Since the beginning, Palsam was intended to be a super multilingual family, with a real cursive Arabic companion, and a display cut. The typeface was designed to be used for setting text and titles of contemporary Arabic content, specially magazines, and websites. The Arabic and Latin scripts were designed at the same time, to make a true authentic bilingual typeface. Both scripts have affected each other in several ways through the entire design process, which happened within ten years. Palsam has an inviting, approachable, fashionable and humanist look. Thanks to its low contrast, open apertures, detailed calligraphic strokes, and smooth counters, which also make it easy to read at smaller sizes. The main highlight for Palsam was the Cursive companion. For the first time, the calligraphic Ijaza style was used as a model for designing the Arabic cursive. Since the Ijaza is a hyper combination of Naskh and Thuluth, which makes it perfect to be a companion for the upright Naskh. Moreover this script was used in margins, and to highlight specific content inside a paragraph in older manuscripts. With true cursive companions in five weights, and many opentype features, Palsam grants all the tools needed to set complex information and editorial designs applications. More than 1000 characters are included per weight, including small caps, fractions, old style and lining numbers, ligatures, contextual ligatures, and discretionary ligatures. It supports over 40 languages that use the Latin extended, as well as Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu Languages. PalsamArabic only covers the Arabic script. The latin script was designed in collaboration with the Slovenian type designer Alja Herlah.

The design of the typeface Moskau Grotesk is based on the signage created for the Café Moskau in Berlin by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel in the beginning of the 1960s. The Café Moskau, across from the Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin Mitte was one of the prestige edifices of the former DDR (German Democratic Republic). Built in the early 1960s, it advanced over the years and changing social developments to a trademark building of the capital. The lettering display on the roof was created by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel (October 17, 1910 – September 19, 1985). He had been Professor at the School for Applied Arts in Berlin, and, in addition to the creation of many posters, book covers and postage stamps, he was responsible for the signage of the Kino International as well as for the complete graphic treatment for the Palace of the Republik. The signage for the Café Moskau with the words »RESTAURANT«, »CAFÉ«, »KONZERT« and »MOCKBA« set in capital letters, becomes the basis for the Moskau Grotesk which was developed by Björn Gogalla in 2013. This face should not be seen as an imitation. A few shortcomings were »fixed«. In favor of maintaining the core characteristics some unique features were, however, not relinquished. Lower case letters and the missing capital letters were designed from scratch. It is not surprising that the plain, unassuming geometrical direction of the basic character style forms a bridge to the architecture of the 1960s. Inspired by the then favored, diverse possibilities inherent in the architectural example and wall reliefs, two complementary pattern fonts emerged.

Designs of characters that are almost forty years old can be already restored like a historical alphabet – by transferring them exactly into the computer with all their details. But, of course, it would not be Josef Tyfa, if he did not redesign the entire alphabet, and to such an extent that all that has remained from the original was practically the name. Tyfa published a sans-serif alphabet under the title Juvenis already in the second half of the past century. The type face had a large x-height of lower-case letters, a rather economizing design and one-sided serifs which were very daring for their time. In 1979 Tyfa returned to the idea of Juvenis, modified the letter “g” into a one-storey form, narrowed the design of the characters even further and added a bold and an inclined variant. This type face also shows the influence of Jaroslav Benda, evident in the open forms of the crotches of the diagonal strokes. Towards the end of 2001 the author presented a pile of tracing paper with dozens of variants of letter forms, but mainly with a new, more contemporary approach: the design is more open, the details softer, the figures and non-alphabetical characters in the entire set are more integral. The original intention to create a type face for printing children’s books thus became even more emphasized. Nevertheless, Juvenis with its new proportions far exceeds its original purpose. In the summer of 2002 we inserted all of this “into the machine” and designed new italics. The final computer form was completed in November 2002. All the twelve designs are divided into six variants of differing boldness with the corresponding italics. The darkness of the individual sizes does not increase linearly, but follows a curve which rises more steeply towards the boldest extreme. The human eye, on the contrary, perceives the darkening as a more fluent process, and the neighbouring designs are better graded. The x-height of lower-case letters is extraordinarily large, so that the printed type face in the size of nine points is perceived rather as “ten points” and at the same time the line spacing is not too dense. A further ingenious optical trick of Josef Tyfa is the figures, which are designed as moderately non-aligning ones. Thus an imaginary third horizontal is created in the proportional scheme of the entire type face family, which supports legibility and suitably supplements the original intention to create a children’s type face with elements of playfulness. The same applies to the overall soft expression of the alphabet. The serifs are varied; their balancing, however, is well-considered: the ascender of the lower-case “d” has no serif and the letter appears poor, while, for example, the letter “y”, or “x”, looks complicated. The only serif to be found in upper-case letters is in “J”, where it is used exclusively for the purpose of balancing the rounded descender. These anomalies, however, fit perfectly into the structure of any smoothly running text and shift Juvenis towards an original, contemporary expression. Tyfa also offers three alternative lower-case letters *. In the case of the letter “g” the designer follows the one-storey form he had contemplated in the eighties, while in “k” he returns to the Benda inspiration and in “u” adds a lower serif as a reminder of the calligraphic principle. It is above all the italics that are faithful to the tradition of handwritten lettering. The fairly complicated “k” is probably the strongest characteristic feature of Juvenis; all the diagonals in “z”, “v”, “w”, “y” are slightly flamboyant, and this also applies to the upper-case letters A, V, W, Y. Juvenis blends excellently with drawn illustrations, for it itself is modelled in a very creative way. Due to its unmistakable optical effect, however, it will find application not only in children’s literature, but also in orientation systems, on posters, in magazines and long short-stories.

I spend a lot of time following two obsessions: packaging and hand lettering. Alongside a few other minor obsessions, those two have been my major ones for so many years now, I've finally reached the point where I can actually claim them as “obsessions” without getting a dramatic reaction from the little voice in the back of my head. When you spend so much time researching and studying a subject, you become very focused, directionally and objectively. But of course some of the research material you run into turns out to be tangential to whatever your focus happens to be at the time, so you absorb what you can from it, then shelf it — like the celebrity bobblehead that amused you for a while, but is now an almost invisible ornament eating dust and feathers somewhere in your environment. And just like the bobblehead may fall off the shelf one day to remind you of its existence, some of my lettering research material unveiled itself in my head one day for no particular reason. Hand lettering is now mostly perceived as an American art. Someone with my historical knowledge about lettering may be snooty enough to go as far as pointing out the British origins of almost everything American, including lettering — but for the most part, the contemporary perspective associates great lettering with America. The same perspective also associates blackletter, gothics and sans serifs with Germany. So you can imagine my simultaneous surprise and impatience when, in my research for one of my American lettering-based fonts, I ran into a German lettering book from 1953, by an artist called Bentele. It was no use for me because it didn't propel my focus at that particular time, but a few months ago I was marveling at what we take for granted — the sky is blue, blackletter is German, lettering is American — and found myself flipping through the pages of that book again. The lettering in that book is upbeat and casual sign making stuff, but it has a slightly strange and youthful experimentation at its heart. I suppose I find it strange because it deviates a lot from the American stuff I'm used to working with for so long now. To make a long story short, what’s inside that German book served as the semilla, which is Spanish for seed, for the typeface you see all over these pages. With Semilla, my normal routine went out the window. My life for a while was all Bezier all the time. No special analog or digital brushes or pens were used in drawing these forms. They're the product of a true Bezier process, all starting with a point creating a curve to another point, which draws a curve to another point, and so on. It’s a very time-consuming process, but at the end I am satisfied that it can get to pretty much the same results easier and more traditional methods accomplish. And as usual with my fonts, the OpenType is plenty and a lot of fun. Experimenting with substitution and automation is still a great pleasure for me. It is the OpenType that always saves me from the seemingly endless work hours every type designer must inevitably have to face at one point in his career. The artful photos used in this booklet are by French photographer and designer Stéphane Giner. He is very deserving of your patronage, so please keep an eye out for his marvelous work. I hope you like Semilla and enjoy using it. I have a feeling that it marks a transition to a more curious and flexible period in my career, but only time will tell.

Brailganta Script is the font of choice for writing things beyond words. This typeface is designed with great detail to convey stylish elegance. So, it can be said, the character of the transformation is very beautiful, a kind of classic ornamental copper script. The Brailganta script provides alternative variants of most fonts, binders, and many calligraphy tips, ideal for elegant labels, high-end packaging, stationery and compositions for certain brands, beautiful titles, verses, letters and short text, intended for read only with the eyes or meant to be whispered into someone's ear. To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternative, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Indesign & CorelDraw X6-X7, Microsoft Word 2010 or a later version. (Windows), Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters using Adobe Illustrator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzwjMkbB-wQ How to use the font style set in Microsoft Word 2010 or later versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVJlZQ3EZU0 There are additional ways to access the alternative/swash, using the Character Map (Windows), Nexus Font (Windows) Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters, using the Windows Character Map with Photoshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9vacoYmBw If you need help or advice, please contact me by email Thank you for watching!

A 14-weight sans family based on the original British ‘M.O.T.’ (Ministry of Transport) alphabet. A capitals-only, single-weight design was drawn up around 1933 for use on Britain’s road network, and remained in use until Jock Kinnear and Margaret Calvert’s ‘Transport Alphabet’ was introduced for Britain's first motorway in 1958. The identity of the original designer is not preserved; however, Antony Froshaug in a 1963 ‘Design’ magazine article mentions Edward Johnston as an advisor. Speculation that it was based on Johnston’s London Transport alphabet is discussed in archived government documents from 1957: “So far as I am aware, the Ministry alphabet was not based on Johnston’s design; indeed, it has been suggested that Gill got his idea from Johnston. Our alphabet was based on advice from Hubert Llewellyn-Smith (then chairman of the British Institute of Industrial Art) and Mr. J. G. West, a senior architect of H. M. Office of Works.” A 1955-57 revision of the alphabet which polished the somewhat mechanical aspects of the original may be the work of stone carver and typographer David Kindersley. For the digitisation, Rian Hughes added an entirely new lower case, italics and a range of weights. The lower case mimics the forms of the capitals wherever possible, taking cues form Gill and Johnston for letters such as the a and g, with single-tier versions in the italic. A uniquely British font that is now available in a versatile family for modern use.

South Picene (also known as Paleo-Sabellic, Mid-Adriatic or Eastern Italic) is an extinct Italic language belonging to the Sabellic subfamily. It is apparently unrelated to the North Picene language, which is not understood and therefore unclassified. South Picene texts were at first relatively inscrutable even though some words were clearly Indo-European. The discovery in 1983 that two of the apparently redundant punctuation marks were in reality simplified letters led to an incremental improvement in their understanding and a first translation in 1985. Difficulties remain. It may represent a third branch of Sabellic, along with Oscan and Umbrian (and their dialects), or the whole Sabellic linguistic area may be best regarded as a linguistic continuum. The paucity of evidence from most of the 'minor dialects' contributes to these difficulties. The corpus of South Picene inscriptions consists of 23 inscriptions on stone or bronze dating from as early as the 6th century BC to as late as the 4th century BC. The dating is estimated according to the features of the letters and in some cases the archaeological context. As the known history of the Picentes does not begin until their subjugation by Rome in the 3rd century, the inscriptions open an earlier window onto their culture as far back as the late Roman Kingdom. Most are stelai or cippi of sandstone or limestone in whole or fragmentary condition sculpted for funerary contexts, but some are monumental statues.

A collection of DIN Mittelschrift variants with a slightly sinister and scary appearance - perfect for that Halloween ad, brochure or article. The Plain font is included if you buy the family pack, and can be mixed in. The DINfun Pro fonts are special versions of the classic DIN 1451 Mittelschrift, far removed from the original typeface's serious and no-nonsense roots. I have made them as companions to the classic, with some some very different expressions, complete with a large multilingual character set. Time to spice up that DIN profile! :) ALL fonts from CheapProFonts have very extensive language support: They contain some unusual diacritic letters (some of which are contained in the Latin Extended-B Unicode block) supporting: Cornish, Filipino (Tagalog), Guarani, Luxembourgian, Malagasy, Romanian, Ulithian and Welsh. They also contain all glyphs in the Latin Extended-A Unicode block (which among others cover the Central European and Baltic areas) supporting: Afrikaans, Belarusian (Lacinka), Bosnian, Catalan, Chichewa, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Kashubian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Maori, Polish, Saami (Inari), Saami (North), Serbian (latin), Slovak(ian), Slovene, Sorbian (Lower), Sorbian (Upper), Turkish and Turkmen. And they of course contain all the usual "western" glyphs supporting: Albanian, Basque, Breton, Chamorro, Danish, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galican, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish (Gaelic), Italian, Northern Sotho, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romance, Sami (Lule), Sami (South), Scots (Gaelic), Spanish, Swedish, Tswana, Walloon and Yapese.

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

Plantin is a family of text typefaces created by Monotype in 1913. Their namesake, Christophe Plantin (Christoffel Plantijn in Dutch), was born in France during the year 1520. In 1549, he moved to Antwerp, located in present-day Belgium. There he began printing in 1555. For a brief time, he also worked at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands. Typefaces used in Christophe Plantin's books inspired future typographic developments. In 1913, the English Monotype Corporation's manager Frank Hinman Pierpont directed the Plantin revival. Based on 16th century specimens from the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, specifically a type cut by Robert Granjon and a separate cursive Italic, the Plantin" typeface was conceived. Plantin was drawn for use in mechanical typesetting on the international publishing markets. Plantin, and the historical models that inspired it, are old-style typefaces in the French manner, but with x-height that are larger than those found in Claude Garamond's work. Plantin would go on to influence another Monotype design, Times New Roman. Stanley Morison and Victor Larent used Plantin as a reference during that typeface's cutting. Like Garamond, Plantin is exceptionally legible and makes a classic, elegant impression. Plantin is indeed a remarkably accommodating type face. The firm modelling of the strokes and the serifs in the letters make the mass appearance stronger than usual; the absence of thin elements ensures a good result on coated papers; and the compact structure of the letters, without loss of size makes Plantin one of the economical faces in use. In short, it is essentially an all-purpose face, excellent for periodical or jobbing work, and very effective in many sorts of book and magazine publishing. Plantin's Bold weight was especially optimized to provide ample contrast: bulkiness was avoided by introducing a slight sharpening to the serifs' forms."

In 1995, FontHaus came upon a rare opportunity to create a revival of Aries, a little known and previously unavailable typeface by the legendary Eric Gill. Discovering a lost typeface by one of the major designers of the 20th Century, was the discovery of a buried treasure, and being the first type company to release it was an honor. Thirteen years later, FontHaus came across another little known typeface treasure: Diane. Designed by the legendary French designer Roger Excoffon in 1956, this remarkable script has never been faithfully recreated until now. In close collaboration with Mark Simonson, FontHaus and Mr. Simonson painstakingly researched rare type books, publications, European metal type services, and period showings from the United States, England, Germany and from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Finding full specimens of the font turned out to be quite a challenge. In most cases, only the caps and lowercase were shown. Furthermore, the more we researched Diane, many curious facts came to light. The caps in earlier specimens of Diane are completely different from specimens published later, suggesting that the face was redesigned at some point, perhaps in the mid-1960s. So we are left with two different sets of caps. The original had very elaborate, swirly strokes, very characteristic of Excoffon¹s gestural designs for posters and logos. Later on, these appear to have been replaced by a set of simpler, more traditional script caps. The original caps are criticized in one source Mark found (Practical Handbook on Display Typefaces, 1959) as being "exquisite" but "not highly legible". Perhaps this is what led to the simpler caps being introduced. Nevertheless, FontHaus's release includes not only both sets of caps, but a range of alternates and a number of new characters not originally available such as the Euro, and a magnificent alternate Ampersand to name a few.

Rahere is a humanist sans with subtle features that give the typeface a distinctive, warm appearance without distracting the reader. Legible at large and small sizes, Rahere is a versatile family suitable for a wide range of applications such as annual reports, advertising, brochures, catalogues, information signage, screen text and visual identities. For projects that need to convey a sense of authority or credibility, this is the ideal sans serif to use. The family consists of six weights ranging from light to extra bold with corresponding italics and the character set covers most of the major European languages. Each weight contains lining & non-aligning numerals in both proportional & tabular spacing. The tabular numerals share the same width across all weights and styles – a must for financial tables in annual reports. Spirited and lively, the italic lowercase is more cursive and calligraphic than the roman, although it harmonises perfectly, displaying enough character to create emphasis without looking out of place. When used on its own, for pull-out quotes or poetry, the italic exudes a charm that draws attention to the text. The typeface is named after Rahere, a 12th-century Anglo-Norman priest, who founded St Bartholomew's Hospital, London in 1123. I will always be indebted to Barts (as it is now commonly known) because in 2007 I was successfully treated for relapsed testicular cancer. Way back in 1992 I designed my first sans serif, Charlotte Sans, and although it was relatively successful, I was never really satisfied with the end result: not enough weights & italics, a small character set, lack of accented characters, and my design skills were still in their infancy. Whilst Rahere shares many common elements with Charlotte Sans, it is much more than just a reworking; it represents over 20 years of accumulated knowledge and experience as a designer.

a, g, k and y It was a forensic examination by Jason Smith of his existing designs that laid the groundwork for FS Jack. Jason made a list of unique characteristics that would give the sans serif font its typographic thumbprint, which included an unusually large x-height and slightly off-the-wall letters like the lower-case “a”, “g”, “k” and “y”. “I wanted to make something that was slightly uncomfortable,” says Jason, “and in doing so simplify the quirkiness down to a few letters.” Fernando Mello did “the rest of the cooking”, filling the design out and making the additional weights. Tipos Latinos Upon its release in 2010, FS Jack was submitted by Fernando, who is Brazilian, for the esteemed type design biennial, Tipos Latinos, where it was selected as a winner in the Families category. It went on to be selected for type exhibitions throughout Latin America and around the world. “FS Jack is a workhorse,” says Fernando, “but also very ownable and distinctive, and available in a good range of weights, crafted by Jason and I.” Corporate “FS Jack took a couple of years to get noticed and is still fairly underused,” says Jason, “which is good in a way, for our Brandfont clients that have adopted it.” FS Jack was chosen as the signature font for The Shard in London, from its signage down to business cards. Fontsmith also worked with Lloyds Bank to customise FS Jack into a bespoke font for the bank’s updated brand identity – part of Fontsmith’s Brandfont service, which you can read about here. Fat Jack Included in the FS Jack family – just – is FS Jack Poster, the super-heavy weight of the range. “That was a last minute addition,” says Fernando, “after Jason and I started talking about how much we liked Gill KO, a typeface that is almost comically fat.”

The dearJoe series of fonts came to life around the year 1999, when I created dearJoe 1, which was a first (and half-assed) attempt to convert my own handwriting into a working font. Being able to type in my own hand had always been a childhood fantasy, and even though I only partly understood the software, a working font was generated and I decided to put it on the internet for people to use in their own personal projects. Which they did: at this moment the dearJoe 1 font has been downloaded millions of times and can be found on Vietnamese riksjas, Tasmanian gyms and chocolate stores on 5th Avenue for instance. The font is not something I am particularly proud of, but it started me of in building what's now the JOEBOB graphics foundry. Inbetween creating other fonts, the dearJoe series has become a theme I revisit every once in a while, trying to create an update on how my handwriting has evolved, along with my abilities in creating fonts that mimic actual handwriting. In the last decade or so I started implementing ligatures and alternate characters, which helped a lot in coming to a result that can almost pass for actual handwriting. The 2019 dearJoe 7 font is the latest addition to this font family. All characters were scanned from handwritten notes, cherrypicking the characters and letter-combinations I liked best. They were written with a Lamy M66 B pen and only minor adjustments were made to the original scans, leaving most little flaws and rough edges as they were for a convincing ball-point on paper result. The font comes with over 150 ligatures, making sure the font has a variated and credible overall look and feel.

“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.