A creative context 2003. Fontsmith was sharing a small, cold, whitewashed studio space in Northburgh Street, Clerkenwell. But things were on the up following prestigious custom type commissions for The Post Office and E4. “Slab serifs were on the brink of another revival, we could feel it,” says Jason Smith. “All we wanted to do was have a play with these slabs, go as far as we could within what was acceptable and readable.” “It wasn’t initially clear what was happening,” recalls Phil Garnham. “We were becoming very influenced by our surroundings, outside the studio space. We absorbed the essence and the designer grime of where we were.” Process Jason began by drawing stems on-screen. “The key aspect of the font is the upward bend of the leading shoulder serif, the way it kind of ramps up and then plummets back down the stem. “The regular and light characters are quite narrow – great for text but the bold is quite wide and chunky – better for headlines. I think ‘y’ is quite different for a slab design. We call it the Fontsmith ‘y’.” Promotion Fontsmith were determined to get FS Clerkenwell noticed. To launch the font, Ian Whalley, a designer friend of Fontsmith, captured words heard on the streets of Clerkenwell, set them in the new font and crafted a small book of typographic conversations. It was a first for Fontsmith. “I think that’s part of why this font has been so successful,” says Phil. “It really does embody the spirit of the area, as a special place for design, arts and crafts. And designers love that.” Contemporary twist FS Clerkenwell, based on influences in and around this part of London with a rich tradition of printing and design, mixes tradition with creation. Old-fashioned values meet new-school trends. Its quirky, contemporary character lends an edge to headlines, logotypes and any large-size text.

Odile is a text typeface with bracketed head and bracket-free bottom lower case serifs, a quality that counters rigidness most traditional slab serif typefaces possess. This contemporary design draws inspiration from an experimental typeface named Charter originally designed by the American book and type designer William Addision Dwiggins. It consisted of an informal lowercase alphabet, a narrow seemingly non-inclined vertical letter with script attributes, featuring non-joining letterforms. Dwiggins’ contemplated Charter as the italic companion to Arcadia, Experimental No. 221. The Charter project progressed sporadic stalled during the Second World War and came to a halt in 1955. Charter remained incomplete and was never commercially released. Assessing Charter’s whimsical design, its fragments were rethought and developed into a comprehensive text family. Odile Upright Italic reveals recognizable similarities shared by Dwiggin’s Charter and defines the design approach for the family. The steep calligraphic outstroke and low junctions off the stem as in the upright italic “n” or “r”, for example, are gradually lessened in the italic and moved up for the roman weights. The six optically balanced weights range from the delicate Light to stark Black, accompanied by display variants with feminine flair and ardent Ornaments. Two sorts of Initials, one amplified with interweaving swashes, the other more restrained, both are clearly derived from the Upright Italic. This mid-contrast serif offers a wide range of tools for text and display typographies with a palette of strict to playful. This family shines in magazine, book and display use. The graceful serifed type harmonizes perfectly with Elido, Odile’s sans companion. Sans and serif share the family array and OpenType features in perfect tune. Odile offers an extensive character set, numerous OT features including roman and italic Small Caps, five sets of numerals, alluring ligatures, and many more. OT stylistic variants (with accents) offer a one-story “a” for the roman weights, alternate “g” and “s” designs for the italics, and a variant “s” for the Upright Italic.

Every single glyph of Helvetica has been redrawn and redesigned for this expansive new edition – which preserves the typeface's Swiss mantra of clarity, simplicity and neutrality, while updating it for the demands of contemporary design and branding. Helvetica Now comprises 96 fonts, consisting of three distinct optical sizes: Micro, Text and Display, all in two widths. Each one has been carefully tailored to the demands of its size. The larger Display versions are drawn to show off the subtlety of Helvetica and spaced with headlines in mind, while the Text sizes focus on legibility, using robust strokes and comfortably loose spaces. The Micro sizes address an issue Helvetica has long faced – that of being 'micro type challenged'. In the past, the typeface struggled to be legible at tiny sizes because of its compactness and closed apertures. Helvetica Now's Micro designs are simplified and exaggerated to maintain the impression of Helvetica in tiny type, and their spacing is loose, providing remarkable legibility at microscopic sizes and in low-res environments. There's also an extensive set of alternates, which allow designers the opportunity to experiment with and adapt Helvetica's tone of voice. This includes a hooked version of the lowercase l (addressing a common complaint that the capital I and lowercase l are indistinguishable) as well as a rounded G, and a straight-legged R, a single storey a and a lowercase u without a trailing serif. In the past, designers had to nudge, trim and contort the design to create stylish display-type lockups with Helvetica. Helvetica Now Display was designed and spaced with those modifications in mind—saving effort and providing more consistent (and more stylish) results. “Helvetica is the gold standard,' says Monotype Type Director Charles Nix. “To use it is to claim that you are the ultimate expression of whatever your brand aspires to be. Its blankness is its power.” Helvetica Now User Guide PDF. Featured in: Best Fonts for Resumes, Best Fonts for Websites, Best Fonts for PowerPoints

A handwritten ”font for technicians“ from ca. 1900. Very geometrical, rigid forms borrowed from the typical characteristics of Jugendstil / Art Nouveau. This script is found in an old magazine which was issued sometime in the years shortly before WWI. The original copy, produced by means of a galvanized plate, is just 7 centimeters wide. It served as the model for technical professions in which, at that time, the captions of drawings were still done by hand. ingoFonts has not only digitized this beautiful typeface, we have also extended it to a whole family. In »Maier’s Alte Nr. 8« special attention was given to ensure the ”uneven“ edges, typical of handwritten script, remained effectively noticeable even in the digitized form. As a result, this ”technical“ font retains a handmade touch, while »Maier’s Neue Nr. 8« is the clean version with exact contours. The Art Nouveau forms, which are characteristic for the period of origin around the turn of the century around 1900, look especially pretty. The high degree of abstraction also seems strange in Maier's No. 8, especially when the age of the original is known. It is generally assumed that it was not until the Bauhaus in the late 1920s that such "modern" typefaces were created. Maier's No. 8 is a generation older! So many of today's supposedly "ultramodern" typefaces look quite old in comparison. In addition to the original two weights, Light and Bold, the Maiers Neue Nr. 8 got a regular and a extra-bold weight. Furthermore, the Neue is also available in italics. Although this is only a slanted version, unlike common practice, it is inclined to the left. Maier’s Nr. 8 Pro is suitable for all European languages. It includes ”Latin Extended-A,“ for Central and Eastern Europe incl. Turkish, and even Cyrillic and Greek, too. The font includes several stylistic alternates as well as a number of ligatures.

Madison Street is a font family with 8 fabulously fun typefaces! Eliza Gwendalyn & Jim Lyles of Studioways have teamed up with Spencerian calligrapher Elaina DeBoard to create a classic pointed pen calligraphy font. From its ornamental monograms, to its variety of complimentary text styles, and to its Madison Street Pro, with its elegant stylistic swashes and OpenType goodies, there is a font for every designer. Enjoy the sleek Madison Street Sans, Serif or Script, paired with the Ornaments font, complete with ornate monograms, or use each typeface on its own! Madison Street Pro has all the OpenType bells and whistles. The Ligature feature automatically substitutes beginning and ending letterforms, as well as 100 ligatures. Turn on the Swash feature for elegantly sweeping swash lowercase forms. Enable Stylistic Alternates for even more variations. There are also 10 Style Sets to chose from. And many more OT features! Madison Street is a basic version of the Pro font, intended for users who do not have OpenType savvy applications. Madison Street Stylistic is also a basic version of the Pro font, intended for users who do not have OpenType savvy applications. It has stylistically different ascenders and descenders. Madison Street Swash is intended to be used with the basic fonts, Madison Street and Madison Street Stylistic. It has lowercase beginning and ending swash glyphs and cannot be used to set text by itself. Madison Street Sans, Serif, and Script are text fonts modeled after the handwriting of Elaina. They are intended to be complimentary to any of the script fonts. However, you'll need to set them at a smaller point size (about 1/3 the size) in order to get the preferred scale and weight. Finally, the hairline weight of the Madison Street script fonts is very thin, and at small sizes up to 40 pt, you may notice some breaking up when printing to desktop printers. To remedy this, we recommend outline stroking the text a small amount (.1 -.3 value). this should improve the output without adding to much weight overall.

Combine, designed by Carlos Fabian Camargo G, is powerful and attractive, multi-layered chromatic type family that consists of 12 fonts, typographically grouped in two logics: “Script and Caps”, so that they could be colored separately or in group. Both designed with contrasting optical techniques and combinable at the same time. The unforgettable central idea of Combine was inspired by unique types of speedball letters designed by ancient artists in Canadian posters of shows and fairs in 1930. This is why its Typographical tools work independently or in group, resulting in highly polished designs that need fonts with coupled effusiveness. Their combined resources offer guaranteed distinguishing letters with shadow effects and worn, in order to help enhance their expressiveness. Combine is excellent in any project on paper or screen as it has more than 2100 glyphs and features of OpenType distributed strategically in fonts easy to use. SEE BELOW THE MAIN ADVANTAGES: • Combine Script & Shadow: It offers incredible case sensitive fluency and eloquence drawn with vertical cursive letters with ornamental non-stop excitement and complementation. It also has a variety of significant upward and downward, alternative strokes combined with its vintage ties that also give authenticity to their designs. • Combine Caps 1,2,3 & Shadow1,2: Guarantees you a colorful horizontal area of narrow case with 2 types of shadows, sound and other shade with diagonal stripes. Its geometric uniformity gives a friendly, open and subtle character by Typographic and special resources and visual properties coloring layers separately or in groups. In addition, its 2 layers of skeletal illuminations, adding internal lines and simultaneously contributing to play perfect confrontation and contrast with their geometric ideas and aesthetics for special attention. • Combine Words & Shadow: It can be used to design a perfect tone in each one of the 50 slogans written diagonally, making a brilliant feeling suggestive seductive style. Compatibility and flexibility works by monoline thin cursive strokes ideal for featured items with and without shade. Combine was selected at the Bienal Tipos Latinos 2016

Paralucent is versatile all-purpose modern sans. Available in seven weights, from Thin to Heavy, and in two widths each with corresponding italics, it avoids some of the more eccentric calligraphic quirks of Akzidenz or Helvetica or the cool precision of Univers for an elegant, functional, yet warm design. There are two additions to the core 28-weight family: a three-weight stencil set, and a four weight text family. The text weights have been adjusted for use at small point sizes, and feature more open character shapes, looser inter-letter spacing for improved readability, and lining numerals for use in listings and tables. Several core ideas inform Paralucent’s design. Prime attention has given to the negative space between characters, giving a more even “colour”, especially in text. For example, the J, L and T have shorter arms than comparable sans typefaces, while the M and W are wider. The A has a lower bar, opening up the interior counter. An unusually high lower-case x-height again helps to give a more even colour and improve legibility. Care has been taken to rationalise repeated elements like the tails on lower-case letters, or the Q and the “ear” of the g. Typographic design solutions that are consistent across all these features add more stylistic cohesion. ‘Ink traps’ are exaggerated incisions used to open up a letter's narrower internal angles, which can become clogged with ink, especially in small point sizes. Now largely redundant due to the high quality of modern print, they are still sometimes used as a stylistic quirk or design feature. Now that digital fonts are often reversed or outlined, or enlarged to enormous sizes, these can also lead to unexpected or obtrusive results. Paralucent takes these inevitable digital manipulations into account, and adds optical corrections without resort to ink traps. The family has been picked up by many UK and US publishers, featuring heavily in magazines like Loaded, Heat and TV Quick, as well as high-end coffee-table photography books and gallery websites. A perennial Device bestseller.

Based on a specimen of an obscure and uncredited old face called Kitterland, Hamlet is one of those curiosities hardly ever noticed in the world of modern fonts, the kind that infuses a variety of historic Blackletter and calligraphy traits in an otherwise Roman alphabet. Such typefaces, what few of them exist, are almost always classified by typophiles as traditional decorative Roman alphabets. We beg to differ. We think such hybrids are fascinating enough to deserve a classification of their own. And we think today's aspiring letterers and type designers would benefit from paying special attention to this kind of hybrid alphabet, not only because it has much more hand than machine in it, but also because it is a prime example of how to succeed in mixing different lettering techniques into one self-contained and distinctly functional alphabet. As in any efficient mixture of lettering methods, Hamlet ended up with characters that are uniquely its own, such as the cupped A, M, V, W and Y, the very luscious and inviting curves on the arms of E, F, L and T, both single- and double-story forms of the a, and the humblest, friendliest g and y ever. A dozen alternate characters are sprinkled throughout the character set, so check out the map for a few pleasant surprises. We also made the Handtooled and Headstone styles because we thought these friendly forms were just crying out for such treatments. The Handtooled version turned out quite lovely, if we may say so ourselves, perhaps even better than the main font. The Headstone version is available as a free bonus to those who purchase the complete Hamlet package. All Hamlet styles come with lining figures as well as old style ones. Hamlet comes in all popular font formats. The OpenType fonts contain push-button swapping alternates and figures, which come in handy in software programs that support this kind of thing.

Arsenica is a serif typeface designed by Francesco Canovaro for Zetafonts, and developed by a design team including Mario De Libero, Andrea Tartarelli and Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini. The design of Arsenica takes its inspiration from Italian poster design at the beginning of the century, a time where typography, lettering and illustration where closely interwoven. Dawning nationalist movements, rather than using the modernist language, pushed on traditional Old Style letterforms often imbued with Art Nouveau and Deco sensibility. Artists like Giorgio Muggiani not only illustrated posters for Cinzano, Pirelli and Rinascente, but also provided logo design for newspapers, like "Il Popolo d'Italia". Starting from this mix of eclectic influences, Canovaro first developed the Arsenica Antiqua family, designed as display typeface that keeps the original Old Style low-contrast, wide proportions and quirky stylistic inventions. These where then distilled in a high contrast, Arsenica Display family, expanding the weight range to include both poster, ultra-bold weights and lighter weights that give the design a distinct calligraphic flavour. Bringing the letterforms into contemporary taste meant also developing alternate letterforms that were included in the Arsenica Alternate family, that drops the art nouveau details in favour of a more controlled modern serif aesthetic. Finally, Arsenica Text was developed by expanding the design space in the optical size axis, creating a low contrast, strongly readable old style typeface family, with a reduced weight set, oriented for long body copy typesetting. The final result is a superfamily of 41 weights, covering the design space with an expanded charset of over 900 glyphs, with full coverage of over 200 languages using latin and Cyrillic alphabets. All the weights of Arsenica come with a full set of open type features allowing to explore its vintage-inspired visual inventions thanks to stylistic sets, discretionary ligatures, contextual alternates and positional numbers. Two variable typefaces are included in the full family, allowing you to explore the design space and precisely control not only the weight but also the optical size design variations. • Suggested uses: perfect for elegant modern branding and logo design, fascinating editorial design, expressive packaging and countless other projects. • 43 styles: 7 weights + 7 italics, 4 different styles + 2 variable fonts. • 942 glyphs in each weight. • Useful OpenType features: Access All Alternates, Contextual Alternates, Case-Sensitive Forms, Glyph Composition / Decomposition, Discretionary Ligatures, Kerning, Lining Figures, Localized Forms, Mark Positioning, Mark to Mark Positioning, Oldstyle Figures, Ordinals, Stylistic Alternates, Stylistic Set 1, Stylistic Set 2, Stylistic Set 3, Stylistic Set 4, Stylistic Set 5, Stylistic Set 6, Stylistic Set 7, Stylistic Set 8, Stylistic Set 9, Slashed Zero. • 216 languages supported (extended Latin and Cyrillic alphabets): English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Javanese (Latin), Turkish, Italian, Polish, Afaan Oromo, Azeri, Tagalog, Sundanese (Latin), Filipino, Moldovan, Romanian, Indonesian, Dutch, Cebuano, Igbo, Malay, Uzbek (Latin), Kurdish (Latin), Swahili, Hungarian, Czech, Haitian Creole, Hiligaynon, Afrikaans, Somali, Zulu, Serbian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Shona, Quechua, Albanian, Catalan, Chichewa, Ilocano, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Neapolitan, Xhosa, Tshiluba, Slovak, Danish, Gikuyu, Finnish, Norwegian, Sicilian, Sotho (Southern), Kirundi, Tswana, Sotho (Northern), Belarusian (Latin), Turkmen (Latin), Bemba, Lombard, Lithuanian, Tsonga, Wolof, Jamaican, Dholuo, Galician, Ganda, Low Saxon, Waray-Waray, Makhuwa, Bikol, Kapampangan (Latin), Aymara, Zarma, Ndebele, Slovenian, Tumbuka, Venetian, Genoese, Piedmontese, Swazi, Zazaki, Latvian, Nahuatl, Silesian, Bashkir (Latin), Sardinian, Estonian, Afar, Cape Verdean Creole, Maasai, Occitan, Tetum, Oshiwambo, Basque, Welsh, Chavacano, Dawan, Montenegrin, Walloon, Asturian, Kaqchikel, Ossetian (Latin), Zapotec, Frisian, Guadeloupean Creole, Q’eqchi’, Karakalpak (Latin), Crimean Tatar (Latin), Sango, Luxembourgish, Samoan, Maltese, Tzotzil, Fijian, Friulian, Icelandic, Sranan, Wayuu, Papiamento, Aromanian, Corsican, Breton, Amis, Gagauz (Latin), Māori, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Alsatian, Atayal, Kiribati, Seychellois Creole, Võro, Tahitian, Scottish Gaelic, Chamorro, Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), Kashubian, Faroese, Rarotongan, Sorbian (Upper Sorbian), Karelian (Latin), Romansh, Chickasaw, Arvanitic (Latin), Nagamese Creole, Saramaccan, Ladin, Palauan, Sami (Northern Sami), Sorbian (Lower Sorbian), Drehu, Wallisian, Aragonese, Mirandese, Tuvaluan, Xavante, Zuni, Montagnais, Hawaiian, Marquesan, Niuean, Yapese, Vepsian, Bislama, Hopi, Megleno-Romanian, Creek, Aranese, Rotokas, Tokelauan, Mohawk, Onĕipŏt, Warlpiri, Cimbrian, Sami (Lule Sami), Jèrriais, Arrernte, Murrinh-Patha, Kala Lagaw Ya, Cofán, Gwich’in, Seri, Sami (Southern Sami), Istro-Romanian, Wik-Mungkan, Anuta, Cornish, Sami (Inari Sami), Yindjibarndi, Noongar, Hotcąk (Latin), Meriam Mir, Manx, Shawnee, Gooniyandi, Ido, Wiradjuri, Hän, Ngiyambaa, Delaware, Potawatomi, Abenaki, Esperanto, Folkspraak, Interglossa, Interlingua, Latin, Latino sine Flexione, Lojban, Novial, Occidental, Old Icelandic, Old Norse, Slovio (Latin), Volapük.

Typographer and graphic designer Pavel Teimer (1935-1970) designed a modern serif roman with italics in 1967. For the drawing of Teimer he found inspiration in the types of Walbaum and Didot, rather than Bodoni. He re-evaluated these archetypes in an individual way, adjusting both height and width proportions and modifying details in the strokes, thus effectively breaking away from the historical models he used as a starting point. Teimer's antiqua has less contrast; the overall construction of the characters is softer and more lively. The proportions of the italics are rather wide, making them stand out by their calm and measured rhythm. This was defined by the purpose of the typeface, as it was to be utilised for two-character matrices. The long serifs are a typical feature noticeable throughout the complete family of fonts. In 1967, a full set of basic glyphs, numerals and diacritics of Teimer's antiqua was submitted to the Czechoslovak Grafotechna type foundry. However, the face was never cast. At the beginning of 2005 we decided to rehabilitate this hidden gem of Czech typography. We used the booklet "Teimer's antiqua - a design of modern type roman and italics", written by Jan Solpera and Kl‡ra Kv’zov‡ in 1992, as a template for digitisation. The specimen contains an elementary set of roman and italics, including numerals and ampersands. After studying the specimen, we decided to make certain adjustments to the construction of the character shapes. We slightly corrected the proportions of the typeface, cut and broadened the serifs, and slightly strengthened the hair strokes. In the upper case we made some significant changes in the end serifs of round strokes in C, G and S, and the J was redrawn from the scratch. The top diagonal arm of the K was made to connect with the vertical stem, while the tail of Q has received a more expressive tail. The stronger hairlines are yet more apparent in the lower case, which is why we needed to further intervene in the construction of the actual character shapes. The drawing of the f is new, with more tension at the top of the character, and the overall shape of the g is better balanced. We also added an ear to the j, and curves in the r have become more fluent. To emphasise the compact character of the family, the lining numerals were thoroughly redrawn, with the finials being replaced by vertical serifs. The original character of the numerals was preserved in the new set of old-style figures. To make the uppercase italics as compact as possible, they were based on the roman cut rather than on the original design. The slope of lowercase italics needed to be harmonised. The actual letter forms are still broader than the characters in the original design, and the changes in construction are more noticeable. The lower case b gained a bottom serif, the f has a more traditional shape as it is no longer constricted by the demands of two-matrice casting, the g was redrawn and is a single storey design now. The serifs on one side of the descenders of the p and q were removed, the r is broader and more open. The construction of s, v, w, x, y, and z is now more compact and better balanced. Because Teimer was designed to make optimal use of the OpenType format, it was deemed necessary to add a significant amount of new glyphs. The present character set of one font comprisess over 780 glyphs, including accented characters for typesetting of common Latin script languages, small caps and a set of ligatures, tabular, proportional, old style and lining, superscript and fraction numerals. It also contains a number of special characters, such as arrows, circles, squares, boxed numerals, and ornaments. Because of its fine and light construction, the original digitised design remained the lightest of the family. Several heavier weights were added, with the family now comprising Light, Light Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Semibold, Semibold Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic.

Originally designed in 1996, Mrs Eaves was Zuzana Licko’s first attempt at the design of a traditional typeface. It was styled after Baskerville, the famous transitional serif typeface designed in 1757 by John Baskerville in Birmingham, England. Mrs Eaves was named after Baskerville’s live in housekeeper, Sarah Eaves, whom he later married. One of Baskerville’s intents was to develop typefaces that pushed the contrast between thick and thin strokes, partially to show off the new printing and paper making techniques of his time. As a result his types were often criticized for being too perfect, stark, and difficult to read. Licko noticed that subsequent interpretations and revivals of Baskerville had continued along the same path of perfection, using as a model the qualities of the lead type itself, not the printed specimens. Upon studying books printed by Baskerville at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, Licko decided to base her design on the printed samples which were heavier and had more character due to the imprint of lead type into paper and the resulting ink spread. She reduced the contrast while retaining the overall openness and lightness of Baskerville by giving the lower case characters a wider proportion. She then reduced the x-height relative to the cap height to avoid increasing the set width. There is something unique about Mrs Eaves and it’s difficult to define. Its individual characters are at times awkward looking—the W being narrow, the L uncommonly wide, the flare of the strokes leading into the serifs unusually pronounced. Taken individually, at first sight some of the characters don’t seem to fit together. The spacing is generally too loose for large bodies of text, it sort of rambles along. Yet when used in the right circumstance it imparts a very particular feel that sets it clearly apart from many likeminded types. It has an undefined quality that resonates with people. This paradox (imperfect yet pleasing) is perhaps best illustrated by design critic and historian Robin Kinross who has pointed out the limitation of the “loose” spacing that Licko employed, among other things, yet simultaneously designated the Mrs Eaves type specimen with an honorable mention in the 1999 American Center for Design competition. Proof, perhaps, that type is best judged in the context of its usage. Even with all its shortcomings, Mrs Eaves has outsold all Emigre fonts by twofold. On MyFonts, one of the largest on-line type sellers, Mrs Eaves has been among the 20 best selling types for years, listed among such classics as Helvetica, Univers, Bodoni and Franklin Gothic. Due to its commercial and popular success it has come to define the Emigre type foundry. While Licko initially set out to design a traditional text face, we never specified how Mrs Eaves could be best used. Typefaces will find their own way. But if there’s one particular common usage that stands out, it must be literary—Mrs Eaves loves to adorn book covers and relishes short blurbs on the flaps and backs of dust covers. Trips to bookstores are always a treat for us as we find our Mrs Eaves staring out at us from dozens of book covers in the most elegant compositions, each time surprising us with her many talents. And Mrs Eaves feels just as comfortable in a wide variety of other locales such as CD covers (Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief being our favorite), restaurant menus, logos, and poetry books, where it gives elegant presence to short texts. One area where Mrs Eaves seems less comfortable is in the setting of long texts, particularly in environments such as the interiors of books, magazines, and newspapers. It seems to handle long texts well only if there is ample space. A good example is the book /CD/DVD release The Band: A Musical History published by Capitol Records. Here, Mrs Eaves was given appropriate set width and generous line spacing. In such cases its wide proportions provide a luxurious feel which invites reading. Economy of space was not one of the goals behind the original Mrs Eaves design. With the introduction of Mrs Eaves XL, Licko addresses this issue. Since Mrs Eaves is one of our most popular typefaces, it’s not surprising that over the years we've received many suggestions for additions to the family. The predominant top three wishes are: greater space economy; the addition of a bold italic style; and the desire to pair it with a sans design. The XL series answers these requests with a comprehensive set of new fonts including a narrow, and a companion series of Mrs Eaves Sans styles to be released soon. The main distinguishing features of Mrs Eaves XL are its larger x-height with shorter ascenders and descenders and overall tighter spacing. These additional fonts expand the Mrs Eaves family for a larger variety of uses, specifically those requiring space economy. The larger x-height also allows a smaller point size to be used while maintaining readability. Mrs Eaves XL also has a narrow counterpart to the regular, with a set width of about 92 percent which fulfills even more compact uses. At first, this may not seem particularly narrow, but the goal was to provide an alternative to the regular that would work well as a compact text face while maintaining the full characteristics of the regular, rather than an extreme narrow which would be more suitable for headline use. Four years in the making, we're excited to finally let Mrs Eaves XL find its way into the world and see where and how it will pop up next.

The Thief Bird is an informal grotesque font. Although informal and grotesque may seem to be two quite different ideas, we have to dig into the origin of this typeface in order to understand the matter. The concept behind The Thief Bird was inspired by the adaptation that the vintage sign painters made when they took the grotesque style characters they saw in newspapers and magazines and reproduced them using a brush, aiming to make the prices of the products displayed on wooden boards stand out, as opposed to highlighting large headlines (such as the idea behind fonts like Franklin Gothic). The Thief Bird takes the language from sign painters and turns it into a font --this time around not aiming to set prices but to bring children stories to life. Thus, some legibility features from grotesque fonts were mixed with the brush calligraphy to add grace and zest to a font intended for children. The Thief Bird is a playful display font, with cheerful ligatures and alternate characters. It is really attractive for setting short paragraphs that tell stories for little people. The Thief Bird has one single weight and it’s ideal to be used in storybooks, candy packaging, films, toys, logos, labels, etc. The font has an extended set of 643 characters supporting 219 Latin languages. It has a complete set of small caps, sensitive cases, more than 30 pairs of ligatures, alternate characters and much more. This cool, informal and laid back typeface will be the perfect match for illustrations of fairy tales, comics for children and any product or publishing for the little ones. The Thief Bird supports this languages: Abenaki, Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Amis, Anuta, Aragonese, Aranese, Aromanian, Arrernte, Arvanitic (Latin), Asturian, Atayal, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Bemba, Bikol, Bislama, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Chickasaw, Cimbrian, Cofán, Corsican Creek,Crimean Tatar (Latin),Croatian, Czech, Dawan, Delaware, Dholuo, Drehu, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian Filipino, Finnish, Folkspraak, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Gikuyu, Gooniyandi, Greenlandic (Kalaallisut)Guadeloupean, Creole, Gwich’in, Haitian, Creole, Hän, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hopi, Hotcąk (Latin), Hungarian, Icelandic, Ido, IgboI, locano, Indonesian, Interglossa, Interlingua, Irish, Istro-Romanian, Italian, Jamaican, Javanese (Latin), Jèrriais, Kala Lagaw Ya, Kapampangan (Latin), Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Karelian (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kiribati, Kirundi, Klingon, Ladin, Latin, Latino sine Flexione, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lojban, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Manx, Māori, Marquesan, Megleno-Romanian, Meriam Mir, Mirandese, Mohawk, Moldovan, Montagnais, Montenegrin, Murrinh-Patha, Nagamese Creole, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Ngiyambaa, Niuean, Noongar, Norwegian, Novial, Occidental, Occitan, Old Icelandic, Old Norse, Oshiwambo, Ossetian (Latin), Palauan, Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Potawatomi, Q’eqchi’, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Rotokas, Sami (Inari Sami), Sami (Lule Sami), Sami (Northern Sami), Sami (Southern Sami), Samoan, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Seri, Seychellois Creole, Shawnee, Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Slovio (Latin), Somali, Sorbian (Lower Sorbian), Sorbian (Upper Sorbian), Sotho (Northern), Sotho (Southern), Spanish, Sranan, Sundanese (Latin), Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tokelauan, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Tzotzil, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Wallisian, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Warlpiri, Wayuu, Welsh, Wik-Mungkan, Wiradjuri, Wolof, Xavante, Xhosa, Yapese, Yindjibarndi, Zapotec, Zulu, Zuni.

Patrick Griffin's sister is a really annoying individual sometimes. Not only is she into theater, but she thinks everyone else in the universe is into it as well. So once in a while tickets to local or provincial Shakespearean plays get delivered to the mailbox or dropped off on the living room's table. And once in a while the tickets just cannot be "lost" or ignored. Three or four times a year, Patrick must be subjected to Olde Englishe Speake, umbrella dresses and squeezetops, featherhats and men in leggings, rhyme and treason, mortality and immorality, drama inflicted by some mama, and it never ends. Last June it was Hamlet. Again. Someone's (wink wink) idea of a good time. There he goes, the Prince of Denmark, holding that skull with the tips of his fingers like it's an alien egg. Alas, poor Yorick! Yadda yadda boop-bop-a-loo-bop. And so the idea of a font made of skulls was born. And what can we possibly be but conduits for such abhorring ideas? Where be our gibes, our songs, our flashes of merriment? Skullbats has more skulls than you'll ever see in your lifetime. At least we hope so. Scary skulls, funny skulls, evil skulls, strange skulls, pixel skulls, fiery skulls, surprised skulls, happy skulls, sad skulls, cow skulls, sketched skulls, profiled skulls, light bulb skulls, cartoon skulls, techno skulls, alien skulls, expressionist skulls, pirate skulls, horned skulls, and skulls with whacky headgear. You name it, it's there. There's even a disco skull there for you. We lost count at 90 skulls, but there's a few more in there. For a complete showing of the skulls in the font, consult the image in the MyFonts gallery. Patrick's sister didn't turn out to be so bad after all. After making this font, he couldn't help but notice that her skull was a bit small compared to his. So now he takes every opportunity to remind her that the size of the cranium is relative to what it houses. Her upcoming halloween present will be a shirt with guess-what on it. Shirts, now there's putting Skullbats to good use!