An unadorned Grotesque with a refreshingly personal touch. If “Grotesque” mainly means “industrial, mechanical, anonymous typeface” to you, Klainy might redefine your image of the genre. Yes, it’s a Grotesque—but with a contemporary look and a lot of personality. Klainy’s apertures are more closed at the top and more open at the bottom, creating an informal rhythm that sets Klainy apart: a confident, optimistic voice with a clean appearance. Terminals are subtly back-bent: these quaint “hooks” make Klainy a bit more personal, a bit friendlier. (You can find them in the a, c, f, and r.) Just like its old-style Grotesque ancestors, Klainy is optimized for display sizes and short texts. There, its unobtrusive quirks can be wholly appreciated. However, the familiar Grotesque appearance makes sure that the typeface is comfortable to read in smaller sizes, as well. Use Klainy whenever a basically classic sans-serif typeface with a modern and individual twist is called for. This font family comes in eight weights ranging from Thin to Black, each with a matching italic style. More than 500 glyphs and a bunch of Open Type Features make it a reliable companion for all of your projects. You can fine-tune the flavor of Klainy with Stylistic Alternates such as a one-story a and a two-story g. Their simple construction blends perfectly with the design concept of this typeface. Klainy is a seasoned blue-collar worker that surprises you with wit and team spirit. It’ll be a great addition to your font library.

MOTORWAY is the companion typeface to TRANSPORT, the British road sign lettering. The Motorway alphabet was created for the route numbers on motorway signage, and is taller and narrower than the accompanying place names and distances which are printed in Transport. However, for Motorway Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert created only the numbers 0 to 9, the capitals A, B, E, M, N, S and W, ampersand, slash, parentheses and a comma. So, although the lettering made its first appearance on the Preston bypass in 1958, K-Type Motorway is the first complete typeface and contains all upper and lower case letters, plus a full complement of punctuation, symbols and Latin Extended-A accented characters. As with the Transport alphabet the starting point was Akzidenz Grotesk, Motorway taking inspiration from condensed versions. Changes were mainly driven by a quest for legibility, resulting in some reduced contrast between horizontal and vertical strokes, and Gill-esque straight diagonal limbs on the 6 and 9, and high vertex for the M. Kinneir and Calvert designed the limited range of characters in two weights; a SemiBold 'Permanent' weight for use as white letters on blue motorway signs, and a Bold 'Temporary' weight for heavier black letters on yellow non-permanent signage. In addition to creating full fonts in both original weights, the K-Type family adds a new Regular weight, plus a set of italics, completing a highly usable condensed typeface which, while rooted in history, is fully functional for both print and web usage. The K-Type fonts are spaced and kerned normally, simply increase the tracking to recapture the generous spacing of motorway signage.

Caribe is an expressive typefamily like the blue sky and bright Caribbean sun, designed by CFCG @andinistas. We love to design experimental fonts with a large amount of ligatures and swashes, drawn with special respect and study for what is handmade by ancient artisans. In this context, Caribe is an impressive typefamily of 5 fonts to create logos, posters, book covers, menus, labels, packaging, etc. The 5 Caribbean fonts add up to more than 1500 glyphs that serve to be mixed or independent, functioning as a springboard to encourage your creativity in the design of words, phrases or remarkable headlines of the elements that appear around them. Caribe Script has lowercase letters such as "b d f g h i j k l p q y z" with extremely short ascending and descending strokes achieving generous height x in: "a c e m n o r s u v w x". Caribe Script Produces visual attraction in words and phrases that need lowercase letters with sparing horizontal space width and bold stroke thickness, producing exceptional legibility in headlines or advertising texts. Caribe Script & Caps are based on ancient and multiple letterings from the 40s and 50s that were useful inspiration tools to produce visual pleasure. Caribe Words has more than 60 script words drawn diagonally generating greater intensity within a sentence. Caribe Shields & Digits has more than 50 designs each and they have containers and numbers designed to accompany words, phrases or drawings that serve to harmonize different writings. ENJOY more than 1500 glyphs: + Caribe Script: 743 glyphs + Caribe Caps: 507 glyphs + Caribe Words: 71 glyphs + Caribe Shields: 230 glyphs + Caribe Digits: 40 glyphs

At VetteLetters we like food but we also appreciate our drinks. Yes, of the non-alcoholic kind as well. Like milk. Contrary to what Arnold Schwartzenegger once said, Milk is not just for babies. It contains a whole lot of stuff that is genuinely good for you. Like proteins, carbohydrates, minerals (calcium a.o.) and many vitamins. One time visiting The Hague, Donald DBXL spotted a tile tableau on a brick wall, advertising a dairy factory called ‘De Sierkan’. Yellow sans serif letters on a bright blue background, dating back to the late 19th century, immediately grabbed DBXL’s attention. Especially because the tableau showed both regular and bold letters with some lovely peculiarities here and there. De Sierkan appeared to have been a milk factory solely operating in The Hague from 1879 until 1961. A number of these wall adverts are still to be seen in The Hague streets today. Photos were taken for later reference. Later is now, the lettering has been digitized, missing characters added, and VLNL Melk sees the light of day. VLNL Melk is an all-caps geometric display sans serif family of three weights, Regular, Bold and Black. The basic shape of the letters is a rectangle with rounded corners, leaving a sturdy no-nonsense look and feel. It has a distinct historic aura, but with both feet in this digital day and age. It can equally well be used for the logo of a hipster coffee place, as the cover of a historic novel. Actually, VLNL Melk kan be applied in a wide range of designs like logos, posters, flyers, book covers and magazine headlines.

Klothilde is a handwriting font which came to life in one of my doodling sessions (I must admit I still doodle with pen and paper). The idea was to create a font which resembles writing with a quill on paper with exaggerated ball terminals. Sometimes there is too much ink which makes the letters fat and the strokes uneven. The paper soaks the ink resulting in blurred line crossings. The form gets blurry. On the other hand, when the quill runs out of ink the stroke gets thinner looking like the light version of Klothilde. In order to emulate the different looks, I created six fonts with a common skeleton but different appearance which can be altered seamlessly by using the Variable Fonts technology (e.g. in latest Adobe apps or CorelDRAW Graphics Suite) along the Weight and Blurred sliders. But even without, Klothilde can be used even in longer copy. Use it from 18 pt upwards, flush left with tight leading and intersecting ascenders and descenders. Due to extensive manual kerning, it gives your text an even colour. To my knowledge, Klothilde is one of the first script Variable fonts in different weights. No, Klothilde’s letters are not connecting. But I added a whole bunch of connecting ligatures which are simply activated by the ligature feature of your app. Even Microsoft Word can do that. Thus Klothilde comes to life, as it should be expected from a handwriting font. In order to add to variety there are additional glyphs for some critical initial and standalone letters. Repeating letter combinations like nn, mm or rr are avoided by replacing the second letter by an alternative form. All features are activated by the standard ligature feature. Ligatures are available for most European languages, some even in Cyrillic (some special Serbo-Croat letters included and accessible through localization or Style Set 08 features). Romanian comma-accent characters and ligatures are accessible through the OpenType locl feature. For the topping on the cake, I added an alternate ampersand (stylistic set 1) and asterisk (ss04), an alternate Cyrillic b (ss02) and t (ss03), a few fleurons, arrows and a skull (OpenType feature ornm), fractions (frac feature), circled numbers (ss06) and an interrobang (ss07) which result in exactly 900 glyphs in each of the six fonts. There should be enough to play with. Should you be missing a special character, do give me a hint.

Mindful that Hiragino Sans (Kaku Gothic) would be used in conjunction with Hiragino Serif (Mincho), SCREEN developed a font that anticipated today’s world where most people do their reading on displays and yet still has an orthodox letterform that does not blur when printed on paper. In short, our goal with this font was to create a new concept that responds to the demands of today’s times. This font offers weight variations from W0 to W9 and is extremely versatile. This makes it well-suited to all visual expression media including paper, metallic textures, resins, cloth, television, movies, broadcasting, websites, and electronic displays. One of the design’s strongpoints is that it elides serif on the right side of each stroke, thus delivering more spacious counters and a comfortable appearance. Thanks to this, the typeface not only delivers a contemporary, lively impression same as Latin sans serif typefaces, but also heightens the natural continuity and readability of text whether it is set vertically or horizontally. As a result, it makes it possible to bring a strong appealing power to text. Without a doubt, this is typeface that above else embodies the role of Sans Serif.

Bold, black and square. But was first drawn as a logotype for the magazine "BUT – Bilder und Texte" (pictures and texts) which was published by an experimentally-oriented non-commercial initiative. In consideration of the unusual dimensions of the magazine (6 x 14 cm / 2,4 x 5,5 inch), I decided to fill as much space as possible with the body of type. This formal idea refers to the meaning of the title by blurring the border between legible letters and abstract shapes. Because of its origin, But is ideal for short messages in headline point size. Despite its blocky shapes, But creates a friendly atmosphere. The details are as playful as the restrictions that are given by the concept allow them to be. Punctuation marks and other special characters contrast the boldness of the design since they are matching the thin parts of upper- and lowercase letters. This also avoids gaps when longer texts are set. But is available in open type format and has an extended character set (Latin extended A). Two sets of numerals, one matching the x-height and another one matching the cap-height, are provided.

Linotype Punkt, from US designer Mischa Leiner, is part of the TakeType Library, chosen from the entries of the Linotype-sponsored International Digital Type Design Contest 1999 for inclusion on the TakeType 3 CD. This font, from US designer Mischa Leiner is available in three weights, light, regular and bold. The basic forms are those of a robust sans serif, however the figures are composed of evenly placed dots, hence the name Punkt, the German word for dot. This distinguishing characteristic lets this font look as though it appears on a background of light. One other unique trait of this font is the nature of the three weights. The figures of each weight have exactly the same measurements, the same width, breadth, etc. The only variable measurements are those of the individual dots making up the forms, making the bold weight much darker than the light while retaining the same outer contours. Linotype Punkt should be used in larger point sizes, as when it is too small the dots blur together and rob the font of its 'light'. The font is therefore best for headlines in large and very large point sizes.

A font family with excellent visibility and aesthetic originality was developed after years of troubleshooting. It will be the best choice for designers as it contains a variable font with two axes. A variety of styles, including stem widths from 10pt to 220pt, will be an exciting attempt for unique typography. And, 44 beautiful and amazing ligatures will make your imagination deeper and richer. On the Typographic Foundation, it makes sense to break most of the ligatures used here into discretionary ligatures. However, in view of the trend of modern typography, in which the essential boundary between function and decoration is increasingly blurred, it may be meaningful to use them together. All ligatures of this font family are included in Standard Ligatures. Your choices become easier and clearer. Its name is Quickflio. OpenType Features 44 Ligatures : Am, An, Br, Cr, Gr, Le, Lo, Op, ad, am, an, at, ba, ck, ct, da, de, do, er, es, ff, fo, fi, fl, gh, ha, hn, hs, in, le, ll, lo, ma, ns, oe, om, on, re, sh, st, um, un, ve, wa Ordinals Oldstyle Figures Tabular Figures Fractions Scientific Inferiors Superscrpt

The challenge was to create a single typeface weight that was versatile enough without a large font family, and could be put to use with a variety of media formats, from book text to advertising spreads, all while remaining legible and delightful to read. Originally designed between the years 2002 and 2004, the inspiration for the design originated from the concepts of Stefano Giovannoni's uber-contemporary industrial designs and architecture. Where to start with such a font design was obvious to Diphthong Regular's designer, Max Hancock; to create a transitional, slab serif form that was corky and serious, interchangeably. The characteristics of the font followed a postmodern playfulness, popular in many sub-cultures looking for an alternative to the harsher, cut-shape, deconstructivist styles. And, the unique objective behind the design was to make it so that the usual difficult combination of the t and h (hth) in language was legible as well as pleasant to look at, thus the reason for the name. The soft, subtle roundings add a flair of utilitarianism while the cut edge ascenders help to blur the line between cute and diametrical mannerisms.

Did your client just say ‘can you make it pop’? Then you already know you got it on lock. Introducing: Midnight Diner! A multi-layered dimensional script font family featuring thin, bold, outline and shadow capabilities, with a left-leaning slant to boot. You can experiment with various layer combinations and colour! How fun is that? Being effortlessly casual, retro and elegant all in one, you can play it up or down to your liking – perfect for display graphics, logos, signages, packaging, lifestyle imagery, invitations and more. It features a diverse range of stylistic alternates, contextual alternates, and standard ligatures, ensuring that you’ve countless options to choose from for your design work. This font family is delicately crafted and well thought out with every little detail in mind, to ensure its ease and versatility when used! Midnight Diner is a collaboration between lettering artist and calligrapher, Leah Chong (www.leahdesign.sg) and typeface designer, Roland Huse (www.rolandhuse.com). Product Content: Midnight Diner Layered Font - Thin (TTF) Midnight Diner Layered Font - Bold (TTF) Midnight Diner Layered Font - Outline (TTF) Midnight Diner Layered Font - Shadow (TTF) Font Guide PDF https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KPSf-gGrhX3wyaImEAmlJICERNbxu2IN/view?usp=sharing Font Guide Youtube Video https://youtu.be/GtZ8E7Y7wnQ 6 Bonus SVGs (TTF): Midnight Diner SVG - Red Yellow Midnight Diner SVG - Black Pink Midnight Diner SVG - Blue Green Midnight Diner SVG - Orange Yellow Midnight Diner SVG - Purple Pink Midnight Diner SVG - Black White Font Features: Latin character set: Uppercase & Lowercase A - Z Stylistic Alternates Contextual Alternates Standard Ligatures Numerals, Currency Symbols & Punctuation Accented Characters To access all features of Midnight Diner such as stylistic alternates etc., it's highly recommended to use professional design software such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign or Procreate (via the ‘add text' feature).

Albireo is a typeface for those times when you have more to say than space to say it. It also looks fantastic spread out across the page as though space doesn’t matter. Expertly crafted with a high level of attention to detail, Albireo is an immensely practical and flexible typeface that’s neutral enough to be used almost anywhere a highly condensed, sans-serif face is needed. Despite its down-to-earth functionality, this is a typeface that definitely isn’t lacking in style. It really shines when used for headlines or subheadings in magazines, brochures, posters, newspapers, flyers or on the web. With 42 weights, widths and italics, there’s enough flexibility to make every word fit perfectly. You may buy one font at a time or save money by purchasing packages consisting of the 14 fonts in each width (Extra Condensed, Condensed or Semi Condensed). Save even more by purchasing the entire collection and, in addition to the 42 separate fonts, you'll receive two variable fonts (upright and italic) that cover all the weights, widths and everything in between. So where does the name come from? Well, look upwards at night. Albireo is a binary star in the constellation Cygnus. Through a backyard telescope, Albireo (the star) resolves into two brilliant component stars — one orange and one blue. The beginnings of the typeface were the result of me needing a newspaper feature headline about space exploration. I couldn’t find the right typeface, so I drew my own letters and eventually expanded it out into an entire mega-family. Given its origins, naming it after my favorite star seemed totally appropriate. Check it out. I think you’ll love it. Albireo deserves its place as a shining star in everyone’s font collection. It’s that good — really.

The history of Aerolite, from Jan Paul: "The Aerolite fonts are essentially stripped down versions of a complex outline typeface I designed for the first Midnight Oil album in 1978, affectionately known as "The Blue Meanie". Many years later I saw the font "powderworks" and asked Brian Kent if he would be interested in digitizing Aerolite. Brian is a font (!) of knowledge and was of invaluable help by getting Aerolite to where it is today. Special care was taken in keeping the distinct character while as Aerolite Regular also providing a legible, thouroughly kerned body type which can be used in all sizes for large volume text." For the Pro version the kerning has been tweaked further, and the character set completed and expanded - and the alternate uppercase A (also with accents) is available as OpenType stylistic alternates. It is now ready for your next international science or sci-fi project. 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.

Palamecia is a typeface that embodies the very essence of organic design. It is a testament to the power of the creative process, one that is imbued with the spirit of experimentation and the thirst for innovation. Its unique appearance, at first glance reminiscent of a cartoon typeface, is just the beginning of what sets it apart from the competition. Palamecia was designed with a specific purpose in mind—to withstand the rigors of scaling and blurring on a variety of user interface devices. The creators of Palamecia recognized that the legibility of typefaces can be compromised by the impact of pixel scaling, and they set out to design a typeface that would not only overcome this challenge but also thrive in its wake. What makes Palamecia truly exceptional is its design process. Unlike many other typefaces, Palamecia’s designs were not born from pen strokes, but rather from cut-out silhouettes that were meticulously chiseled and chipped away. This unique approach allowed the designers to create a typeface that is both rugged and refined, with a natural aesthetic that seamlessly blends into any interface. The end result is a typeface that is both durable and versatile. Palamecia’s unique design allows it to pierce through any type of display, regardless of resolution, making it an ideal choice for designers and developers who are looking for a typeface that can deliver the goods under any circumstances. In conclusion, Palamecia is a triumph of organic design, a typeface that is as beautiful as it is functional. Its rugged yet refined aesthetic and its ability to withstand the rigors of scaling and blurring make it a must-have for any designer or developer who values both form and function. So why wait? Try Palamecia today and experience the power of organic design for yourself. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Musical notes and letterforms, silences and white spaces, pentagrams and lines, music and writing have much in common and go beyond time, cultures, styles and locations. This new typeface emerges from the blend between the lyrics and the harmony, rhythm, femininity and luminosity of the traditional musical forms. It`s not about blues or rock, tango or salsa, instead it recovers the neoclassical characteristics of the current musical notation system and revitalize the essence of its signs. Taking care of both the function and the form, Elisetta has been specially designed for the writing of texts and musical sheets considering all its elements and communication needs. This source of inspiration also makes the font really good for extensive texts, since its design is based on situations that require high line performance, great readability and high aesthetic coherence. With 5 variables that vary in weight and style, the typography gathers asymmetry and organic nature in vertical structure, narrow horizontal proportions, high x height and extreme contrast between black and white. Elisetta Book has been created for the writing of clear texts and long lines composed in small sizes inside and outside the pentagram; Elisetta Italic intensifies the organic nature of the musical keys by offering softer signs, contextual alternates and initial caps; finally, Elisetta Display increase and emphasize the contrast between vertical stems and horizontal lines to highlight short texts and titles. For those who love music and for those who like romantic forms, this typography has a lot to offer: Elisetta is the best option to write light words with style, compose clear and rhythmic lines and read comfortable paragraphs with high performance. You can tell everybody this is your font, how wonderful life is while you're in the world! * This typeface was originally designed and supervised as «Elisa», the main project of the Master in Typography at University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

PF Stamps covers a wide range of applications which require the stamp effect. This is a form of lettering which was very popular in the mid-twentieth century for product labeling. Special machinery was developed by mainly two companies, one in the United States and the other in Germany. This machinery produced paper die cuts which were later used as a base for the marking with a paintbrush. PF Stamps Paint was developed to simulate this type of lettering. Two other styles, Metal and Flex, have been very popular since its original release. The first one was developed from a metallic stamp imprint, whereas the second one with its slight 3-D look simulates letters stamped on plastic. To insure realistic results, uppercase letters are different from lowercase. This is very useful when two similar letters sit next to each other. There 3 more styles: Solid (the stencil in its regular clean form), Rough and the very interesting Blur. The all new “Pro” version comes to complete this series with what was missing: 93 matching frames and frames parts which will satisfy the most demanding designer. This is a bonus font which is available only with the purchase of the whole family. Use these frames “as is” at any size, or connect the frame parts to each other to create longer frames. Finally, this series supports more than hundred languages which are based on the Latin, Greek or Cyrillic scripts.

Floro is a typographic family with 3 members designed by Carlos Fabian Camargo. Its idea combines medieval ideas, grotesque, stencil and grunge for T-shirts, stickers, advertising material design. More specifically the concept of Floro join several DNAís coordinating X height, ascendant, descendant and wide, in which proportions and adaptive optics were determined to inject great visual impact when composing titles. Its forms and counter forms have imperfections controlled with vitality and consistency. Floro is useful for ranking words and phrases with corroded edges and creases between the lines of his letters. In that vein, Floro refers to improvised design, deletion and copying. For that reason, its determinants seem stencil patterns that attract the attention of the reader. Its inaccurate decisions were planned that way, in which the type of contrast seems made with a flat tip and the amount of contrast between thick and thin is medium. Its sizes, regular and italic shine by their systematic wear and terminations sometimes in pointed forms resembling medieval darkness. In short, we can say that Floro comes from the miscegenation of Gothic calligraphy texture, foundational calligraphy and some refinements of gothic writings with italic sans-serif ideas of late 19th century. Even with the blur appearance, floro has ideal proportions to pile for horizontal and vertical areas when composing titles with striking looks and robust. And finally, floro dingbats are related shields and stamps, to accompany the written resulting useful at the level of visual support and hierarchical.

Ice Creamery is a new variation of our Saloon Girl font family complete with italics and fill fonts which may be used to layer different colors into the open parts of each glyph. We don’t recommend using the fill fonts for Ice Creamery as stand alone solid fonts, Ice Creamery Chocolate was designed as a the stand alone solid font for this font family. Fill fonts go back to the 1850's where they would design matched sets of printing blocks and the layering of colors took place on the printing press, they would print a page in black then on a second printing they would print a solid letter in red or blue over the letters with open spaces to fill them in. Most of the time the second printing didn't line up exactly to the open faced font and it created a misprinted look. With the fill fonts in Ice Creamery and other FontMesa fonts you have the option to perfectly align the fill fonts with the open faced fonts or shift it a little to create a misprinted look which looks pretty cool in some projects such as t-shirt designs. I have some ice cream making history in my family, my Grandfather Fred Hagemann was the manager of the ice cream plant for thirty years at Cock Robin Ice Cream and Burgers in Naperville IL. In the images above I've included an old 1960's photo of the Cock Robin Naperville location, the ice cream plant was behind the restaurant as seen by the chimney stack which was part of the plant. If you were to travel 2000 feet directly behind the Cock Robin sign in the photo, that's where I started the FontMesa type foundry at my home in Naperville. My favorite ice cream flavor was their green pistachio ice cream with black cherries, they called it Spumoni even though it wasn't a true Spumoni recipe. Their butter pecan ice cream was also incredibly good, the pecans were super fresh, their Tin Roof Sundae ice cream was chocolate fudge, caramel and peanuts swirled into vanilla ice cream. One unique thing about Cock Robin and Prince Castle was they used a square ice cream scoop for their sundaes.

Some words from the designer, Frantisek Storm... Designed by Josef Tyfa in 1959, digitalized by F. Storm in 1996. This Roman and Italic are well-known perhaps to all Czech graphic artists and typographers ever since their release. Although this type face in some details is under the sway of the period of its rise, its importance is timeless, in contradistinction to other famous types dating from the turn of the sixties which were found, after some time, to be trite. The italics live their own life, only their upper-case letters have the same expression as the basic design. Thin and fragile, they work excellently, emphasizing certain parts in the text by their perfect contrast of expression. When seen from a distance they are a little bit darker than the Roman face. Tyfa Roman was released in 1960 by Grafotechna in Prague for hot setting. Later on, Berthold produced letter matrices - "rulers" for Staromat devices, used for manual photosetting of display alphabets. In the eighties it was available on dry transfers of Transotype and today it is offered also by ITC. The meticulously executed designs of the individual letters in the 288 point size are arranged into a set of signs on a cardboard of about B2 in size. The yellowed paper reveals retouches by white paint on the ink. Blue lines mark the baseline, the capital line, the ascender and descender lines and the central verticals of the letters. With regard to the format of the flat scanner, the designs had to be reduced, with the use of a camera, to the format A4, i.e. to the upper-case letter height of about 30 mm. These were then scanned in 600 dpi resolution and read as a bitmap template to the FontStudio programme. The newly created bold type faces derive from Tyfa's designs of the letters "a", "n", "p", the darkness of which was increased further, approximately by 3%, to enhance their emphasizing function. The text designs have hairstrokes thickened by one third; the contrast between thin and thick strokes has been modified, in order to improve legibility, in sizes under 12 points. We have used electronic interpolation to produce the semi-bold designs. Josef Tyfa himself recommends to choose a somewhat darker design than the basic one for printing of books.

From the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, by way of Toronto, comes Martie's handwriting. Martie Byrd is a school teacher in Roanoke, Virginia, and a friend of Canada Type's Rebecca Alaccari. After years of admiring the cheer and clarity of Martie's handwriting, we asked her to write out full alphabets for some cool font treatment. The intent was to do three different versions of her writing in two different pens, then use the auto-magic of OpenType to determine letter sequences and rotate character sets on the fly when the fonts are in use. A successful endeavor it was. Take a look at the images in the MyFonts gallery to see the character rotation in action, along with a visual explanation of why Martie is not just another handwriting font. Unlike other available felt tip and ballpoint handwriting fonts, the regular and bold variations are style-based, not weight-based. They are the handwritten expressions of two different Sharpie pens: The fine point one (Martie Bold), and the ultrafine one (Martie Regular). The style-based variation considerably helps the realism needed in design pieces that take advantage of the contrast of two different handwriting fonts. Weight thickening in handwriting is an obvious mechanical effect that only happens with computers. Weight changing by replacing pens is what happens in the real world. Martie Pro and Martie Pro Bold each contain three different character sets in a single font. Language support includes Western, Central and Eastern European languages for all three sets. This translates into each Pro font containing over 750 characters. Add OpenType code and stir, and you have true handwriting fonts with versatility unavailable out there in anything else of the genre. A software program that supports OpenType features is needed to use the randomization coded in Martie Pro and Martie Pro Bold. Current versions of QuarkXpress and Adobe applications (Photoshop, Illlustrator, InDesign) do contain support for the randomization feature. But if you don't have one of these apps, you can still use the interchangeable Type 1 or True Type fonts and change the characters manually to achieve the appearance of true handwriting. The Martie fonts come in a variety of price packages, from the affordable single fonts to value-laden complete sets. All the proceeds from these fonts received by Canada Type will be donated 50/50 to two primary schools: One in Roanoke (where Martie teaches), and one in Toronto (where the 10-year old, real Canada Type boss goes). So next time a design project needs a handwriting font, do the write thing and use Martie to keep it real.