The superfamily Pepi and Rudi is based on playful experimentation with basic geometric shapes - the circle, rectangle and triangle - elements that laid the foundations for typographic Modernism. The Pepi and Rudi introduces a number of current elements into a time-proven concept of primitively constructed typefaces. The typeface's somewhat uniform character width establishes a more regular rhythm; the character set is expanded, and legibility is improved thanks to taller lowercase. A wide range of ten styles, from hairline-thin to extra-thick with adequate Italics allow for universal use across the whole scope of graphic design. Carefully designed diacritics, clear punctuation marks, table number characters, ligatures, arrows or alternative lowercase characters are standard; this is sure to please everyone needing to work effectively with a neutral, geometric headline typeface.

What does a 1932 movie about a love affair between a circus' trapeze artist and a sideshow "little person" have to do with the 1960s counter-culture? They both share some commonalities. The title card for Tod Browning's "Freaks" inspired the lettering design for Hippie Freak JNL. It's in a retro style that was embraced by the youth movement that had its epicenter in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Circus performers with birth defect abnormalities were displayed in what was referred to as "freak shows"; while young men with long hair and beards who sought peace, love and an end to the war in Vietnam were commonly referred to as "hippie freaks". As the saying goes "the more things change, the more they stay the same".

Meringue, a transitional serif face, is designed specially for modern glossy magazines. It is ideal for fashion photography, fashion publications and mag covers, and can be used for headings and captions, as well as for body copy. The italic version, with its wave-like vertical strokes, creates yet more stylishly expressive feel. Text set in Meringue has an elegant weightless look, and the strongest effect can be achieved with high-quality printing. The typeface includes old style figures, ligatures, and alternative characters that allow creating truly versatile design by means of typography. Designers may also find Meringue perfect for beautiful presentations, invitations and other special occasion papers. Meringue was designed during the Type and Typography course at the British Higher School of Art and Design, supervised by Ilya Ruderman.

Arable Font Is "Unique Display Font" refers to a specific type of typography that is characterized by its distinctive, one-of-a-kind design, and it is typically used for eye-catching and decorative purposes. Here's a detailed explanation of what a unique display font is: -Distinctive Design: Unique display fonts stand out because of their distinct and unconventional design. They often deviate from traditional letterforms and can take on a wide range of creative and artistic shapes. Unlike standard, legible fonts used for body text, display fonts prioritize aesthetics over readability. -Specialized Use: Display fonts are not intended for extended reading. Instead, they are used in small quantities for headlines, titles, logos, posters, banners, invitations, and other design elements where visual impact is essential. Their unique and attention-grabbing design makes them ideal for drawing attention to specific text. -Creative Freedom: Designers have creative freedom when creating unique display fonts. This allows for a wide array of styles, from whimsical and ornate to futuristic and abstract. Some display fonts may be inspired by art movements, cultures, historical periods, or nature, leading to highly original and thematic designs. -Limited Character Set: Display fonts often have a limited character set compared to standard fonts. They typically include uppercase letters, numbers, and basic punctuation marks, but may lack lowercase letters or extended characters. This limitation is due to their specialized use and focus on visual impact. -Customization: Some unique display fonts are custom-designed for specific projects or brands. Designers work closely with clients to create a font that aligns with the brand's identity or the project's theme, ensuring a truly unique and tailored result. -Combination with Other Fonts: In many design projects, unique display fonts are paired with more standard, legible fonts to achieve a balance between visual impact and readability. This combination allows for a harmonious and effective overall design.

CAPITALIZED, geometric, bold and round. If the typo­grapher sees a font like that, it's enough to make his toes curl. But sometimes it just has to be that way. Geometrically constructed fonts do not necessarily have to be pointed and angular; It also works consistently around. And if I say it consistently, then in this case, that's done consistently. The basis for the BOULE is the circle. The letters are drawn with constant line width, the “corners“ and endings all have the same radius, the lines are all the same thickness. The BOULE consists only of capitals. There is only one difference in the use of uppercase and lowercase letters: in the uppercase letters, the round letters are circular, while the lowercase letters are narrow. The character set of the Boule contains all letters and accents to support the Western, Northern, Central and Eastern European languages with Latin alphabet. The BOULE is not only very fat, it also runs very tight; that is, the glyphs are very close to each other. To avoid "holes" due to unfortunate letter combinations, the BOULE contains ligatures for FT, ST, TT and TZ. There are also other versions of the font: BOULE Brillant on the one hand. In this version, simple highlights simulate a light incidence from the top right. These light edges give the font a decorative effect that makes it easy to think of wet sausages or balloons in some shapes. And finally the BOULE Contour. As the name implies, it is the outer contour of the letters, combined with a shadow at the bottom left. The name BOULE (French for ball) says it already: this font is globated. Therefore, it is also very suitable for all three-dimensional alienation effects. With simple light and shadow you can achieve a very convincing 3D effect with little effort.

“More is better” may have been the motto of Richard Austin of Austin and Son’s Imperial Letter-Foundry on Worship Street at Finsbury Square in London when he designed and cut his Antique typeface. The year it was created is uncertain, but it is known to have appeared in a specimen book produced in 1827. At first glance, the upper case letters of Austin Antique look very much like Figgins Antique. But, upon examination, one will note that the Austin face is much darker. In general, the letters designed and cut by Richard Austin have fatter strokes, larger serifs and smaller counters -- more metal and less daylight. The premise was that the darker the letter, the more attention an ad using the typeface would receive. In old pictures of London and Paris one may see walls crowded with posters and “bills” -- competing for the attention of the passerby. Morris and Updike aside, the early nineteenth century marked the beginning of a commercial as well as industrial revolution. Patterns of commerce were changing. With new methods of marketing came the need for new typefaces to support the new methods. Foundries found the display types were very profitable and competed most energetically and creatively for the trade. There was a lot of trial-and-error. Some ideas faded away. Others, like the Antiques or Egyptians, were refined and developed. From them came the Clarendons that were to prove both popular and long lasting -- because they worked. Their job was to sell goods, not please the aesthetic sensibilities of the critics. They did their job well. Austin Antique has a full Western European character set, plus the following ligatures: ct, st, fi, fl, ff, ffi and ffl. Tabular numbers. Surprisingly readable.

Hispania Script is a distinctive and distinctly nineteenth century script. It was released by Schelter & Giesecke of Leipzig, Germany around 1890. Particularly noteworthy are the sharply-pointed legs of the upper case ‘K’ & ‘R’ that seem to be characteristic of the period. Similar strokes, often with a slight curve, may be seen in typefaces like Alt-Romanish and Tinteretto by Schelter & Giesecke, Artistic and Lateinsch by Bauer and Berthold and the poster lettering of Edward Penfield. The angle of this script (approximately 24 degrees) and the sharp delicate points must have made the manufacture of this face in metal type a challenge. The resulting type was probably quite fragile and subject to accidental damage. Additionally, the sharp points would be subject to wear. With digital type, these concerns are eliminated. As far as I know, no one has ever dropped a digital letter on the floor. Nonetheless, creating a digital outline for a typeface like Hispania Script, with many crossing strokes, can be quite time-consuming. Even with an accurate scan of a good quality original, it is usually necessary to construct each crossing stroke separately and then remove the overlap in order to obtain a sharp and convincing intersection. Steep internal angles are often defined with two points, rather than one, to minimize ink or toner fill that can muddy the rendering in smaller sizes. Like all formal scripts, Hispania Script is always useful for announcements and invitations. However, the distinctiveness of of this design strongly suggests that there are other applications that may benefit from its use. Step outside the box and try it in some unexpected places. It is the unexpected that often draws a person’s eye.

Madrigalle was seven months in the making and may be described as a contemporary copperplate. When designers look for a font that is both elaborate and strong, they generally have to go back to styles of a previous period, possibly produced recently but not contemporary in their look and feel. In Madrigalle, I believe that I've produced a font that is contemporary but has the boldness and delicacy that mark the fonts of previous generations. I feel that most fonts that derive their style from the complexity of their characters place too much emphasis on upper case characters, and that lower case characters are very conservatively treated. I have tried, with Madrigalle, to redress this imbalance and to introduce informality and vigor to the genre. Madrigalle comes in three options: Two simpler options, Madrigalle Nocturne - slightly less elaborate, and Madrigalle Minuet - slightly more elaborate. Each of these options may be easily used in packages that don't support the Character Map OpenType feature. The Professional Option, Madrigalle Expert, combines all the features of Nocturne and Minuet and has a large number of additional opentype character alternatives. It takes full advantage of Opentype features to provide the designer with a wide range of options, enabling him to give an individual stamp to his work. I recommend that packages such as InDesign and Illustrator, which support Character maps, be used with Madrigalle Expert in order to make full use of this font’s OpenType features. (Just select GLYPHS from the TYPE palette, and set your creativity free!) All Madrigalle styles contain the accented characters used in the major European languages. Try Madrigalle, use it for invitations, advertising media, fashion media, music media, contemporary cosmetics, anything romantic... the list is endless!

I have a new baby sister! Check her out in her crib: Cinque Donne The Cantoni Font family is a hand lettered font with a variety of standard and alternate characters that play together well. And with a total of 1265 glyphs, you can play for as long as you like. Now Cantoni and Cantoni Pro also come in BOLD! Additional features include: Roman numerals, Fractions, Ordinals, Ornate and Old Style numbers, Greek symbols, a set of Flourishes, Ornaments and DIY Wedding Words and Images. It also includes Western and Central European, Romanian and Turkish language support. Named after my large Italian family, the unique variety of letters based on my own fluid upright style of brush lettering, reminds me of every family I know. There are creative and conservative siblings, crazy in a good way cousins, affable aunts and corny joke telling uncles who somehow come together and form one cohesive unit. In the same way, using the Open Type features to insert a “wild t”, begin a name with a “flashy f” or end a word with a “rambling r”, the font comes to life. The party starts. The fun begins. And soon they're all laughing and dancing up and down the baseline. Like a family gathering to celebrate a special occasion, there is a palpable sense of joy expressed through the letters and images, not unlike the sharing of good food, memorable stories and lots of laughter. While Cantoni Basic gets the party started, the Cantoni Font Family Total Design offers a complete package of options for your unique creations. On behalf of the whole Cantoni family, thanks for joining in the fun. I'll see you on the dance floor. Enjoy! Debi Check out my other script fonts Belluccia and Dom Loves Mary offered through the Correspondence Ink Foundry here at MyFonts!

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.

Jill Bell's typefaces are energetic, highly decorative, and refreshingly unpredictable. Some are friendly and childlike, while others are rough and nervous. Her latest creation is ITC Swank, a connected script whose shabby-chic" sophistication communicates a worn elegance. Bell begins the design process "with black stuff on white paper," she explains, preferring to draw letters before she digitizes them. Often the inspiration for her typefaces comes from a piece of hand-lettering. "Bruno began as a reminder to buy cat food," she says, "and ITC Swank started out as a small bit of lettering for Wurlitzer Pianos." Bell finds that working with blocks of lettering is a good start for script typefaces. "If I'm drawing a script typeface, I have to write out sentences in the letters first," she explains. "Drawing each letter separately doesn't establish the flow and spontaneity that scripts deserve." Bell's newest design is ITC Swank. It's a somewhat tattered formal script with definite links to early copperplate scripts. Though probably not for wedding invitations, Swank's elegant underpinnings are evident, with its slightly narrow proportions and a baseline that can best be called "bouncy." Graphic designers will appreciate the abundance of swash letters, making it easy to create distinctive headlines and short blocks of copy. Bell has a fondness for the "open, genuine" quality of Chinese and Japanese calligraphy. "Eastern styles incorporate the natural flow of the hand," she says. "Natural, human qualities shine through. Mistakes are accepted, not scorned as in the 'white-out' Western culture." This philosophy is evident in Bell's own designs. Whether it's ITC Clover 's carefree spirit, the slightly spooky Hollyweird, Caribbean 's< rustic charm or the weathered elegance of ITC Swank, there is a natural honesty in her work."

To Rafaella, a menina dos cachos. We, designers, have grown accustomed to seeing that lowercase letters—not only in calligraphy but also in typography (1)—may be very playful and decorative. Almost every part of them can become a potential swash, ligature or decorative accolade (2) if the designer has some expertise regarding this matter. However, since we are living in an era that elevates the status of handcrafts, lettering has gained a lot of ground in different kinds of mediums, and with it there’s a sort of overuse of capitals. This may be due to the reason that lettering pieces need a high impact to convey their messages and many times why big capitals are the only solution. With this in mind, I started Rafaella: A font consisting entirely of capitals which go from unadorned to very decorative. Rafaella has ductus and forms vaguely based on the 1970s Bookman-like styled fonts. The presence and behaviour of serifs and ball terminals in this style were the perfect excuse to make really attractive aternates which the user can choose from the glyphs panel. The result is a font full of life. Able to be both very playful and formal due to its roman style which can be combined with (and between) a wide range of other styles of expressive scripts or geometric fonts with nice results (3). Also try Rafaella Shade Solo combined with Rafaella or Rafaella Bold for a layer effect to emphasize any given word or phrase. NOTES (1) See my fonts Erotica from 2013 or Dream from 2014. (2) Accolades is a wonderful word that refers to the ornaments made around the words in the spencerian style of calligraphy (3) Combinations often seen in different pieces of lettering were usually a contrast of style is wanted.

Shueitai is a typeface that has been undergoing development for more than a century, starting from the days when Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) was still known as Shueisha. As Japan underwent rapid modernization during the early years of the Meiji era, Shueisha, believing that printing was a business befitting a modern civilized society, began operations with a focus on letterpress. Before long the company expanded into developing its own typefaces. In 1912 it completed a full range of Mincho type, in sizes from Sho-go (#0 size, 42pt) through Hachi-go (#8, 4pt), which it called "Shueitai" a new style that came to form one of the two mainstreams of Japanese typefaces and continues to have a significant influence on font design even today. The Shueitai typeface is distinguished by abundant variations matching the size of type and the changing demands of the times. Whether it is the spirited and powerful Sho-go, the delicate and flowing San-go (#3, 16pt), or the bright and solidly reassuring Shuei-Mincho L, all Shueitai typefaces share a vibrant brushwork that adds an expression of eloquence and a burst of brilliance to every printed word. Currently, Shueitai is composed of 17 kinds of fonts useful for various purposes. The world has witnessed vast changes in the environment surrounding the printed world, with the tran-sition first from letterpress to Desktop Publishing, and most recently to e-books. But no matter how this environment might evolve, the written word remains the basis of communication, and the importance of beautiful and readable typefaces stays unchanged. In preparation for the changes that will inevitably come during the future, DNP will continue to evolve the Shueitai designs from now on. Through its continual reinvention, Shueitai, a typeface consistently adopted at the vanguard of the industry, perhaps represents Japanese innovation at its very best.

Although geometric Sans Serifs have been in vogue for nearly a century, they have never been as ubiquitous. It is not improbable that the old adage would be phrased: “When in doubt, set it in geometric sans”, had it been composed today. Have we not had enough? We think, not. Postmodern times demand a variety of expressions. The vision behind Geometria was to revisit the perennial favorite to lend subtle individuality to its tried and true forms. Geometria stands out in the crowd of similar fonts thanks to its complicated nature. It combines dynamic elements with a certain degree of stability. A slightly higher waistline of the capitals contributes to their distinctive appearance. If the upper case refers to the American grotesques of the 19th century, the lower case tends toward the forms of the Renaissance in its proportions. Geometria is a typeface of clean shapes that is well-suited for continuous reading, and it sets remarkably well. At the same time, it can be friendly, even flirtatious. Its distinct personality combines seeming opposites. At times it may appear serious, at times playful. On occasion, it may be deliberate, other times dynamic. It could seem rigid, then elegant. It is a typeface that could be perceived either as cutting-edge, or as nostalgic. A careful and discerning typographer will bring out and emphasize those aspects of its multifaceted personality that are needed to solve the problem at hand. Geometria consists of 24 fonts — eight weights with matching italics and narrow styles. The font includes multiple sets of figures and currency signs, alternate glyphs, a variety of experimental ligatures, and punctuation marks for the two cases. The 835 glyphs support 72 languages. Granshan 2013 award.

Gambler is a characteristic display type collection of 7 font styles with both clean and textured -making it total 14 fonts designed to play together. Gambler strikes with witty and elegant appeal combining vintage and modern elements. Gambler is an effective set for creating identities for branding, posters, book covers, headlines, logotypes, prints on garments, restaurant menus, beer labels and so on, both offline and online. Gambler Script is a smooth contrasted script that comes in two weights and it is packed with plenty of OpenType features: Standard Ligatures and Contextual Alternates are automatically on and they help to keep the flow and connections smooth. From Stylistic Alternates you’ll find characters with pointed endings and some other small variations. For extra flair try Swash or Titling Alternates. Gambler Script is PUA encoded so you can access the extra characters in most graphic design softwares. Gambler Brush is a soft brush script with low contrast and large x-height. Gambler Brush comes with following OpenType features: Standard Ligatures and Contextual Alternates that are automatically on and that keep the connections smooth. For less uneven word picture try Stylistic or Swash Alternates. Gambler Brush is PUA encoded so you can access the extra characters in most graphic design softwares. Gambler Flare is a flared serif with sharp edges and wide characters Gambler Flare comes in two weights. Gambler Gothic is a rigid condensed sans serif that comes in two styles: Regular and Shadow. Gambler Gothic Shadow has a narrow lining giving a three dimensional expression to the font. Gambler fonts are designed to play together, in pairs, or all together but they also work great as themselves or combined with other Fenotype Fonts.

Multicolored Fonts Many years ago, when Xerox Corporation still had its own font department, I came to Los Angeles in 1985 to train the IKARUS program. One day Bill Kienzel, head of the Xerox font department at the time, said we should go to the Hollywood Hills together; he knew people there who were experimenting with multicolored fonts. After a little wandering through the winding streets of the many hills, we reached a somewhat overgrown, simple family house standing under trees. A group of very inspired designers were waiting for us there. They immediately showed us the works they created using photomechanical tricks. They were fascinating. The American colors and the whole look seemed noble and enchanting. The problem was that this process was very difficult to implement and required a lot of effort on individual letters. They dreamed of a colored font that could be used for normal typesetting. We thought back and forth about how to save the individually colored letters in a common font, but soon gave up because we didn't see a technical option. So this idea and the memory of the time in Hollywood lay dormant in the back of my mind for many years, until at the beginning of this year 2023 I received an order to produce an outline typeface and the story came back to me. Suddenly I knew how to solve the problem from back then: if only the areas that should have the same color in all letters were saved in their own separate fonts, they could be colored independently of each other and later placed on top of each other. I implemented this in the 5 fonts that are now available with the 3 variants “Outside”, “Middle” and “Inside”. Together with the background, 4 colors can be combined with each other. This method works in text programs such as Word or InDesign. In Photoshop or Illustrator, the individual surfaces can also be colored by converting them into paths if the additional “Complete” variants (which contain all 3 contours) are used. There is also a “Basic” variant that can be used to achieve special effects such as overlay, bleed, etc. The first 5 fonts in this series are all based on the principle of contouring. Anyone who claims that you don't need any special fonts because they can be created automatically from any font using common programs is wrong or is only telling only half the truth. Anyone who has ever dealt with this knows that many individual adjustments to the design are necessary after contouring. This has happened in the 5 fonts that are now available and have very different styles. The dream from back then has come true. The user can set any text, long or short, in multiple colors, freely design the color scheme and apply all the usual typographic settings. Volker Schnebel, November 2023

A friend of mine says that sports are the ultimate popular drug. One of his favorite things to say is, “The sun’s always shining on a game somewhere.” It’s hard to argue with that. But that perspective is now the privilege of a society where technology is so high and mighty that it all but shapes such perspectives. These days I can, if I so choose, subscribe to nothing but sports on over a hundred TV channels and a thousand browser bookmarks. But it wasn't always like that. When I was growing up, long before the super-commercialization of the sport, I and other kids spent more than every spare minute of our time memorizing the names and positions of players, collecting team shirts and paraphernalia, making up game scenarios, and just being our generation’s entirely devoted fans. Argentina is one of the nations most obsessed with sports, especially "fútbol" (or soccer to North Americans). The running American joke was that we're all born with a football. When the national team is playing a game, stores actually close their doors, and Buenos Aires looks like a ghost town. Even on the local level, River Plate, my favorite team where I grew up, didn't normally have to worry about empty seats in its home stadium, even though attendance is charged at a high premium. There are things our senses absorb when we are children, yet we don't notice them until much later on in life. A sport’s collage of aesthetics is one of those things. When I was a kid I loved the teams and players that I loved, but I never really stopped to think what solidified them in my memory and made them instantly recognizable to me. Now, thirty-some years later, and after having had the fortune to experience many cultures other than my own, I can safely deduce that a sport’s aesthetic depends on the local or national culture as much as it depends on the sport itself. And the way all that gets molded in a single team’s identity becomes so intricate it is difficult to see where each part comes from to shape the whole. Although “futbol” is still in my blood as an Argentinean, I'm old enough to afford a little cynicism about how extremely corporate most popular sports are. Of course, nothing can now take away the joy I got from football in my childhood and early teens. But over the past few years I've been trying to perceive the sport itself in a global context, even alongside other popular sports in different areas of the world. Being a type designer, I naturally focus in my comparisons on the alphabets used in designing different sports experiences. And from that I've come to a few conclusions about my own taste in sports aesthetic, some of which surprised me. I think I like the baseball and basketball aesthetic better than football, hockey, volleyball, tennis, golf, cricket, rugby, and other sports. This of course is a biased opinion. I'm a lettering guy, and hand lettering is seen much more in baseball and basketball. But there’s a bit more to it than that. Even though all sports can be reduced to a bare-bones series of purposes and goals to reach, the rules and arrangements of baseball and basketball, in spite of their obvious tempo differences, are more suited for overall artistic motion than other sports. So when an application of swashed handlettering is used as part of a team’s identity in baseball or basketball, it becomes a natural fit. The swashes can almost be visual representation of a basketball curving in the air on its way to the hoop, or a baseball on its way out of the park. This expression is invariably backed by and connected to bold, sleak lettering, representing the driving force and precision (arms, bat) behind the artistic motion. It’s a simple and natural connective analysis to a designer, but the normal naked eye still marvels inexplicably at the beauty of such logos and wordmarks. That analytical simplicity was the divining rod behind Fan Script. My own ambitious brief was to build a readable yet very artistic sports script that can be a perfect fit for baseball or basketball identities, but which can also be implemented for other sports. The result turned out to be quite beautiful to my eyes, and I hope you find it satisfactory in your own work. Sports scripts like this one are rooted in showcard lettering models from the late 19th and early 20th century, like Detroit’s lettering teacher C. Strong’s — the same models that continue to influence book designers and sign painters for more than a century now. So as you can see, American turn-of-the-century calligraphy and its long-term influences still remain a subject of fascination to me. This fascination has been the engine of most of my work, and it shows clearly in Fan Script. Fan Script is a lively heavy brush face suitable for sports identities. It includes a variety of swashes of different shapes, both connective and non-connective, and contains a whole range of letter alternates. Users of this font will find a lot of casual freedom in playing with different combinations - a freedom backed by a solid technological undercurrent, where OpenType features provide immediate and logical solutions to problems common to this kind of script. One final thing bears mentioning: After the font design and production were completed, it was surprisingly delightful for me to notice, in the testing stage, that my background as a packaging designer seems to have left a mark on the way the font works overall. The modern improvements I applied to the letter forms have managed to induce a somewhat retro packaging appearance to the totality of the typeface. So I expect Fan Script will be just as useful in packaging as it would be in sports identity, logotype and merchandizing. Ale Paul

DIN Next is a typeface family inspired by the classic industrial German engineering designs, DIN 1451 Engschrift and Mittelschrift. Akira Kobayashi began by revising these two faces-who names just mean ""condensed"" and ""regular"" before expanding them into a new family with seven weights (Light to Black). Each weight ships in three varieties: Regular, Italic, and Condensed, bringing the total number of fonts in the DIN Next family to 21. DIN Next is part of Linotype's Platinum Collection. Linotype has been supplying its customers with the two DIN 1451 fonts since 1980. Recently, they have become more popular than ever, with designers regularly asking for additional weights. The abbreviation ""DIN"" stands for ""Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V."", which is the German Institute for Industrial Standardization. In 1936 the German Standard Committee settled upon DIN 1451 as the standard font for the areas of technology, traffic, administration and business. The design was to be used on German street signs and house numbers. The committee wanted a sans serif, thinking it would be more legible, straightforward, and easy to reproduce. They did not intend for the design to be used for advertisements and other artistically oriented purposes. Nevertheless, because DIN 1451 was seen all over Germany on signs for town names and traffic directions, it became familiar enough to make its way onto the palettes of graphic designers and advertising art directors. The digital version of DIN 1451 would go on to be adopted and used by designers in other countries as well, solidifying its worldwide design reputation. There are many subtle differences in DIN Next's letters when compared with DIN 1451 original. These were added by Kobayashi to make the new family even more versatile in 21st-century media. For instance, although DIN 1451's corners are all pointed angles, DIN Next has rounded them all slightly. Even this softening is a nod to part of DIN 1451's past, however. Many of the signs that use DIN 1451 are cut with routers, which cannot make perfect corners; their rounded heads cut rounded corners best. Linotype's DIN 1451 Engschrift and Mittelschrift are certified by the German DIN Institute for use on official signage projects. Since DIN Next is a new design, these applications within Germany are not possible with it. However, DIN Next may be used for any other project, and it may be used for industrial signage in any other country! DIN Next has been tailored especially for graphic designers, but its industrial heritage makes it surprisingly functional in just about any application. The DIN Next family has been extended with seven Arabic weights and five Devanagari weights. The display of the Devanagari fonts on the website does not show all features of the font and therefore not all language features may be displayed correctly.

DIN Next is a typeface family inspired by the classic industrial German engineering designs, DIN 1451 Engschrift and Mittelschrift. Akira Kobayashi began by revising these two faces-who names just mean ""condensed"" and ""regular"" before expanding them into a new family with seven weights (Light to Black). Each weight ships in three varieties: Regular, Italic, and Condensed, bringing the total number of fonts in the DIN Next family to 21. DIN Next is part of Linotype's Platinum Collection. Linotype has been supplying its customers with the two DIN 1451 fonts since 1980. Recently, they have become more popular than ever, with designers regularly asking for additional weights. The abbreviation ""DIN"" stands for ""Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V."", which is the German Institute for Industrial Standardization. In 1936 the German Standard Committee settled upon DIN 1451 as the standard font for the areas of technology, traffic, administration and business. The design was to be used on German street signs and house numbers. The committee wanted a sans serif, thinking it would be more legible, straightforward, and easy to reproduce. They did not intend for the design to be used for advertisements and other artistically oriented purposes. Nevertheless, because DIN 1451 was seen all over Germany on signs for town names and traffic directions, it became familiar enough to make its way onto the palettes of graphic designers and advertising art directors. The digital version of DIN 1451 would go on to be adopted and used by designers in other countries as well, solidifying its worldwide design reputation. There are many subtle differences in DIN Next's letters when compared with DIN 1451 original. These were added by Kobayashi to make the new family even more versatile in 21st-century media. For instance, although DIN 1451's corners are all pointed angles, DIN Next has rounded them all slightly. Even this softening is a nod to part of DIN 1451's past, however. Many of the signs that use DIN 1451 are cut with routers, which cannot make perfect corners; their rounded heads cut rounded corners best. Linotype's DIN 1451 Engschrift and Mittelschrift are certified by the German DIN Institute for use on official signage projects. Since DIN Next is a new design, these applications within Germany are not possible with it. However, DIN Next may be used for any other project, and it may be used for industrial signage in any other country! DIN Next has been tailored especially for graphic designers, but its industrial heritage makes it surprisingly functional in just about any application. The DIN Next family has been extended with seven Arabic weights and five Devanagari weights. The display of the Devanagari fonts on the website does not show all features of the font and therefore not all language features may be displayed correctly.

DIN Next is a typeface family inspired by the classic industrial German engineering designs, DIN 1451 Engschrift and Mittelschrift. Akira Kobayashi began by revising these two faces-who names just mean ""condensed"" and ""regular"" before expanding them into a new family with seven weights (Light to Black). Each weight ships in three varieties: Regular, Italic, and Condensed, bringing the total number of fonts in the DIN Next family to 21. DIN Next is part of Linotype's Platinum Collection. Linotype has been supplying its customers with the two DIN 1451 fonts since 1980. Recently, they have become more popular than ever, with designers regularly asking for additional weights. The abbreviation ""DIN"" stands for ""Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V."", which is the German Institute for Industrial Standardization. In 1936 the German Standard Committee settled upon DIN 1451 as the standard font for the areas of technology, traffic, administration and business. The design was to be used on German street signs and house numbers. The committee wanted a sans serif, thinking it would be more legible, straightforward, and easy to reproduce. They did not intend for the design to be used for advertisements and other artistically oriented purposes. Nevertheless, because DIN 1451 was seen all over Germany on signs for town names and traffic directions, it became familiar enough to make its way onto the palettes of graphic designers and advertising art directors. The digital version of DIN 1451 would go on to be adopted and used by designers in other countries as well, solidifying its worldwide design reputation. There are many subtle differences in DIN Next's letters when compared with DIN 1451 original. These were added by Kobayashi to make the new family even more versatile in 21st-century media. For instance, although DIN 1451's corners are all pointed angles, DIN Next has rounded them all slightly. Even this softening is a nod to part of DIN 1451's past, however. Many of the signs that use DIN 1451 are cut with routers, which cannot make perfect corners; their rounded heads cut rounded corners best. Linotype's DIN 1451 Engschrift and Mittelschrift are certified by the German DIN Institute for use on official signage projects. Since DIN Next is a new design, these applications within Germany are not possible with it. However, DIN Next may be used for any other project, and it may be used for industrial signage in any other country! DIN Next has been tailored especially for graphic designers, but its industrial heritage makes it surprisingly functional in just about any application. The DIN Next family has been extended with seven Arabic weights and five Devanagari weights. The display of the Devanagari fonts on the website does not show all features of the font and therefore not all language features may be displayed correctly.

DIN Next is a typeface family inspired by the classic industrial German engineering designs, DIN 1451 Engschrift and Mittelschrift. Akira Kobayashi began by revising these two faces-who names just mean ""condensed"" and ""regular"" before expanding them into a new family with seven weights (Light to Black). Each weight ships in three varieties: Regular, Italic, and Condensed, bringing the total number of fonts in the DIN Next family to 21. DIN Next is part of Linotype's Platinum Collection. Linotype has been supplying its customers with the two DIN 1451 fonts since 1980. Recently, they have become more popular than ever, with designers regularly asking for additional weights. The abbreviation ""DIN"" stands for ""Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V."", which is the German Institute for Industrial Standardization. In 1936 the German Standard Committee settled upon DIN 1451 as the standard font for the areas of technology, traffic, administration and business. The design was to be used on German street signs and house numbers. The committee wanted a sans serif, thinking it would be more legible, straightforward, and easy to reproduce. They did not intend for the design to be used for advertisements and other artistically oriented purposes. Nevertheless, because DIN 1451 was seen all over Germany on signs for town names and traffic directions, it became familiar enough to make its way onto the palettes of graphic designers and advertising art directors. The digital version of DIN 1451 would go on to be adopted and used by designers in other countries as well, solidifying its worldwide design reputation. There are many subtle differences in DIN Next's letters when compared with DIN 1451 original. These were added by Kobayashi to make the new family even more versatile in 21st-century media. For instance, although DIN 1451's corners are all pointed angles, DIN Next has rounded them all slightly. Even this softening is a nod to part of DIN 1451's past, however. Many of the signs that use DIN 1451 are cut with routers, which cannot make perfect corners; their rounded heads cut rounded corners best. Linotype's DIN 1451 Engschrift and Mittelschrift are certified by the German DIN Institute for use on official signage projects. Since DIN Next is a new design, these applications within Germany are not possible with it. However, DIN Next may be used for any other project, and it may be used for industrial signage in any other country! DIN Next has been tailored especially for graphic designers, but its industrial heritage makes it surprisingly functional in just about any application. The DIN Next family has been extended with seven Arabic weights and five Devanagari weights. The display of the Devanagari fonts on the website does not show all features of the font and therefore not all language features may be displayed correctly.

ITC Johnston is the result of the combined talents of Dave Farey and Richard Dawson, based on the work of Edward Johnston. In developing ITC Johnston, says London type designer Dave Farey, he did “lots of research on not only the face but the man.” Edward Johnston was something of an eccentric, “famous for sitting in a deck chair and carrying toast in his pockets.” (The deck chair was his preferred furniture in his own living room; the toast was so that he’d always have sustenance near at hand.) Johnston was also almost single-handedly responsible, early in this century, for the revival in Britain of the Renaissance calligraphic tradition of the chancery italic. His book Writing & Illuminating, & Lettering (with its peculiar extraneous comma in the title) is a classic on its subject, and his influence on his contemporaries was tremendous. He is perhaps best remembered, however, for the alphabet that he designed in 1916 for the London Underground Railway (now London Transport), which was based on his original “block letter” model. Johnston’s letters were constructed very carefully, based on his study of historical writing techniques at the British Museum. His capital letters took their form from the best classical Roman inscriptions. “He had serious rules for his sans serif style,” says Farey, “particularly the height-to-weight ratio of 1:7 for the construction of line weight, and therefore horizontals and verticals were to be the same thickness. Johnston’s O’s and C’s and G’s and even his S’s were constructions of perfect circles. This was a bit of a problem as far as text sizes were concerned, or in reality sizes smaller than half an inch. It also precluded any other weight but medium ‘ any weight lighter or heavier than his 1:7 relationship.” Johnston was famously slow at any project he undertook, says Farey. “He did eventually, under protest, create a bolder weight, in capitals only ‘ which took twenty years to complete.” Farey and his colleague Richard Dawson have based ITC Johnston on Edward Johnston’s original block letters, expanding them into a three-weight type family. Johnston himself never called his Underground lettering a typeface, according to Farey. It was an alphabet meant for signage and other display purposes, designed to be legible at a glance rather than readable in passages of text. Farey and Dawson’s adaptation retains the sparkling starkness of Johnston’s letters while combining comfortably into text. Johnston’s block letter bears an obvious resemblance to Gill Sans, the highly successful type family developed by Monotype in the 1920s. The young Eric Gill had studied under Johnston at the London College of Printing, worked on the Underground project with him, and followed many of the same principles in developing his own sans serif typeface. The Johnston letters gave a characteristic look to London’s transport system after the First World War, but it was Gill Sans that became the emblematic letter form of British graphic design for decades. (Johnston’s sans serif continued in use in the Underground until the early ‘80s, when a revised and modernized version, with a tighter fit and a larger x-height, was designed by the London design firm Banks and Miles.) Farey and Dawson, working from their studio in London’s Clerkenwell, wanted to create a type family that was neither a museum piece nor a bastardization, and that would “provide an alternative of the same school” to the omnipresent Gill Sans. “These alphabets,” says Farey, referring to the Johnston letters, “have never been developed as contemporary styles.” He and Dawson not only devised three weights of ITC Johnston but gave it a full set of small capitals in each weight ‘ something that neither the original Johnston face nor the Gill faces have ‘ as well as old-style figures and several alternate characters.

There is plenty of lyric and literature about looking over one's shoulder in contemplation. What would you have done differently if you knew then what you know now? This is the kind of question that comes out of nowhere. When it does and whether its context is personal or professional make very little difference. It's a question that can cause emotions to rise and passions to run hot. It can trigger priority shifts and identity crises. It's never easy to answer. Three years ago, I published a font called Semilla. My aim with that was to distill the work of Bentele, a lettering artist from early 1950s Germany. Picking such an obscure figure back then was my way of pondering the meaning and efficiency of objectivity in a world where real human events and existences are inevitably filtered through decades of unavoidably subjective written, printed and oral history. And maybe to pat myself on the back for surviving surprises mild and pleasant. Having been fortunate enough to follow my professional whims for quite some time now, I took another, longer look at my idea of distilling Bentele's work again. I suppose the concepts of established history and objectivity can become quite malleable when personal experience is added to the mix. I say that because there I was, three years later, second-guessing myself and opining that Bentele's work can be distilled differently, in a manner more suited to current cultural angles. So I embarked on that mission, and Bowling Script is the result. I realize that it's difficult to reconcile this soft and happy calligraphic outcome with the introspection I've blathered about so far, but it is what is. I guess even self-created first world problems need to be resolved somehow, and the resolution can happen in mysterious ways. Bowling Script is what people who like my work would expect from me. It's yet another script loaded with all kinds of alternation, swashing and over-the-top stuff. All of that is in here. These days I think I just do all that stuff without even blinking. But there are two additional twists. The more noticeable one is ornamental: The stroke endings in the main font are of the typical sharp and curly variety found in sign painting, while the other font complements that with ball endings, sometimes with an added-on-afterwards impression rather than an extension of the actual stroke. In the philosophical terms I was mumbling earlier, this is the equivalent of alternate realities in a world of historical reduxes that by their very nature can never properly translate original fact. The second twist has to do with the disruption of angular rhythm in calligraphic alphabets. Of course, this is the kind of lettering where the very concept of rhythm can be quite flexible, but it still counts for something, and experimenting with angular white space in a project of a very dense footprint was irresistible. After playing for a bit, I decided that it would interesting to include the option of using optically back-slanted forms in the fonts. Most scripts out there, including mine, have a rhythm sonically comparable to four-to-the-floor club beats. So the weirdly angled stuff here is your chance to do the occasional drumroll. Everyone knows we need one of those sometimes. Bowling Script and Bowling Script Balls fonts comes with 1600 characters and features extended Latin-based language support. There are also a basic version of both fonts without all the alternates and extra OpenType features. Bowling family ships in cross-platform OpenType format. We also want to present “Mute”, a visual essay narated by Tomás García and Valentín Muro, about digital life created specially to introduce Bowling Script.

ROARRR! THE STYLES -Pantera Pro is the most complete style, and although its default look is mono-rhythmic it gets really playful and crazy like the examples of the posters by just activating the Decorative Ligatures button in the Open-type Panel of Adobe Illustrator. However, I recommend using also the Glyphs Panel because there you'll find much more variants per letter. Pantera Pro is in fact, coded in a way the combination of thicknesses will always look fantastic. -Pantera Black Left, and Pantera Black Right are actually “lite” versions of Pantera Pro: They have very little Open-Type code, so what you see here is what you get. Pantera Black Left has its left strokes thick, while Pantera Black Right has its right strokes thick. -Pantera White is a lovely member in this family that looks lighter and airy, hence its name. With the feature Standard Ligatures activated (liga) the font gets very playful. -Pantera Caps is based on sign painters lettering and since it follows the same pointed brush rules as the other styles, it matches perfectly. -Pantera Claws like its name suggests, is a set of icons that were done by our dear panther. THE STORY It is said that typography can never be as expressive as calligraphy, but sometimes it can get close enough. I tend to think that calligraphic trials, in order to work well as potential fonts, need first to go through very strict filters before going digital: While calligraphy is synonym of freedom (once its rules are mastered), type-design, in the other hand, has its battlefield a little tighter and tougher. When I practice pointed brush lettering, there are so many things happening on the paper. And most of them are delicious. The ones who know my work may see that although many of my fonts are very expressive, my handmade brush trials are much more lively than them. With that in mind, this time I tried to go further and rescue more of those things that are lost in the process of thinking type when first sketches are calligraphic. I wondered if I could create something wild, hence its name Panther, by understanding the randomness that sometimes calligraphy conveys and turning it to something systemic: With Pantera, I created an ordered disorder. Like it happens a lot in many kinds of lettering styles, in order to enrich the written word the scribe mixes the thickness of the strokes and the width of the letters. Like one of my favorite mentors say (1), they make thoughtful gestures Some lively strokes go down with a thick, while some do that with a thin. Some letters are very narrow, meaning some of them will need to be very wide to compensate. Why not?. The calligrapher is always thinking on the following letters, and he/she designs in his head the combination of thicks and thins before he/she executes them. He/she knows the playful rhythm the words will have before writing them. It takes time and skill to master this and achieve graceful results. Going back to the font, in Pantera, this combination of varying thicknesses and widths of letters were Open-Type coded so the user will see satisfactory results by just enabling or disabling some buttons on the glyphs panel. I'm very pleased with the result since it’s not very easy to find fonts which play with the words' rhythm like Pantera does, following of course, a strong calligraphic base. I believe that if you were on the prowl for innovative fonts, this is your chance to go wild and get Pantera! NOTES (1) Phrase by Yves Leterme. In fact, it’s the title of a book by him. EPILOGUE Esta fuente está dedicada a mi panterita