TA Bankslab graphic presentation at Behance The building of the Northern Bank of St. Petersburg's Baku branch was built in 1903-1905. It was the first Art Nouveau-style building in Baku, Azerbaijan. Later the bank was transformed into the Russian-Asian Bank. After the oil boom in Baku in the 19th century, branches of many banks and new banks were opened in the city. The branch of the Northern Bank of St. Petersburg was among the first banks that was opened in Baku. N.Bayev was the architect of the building for the branch of the Northern Bank of St. Petersburg located at Gorchakovskaya 3 in 1903-1905. The building currently houses the Central Branch of the International Bank of Azerbaijan. My purpose in writing this is not to copy and paste the information from Wikipedia. What attracted me to the building was the word "Банкъ" (Bank) written in Cyrillic letters, which was also used in Azerbaijan during the Soviet era. The exact date of the writing is not known. Every time I pass by this building, I always thought of creating a font of this writing someday. I had taken a photo of the building and saved it on my phone. I did a lot of research on the font and asked a lot of people. However, some did not provide information at all and some said they did not have any information. I was interested in the history of this font but I do not know if this font really existed or it was created by the architect out of nowhere. If there was such a history of this font, I wanted to recreate this font and make it available. If not, I had to create it from scratch in the same way, using only existing letters on the building. Finally, I made up my mind and decided to develop the font with all letters I have got. It was difficult to create a font based on the word, Банкъ. Because in the appearance of the letters, the midline of the letters on A, H, K was very distinct, both in the form of inclination and in more precise degrees. The serif part of the letters, the height of the upper and lower sides, differed from each other. I don't know whether it was done this way when the building was constructed or it happened over time. I prepared and kept the initial version of the font. I took a break for a while. I started digging on the story of the font again. Meanwhile, I was researching and got inspired by similar fonts. Unfortunately, my research on the font's history did not yield any results. I decided to continue finishing up the font. After developing the demo, I created the font by keeping certain parts of these differences in the letters. In addition, I had to consider the development of letters in the Cyrillic, as well as the Latin alphabet, over the past period. Thus, I began to look at the appearance of slab-serif or serif fonts of that time. In general, as I gain more experience in developing fonts, I try to focus on the precision of the design for each font. In recent years, I specifically paid attention to this matter. YouTube channel and articles by Alexandra K.'s of ParaType, as well as, information and samples from TypeType and Fontfabric studios on the Cyrillic alphabet were quite useful. I gathered data regarding the Latin alphabet from various credible sources. I do not know if I could accomplish what I aimed at but I know one thing that I could develop the font. Maybe someday I'll have to revise this font. For now, I share it with you. I created the font in 10 styles. 7 weight from Thin to Extra Black, an Outline, Shadow, and Art Nouveau. The Art Nouveau style was inspired by the texture in the background used for the text on the building. The texture I applied to capital letters adds beauty to the font. If you like the font feel free to use it or simply let me know if your current alphabet doesn't support this font.

Okaeri is a linear display font inspired by Japanese aesthetics, uppercase is decorated with oriental patterns. Okaeri is suitable for typographic posters in oriental style. The font is also suitable for menu and restaurant design, tourist products, magazine and book covers, thematic events design. The font works great both for printing clothes and craft products branding and packaging. Also use individual letters to create logos and monograms. Okaeri includes stylistic alternates for symbols: a, i, o, u. There are also ligatures: aa, ca, ea, ee, ff, ka, ki, la, li, ra, ri, oo, tt, za.

Very condensed typography, thick line and fun look for headlines and advertising where you are looking for saving space and originality at the same time. The upper inclination of the letters, the combination of horizontal with inclined forms, the ascending and descending short, and the lower elongation of some antlers will allow you to print varied styles with a lot of movement according to the context of the design. I started drawing this font with the intention of creating a new decorative typeface Blackletter style but modernizing the strokes, after drawing several letters imitating the ductus of this type of fonts trying to simplify them, emerged all the DNA of the current Jack Stanislav, finally a retro typography without Serif of linear strokes that mimic the angle of a thick pen. Use the following keys to write the bitcoin symbol and the Jack icon: b #, a #

The hand lettered titles and credits from the 1945 British film “The Way to the Stars” were the working model for the aptly-titled British Cinema JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Nacho, is a font inspired by the Mexican culture as the party of the dead and customs, created From the Thin to the Densa, it also contains a dingbat set to make the text more dynamic.

A brass stencil hand cut to mark the tops of oil drums yielded the lettering for Stencil Plate JNL. The font emulates the retro feel of the unique letter forms found in the original antique design.

Opinion varies regarding the role of Claude Garamond (ca. 1480–1561) in the development of the Old Face font Garamond. What is accepted is the influence this font had on other typeface developments from the time of its creation to the present. Garamond, or Garamont, is related to the alphabet of Claude Garamond (1480–1561) as well as to the work of Jean Jannon (1580–1635 or 1658), much of which was attributed to Garamond. In comparison to the earlier Italian font forms, Garamond has finer serif and a generally more elegant image. The Garamond of Jean Jannon was introduced at the Paris World’s Fair in 1900 as Original Garamond, whereafter many font foundries began to cast similar types. The famous Stempel Garamond interpretation of the 1920s remains true to the original Garamond font with its typical Old Face characteristics. The bold italic was a modern addition at the end of the 1920s and the small caps provided an alternative to the standard capital letters. In the mid 1980s, a light version was added to Stempel Garamond. Since its appearance, Stempel Garamond has been one of the most frequently used text fonts.

Yayazout JNL is the Rock and Roll equivalent of Jeff Levine's other "Love Generation" font, Positive Vibe JNL. This typeface emulates the innovative and outrageous styles of the late 60s-early 70s design period where the message was the music and the music was the message...

The font "TG APM" was designed by me for a boutique coffee shop. This font is used in the coffee shop's logo and draws inspiration from the sun and the moon. The sun represents daytime, while the moon symbolizes nighttime. The intention is to convey that coffee is available throughout the day, helping you stay awake and composed.

Franko Luin, Esperanto's designer, on this typeface: Esperanto has a lot in common with classic typefaces, and newer interpretations of the classics. The italic reminds of the lettering idea of the Renaissance and their manuscripts. This typeface's name refers to the international language Esperanto, of course. The font is not compatible with the character set of the Esperanto language

Disco Salvation and Disco Salvation Solid are two display faces inspired by the fun and funky disco era and disco balls. The Regular version uses the grid pattern to achieve the disco ball effect; the white space of the grid is transparent and will allow any image beneath the type to appear through the grid holes.

A self made bamboo or reed stick nicely cut down to a broad edged nib must have been the tool with which the designer Andrew Weed wrote his letters for the typeface Pine.Its irregular outline is the result of the flowing of the ink. Ideal for a headline or a poster which reflects the personal touch of the tool.

The idea of a brand-new grotesk is certainly rather foolish – there are already lots of these typefaces in the world and, quite simply, nothing is more beautiful than the original Gill. The sans-serif chapter of typography is now closed by hundreds of technically perfect imitations of Syntax and Frutiger, which are, however, for the most part based on the cool din-aesthetics. The only chance, when looking for inspiration, is to go very far... A grotesk does not afford such a variety as a serif typeface, it is dull and can soon tire the eye. This is why books are not set in sans serif faces. A grotesk is, however, always welcome for expressing different degrees of emphasis, for headings, marginal notes, captions, registers, in short for any service accompaniment of a book, including its titlings. We also often come across a text in which we want to distinguish the individual speaking or writing persons by the use of different typefaces. The condition is that such grotesk should blend in perfectly with the proportions, colour and above all with the expression of the basic, serif typeface. In the area of non-fiction typography, what we appreciate in sans-serif typefaces is that they are clamorous in inscriptions and economic in the setting. John Sans is to be a modest servant and at the same time an original loudspeaker; it wishes to inhabit libraries of educated persons and to shout from billboards. A year ago we completed the transcription of the typefaces of John Baskerville, whose heritage still stands out vividly in our memory. Baskerville cleverly incorporated certain constructional elements in the design of the individual letters of his typeface. These elements include above all the alternation of softand sharp stroke endings. The frequency of these endings in the text and their rhythm produce a balanced impression. The anchoring of the letters on the surface varies and they do not look monotonous when they are read. We attempted to use these tricks also in the creation of a sans-serif typeface. Except that, if we wished to create a genuine “Baroque grotesk”, all the decorativeness of the original would have to be repeated, which would result in a parody. On the contrary, to achieve a mere contrast with the soft Baskerville it is sufficient to choose any other hard grotesk and not to take a great deal of time over designing a new one. Between these two extremes, we chose a path starting with the construction of an almost monolinear skeleton, to which the elements of Baskerville were carefully attached. After many tests of the text, however, some of the flourishes had to be removed again. Anything that is superfluous or ornamental is against the substance of a grotesk typeface. The monolinear character can be impinged upon in those places where any consistency would become a burden. The fine shading and softening is for the benefit of both legibility and aesthetics. The more marked incisions of all crotches are a characteristic feature of this typeface, especially in the bold designs. The colour of the Text, Medium and Bold designs is commensurate with their serif counterparts. The White and X-Black designs already exceed the framework of book graphics and are suitable for use in advertisements and magazines. The original concept of the italics copying faithfully Baskerville’s morphology turned out to be a blind alley. This design would restrict the independent use of the grotesk typeface. We, therefore, began to model the new italics only after the completion of the upright designs. The features which these new italics and Baskerville have in common are the angle of the slope and the softened sloped strokes of the lower case letters. There are also certain reminiscences in the details (K, k). More complicated are the signs & and @, in the case of which regard is paid to distinguishing, in the design, the upright, sloped @ small caps forms. The one-storey lower-case g and the absence of a descender in the lower-case f contributes to the open and simple expression of the design. Also the inclusion of non-aligning figures in the basic designs and of aligning figures in small caps serves the purpose of harmonization of the sans-serif families with the serif families. Non-aligning figures link up better with lower-case letters in the text. If John Sans looks like many other modern typefaces, it is just as well. It certainly is not to the detriment of a Latin typeface as a means of communication, if different typographers in different places of the world arrive in different ways at a similar result.

Released on the occasion of the 2012 London Olympics, Olympukes 2012 was a new set of pictograms telling the ‘real’ story of the Olympics and extending the unofficial project that began in 2004. The occasion of the London games provided an opportunity to revisit the complex contradictions of the modern Olympics and to acknowledge the geopolitical shifts of the intervening eight years. The 2012 games arrived at a time of great economic and political uncertainty for the nation and Europe. Greece – the host of the 2004 games – was now located at Ground Zero of a disintegrating Eurozone and the United Kingdom was two years into a programme of austerity enacted by the coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Given that the previous London Olympics had been held in 1948, in a climate of recovery and austerity after a devastating World War (1948’s Olympiad was dubbed the ‘Austerity Games’) there was a sick irony to the 2012 games' arrival. The suppression of human rights in order to deliver the perfect games for PRoC’s Beijing games shocked no-one and yet, in London, the security measures seemed grossly excessive. Then again, in a country with an estimated 1.8 million cctv cameras, perhaps we shouldn’t have been so surprised. Another aspect of the Olympics that returned for 2012 was the unfettered commercialism – if you think the Games are about pure sport, about noble human endeavour, think again. Please note that Barnbrook Fonts is in no way affiliated with, or has received any endorsement from, the International Olympic Committee, the organising committees of the Olympic Games, or any national Olympic committee.

Silk Sans Display is the sans version of the high-contrast typeface Silk Serif. The main feature of the font family is the disconnection between the bowls and the stems. However, the bowl is very close to the stem, creating the illusion of connection. Silk is delicate and legible — but above all, it is sophisticated. Silk Sans Display is available in 7 weights, from Extra Light to Black, and supports Western, Central and South-Eastern European languages.

»Penta« is a new Sans typeface, designed in the American tradition with contrast between the up- and downstrokes. The contrast is hardly visible on the »thin« cut, but the heavier the weights get, the more contrast becomes visible. That makes this font very useful, almost linear in the lighter weights and very distinct rhythm in the heavier ones. »Penta« is extremly versatile, it can be used for bodycopy in the lighter weights and for heavy headlines.

American designer Stanley Davis created the font Amelia™ in 1965. What sets Linotype Amelia apart from all the rest are its unusual inner spaces. Their teardrop forms lead the readers eye through the line of text. These teardrop shapes can also be seen in the contours of the characters themselves, making the letters look rounded and flexible. Amelia speaks the language of the digital age. The flowing strokes and round forms give it an uncomplicated and lively look.

This clean looking (all caps) font has characters made of gaps, which form the stencil divisions, spaced evenly along the strokes. The letterforms have a well-proportioned constructional appearance. The characters look like they have been built from interlocking bricks, the stencil gaps give them both rhythm and texture. The sans serif typeface also has a sense of movement because of the way the stencil gaps follow the horizontal, vertical or curved direction of the stroke.

The German Standards Committee suggested the light Neuzeit-Grotesk’ font in 1970 for use in official signage, traffic directional systems, etc. The typeface had been designed by Wilhelm Pischner and appeared with the font foundry D. Stempel in 1928. The font Neuzeit Grotesk was once the standard in the print industry, as a timeless typeface with no real distinguishing features. Like other typefaces of the 1920s, DIN Neuzeit Grotesk reflects the philosophy of the times, Form is Function.’

Snow Job JNL was inspired by the hand lettered titles for the 1964 Rankin-Bass animated holiday classic "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". Because of the variable heights of the characters they float about the baseline in a free-form design. Available in both regular and oblique versions, the typeface gets its name from both the winter theme of the TV special along with the old term for deceiving someone with compliments while hiding one's true intent.

Grafista is an extrapolation on what fonts are used for: in spite of the possibility to use it for setting text, Grafista strives when used as a texture library, the same way that one would set up tiles. Thus, Grafista was built as two different things compiled in the same font: the letterforms (for setting text) and the texture library. Both of the sets are monospaced (with every glyph having the same width), but the letterforms are half of the texture tiles' width. On the tech side, the letterforms are 500/1000 UPMs, while the tiles are 1000/1000 UPMs.

Sébastien Truchet designed a modular typographic system during his last year in the School of Fine Arts of Besançon. The system is made of a unique grid and 6 modules which are the components to build several typefaces. The most radical is the "2-2". The last one is the "10-12".This is the "2-3". The goal is to use a grid made of 2 modules in width and three in height. This version is the most pertinent minimalist typeface which keeps plasticity and legibility. There is a character set of capitals tied to the origin of the project

Skope is an experiment in horizontal stress and also a recreation of the extreme lettering style of comic masters such as Josep Coll or Manuel Urda from his cartoons in the pages of the classic TBO (Barcelona, Spain, 1917-1998) or our contemporary favorites Francesc Capdevila -Max- and Joost Swarte. The proportions and some of the fundamental features of Skope are drawn from the features of the masthead of the magazine Triunfo (Valencia, Spain, 1946-1982). The inspiration for the numbers comes from a kitchen clock from the 70’s photographed in the distance in a second-hand shop.

The dynamic design duo of Koziupa drawing and Paul digitizing strikes again. This time they cover the space from light nonchalance to eerie darkness, and everything in between. Quicker than lightning and just as poignant, Brisa Pro shows unprecedented determination, presence of spirit, and finality of confidence. Brisa Pro is the teenager leaving home, the lover leaving one last note on the refrigerator door, the prophet announcing the imminence of doom, the rebel scratching anger on the wall, the bereaved clawing torment into life, and the bogeyman dropping a line to keep your eyes wide open through the night.

A pure neo-grotesque typefamily inspired by the first typographies' old wooden characters, and by the marks soft and sometimes imprecise these left on the paper. All typographic elements are also influenced by the Cyrillic alphabet letter-form. -- HT Pavla Prospekt is inspired by ancient wooden typefaces and eastern-style letterform. This reference gives the letters unusual but characteristic proportions. The visual effect of the diffusion of the ink imprinted on the paper, which gives softness to the forms, is also very influential. The proportions of the bold and thin faces are visually balanced to ensure a more modern feeling. --

The design of Kristall Grotesk is based on a cut by Wagner & Schmidt, Leipzig, from the 30s of the last century. The basis for the digital version of the Stiftung Werkstattmuseum für Druckkunst , Leipzig was the standard font (28p) of the manual cuts as offered by the font foundry Johannes Wagner, Ingolstadt. The implementation was deliberately created as a replica to create a faithful reproduction as a starting point for the design of other design sizes. The present Kristall Grotesk is therefore a headline design. The appearance of the typeface can be varied by a number of alternative forms of capitals, which, according to the taste of the time, contain either pointed or flat formations. Designer: Hausschnitt Johannes Wagner, Leipzig, Redesign Elsner+Flake, Hamburg Designdate: 1937, 2009 Publisher: Elsner+Flake Design Owner: Stiftung Werkstattmuseum für Druckkunst , Leipzig Original Foundry: Wagner & Schmidt, Leipzig

The font is the soft version of the Queulat basic and condensed families, but keeping the same features as the original typeface. Queulat Soft is a hybrid font that combines different styles, reflecting charm, freshness and, especially, a strong personality. The font is inspired by Modern and Grotesk styles. The former is shown in some characteristic features such as teardrop terminals, which give the typeface an attractive unique look, making it an ideal choice for logotypes and labelling. The latter, with its rationality, makes Queulat Soft a stable and strong face for headings and subheadings. The combination of styles can be clearly seen by comparing the Regular with the Alt version. The Regular version is more simple than the Alt one. Differently, the alternative version possesses more features of the Modern style, like teardrop terminals in ‘k’ and ‘v’.

The handwriting typeface Escritura was created for editorial purposes and the letter forms are influenced by chancery handwriting from the Italian Renaissance. The asymmetrical shapes of the undulating serifs cause the characters to have a large aperture. Originally designed for display sizes, the typeface also comes in a text version for small sizes. With taller vertical proportions, the text version has slightly longer serifs and increased white space between the characters to optimize legibility in small sizes. Ascenders and descenders and serifs are shorter in the display version, which has more economical letter spacing resulting in a visually compact text image. The stress in the letter strokes create changing widths according to their direction, improving the calligraphic rhythm in the characters. The oblique crossbar as well as other typographic details lend the typeface that typical Renaissance atmosphere.

The different fonts in the Why Square family are an extension of the designs begun in Zoran Kostic's Just Square family. Why Square's lowercase letters are all more condensed versions of Just Square's letters, and in some of the fonts, the uppercase letters are wider. The first five fonts are the different weights of Why Square (UltraThin, UltraLight, Thin, Light, and Regular). Here, all of the characters--both upper and lowercase--are more condensed versions of the geometric letters from the Just Square family. The next five fonts (UltraThin, UltraLight, Thin, Light, and Regular weights) include identical lowercase letters to those from the first five fonts in the family, but their capitals are considerably wider. These may be used as initials, either with the other fonts in the Why Square family, or with the Just Square family.

YinYangMessages contains two sets of letters, those on the upper-case keys that fit on the left side of a yin-yang symbol and those on the lower-case keys that fit on the left side of a yin-yang symbol. One can alternate the two sets manually but the OpenType contextual alternatives feature does this automatically in any program that supports this feature. The family contains two fonts. In one the filled half is on the left and in the other the filled half is on the right. The slash and backspace keys contain blank halves of the symbol, which are useful for completing words with an odd number of letters. The two styles can be used in layers. YinYangMessages is a fun and playful family that every once in a while may be the ideal typeface for some unusual situation.

A companion piece to Mulgrave, this font is the intermediary design between the chunky Victorian style that Mulgrave reproduces and the Ministry of Transport sans introduced in 1933 and digitised as Ministry. Although they date from between 1910 and 1933, these signs show the beginnings of several features Ministry later incorporated, notably the thinner strokes and the more modern forms of the G, M, R and S. The letter widths are approaching a monospace - the L, F and E are relatively wide compared to the W and M, a feature that may have something to do to the casting process. These idiosyncracies were all ironed out when the first version of the MOT alphabet was produced. The Device digitization, as with Mulgrave, stays true to the worn and repainted original metal source material and preserves the unusual widths.

Police JNL was modeled from one of the many fonts created by the late Alf Becker exclusively for Signs of the Times magazine during the 1930s through the 1950s. This was a bit of a difficult design to translate into a digital font file, because the individual characters did not follow a formal structure as to the width and length of the cast shadows or the letter shapes—such is the way of the hand-lettered alphabet. Special thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Publications (and curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati) for providing the archival material to work from in creating this font. Police JNL has a limited character set. The basic A-Z character is on the upper and lower case keys, along with numbers, some punctuation and the dollar and cents signs.

At first glance, the lettering style of Technopen JNL seems to emulate the computer-age fonts of the 1980s. In actuality, this font is derived from an alphabet sample found in an instructional booklet for the Esterbrook Drawlet Pens. The Drawlet line was Esterbrook's answer to the iconic Speedball pen points sold through their chief competitor, the Hunt Pen Manufacturing Company. So, what seems to be late 20th Century typography is actually from vintage source material. In fact, the entire contents of the instructional booklet were copyright 1929! A few minor changes were made to the original A-Z alphabet and additional characters were added. The name Technopen is a shortening of the term 'technical pen', which is both a nod to the techno age of the 80s and the technical instruments of the past utilized for drawing and lettering.

SGT PEPPERS LONELY HEARTS CLUB is a typeface inspired by the capital letters on the bass drum in the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album cover. The original lettering was hand painted by fairground artist Joe Ephgrave during March 1967 in an art deco style he called 'futuristic'. The font completes the uppercase, adds a lowercase, and includes a full complement of over 400 characters. SGT PEPPERS OUTLINE and SGT PEPPERS OUTLINE FILL are two fonts with matching spacing and kerning that can be overlapped for creating bicolor/multicolor effects and faux drums. The Outline and Outline Fill fonts do not contain lowercase characters, instead they comprise two weights of outline capitals as painted on the Sgt Pepper drum. The uppercase letters are in the wider style from around the outer edge of the drum, and the lowercase keys deliver the more condensed 'Lonely Hearts' inline style from the middle of the drum. The uppercase Y has been flipped to produce a more conventionally acceptable character with the thicker diagonal arm on the left. However, Joe Ephgrave's reverse Y (with inline) is included in the Outline fonts at the Section keystroke § (Alt-0167 on Windows). A simplified vector image (mono) of the bass drum without lettering is also included within the Outline fonts at the PlusMinus keystroke ± (Alt-0177 on Windows).

I’m happy to present you the Bohemian initials font family. Regular and Colored styles (Uppercase & Numbers) based on Codex Gigas originated in medieval Bohemia. The manuscript has been dated 1230. The elaborate initials are at the beginning of the main texts and their principal divisions. The painter was aiming to achieve a plastic depiction of the trailing vines of the initials, and he painted with solid colours. He used only four of the primary colours cinnabar red, blue, green and yellow, brightly toned, as well as white accents and contours. The trailing vines of the initial letters are painted in a decorative, advanced Romanesque style, already bordering on naturalism. The plant taken as the starting point is the acanthus, a thistle-like plant which grows wild in the Mediterranean countries. The decoration of the Devil’s Bible is not the work of an amateur. Scholars have concurred: it is book illuminations created in Northeast France and Southern England in the so-called Channel style which provided the starting point for the coiled trailing-vine shapes in the initials of the Devil’s Bible. --- You can use color fonts in PS CC 2017+, AI CC 2018+, ID CC 2019+, macOS 10.14 Mojave+ Please note that the Canva & Corel & Affinity doesn't support color fonts! --- Please feel free to request any help you need: kaer.pro@gmail.com Thank you!

For several years I have been thinking about the design of a type family that explores, on the one hand, the modernist aesthetic that we know, from the Alphabet "a.r." designed by Władysław Strzemiński, and on the other, to the multiscript pre-war Warsaw. This is how the idea of creating the Polin Sans typeface was born. After researching on geometric variants of the Cyrillic alphabet, I was inspired by the text "Towards an open layout: A letter to Volodya Yefimov". I was intrigued by the fact that circular forms, which we are mostly familiar with in the Bulgarian Cyrillic, can be implemented in the classical version, without disrupting the reading process. At the same time, while working on typoteka.pl, I was fascinated by the Hebrew typeface jaffa, published by the Idźkowski & Sk-a foundry, which at some points looks like the Hebrew equivalent of the Alphabet "a.r.". Ben Nathan from Israel joined the project and was responsible for creating his native script. The idea of creating a multiscript family expanded to include Greek and Vietnamese. As a result, Polin Sans is a historical journey through the nooks and crannies of Polish modernism, which was created by people with diverse cultural backgrounds. The Polin Sans family was designed by Mateusz Machalski and Ben Nathan with the support of Michał Gorczyca and Małgorzata Bartosik.

Pure and not-so-simple Maybe it’s the air of purity, openness and transparency that they transmit, but geometric typefaces are more popular than ever among leading brands. Based on near-perfect circles, triangles and squares, geometric letterforms look uncomplicated, even though making them readable is anything but – something the designers of the first wave of geometric fonts discovered nearly a century ago. Many of the world’s most recognisable brands in technology, retail, travel, food, manufacturing and other industries continue to be drawn to the straightforward, honest character that geometric fonts convey. Fontsmith set out in 2015 to develop a typeface in the same tradition, but optimised for the demands of modern brands – online and offline usage, readability and accessibility. And, of course, with the all-important Fontsmith x-factor built in. FS Lucas is the bold and deceptively simple result. Handle with care The letterforms of FS Lucas are round and generous, along the lines of Trajan Column lettering stripped of its serifs. But beware their thorns. Their designer, Stuart de Rozario, who also crafted the award-winning FS Millbank, wanted a contrast between spiky and soft, giving sharp apexes to the more angular letterforms, such as A, M, N, v, w and z. Among his inspirations were the colourful, geometric compositions of Frank Stella, the 1920s art deco poster designs of AM Cassandre, and the triangular cosmic element symbol, which led him to tackle the capital A first, instead of the usual H. The proportions and angles of the triangular form would set the template for many of the other characters. It was this form, and the light-scattering effects of triangular prisms, that lit the path to a name for the typeface: Lucas is derived from lux, the Latin word for light. Recommended reading Early geometric typefaces were accused of putting mathematical integrity before readability. FS Lucas achieves the trick of appearing geometric, while taking the edge off elements that make reading difficult. Perfectly circlular shapes don’t read well. The way around that is to slightly thicken the vertical strokes, and pull out the curves at the corners to compensate; the O and o of FS Lucas are optical illusions. Pointed apexes aren’t as sharp as they look; the flattened tips are an essential design feature. And distinctive details such as the open terminals of the c, e, f, g, j, r and s, and the x-height bar on the i and j, aid legibility, especially on-screen. These and many other features, the product of sketching the letterforms in the first instance by hand rather than mapping them out mechanically by computer, give FS Lucas the built-in humanity and character that make it a better, easier read all-round. Marks of distinction Unlike some of its more buttoned-up geometric bedfellows, FS Lucas can’t contain its natural personality and quirks: the flick of the foot of the l, for example, and the flattish tail on the g and j. The unusual bar on the J improves character recognition, and the G is circular, without a straight stem. There’s a touch of Fontsmith about the t, too, with the curve across the left cross section in the lighter weights, and the ampersand is one of a kind. There’s a lot to like about Lucas. With its 9 weights, perfect proportions and soft but spiky take on the classic geometric font, it’s a typeface that could light up any brand.

Pure and not-so-simple Maybe it’s the air of purity, openness and transparency that they transmit, but geometric typefaces are more popular than ever among leading brands. Based on near-perfect circles, triangles and squares, geometric letterforms look uncomplicated, even though making them readable is anything but – something the designers of the first wave of geometric fonts discovered nearly a century ago. Many of the world’s most recognisable brands in technology, retail, travel, food, manufacturing and other industries continue to be drawn to the straightforward, honest character that geometric fonts convey. Fontsmith set out in 2015 to develop a typeface in the same tradition, but optimised for the demands of modern brands – online and offline usage, readability and accessibility. And, of course, with the all-important Fontsmith x-factor built in. FS Lucas is the bold and deceptively simple result. Handle with care The letterforms of FS Lucas are round and generous, along the lines of Trajan Column lettering stripped of its serifs. But beware their thorns. Their designer, Stuart de Rozario, who also crafted the award-winning FS Millbank, wanted a contrast between spiky and soft, giving sharp apexes to the more angular letterforms, such as A, M, N, v, w and z. Among his inspirations were the colourful, geometric compositions of Frank Stella, the 1920s art deco poster designs of AM Cassandre, and the triangular cosmic element symbol, which led him to tackle the capital A first, instead of the usual H. The proportions and angles of the triangular form would set the template for many of the other characters. It was this form, and the light-scattering effects of triangular prisms, that lit the path to a name for the typeface: Lucas is derived from lux, the Latin word for light. Recommended reading Early geometric typefaces were accused of putting mathematical integrity before readability. FS Lucas achieves the trick of appearing geometric, while taking the edge off elements that make reading difficult. Perfectly circlular shapes don’t read well. The way around that is to slightly thicken the vertical strokes, and pull out the curves at the corners to compensate; the O and o of FS Lucas are optical illusions. Pointed apexes aren’t as sharp as they look; the flattened tips are an essential design feature. And distinctive details such as the open terminals of the c, e, f, g, j, r and s, and the x-height bar on the i and j, aid legibility, especially on-screen. These and many other features, the product of sketching the letterforms in the first instance by hand rather than mapping them out mechanically by computer, give FS Lucas the built-in humanity and character that make it a better, easier read all-round. Marks of distinction Unlike some of its more buttoned-up geometric bedfellows, FS Lucas can’t contain its natural personality and quirks: the flick of the foot of the l, for example, and the flattish tail on the g and j. The unusual bar on the J improves character recognition, and the G is circular, without a straight stem. There’s a touch of Fontsmith about the t, too, with the curve across the left cross section in the lighter weights, and the ampersand is one of a kind. There’s a lot to like about Lucas. With its 9 weights, perfect proportions and soft but spiky take on the classic geometric font, it’s a typeface that could light up any brand.

Sursum, inspired by the Roman monumental letterform, was designed to provide the possibility to play with the 58 OpenType ligatures and the 25 alternates letters. The Sursum family includes 3 weights, all with the same OpenType features.

Kufiz which gets influence from the engravings of the Ottoman art and Rumi ornamentations, is an adaptation of the refinement of the period to the modern typography.