Vette Letters are thrilled to add maverick designer Dirk Uhlenbrock to the family, with the release of VLNL Bromfiets. Bromfiets (the Dutch word for moped) is a ‘holiday child’, the basic idea coming from a stop at a road junction in the Dutch coastal province of Zeeland. The Dutch signage, the black and white rings of traffic light poles, the symbols for brom- and snorfiets have always appealed to Dirk. While on vacation in Zeeland the first scribbles and digital drafts were created, always in mind that the typeface had to be striking, clear and friendly. The end result is more than that, a strong and instantly recognisable font with a matching dingbat weight full of icons and arrows. Stencil fonts have always interested Dirk, the informal character and the possible universal use as a paint- or spray-stencil on a wide variety of surfaces makes this type of font so interesting for me. The technically necessary dissolution of closed font contours always ensures a special aesthetic: What’HAT and HOW MUCH has to be removed or left, in order to make words easy to read and to avoid a fractal impression. Dirk Uhlenbrock has been working as graphic designer and illustrator in his hometown Essen, Germany for over 30 years. Always interested in typedesign he got in contact with Fontographer in 1996 and started to create and distribute loads of free fonts through his online platforms ‘Eyesaw’ and ‘Fontomas’. A bunch of these type experiments have been extented on request to complete fonts. Still located in Essen in 2009 Dirk started his second owner-based business erste liga büro für gestaltung - ersteliga.de

It's here and it's a major upgrade to Hudson NY. Weight variations and alternate glyphs were some of the requests that were being received for Hudson NY and these have all been taken care of in the Pro Edition of Hudson NY. Hudson NY Pro still comes in Regular, Serif and Slab styles now with completely re-drawn glyphs, there are now six weights as well as italics for each style. Some of the additional features included in the Pro Edition is Small Caps, Stylistic Sets and Alternate Glyphs. Hudson NY is now loads more versatile, it is the perfect Display family for sports, beverage and entertainment. Press versions have been dropped in the Pro Edition as these were the lesser used and sluggish fonts of the original Hudson NY family so the focus was to create a cleaner family with more usability options. Each Hudson NY style now also includes a Variable font which saves you the hassle of installing multiple font files.

Introducing Flatline Serif, a warm, friendly, and sensual serif font family. Meticulously drawn with high contrast between thick and thin strokes, it’s perfect for headlines, editorial uses, and advertising projects. Makes beautiful luxe logos and wedding invitations, too. Flatline Serif is an expansion of our existing bestseller, Flatline Sans. Flatline includes sixteen styles (eight weights each in both roman and italic), each of which includes nearly 500 glyphs. OpenType features include standard and discretionary ligatures, a small number of character variants, three figure sets, four ampersand styles, and multilingual support (including multiple currency symbols). The OpenType features can be very easily accessed by using OpenType-savvy programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign. (You can also access most most of these features in Microsoft Word and other similar programs, but you'll need to get comfortable with the advanced tab of Word's font menu. If you need help with this, just ask!)

Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) was called the King of Printers and the Bodoni font owes its creation in 1767 to his masterful cutting techniques. Predecessors in a similar style were the typefaces of Pierre Simon Fournier (1712–1768) and the Didot family (1689-1836). The Bodoni font distinguishes itself through the strength of its characters and embodies the rational thinking of the Enlightenment. The new typefaces displaced the Old Face and Transitional styles and was the most popular typeface until the mid-19th century. Bodoni’s influence on typography was dominant until the end of the 19th century and, even today, inspires new creations. Working with this font requires care, as the strong emphasis of the vertical strokes and the marked contrast between the fine and thick lines lessens Bodoni’s legibility, and the font is therefore better in larger print with generous spacing. The Bodoni of Morris F. Benton appeared in 1911 with American Type Founders.

A personal handwriting done in pencil. Conté Script is a computer font but has the extraordinary look of handwriting. The typeface is exceedingly lively, diversified and distinct thanks to more than 300 different ligatures, i.e. letter combinations. In addition to the letter combinations in Conté Script, there are also double letters and figures included (aa, ff, AA, MM, 22, 66…) as ligatures with stylistic alternates. Type set in Conté Script appears remarkably similar to a text actually handwritten with a pencil. The typical style of the pencil — crumbliness where pressure lessens and the deep darkness where the pressure of the graphite in it's fullest denseness smudges — is another earmark of Conté Script. The font appears to be written quickly, fleetingly, casually, as if not really to be taken seriously, and as if it would be written one minute and erased the next. Conté Script looks most ”authentic“ around the point size of 18 to 22.

When work started on the design of Gelica, there wasn't the same glut of retro-ish soft serifs there is today, and if I'd managed to complete it quicker, it might have been more trendsetter than bandwagon jumper, but that's the way it goes sometimes! I still think it's useful and unique enough to be a worthwhile addition to your typographic arsenal. Although obviously influenced by Cooper, it actually owes more to the lesser known Goudy Heavyface and Ludlow Black, particularly in the concave serifs. I wanted the family to be friendly and approachable, but not overly cutesy, and usability was always the prime concern. A nice weight range with matching italics was a must, along with useful OpenType features, and various figure styles. This is a display family first and foremost, but is also comfortable at smaller sizes for longer copy, and so works well in a supporting role to a more exuberant titling font.

The award-winning Scala family (1990-1993) is a worldwide bestseller and has established itself as a ‘classic’ among digital fonts. It was one of the first serious digital text fonts to support small caps, ligatures and different set of numbers. In fact Scala and Scala Sans (1990-1993) are two different typefaces sharing a common form principle: the skeletons of both Scala and Scala Sans are identical. Scala’s dark colour and low contrast works to prevent the thin parts from breaking up. The generous length of Scala italic’s serifs gives it a strong rhythm. The bold weight has the same character widths as the normal weight, so changing a text from normal into bold does not affect the set width. Another part of Scala is very popular among its users: Scala Hands, containing more than one hundred decorative hands and pointers, is a free bonus. Scala Jewels is a set of four highly decorative typefaces, based on the bold capitals of Scala.

The award-winning Scala family (1990-1993) is a worldwide bestseller and has established itself as a ‘classic’ among digital fonts. It was one of the first serious digital text fonts to support small caps, ligatures and different set of numbers. In fact Scala and Scala Sans (1990-1993) are two workhorse-like typefaces sharing a common form principle: the skeletons of both Scala and Scala Sans are identical, therefore they can be combined perfectly. Where many of the modern sans serifs (like Helvetica and Univers) have rather ‘closed’ letter shapes, the same elements in Scala Sans are much more ‘open’. This greatly improves legibility, especially in the smaller point sizes. The italic of Scala Sans is not a slanted version of the roman, but rather a ‘real’ italic. Another part of Scala is very popular among its users: Scala Hands, containing more than one hundred decorative hands and pointers, is included in the Scala fonts and is a free bonus.

Billowed is a typeface family inspired by a simple shape that tessellates in three different ways: in a single orientation, in two orientations, and in four orientations. The shape resembles a billowing sail, with two concave edges that are adjacent and two convex edges, also adjacent. Forcing letters into this template shape results in some oddly shaped letters, but the result should not be judged by individual letters but by how the words and strings of words appear. Billowed was designed as an alternating-letter font in which two sets of characters alternate. The alternating is done automatically in applications that support the OpenType feature contextual alternatives (calt). To get the ripple pattern not just horizontally but also vertically, lines should alternate between the right and left styles and leading set to the same value as the font size. Billowed is monospaced with tight letter spacing to accentuate the ripple pattern. The family includes outline styles that can be used in a layer above the solid style to add color. Undulate was not designed for any particular use but as a challenge to fit letters into a particular geometric shape. The unusual patterns that result are eye-catching and may be useful for advertising or signage and in other places where one wants attention-grabbing lettering.