In the days of hand lettering, a common philosophy was "the problem creates the solution". Often times the layout artist would have to adapt the lettering style to fit the amount of copy on a line. A perfect example is during the early 1900s, when popular sheet music of the time almost seemed to be competing for how many words could be used within a song's a title. One such piece of sheet music offered up the tall, condensed and variable-width lettering found within Narrow Minded JNL.

A heavy blackletter; Rudolf Koch’s first type from 1909. On an old page full of type specimen from the 1930s, the type is described as ”Schwabacher (used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn [German Imperial Railway]).“ As a matter of fact, it is the first print of the Offenbach script master Rudolf Koch, who came out with this typeface in 1909. At that time, it was given the name ”Neudeutsch“ (New German). Later, it became very popular under the name Koch-Schrift, and was at times the official typeface of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Imperial Railway).

For Monumental Gothic, we delved into the archives and found some old rubbings and photos of monumental brasses from British tombs of the 12th and 13th centuries. The sources included famous monuments like the tomb of Richard II and less well known inscriptions with similar style lettering. The rubbings were made by Dave Nalle in the 1970s (when they still let you have access to the the brasses). Monumental Gothic includes some alternate characters, plus upper and lower case characters, numbers and a selection of very interesting decorative emblems to complement the text.

Aqua Life is a pictogram font from the Monotype Design Studio. It contains 26 vibrantly drawn images of fish and other wildlife you might find at the seashore or in your aquarium. Some of the fish look out at you rather inquisitively! Don't miss the shark, the giant squid, the octopus, the happy slug, the diving seal, or even the old-fashioned deep-sea diver and coy mermaid! Each of these symbols is best used in a very large point size. Perhaps one of them will illustrate you next newsletter or classroom poster?

One of the odder things I remember from high school (50+ years ago) is the tile floor of hexagons in the bathroom. There is something fascinating with the way hexagons fill the plane. BakerHalfDozen is made of white letters that fit on black, hexagonal tiles. BakerHalfWhite switches the letters to black on white tiles, and BakerHalfBare eliminates the tiles. There are no true lower-case letters, but some letters have alternate shapes. To make the tiles line up right, alternate lines must be indented half a space. Use the {} characters (brackets) to do this.

Legitima is a text font family inspired by the types found in the 3rd edition of the Italian book La Cicceide Legitima, printed in 1695. Its weight and x-height, optimized for 10 point-size, make it an ideal choice for book design and anything with running text. Like most typefaces from the 16th century, the strokes that constitute Legitima seem to depart from the traditional broad-nib pen model of handwriting and dare to explore the shapes produced by the techniques in use by punch-cutters of the time.

Metalet Modern JNL was based on the letters found within the Metalet Movie Titling Set manufactured by the Modern Display Advertising Company of Hollywood, California circa the 1940s. Each stamped metal letter would be affixed to the background surface via the use of miniature magnets. Once in place, titles for home movies or slides could be photographed, the letters then returned to their storage area in their box. The character shapes show unusual stroke movement, which means the original models used for these letters were most likely hand-drawn.

The calligraphy font Banner was designed by Martin Wait in 1986 and mixes the character of the 1940s with that of the 1980s in its forms. The round and somewhat reserved lower case letters make a balanced basis for the generous capitals. Black outer contours surround a white inner area and are heavier on the right side of the figures, making the characters look as though they have shadows. Banner should be used in point sizes of 18 and larger and is meant for lighthearted short texts or headlines.

The first three weights of the family were designed at ParaType (ParaGraph) in 1997 by Dmitry Kirsanov . They were based on the artworks of Moscow graphic designer Andrey Kryukov (1923-1997). The original version was developed by Kryukov at the end of the sixties for Russian railways. The proportions and elements of construction were inspired by Eurostile (1962) by Aldo Novarese. It is intended for use in advertising and display typography. In 2009, Dmitry added the new styles, corrected the old ones, and enhanced them with extended character sets.

The Techno sound of the 1990s, a personal computer, a font creation software and some inspiration had been the sources to the F2F (Face2Face) font series. Alessio Leonardi and his friends had the demand to create new unusual faces that should be used in the leading german techno magazine "Frontpage". Even typeset in 6 point to nearly unreadability it was a pleasure for the kids to read and decrypt the messages. About Al Retto: "Al" means "Alessio Leonardi" and Retto "straight", but if you read it as an italian world means "in the a**".

Impact wide was developed from the designer's original drawings for the production of 'Impact' metal type, with many detail changes because of the density of the letters. These include the restoration of the bevelled i and j dots of the original. Character maps show some useful alternative characters in both roman and italic. Included are a crossbar numeral 1, mirror quotes and some sorts which were cast in metal but never reproduced in digitized versions of the typeface. There is also a font-specific Euro symbol. (Impact is a trademark of The Type Museum, London).

The English roundhand has always occupied the central position in the group of faces appropriate to the social printing handled by engravers, and their contemporary imitators, thermographers. At the end of the nineteenth century when engraving was mechanised by the pantographic engraving machine, the traditional roundhands found their way onto pantographic pattern plates. Embassy is a traditional roundhand of vigorous contrast with straightforward capitals with ball terminals; it was transferred from such an engravers’ pattern plate to the Fotosetter at Intertype about 1955. Alphatype’s Yorktown is similar, but appears to have less contrast.

HERENGRACHT (Patricians' Canal or Lord’s Canal) is the first of the three major canals in the city centre of Amsterdam. The canal is named after the heren regeerders who governed the city in the 16th and 17th century. The most fashionable part is called the Golden Bend, with many double wide mansions, inner gardens and coach houses on Keizersgracht. Former bureau of André Toet (SO)Design was situated there for over 32 years, it was about time to name one of our fonts to: HERENGRACHT. Concept/Art Direction/Design: André Toet © 2017

Sinffonia is a beautiful ornamental font family. Its thin weight and roman style makes very elegant and ideal for any high quality project. The Open Type version, plenty of ligatures, alternative Characters and ornamental characters, is carefully programmed to replace automatically the glyphs accord to the feature and context so you can modify the aspect of the text easily without any incoherence in the design (i.e. overlaps and collisions). Non Open Type users can try the four plain versions of Sinffonia, which includes some of the beautiful ornamental characters of the OT version.

The inspiration for this typeface family came from my childhood experiences at West Monkton, amidst an historic part of the South West of England. Studies of the original incised capitals of the Trajan column in Rome were analysed and polished for this modern version. The lower case letterforms and numerals were then created in sympathy, taking their proportions from the incised letters of local gravestones. Its name honours not only the area where the original alphabet was conceived and drawn, but also the people responsible for fostering my initial interest in letters.

Malino is a humanist sans serif that gives a slightly stiff and strong feel but still presents a harmonious blend. The main characteristic of Malino is the flat shape at the end of the letter (specific : inner side of the letter C, G, J, S, a, c, e, g and s) and still maintain the curvature of the outside (Overshoot) so that empty space ( Open Counter) looks wider and the level of readability produced is much higher.

E-Lie is based on the logo for the Portland band E-Lie. Jon Lincicum designed the logo, and then the basic shapes of the principal letters and numbers. He then gave these designs to Shaun Kennedy, who expanded the design, adding punctuation, accented letters, and math symbols. Shaun then compiled the designs into an OpenType font, adding kerning and ligature information. The design is a distinctive, stylistic font excellent for use when you need to grab someone's attention.

Unveil the artistry of the written word with Corymbus, a script font that captures the beauty of handwriting. The interplay between thick and thin lines creates a visual feast for the eyes. The whimsical irregularity mirrors the fluidity of natural handwriting. The distinctive hallmark of this font lies in its swinging endings-each letter playfully extends beyond its baseline, creating a sense of rhythm. Corymbus fits in headlines, logos, print media, editorial layouts, and many more.

The characters in this font are the key players in a global conspiracy reaching down into the lives of every man, woman and child on the planet. The Information Agency known as "Active Images" has been shut down. The availability of this font is now restricted to comicbookfonts.com operatives only. Information Agents have been instructed to deny the existence of any UFO* activity in the pages of CABLE, GEAR STATION or LEGION LOST. Trust no one. *Unauthorized Font Operation

At first glance, Else may seem to be similar to many of the Century typefaces, with its prominent figures and sturdy alphabet. But when Robert Norton, of Norton Photosetting Ltd., designed Else in 1982, he added a bit of flair to that basic model. Note the bowl of the g, the splayed legs of the M, the sharply curved G and J, as well as the leading strokes of v and w and both of the graceful ampersands.

A handlettered headline in the January 1953 issue of Park East magazine by wacko album artist Jim Flora provided the inspiration for this exercise in extreme lettering. Check out the [brackets] and the bullet point... like, endsville, daddy-o. Due to the complexity of this typeface, the font has no math operators. The Postscript and Truetype versions contain a complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252); in addition, the Opentype version supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages as well.

strokeWeight is inspired by the aesthetics of computer vector graphics. strokeWeight is the name of a processing programming function to set the thickness of a stroke. The single bezier curve that describes a stem as a centerline with a particular stem thickness represents the basic idea of this typeface. The unconventional corners and stem endings derive from the concept. If you buy the complete strokeWeight family you will get a strokeWeight variable font file for free!

Mandarin font first appeared with the Type Founders of Chicago and is an interpretation of artistically drawn Asian brush calligraphy. The stylized Asian atmosphere is not created only by the forms of the figures but also by the very name of the typeface. A mandarin was a high official of the ancient Chinese empire. Alphabets like Mandarin font are often used for the menus, signs and advertisements of Asian restaurants as well as for businesses with Asian products.

The appearance of the 'IA War Bot' speaks for itself. It is a futuristic stenciled robotic font family that would be suitable for lettering comics, computer games, toy packaging, and the like. Many of the glyphs have alternatives. The widest set of font files, from Thin Ultra Condensed to Black Ultra Expanded, and the expanded character set (including Cyrillic) will satisfy all design needs. And the most demanding can turn their attention to the variable font.

A photo of the now closed [circa-1953] Lowell Municipal Pool (at 1601 N. 28th St.) in Boise, Idaho shows the words “Municipal Pool” formed into the cement of the entrance to the above-ground swimming facility. Both the lettering and building entrance designs harken back to the Art Deco era and the sign features stencil-like characters. This inspired a typeface aptly named Municipal Pool JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Old Tijuana JNL was modeled from the hand lettered title on the cover of the 1939 sheet music for "Class Will Tell" and is available in both regular and oblique versions. Casual, playful and reminiscent of the "serape" style of pseudo-Mexican lettering found on ad designs of the 1930s and 1940s, the type face isn't just for South of the Border themes. Use it for any festive occasion and the design will blend in well.

FF Meta® Georgian is based on the same humanistic shapes and proportions as the original 1991 FF Meta design. The narrow proportions, slight variation in stroke thickness and sheared terminals that are hallmarks of FF Meta are also present in the Georgian design. Each of the two weights in the family contain all the characters needed to set modern Georgian, as well as additional symbols for the Old Georgian, Megrelian, Svan, Abkhazian and Ossetian languages.

TypeAddiction presents “Gaufre de Bruxelles”, a playful handmade uppercase font. Lowercase letters have filled letters (A, B, D, O etc) and the uppercase letters have unfilled letters. "Gaufre de Bruxelles" means a Brussels waffle in English. The Brussels waffle is a rectangular-shaped waffle and is a Belgian culinary speciality. The characters of the font were inspired by the waffle dough and more specifically the shape that the dough takes when it is poured into the waffle iron.

Terrorista is a homage to everyone who fought against the Millitary Regime in Brazil from 1964 to 1985. The Terrorista Marighella features generous inktraps, fits perfect for small sizes. Terrorista Dilma has the same design as the Marighella, but without inktraps, made for display. The last typeface from the package is Terrorista Lamarca, stencil version, all three weights have the same metrics, making it easier to use them together. Have a look at the Terrorista Specimen.

The hand lettered title found on the 1924 sheet music for the tango “Sentimiento Gaucho” (“Sentimental Gaucho”) offered a different take on the thick-and-thin lettering that permeated the late 1920s through the Art Deco age. A ‘slash’ or ‘swipe’ is cut through the characters (similar to “Directa JNL” – another take on this type of design). Last Tango JNL is the digital recreation of this novelty lettering and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

URW Geometric is a sans serif typeface inspired by the German geometric typefaces of the 1920s but designed for modern usability. The character shapes have optimized proportions and an improved balance, the x-height is increased, ascenders and descenders are decreased. These design characteristics increase the usability and legibility tremendously. Accordingly to the URW Geometric, Boutros Fonts designed the URW Geometric Arabic. 10 weights, which harmonize perfectly with the Latin ones, were created – from Thin to Black.

Carlos Winkow designed Reporter in 1938 for the Wagner foundry. The strokes of this interesting script have the texture of dry brushwritten letters. The alignment is slightly irregular, giving it a spontaneous feeling. Reporter No. 2 is a slightly simplified version of the original Reporter, without the numerous small white strokes inside its stems, which gave the original a scribbly effect. The font is bold and informal. It works well in signs, posters, and other display uses.

Ribfest is a new font based on lettering found on old United States currency from the 1800’s. Named after the Ribfest held in Naperville IL over 4th of July weekend each year, this font will be perfect for your next summer barbecue party. Ribfest offers three Fill fonts that can be layered behind the main open faced fonts, the regular Fill font covers the complete opening on the main fonts while the Fill T for top and Fill B for bottom gives you the option to fill with two different colors for top and bottom. The Fill fonts for Ribfest may also be used as stand alone fonts, the Fill T and Fill B fonts when layered together creates a unique look on its own. Expand your summertime fun with Ribfest and save me some of those rib’s, with extra barbecue sauce please. Special Note: When using the Opentype format of Ribfest, if you experience some letters appearing too bold at point sizes of 36 or above please install the truetype version that came with your purchase. Due to the extra detail in this font some graphics drivers may increase the boldness of the Opentype version of this font, the solution is to uninstall the Opentype and install the Truetype version.

Colonial Press is a font based on serif typefaces designed by William Caslon I (1692-1766) and various revivals thereof. Caslon is cited to be the first original typeface of English origin, but some type historians point out the close similarity of Caslon's design to the Dutch Fell types, presumed to be the work of Dutch punchcutter Dirck Voskens. Colonial Press harkens to the look and feel of newspapers in Colonial North America around the mid 1700s without the rough edges commonly associated with colonial printing and many reconstructions. The rough quality of the American typeface is believed to be the result of oxidation from the exposure to seawater during the long voyage from England to the Americas. Colonial Press is a heavy font that retains some of the handcut quality of these fonts while smoothing out the irregularities that make many of these fonts so visually distracting at larger point sizes. For the italic version of this font, I chose to emulate the more ornate letterforms that I have encountered, giving the italic characters a more ornamental feel. Colonial Press comes with full punctuation and a 362 glyph character set for most Western European-based Latin alphabet languages. It is a font that is designed both for normal typing and for larger, decorative display.

The basic idea of this type family was to keep the "ductus" of the fraktur calligraphy only. And to adapt it to draw a sans serif typography which still keep the magic rhythm and colour of the original letters.

At the very least, you'll need this for the Chinese New Year celebration. This was designed in the year of the monkey, and includes all the usual accents for Western European languages. Caps have tassels, lowercase have no tassels.

A distorted, broken & cracked typeface. Doyen-D.ScreenRegular uses the same letter forms as the rest of the Doyen-D family, however the letters have gone through a halftone screen print process, resulting in even further distortion of the typeface.

The basic idea of this type family was to keep the "ductus" of the fraktur calligraphy only. And to adapt it to draw a sans serif typography which still keep the magic rhythm and colour of the original letters.

Designing SoftTimes has been easy on my nerves after the strain of HardTimes. The harder the Times are the more do we need some soft typefaces, this one is the soft counterpart for HardTimes. -Your softspoken typedesigner, Gert Wiescher

Rustic Setting JNL is the solidified version of Rustic Stencil JNL. Originally modeled from lettering on the cover a children's book, the solid version of this Western-inspired typeface is reminiscent of the classic wood types of the era.