back up they should ideally connect from that upper right point. This is accomplished through a series of alternate letters and ligatures with extensive contextual feature programming. So, for example, you might get one version of a ligature in the middle of a word and a different one at the beginning or end of that word. Solantra also takes into account another often overlooked feature of natural handwriting. When you write you inevitably pick your pen up from the paper at times. This is often just to reposition the hand, but in the days of writing with dip pens this was also needed to attain a fresh supply of ink. Having these occasional breaks in connections makes the writing less static and more rhythmic. While the Basic versions are limited to a standard character set and several ligatures and alternates for better settings of text, the full pro versions contains 1292 glyphs and an abundance of features. Even with numbers there are options like Oldstyle numbers, fractions, and ordinals. Central European language support is included as well as some select ligatures that use accents. To see more on the technical aspects and instructions on using Solantra, please check out the user’s guide in the Gallery section. **Note: The Pro versions of Solantra which do not have the word “Basic” attached to the title, have everything in them. So if you license a Pro version there is no need to get the Basic versions.