New Lincoln Gothic is an elegant sanserif, generous in width and x-height. There are twelve weights ranging from Hairline to UltraBold and an italic for each weight. At the stroke ends are gentle flares, and some of the round characters possess an interesting and distinctive asymmetry. The character set supports Central Europe, and there are three figure sets, extended fractions, superior and inferior numbers, and a few alternates, all accessible via OpenType features. Back in 1965, Thomas Lincoln had an idea for a new sanserif typeface, a homage of sorts, to ancient Roman artisans. The Trajan Column in Rome, erected in 113 AD, has an inscription that is considered to be the basis for western European lettering. Lincoln admired these beautiful letterforms and so, being inspired, he set out to design a new sanserif typeface based on the proportions and subtleties of the letters found in the Trajan Inscription. Lincoln accomplished what he set out to do by creating Lincoln Gothic. The typeface consisted only of capital letters. Lincoln intentionally omitted a lowercase to keep true his reference to the Trajan Inscription, which contains only magiscule specimens. The design won him the first Visual Graphics Corporation (VGC) National Typeface Competition in 1965. The legendary Herb Lubalin even used it to design a promotional poster! All this was back in the day when typositor film strips and photo type were all the rage in setting headlines. Fast forward now to the next millennium. Thomas Lincoln has had a long, illustrious career as a graphic designer. Still, he has one project that feels incomplete; Lincoln Gothic does not have a lowercase. It is the need to finish the design that drives Lincoln to resurrect his prize winning design and create its digital incarnation. Thus, New Lincoln Gothic was born. Lacking the original drawings, Lincoln had to locate some old typositor strips in order to get started. He had them scanned and imported the data into Freehand where he refined the shapes and sketched out a lowercase. He then imported that data into Fontographer, where he worked the glyphs again and refined the spacing, and started generating additional weights and italics. His enthusiasm went unchecked and he created 14 weights! It was about that time that Lincoln contacted Bitstream about publishing the family. Lincoln worked with Bitstream to narrow down the family (only to twelve weights), interpolate the various weights using three masters, and extend the character set to support CE and some alternate figure sets. Bitstream handled the hinting and all production details and built the final CFF OpenType fonts using FontLab Studio 5.

Designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1907; an improved version of the familiar nineteenth century blackletter as he had executed it in his Wedding Text.

Iowan Old Style was designed for Bitstream in 1990 by noted sign painter John Downer. Iowan Old Style is a hardy contemporary text design modeled after earlier revivals of Jenson and Griffo typefaces but with a larger x-height, tighter letterfit, and reproportioned capitals. Iowan Old Style Titling was designed by John Downer and added to the Iowan Old Style family in 2002. The cap-only character set includes several ornaments and fleurons, broadening the appeal and functionality of the typeface family. Iowan Old Style was originally designed for Bitstream in 1990 by Downer, a noted sign painter. Iowan Old Style is a hardy contemporary text design modeled after earlier revivals of Jenson and Griffo typefaces but with a larger x-height, tighter letterfit, and reproportioned capitals. Expert and old style figure font sets were added in 2000.

Oswald Cooper is best known for his emblematic Cooper Black™ typeface. Although he was responsible for several other fonts of roman design, Cooper never drew a sans serif typeface. But that didn’t stop George Ryan from creating one. Ryan saw a sans serif example of Cooper’s lettering in an old book and decided that it deserved to be made into a typeface. Ryan’s initial plan was to make a single-weight typeface that closely matched the slender and condensed proportions of the original lettering. While the resulting Oz Handicraft™ typeface proved to be very popular, Ryan was not satisfied with the limited offering. So, between other projects – and over many years – Ryan worked on expanding the design’s range. The completed family includes light, semi bold and bold weights to complement the original design, plus a matching suite of four “wide” designs, which are closer to normal proportions. Fonts of Oz Handicraft include a Pan-European character set that supports most Central European and many Eastern European languages.

The design of Futura seems to be timeless. This typeface family which had been developed in 1926 by Paul Renner for the Bauer Type Foundry in the style of constructivism and as part of the Bauhaus movement, experienced, however, in the course of the past 90 years, repeated time-appropriate revivals which guaranteed its on-going popularity. The version of the Futura EF Pro contains the original character constructions which Dennis Megaw described as the “first designs of Futura” in 1938 in “20th century sans serif types, Typography no. 7” (See: Dr. Christopher Burke: Paul Renner, Princeton Architectural Press, New York 1998). What makes it exceptional is the extension into three weights: “Text”, “Headline” and “Index” which came about as part of a degree dissertation at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (HFBK) in Hamburg. In this context, the accompanying documentation “Die Kritik der reinen Futura” (“The Critique of the Pure Futura”) by Katharina Strauer was published by the Materialverlag, Hamburg, in 2003. Some copies are still available at Elsner+Flake.

The design of Futura seems to be timeless. This typeface family which had been developed in 1926 by Paul Renner for the Bauer Type Foundry in the style of constructivism and as part of the Bauhaus movement, experienced, however, in the course of the past 90 years, repeated time-appropriate revivals which guaranteed its on-going popularity. The version of the Futura EF Pro contains the original character constructions which Dennis Megaw described as the “first designs of Futura” in 1938 in “20th century sans serif types, Typography no. 7” (See: Dr. Christopher Burke: Paul Renner, Princeton Architectural Press, New York 1998). What makes it exceptional is the extension into three weights: “Text”, “Headline” and “Index” which came about as part of a degree dissertation at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (HFBK) in Hamburg. In this context, the accompanying documentation “Die Kritik der reinen Futura” (“The Critique of the Pure Futura”) by Katharina Strauer was published by the Materialverlag, Hamburg, in 2003. Some copies are still available at Elsner+Flake.

For nearly 90 years, Paul Renner’s Futura has been as popular as it is versatile—from children’s books to fashion magazines to the plaque on the Moon. Futura is a typographic icon. Futura Now offers designers a chance to see Futura with fresh eyes. It’s more truly Futura-like than any digital version you’ve ever worked with. “It brings some much-needed humanity back to the world of geometric sans serifs,” says Steve Matteson, Monotype’s Creative Type Director who led the design team. “Despite its reputation as the ultimate modern typeface, Futura Now is surprisingly warm,” he explains. “It’s just as at home set next to a leafy tree as it is next to a stainless-steel table, because it skillfully navigates the border between super-clean geometry and humanist warmth.” Futura Now—the definitive Futura—contains 102 styles, including: new Headline and Text weights; new Script and Display weights and styles; and new decorative variants (outlines, inlines, shadows, and fill). Its contemporary alignment of names and weights makes the family easier to understand and use, and its comfortable Text and judicious Headline subfamilies provide instantly refined spacing. With a large Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic character-set, Futura Now serves a wider international creative community. Futura Now is available both as individual OpenType fonts and as a set of Variable fonts, delivering limitless styles in a tidy digital footprint.