Over the past few years, every designer has seen the surprising outbreak of blackletter types in marketing campaigns for major sports clothing manufacturers, a few phone companies, soft drink makers, and more recently on entertainment and music products. In such campaigns, blackletter type combined with photos of usual daily activity simply adds a level of strength and mystique to things we see and do on a regular basis. But we couldn't help noticing that the typography was very odd in such campaigns, where the type overpowers all the other design elements. This is because almost all blackletter fonts ever made express too much strength and time-stamp themselves in a definite manner, thereby eliminating themselves as possible type choices for a variety of common contemporary design approaches, such as minimal, geometric, modular, etc. So extending the idea of using blackletter in modern design was a bit of a wild goose chase for us. But we finally found the face that completes the equation no other blackletter could fit into: Leather is a digitization and major expansion of Imre Reiner's forgotten but excellent 1933 Gotika design, which was very much ahead of its time. In its own time this design saw very little use because it caused problems to printers, where the thin serifs and inner bars were too fragile and broke off too easily when used in metal. But now, more than seventy years later, it seems like it was made for current technologies, and it is nothing short of being the perfect candidate for using blackletter in grid-based settings. Leather has three features usually not found in other blackletter fonts: - Grid-based geometric strokes and curves: In the early 1930s, blackletter design had already begun interacting back with the modern sans serif it birthed at the turn of the century. This design is one of the very few manifestations of such interaction. - Fragile, Boboni-like serifs, sprout from mostly expected places in the minuscules, but are sprinkled very aesthetically on some of the majuscules. The overall result is magnificently modern. - The usual complexity of blackletter uppercase's inner bars is rendered simple, geometric and very visually appealing. The contrast between the inner bars and thick outer strokes creates a surprising circuitry-like effect on some of the letters (D, O, Q), wonderfully plays with the idea of fragile balances on some others (M, N and P), and boldly introduces new concepts on others (B, F, K, L, R). Our research seems to suggest that the original numerals used with this design in the 1930s were adopted from a previous Imre Reiner typeface. They didn't really fit with the idea of this font, so we created brand new numerals for Leather. We also expanded the character set to cover all Western Latin-based languages, and scattered plenty of alternates and ligatures throughout the map. The name, Leather, was derived from a humorous attempt at naming a font. Initially we wanted to call it Black Leather (blackletter...blackleather), but the closer we came to finishing it, the more respect we developed for its attempt to introduce a plausible convergence between two entirely different type categories. Sadly for the art, this idea of convergence didn't go much further back then, due to technological limitations and the eventual war a few years later. We're hoping this revival would encourage people to look at blackletter under a new light in these modern times of multiple design influences.

Introducing Type Prodigy, a timeless serif logo font that combines classic elegance with modern versatility. This font is a designer's dream, boasting over 310 crafted ligatures and alternate glyphs that add flair and sophistication to any project. With support for 87 languages, Type Prodigy is truly a global font that caters to diverse design needs. Type Prodigy is a font that exudes professionalism, making it perfect for creating logos, branding, editorial designs, and more. Its refined serifs and clean lines convey a sense of authority, while its generous ligatures and alternate glyphs allow for creative customization, making each design truly unique. Whether you're designing for a luxury brand, a boutique business, or a creative agency, Type Prodigy delivers exceptional results. Its extensive character set and language support make it ideal for international clients, enabling you to communicate effectively in multiple languages and markets. With Type Prodigy, you'll have access to a versatile font that combines classic beauty with modern functionality. Its exquisite design and extensive features make it a profitable choice for professional designers who demand the best. Unlock your creative potential with Type Prodigy, and elevate your designs to new heights of excellence. Language Support : Afrikaans, Albanian, Asu, Basque, Bemba, Bena, Breton, Chiga, Colognian, Cornish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Embu, English, Estonian, Faroese, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Galician, Ganda, German, Gusi,i Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jola-Fonyi, Kabuverdianu, Kalenjin, Kamba, Kikuyu, Kinyarwanda, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lower Sorbian, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malagasy, Maltese, Manx, Meru, Morisyen, North Ndebele, Norwegian, Bokmål, Norwegian, Nynorsk, Nyankole, Oromo, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Romanian, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Rwa, Samburu, Sango, Sangu, Scottish, Gaelic, Sena, Shambala, Shona, Slovak, Soga, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Swiss, German, Taita, Teso, Turkish, Upper, Sorbian, Uzbek (Latin), Volapük, Vunjo, Walser, Welsh, Western Frisian, Zulu Ligatures : AB,AC,AD,AE,AF,AG,AH,AI,AK,AM,AN,AO,AP,AR,AS,AT,AU,AV,AW,AY,AZ,BA,BE,BF,BG,BH,BM,BO,BU,CA,CB,CC,CE,CF,CG,CH,CI,CK,CL,CO,CQ,CR,CT,CU,DA,DE,DG,DI,DK,DM,DN,DO,DR,DU,EA,EB,ED,EE,EF,EG,EH,EI,EK,EL,EM,EN,EP,ER,ES,ET,EU,EV,EW,EX,EY,FA,FE,FF,FG,FI,FL,FO,FP,FR,FS,FT,FU,FY,GA,GE,GH,GL,GR,HA,HB,HD,HE,HF,HI,HK,HL,HO,HT,IB,IC,ID,IE,IF,IG,IK,IL,IM,IN,IO,IR,IS,IT,IU,KA,KC,KE,KF,KG,KI,KO,KP,KQ,KR,KS,LA,LC,LD,LE,LF,LI,LK,LL,LM,LN,LO,LP,LT,LU,MA,MB,ME,MF,ML,MM,MO,MP,MS,MU,NA,NB,NC,ND,NE,NF,NG,NH,NI,NK,NL,NM,NN,NO,NQ,NT,NU,OA,OB,OC,OD,OE,OF,OG,OH,OI,OK,OL,OM,ON,OO,OP,OR,OT,OU,OV,OW,OX,OY,PA,PC,PE,PF,PG,PM,PN,PO,QA,QE,QU,RA,RB,RC,RD,RE,RF,RG,RH,RI,RK,RL,RM,RN,RO,RP,RR,RS,RT,RU,RY,SA,SD,SG,SS,ST,SU,TC,TD,TE,TF,TH,TI,TK,TL,TM,TN,TO,TP,TR,TT,TU,TW,TY,UH,UK,UL,UM,UN,UO,VA,VE,WA,WD,WE,WF,WO,XA,XC,XE,XT,YE,YO,YT,ZE,MEN,WER,FRO,RON,ROM,THE,AND,ING,HER,HAT,HIS,THA,ERE,FOR,ENT,ION,TER,WAS,YOU,ITH,VER,ALL,THI,TIO,OUL,ULD,IGH,GHT,AVE,HAV,ICH,HIC,HIS,HIN,HEY,ATI,EVE,HING,WERE,FROM,THAT,THER,TION,HERE,OULD,IGHT,HAVE,HICH,THIS,THIN,THEY,ATIO,EVER,MENT How to access alternate glyphs? To access alternate glyphs in Adobe InDesign or Illustrator, choose Window Type & Tables Glyphs In Photoshop, choose Window Glyphs. In the panel that opens, click the Show menu and choose Alternates for Selection. Double-click an alternate's thumbnail to swap them out. Mock ups and backgrounds used are not included. Thank you! Enjoy!

Presentation QuarterBraille (Abbreviated as "QB" thereafter) is a decorative, steganographic and lattice font. Its core design concept is that Braille dots are represented as "quarters of a square"[1]. This is illustrated by posters 1 and 2 (NB: these glyph parts will be called "QB dots" thereafter). The other glyph parts (see poster 3) are purely decorative and meaningless in terms of Braille dots encoding[2]. All glyph parts are meant to generate a wide variety of patterns from horizontal and vertical combinations of glyphs. There is also a graphic convention to differentiate uppercase from lowercase letters with the presence or absence of shape subparts (in the "endings", "quarter of a circle with a ring" and "quarter of a diamond with a small square in the middle") like shown by poster 4. This font is suitable for very short texts (e.g. logos, acronyms, quotes, ambigrams, pangrams, palindromes, etc...) but on the other hand it may be used for steganographic purpose like geocaching as well as fictive alphabets (e.g. Alien/SciFi/Fantasy/Antique civilizations). Posters 1. Font Logo: the displayed text is " Quarter " followed by " Braille". There's a rainbow layer above the text to highlight the "QB dots", this is achieved by A..Z glyphs with "only QB dots" (codes 230..255) 2. Anatomy of a Glyph (L) and "QB Dots" (quarters of a square) 3. Glyphs Parts: Square and Cross (Inverted square), Circle and Inverted Circle (with or without the small circle in the middle), Diamond (with or without the small square in the middle), Inverted Square and Circle, Shape combos, Ending 4. Uppercase vs Lowercase (tiny shape subparts are shown in red) 5. Sample 1: Bathroom sink with QB tiles on the credence 6. Sample 2: Hands knuckle tatoos: "LOVE/HATE"[4] 7. Sample 3: Poker Hand: pocket Aces. It's an Ace of Hearts (Ah) on the left and an Ace of Spades (As) on the right. Like in regular cards, the card value (e.g. Ah) is displayed twice: at the top and rotated by 180 degrees at the bottom. This poster also illustrates that QB could be used to print embossed playing cards with tactile and visual display of card values. 8. Sample 4: Pangram: "Adept quick jog over frozen blue whisky mix" 9. Sample 5: Latin Magic Square: "SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS" (NB: for compensation of the 2/3 glyph ratio, letters on each line are separated by a space: "S A T O R", ...). 10. Sample 6: Quote of Mahatma Gandhi: "Learn as if you will live forever, live like you will die tomorrow.". This is also a demonstration of border glyphs combinations. 11. Sample 7: Steganography use case: the text is a sequence of 64 aminoacids (1 Letter notation), this protein was described in a research paper "The complete Aminoacid sequence of an amyloid fibril protein AA of unusual size (64 residues) 1975". 12. Sample 8: Border Glyphs with the provided styles and mixed styles. The words are the same than in poster 9 ("SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS"). Despite the 2/3 glyph ratio, the "TENET cross" was achieved by both inserting spaces in horizontally ("T ENE T") and by using the "thin borders glyphs". Notes a. Border glyphs[3] are meant to enhance the esthetics of text samples displayed with QB b. Special characters (e.g. *$()[].,;:&@# ...) are provided and follow the NABCC (North American Braille Computer Code) convention. c. A..Z Glyphs with only the "QB dots" are provided as demonstrated by posters 1 and 2 (A/N: this was very useful to create them). d. Glyph Map: 32..64: Special characters - 161..187: "Thin variant" of Border glyphs, 192..229: Border glyphs, 230..255: A..Z with only the "QB dots" - Codes 176 an 181 are "regular SPACE" (empty glyph). Footnotes 1. There is indeed two shapes which represent the braille dot: the "quarter of a square" and the "quarter of a cross". It's because a cross may be considered as an "inverted square" because the square corners are merged in the center. 2. That's why the SPACE glyph is only made of decorative/meaningless glyph parts (i.e. no "QB dots"). 3. For other fonts with border glyphs, please take a look at my other "decorative Braille fonts" (GoBraille, HexBraille, KernigBraille, StackBraille, MaBraille, DiamondBraille, LorraineBraille). 4. LOVE/HATE knuckle tatoos are inspired by the anthology scene from "The Night of the Hunter" movie (Charles Laughton 1955), it also appearead in "Do The Right Thing" movie (Spike Lee 1989). Disclaimer This font is not appropriate and not meant to print text documents in Braille for the blind readers audience.

Rian Hughes’ 15th collection of fonts, “112 Hours”, is entirely dedicated to numbers. Culled from a myriad of sources – clock faces, tickets, watches house numbers – it is an eclectic and wide-ranging set. Each font contains only numerals and related punctuation – no letters. A new book has been designed by Hughes to show the collection, and includes sample settings, complete character sets, source material and an introduction. This is available print-to-order on Blurb in paperback and hardback: http://www.blurb.com/b/5539073-112-hours-hardback http://www.blurb.com/b/5539045-112-hours-paperback From the introduction: The idea for this, the fifteenth Device Fonts collection, began when I came across an online auction site dedicated to antique clocks. I was mesmerized by the inventive and bizarre numerals on their faces. Shorn of the need to extend the internal logic of a typeface through the entire alphabet, the designers of these treasures were free to explore interesting forms and shapes that would otherwise be denied them. Given this horological starting point, I decided to produce 12 fonts, each featuring just the numbers from 1 to 12 and, where appropriate, a small set of supporting characters — in most cases, the international currency symbols, a colon, full stop, hyphen, slash and the number sign. 10, 11 and 12 I opted to place in the capital A, B and C slots. Each font is shown in its entirety here. I soon passed 12, so the next logical finish line was 24. Like a typographic Jack Bauer, I soon passed that too -— the more I researched, the more I came across interesting and unique examples that insisted on digitization, or that inspired me to explore some new design direction. The sources broadened to include tickets, numbering machines, ecclesiastical brass plates and more. Though not derived from clock faces, I opted to keep the 1-12 conceit for consistency, which allowed me to design what are effectively numerical ligatures. I finally concluded one hundred fonts over my original estimate at 112. Even though it’s not strictly divisible by 12, the number has a certain symmetry, I reasoned, and was as good a place as any to round off the project. An overview reveals a broad range that nonetheless fall into several loose categories. There are fairly faithful revivals, only diverging from their source material to even out inconsistencies and regularize weighting or shape to make them more functional in a modern context; designs taken directly from the source material, preserving all the inky grit and character of the original; designs that are loosely based on a couple of numbers from the source material but diverge dramatically for reasons of improved aesthetics or mere whim; and entirely new designs with no historical precedent. As projects like this evolve (and, to be frank, get out of hand), they can take you in directions and to places you didn’t envisage when you first set out. Along the way, I corresponded with experts in railway livery, and now know about the history of cab side and smokebox plates; I travelled to the Musée de l’imprimerie in Nantes, France, to examine their numbering machines; I photographed house numbers in Paris, Florence, Venice, Amsterdam and here in the UK; I delved into my collection of tickets, passes and printed ephemera; I visited the Science Museum in London, the Royal Signals Museum in Dorset, and the Museum of London to source early adding machines, war-time telegraphs and post-war ration books. I photographed watches at Worthing Museum, weighing scales large enough to stand on in a Brick Lane pub, and digital station clocks at Baker Street tube station. I went to the London Under-ground archive at Acton Depot, where you can see all manner of vintage enamel signs and woodblock type; I photographed grocer’s stalls in East End street markets; I dug out old clocks I recalled from childhood at my parents’ place, examined old manual typewriters and cash tills, and crouched down with a torch to look at my electricity meter. I found out that Jane Fonda kicked a policeman, and unusually for someone with a lifelong aversion to sport, picked up some horse-racing jargon. I share some of that research here. In many cases I have not been slavish about staying close to the source material if I didn’t think it warranted it, so a close comparison will reveal differences. These changes could be made for aesthetic reasons, functional reasons (the originals didn’t need to be set in any combination, for example), or just reasons of personal taste. Where reference for the additional characters were not available — which was always the case with fonts derived from clock faces — I have endeavored to design them in a sympathetic style. I may even extend some of these to the full alphabet in the future. If I do, these number-only fonts could be considered as experimental design exercises: forays into form to probe interesting new graphic possibilities.

The famous roman type cut in Venice by Nicolas Jenson, and used in 1470 for his printing of the tract, De Evangelica Praeparatione, Eusebius, has usually been declared the seminal and definitive representative of a class of types known as Venetian Old Style. The Jenson type is thought to have been the primary model for types that immediately followed. Subsequent 15th-century Venetian Old Style types, cut by other punchcutters in Venice and elsewhere in Italy, are also worthy of study, but have been largely neglected by 20th-century type designers. There were many versions of Venetian Old Style types produced in the final quarter of the quattrocento. The exact number is unknown, but numerous printed examples survive, though the actual types, matrices, and punches are long gone. All these types are not, however, conspicuously Jensonian in character. Each shows a liberal amount of individuality, inconsistency, and eccentricity. My fascination with these historical types began in the 1970s and eventually led to the production of my first text typeface, Iowan Old Style (Bitstream, 1991). Sometime in the early 1990s, I started doodling letters for another Venetian typeface. The letters were pieced together from sections of circles and squares. The n, a standard lowercase control character in a text typeface, came first. Its most unusual feature was its head serif, a bisected quadrant of a circle. My aim was to see if its sharp beak would work with blunt, rectangular, foot serifs. Next, I wanted to see if I could construct a set of capital letters by following a similar design system. Rectangular serifs, or what we today call "slab serifs," were common in early roman printing types, particularly text types cut in Italy before 1500. Slab serifs are evident on both lowercase and uppercase characters in roman types of the Incunabula period, but they are seen mainly at the feet of the lowercase letters. The head serifs on lowercase letters of early roman types were usually angled. They were not arched, like mine. Oddly, there seems to be no actual historical precedent for my approach. Another characteristic of my arched serif is that the side opposite the arch is flat, not concave. Arched, concave serifs were used extensively in early italic types, a genre which first appeared more than a quarter century after roman types. Their forms followed humanistic cursive writing, common in Italy since before movable type was used there. Initially, italic characters were all lowercase, set with upright capitals (a practice I much admire and would like to see revived). Sloped italic capitals were not introduced until the middle of the sixteenth century, and they have very little to do with the evolution of humanist scripts. In contrast to the cursive writing on which italic types were based, formal book hands used by humanist scholars to transcribe classical texts served as a source of inspiration for the lowercase letters of the first roman types cut in Italy. While book hands were not as informal as cursive scripts, they still had features which could be said to be more calligraphic than geometric in detail. Over time, though, the copied vestiges of calligraphy virtually disappeared from roman fonts, and type became more rational. This profound change in the way type developed was also due in part to popular interest in the classical inscriptions of Roman antiquity. Imperial Roman letters, or majuscules, became models for the capital letters in nearly all early roman printing types. So it was, that the first letters in my typeface arose from pondering how shapes of lowercase letters and capital letters relate to one another in terms of classical ideals and geometric proportions, two pinnacles in a range of artistic notions which emerged during the Italian Renaissance. Indeed, such ideas are interesting to explore, but in the field of type design they often lead to dead ends. It is generally acknowledged, for instance, that pure geometry, as a strict approach to type design, has limitations. No roman alphabet, based solely on the circle and square, has ever been ideal for continuous reading. This much, I knew from the start. In the course of developing my typeface for text, innumerable compromises were made. Even though the finished letterforms retain a measure of geometric structure, they were modified again and again to improve their performance en masse. Each modification caused further deviation from my original scheme, and gave every font a slightly different direction. In the lower case letters especially, I made countless variations, and diverged significantly from my original plan. For example, not all the arcs remained radial, and they were designed to vary from font to font. Such variety added to the individuality of each style. The counters of many letters are described by intersecting arcs or angled facets, and the bowls are not round. In the capitals, angular bracketing was used practically everywhere stems and serifs meet, accentuating the terseness of the characters. As a result of all my tinkering, the entire family took on a kind of rich, familiar, coarseness - akin to roman types of the late 1400s. In his book, Printing Types D. B. Updike wrote: "Almost all Italian roman fonts in the last half of the fifteenth century had an air of "security" and generous ease extremely agreeable to the eye. Indeed, there is nothing better than fine Italian roman type in the whole history of typography." It does seem a shame that only in the 20th century have revivals of these beautiful types found acceptance in the English language. For four centuries (circa 1500 - circa 1900) Venetian Old Style faces were definitely not in favor in any living language. Recently, though, reinterpretations of early Italian printing types have been returning with a vengeance. The name Vendetta, which as an Italian sound I like, struck me as being a word that could be taken to signifiy a comeback of types designed in the Venetian style. In closing, I should add that a large measure of Vendetta's overall character comes from a synthesis of ideas, old and new. Hallmarks of roman type design from the Incunabula period are blended with contemporary concerns for the optimal display of letterforms on computer screens. Vendetta is thus not a historical revival. It is instead an indirect but personal digital homage to the roman types of punchcutters whose work was influenced by the example Jenson set in 1470. John Downer.