After doing this for so many years, one would think my fascination with the old history of writing would have mellowed out by now. The truth is that alongside being a calligraphy history buff, I'm a pop technology freak. Maybe even keener on the tech thing, since I just can't seem to get enough new gadgets. And after working with type technologies for so many years, I'm starting to think that writing and design technologies as we now know them, being about 2.5 post-computer generations, keep becoming more and more detached from what the very old humanity arts/tasks they essentially want to facilitate. In a world where command-z is a frequently used key combination, it’s difficult to justify expecting a Morris-made book or a Zaner-drawn sentence, but accidental artistic “mutations” become welcome, marketable features. When fluid pens were introduced, their liquid saturation influenced type design to a great extent almost overnight an influence professional designers tend to play down. Now round stroke endings are a common sight, and the saturation is so clean and measured, unlike any liquid-paper relationship possible in reality. Some designers even illustrate their work by overlaying perfect circles at stroke ends, in order to illustrate how “geometric” their work was. Because if it’s measured with precise geometry, it’s got to be meaningful design. And once in a while, by a total freak accident, the now-cherished mutations prove to have existed long before the technology that caused them. Rolling Pen was cued by just such a thing: A rounded, circular, roll-flowing calligraphy from the late nineteenth century seemingly one of those experimental takes on what inspired Business Penmanship, another font of mine. Looking at it now it certainly seems to be friendlier, more legible, and maybe even more practical and easier to execute than the standard business penmanship of those days, but I guess friendliness and simplicity were at odds with the stiff manner business liked to present itself back then, so that kind of thing remained buried in the professional penman’s oddities drawer. It would be quite a few years before all this curviness and rounding were thought of as symbolic of graceful movement, which brought such a flow closer to the idea of fine art. Even though in this case the accidental mutation just happens to not be a mutation after all, the whole technology-transforms-application argument still applies here. I'm almost sure “business” will be the last thing on people’s minds when they use this font today. One extreme example of that level of disconnect between origin and current application is shown here, with the so-called business penmanship strutting around in gloss and neon. Rolling Pen is another cup of mine that runneth over with alternates, swashes, ligatures, and other techy perks. To explore its full potential, please use it in a program that supports OpenType features for advanced typography. Enjoy the new Rolling Pen designed by Ale Paul with Neon’s visual poetry by Tomás García.

New Lincoln Gothic is an elegant sanserif, generous in width and x-height. There are twelve weights ranging from Hairline to UltraBold and an italic for each weight. At the stroke ends are gentle flares, and some of the round characters possess an interesting and distinctive asymmetry. The character set supports Central Europe, and there are three figure sets, extended fractions, superior and inferior numbers, and a few alternates, all accessible via OpenType features. Back in 1965, Thomas Lincoln had an idea for a new sanserif typeface, a homage of sorts, to ancient Roman artisans. The Trajan Column in Rome, erected in 113 AD, has an inscription that is considered to be the basis for western European lettering. Lincoln admired these beautiful letterforms and so, being inspired, he set out to design a new sanserif typeface based on the proportions and subtleties of the letters found in the Trajan Inscription. Lincoln accomplished what he set out to do by creating Lincoln Gothic. The typeface consisted only of capital letters. Lincoln intentionally omitted a lowercase to keep true his reference to the Trajan Inscription, which contains only magiscule specimens. The design won him the first Visual Graphics Corporation (VGC) National Typeface Competition in 1965. The legendary Herb Lubalin even used it to design a promotional poster! All this was back in the day when typositor film strips and photo type were all the rage in setting headlines. Fast forward now to the next millennium. Thomas Lincoln has had a long, illustrious career as a graphic designer. Still, he has one project that feels incomplete; Lincoln Gothic does not have a lowercase. It is the need to finish the design that drives Lincoln to resurrect his prize winning design and create its digital incarnation. Thus, New Lincoln Gothic was born. Lacking the original drawings, Lincoln had to locate some old typositor strips in order to get started. He had them scanned and imported the data into Freehand where he refined the shapes and sketched out a lowercase. He then imported that data into Fontographer, where he worked the glyphs again and refined the spacing, and started generating additional weights and italics. His enthusiasm went unchecked and he created 14 weights! It was about that time that Lincoln contacted Bitstream about publishing the family. Lincoln worked with Bitstream to narrow down the family (only to twelve weights), interpolate the various weights using three masters, and extend the character set to support CE and some alternate figure sets. Bitstream handled the hinting and all production details and built the final CFF OpenType fonts using FontLab Studio 5.

The font Geomatrix is an original design by Alex Kaczun. It is a dynamic stencil interpretation based on his extremely successful Contax Pro family of geometric sans typefaces. Geomatrix is a contemporary stencil typeface based on generous proportions and clean, crisp lines.The stencil treatment is balanced visually with the stem weight of the font which creates a uniformity and harmony within the design. Geomatrix makes for easy reading and is ideal for long lines of copy. It exudes a strong sense of sophistication for a true stencil design. However, this is no ordinary stencil typeface. That's putting it mildly. Geomatrix is a font on STEROIDS! This unique OpenType font incorporates hundreds of CAPITAL alternate letter forms and glyph substitutions, automatically and on the fly, within InDesign and other Open Type applications. To turn this feature on, just typeset ALL CAPS and go into InDesign's OpenType>Stylistic Sets and select Set 1 from the menu. Turn character kerning from Metrics to Optical, adjust tracking to minus 20-30, and start typing to create some visually interesting letter substitutions and unique word combinations. Geomatrix was specifically designed to take advantage of the OpenType format, allowing the Graphic Designer a unique tool to achieve the desired degree of possible visual typographic effects. And finally, the character sets in Geomatrix have been expanded to include old-style figures and all Eastern European accented glyphs. Strap in and hold on to your seats. A revolution in new font technologies has begun! GEOMATRIX IMPORTANT PLEASE READ HOW TO ACCESS "ALTERNATE" STYLISTIC "SET 1" LETTER FORMS: Geomatrix is a unique OpenType font which incorporates hundreds of CAPITAL alternate letter forms and glyph substitutions, automatically and on the fly, within InDesign and other OpenType applications. To turn this feature on, just typeset ALL CAPS and go into InDesign\'d5s OpenType>Stylistic Sets and select "Set 1" from the menu. Turn character kerning from Metrics to Optical, adjust tracking to minus 20-30, and start typing to create some visually interesting letter substitutions and unique word combinations. This feature "stylistic set 1" can be toggled "on" or "off" anytime, allowing you to go back and forth, or select only the letters that you want to change. Geomatrix was specifically designed to take advantage of the OpenType format, allowing the Graphic Designer a unique tool to achieve the desired degree of possible visual typographic effects. And finally, the character sets in Geomatrix have been expanded to include old-style figures and all Eastern European accented glyphs. Strap in and hold on to your seats. A revolution in new font technologies has begun!

The ITC Stone Sans II typeface family is new from the drawing board up. Sumner Stone, who designed the original faces in 1988, recently collaborated with Delve Withrington and Jim Wasco of Monotype Imaging to update the family of faces that bears his name. Sumner was the lead designer and project director for the full-blown reworking – and his own greatest critic. The collaborative design effort began as a relatively simple upgrade to the ITC Stone Sans family. As so often happens, however, the upgrade proved to be not so simple, and grew into a major design undertaking. “My initial intent,” recalls Sumner, “was to provide ITC Stone Sans with even greater versatility. I planned to add an additional weight, maybe two, and to give the family some condensed designs.” As Sumner began to look more closely at his twenty-year-old typeface, he decided that it would benefit from more extensive design improvements. “I found myself making numerous refinements to character shapes and proportions,” says Sumner. “The project scope expanded dramatically, and I’m pleased with the final result. The redesign has improved both the legibility and the overall appearance of the face.” The original ITC Stone Sans is part of the ITC Stone super family, along with ITC Stone Serif and ITC Stone Informal. In 2005 ITC Stone Humanist joined the family. All of these designs have always offered the same three weights: Medium, Semibold, and Bold – each with an italic counterpart. Over time, Stone Sans has emerged as the godfather of the family, a powerful design used for everything from fine books, annual reports and corporate identity programs, to restaurant menus, movie credits and advertising campaigns. ITC Stone Sans, however, lacked one attribute of many sans serif families: a large range of widths and weights. “These fonts had enjoyed great popularity for many years – during which graphic designers repeatedly asked for more weights and condensed designs in the family,” says Sumner. “Their comments were the impetus.” ITC Stone Sans II includes six weights ranging from an elegant Light to a commanding Extra Bold. An italic counterpart and suite of condensed designs complements every weight. In all, the new family encompasses 24 typefaces. The ITC Stone Sans II family is also available as a suite of OpenType Pro fonts, allowing graphic communicators to pair its versatile design with the capabilities of OpenType. These fonts offer automatic insertion of ligatures, small caps and use-sensitive figure designs; their extended character set also supports most Central European and many Eastern European languages. ITC Stone® Sans II font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Introducing Dienstag Variable, the latest addition to insigne's popular Montag family of fonts! With its extended sans-serif style, Dienstag boasts a sleek and sophisticated look that's perfect for a wide range of projects. Whether you're designing a website, creating branding materials, or producing print publications, Dienstag's refined elegance is sure to make a lasting impression. Compared to Montag, Dienstag has a slightly more formal feel, thanks to its lack of rounded terminators. But that doesn't mean it's any less versatile – in fact, Dienstag's four original weights have now been expanded to ten, giving you even more flexibility in your designs. With OpenType features that include simplified versions of many characters, you can easily create unique and eye-catching titles that stand out from the crowd. But Dienstag is just one part of the larger Montag superfamily, which also includes Mittwoch, and Donnerstag. Each font in this collection offers its own unique style and flair, giving you a wealth of options to choose from when it comes to your next project. Whether you're looking for a bold and dynamic font or a more refined and understated style, you're sure to find the perfect fit in the Montag family. So why wait? Check out Dienstag and the rest of the Montag superfamily today, and start creating designs that are sure to captivate and inspire! With its elegant style and versatile functionality, Dienstag is the perfect choice for designers who demand the best.

Albion Signature is a value packed font of exceptional character, with lots of old world charm to make your next project personal and special. Containing over 2,200 glyphs, it’s large enough to handle any demanding project, big or small. It also contains over 400 flourishes in three sections (dingbats, geometric shapes, and misc. geometric shapes) in numerous styles, that can be used in endless combinations. It’s like several fonts in one. Everything you need to do a stellar project is included. A script font that lines up perfectly with a few extra endings and hidden treasures spread throughout. It also contains a complete easy to use PDF index, so you will be able to find exactly the glyph you are looking for fast. This font can only enhance the fonts that you already own, making them more versatile and useful. On its own, it is a very elegant calligraphy script, that will make every project you create look great. The capital letters overlap and intertwine just like in days gone by, for a unique style. Also included are tools that can give you very precise spacing, right inside a word processor. Usage: Photoshop styles, InDesign, personal promotion logos, monograms & signatures.... That’s where it shines, yet it’s still great for art, cards, fancy documents, really fancy labels & even notes to Mom. Imagine, most people used to write letters like these at one time. Now you too can have documents that look like the work of a studied penman.

Vast and untamed, the American West once stretched as free and wild as imagination itself. Still beautiful, the Wild West of long ago and the new West of today is now to be found in insigne’s new face, Plathorn. That’s right, folks. When the West called, Jeremy Dooley reached up like Pecos Bill, grabbed it by the reins and pulled it in, then using its wide, roaming elements to design this functional font that still has an unbroken spirit burning deep inside. This down right, no-nonsense, orthodox face leaves off any of that extra fancy stuff that doesn't belong on a ride. Plathorn comes with a family of cowhands as wide as the Rockies, bringing specifically tailored condensed and extended sub-families along with it too. By design, it’s not very obtrusive like its unorthodox reversed tension brethren. Leave those for the next font rodeo. This mount features barely a hint of a serif that hearkens back a hundred years or so to sign painters and package lettering artists of early twentieth century. They're sure to put the sharpness, gumption and grit you need into your copy. So grab a tall glass of Plathorn and drink in the deep taste of America’s big country. Put it in your next magazine. Put it in your brand. This typeface’s offbeat appeal is bound to bring a bit of wild U.S. to your free-spirited work.

Esfand is a modern Sans Serif font family in three weights, Light, Medium and Bold.The Esfand innovation is a contribution to the modernisation of Arabic typography; gives the Arabic font letters real typographic arrangement and provides for more typographic flexibility. Esfand supports Arabic, Persian, and Urdu and includes proportional and tabular numerals for the supported languages. The Esfand Font family is available in Three weights; Light, Medium and Bold. Its intuitive design arrangement fulfills the following needs: - It is precisely crafted for use in electronic and print media. Esfand is not based on any pre-digital typefaces and it is not a revival. Rather, its forms were created with today’s ever-changing technology in mind. - Esfand is suitable for multiple applications, and gives the widest potential for acceptability. - It is extremely legible not only in its small sizes, but also when the type is filtered or skewed, e.g., in Photoshop or Illustrator. Esfand's simplified forms may be artificially oblique with InDesign or Illustrator, without any degradation of its quality for the effected text. - Esfand is an eye-catching and classy typographic image that was developed for multiple languages use and writing conventions. - Esfand uses the very highest degree of geometric clarity along with the necessary amount of calligraphic references. The Esfand typeface is of a high vibration that is finely balance between calligraphic tradition and the contemporary sans serif aesthetic commonly seen in Latin typography.

Franz Kafka’s manuscripts have always been a source of inspiration for designer Julia Sysmäläinen. At first she was just interested in literary aspects but later she noticed that content and visual form can not be separated in the work of this ingenious writer. Analyzing Kafka’s handwriting at the Berlin National Library, Julia was inspired to design the typeface FF Mister – by now a well known classic. Over the years, FF Mister K became a handsome typeface family and even produced offspring: the Josef K Patterns. Some of Kafka’s most expressive letterforms were the starting point for these decorative ornaments. How do the Patterns work? Outlines and fillings correspond to the uppercase and the lowercase letters on your keyboard. You can use them separately or layer them on top of each other. If you write a line of “pattern-text” in lowercase and repeat it underneath in uppercase you get a row of fillings followed by a row of outlines. Now you can color them and then set line space = 0 to get a single line of layered colored ornaments. Alternatively, activating OpenType / stylistic set / stylistic alternates will also unite the two lines to a single layered line. Further magic can be done with OpenType / contextual alternates turned on. On the gallery page of this font family is a downloadable Josef K Patterns.pdf with an alphabetical overview of forms. Hundreds of patterns are possible … we’d love to see some of yours and present them here on the website!

Looking for a way to add a touch of bold, retro charm to your designs that evoke the fun and creativity of the 70s, 80s, and 90s? Look no further than our collection of classic and modern fonts that are perfect for logos, posters, and all kinds of design projects, whether you're going for an old-school vibe or a fresh new twist on retro design. With our carefully curated selection of fonts, you'll have everything you need to create eye-catching and memorable designs that capture the essence of classic design from the past. Whether you're looking to add some vintage flair to a modern design, or you want to create a throwback look that's right at home in the 90s, our fonts are the perfect tool for the job. From bold, geometric designs that harken back to the 80s, to playful, colorful fonts that embody the fun-loving spirit of the 70s, our collection has something for everyone. And with our easy-to-use design tools and resources, you'll have everything you need to bring your creative vision to life in no time. So why wait? Start exploring our collection of classic and modern fonts today, and discover how easy it can be to create stunning logos, posters, and designs that are truly one-of-a-kind. Whether you're a seasoned designer or just starting out, our fonts are the perfect way to add a touch of old-school charm to any project.

Brailganta Script is the font of choice for writing things beyond words. This typeface is designed with great detail to convey stylish elegance. So, it can be said, the character of the transformation is very beautiful, a kind of classic ornamental copper script. The Brailganta script provides alternative variants of most fonts, binders, and many calligraphy tips, ideal for elegant labels, high-end packaging, stationery and compositions for certain brands, beautiful titles, verses, letters and short text, intended for read only with the eyes or meant to be whispered into someone's ear. To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternative, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Indesign & CorelDraw X6-X7, Microsoft Word 2010 or a later version. (Windows), Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters using Adobe Illustrator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzwjMkbB-wQ How to use the font style set in Microsoft Word 2010 or later versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVJlZQ3EZU0 There are additional ways to access the alternative/swash, using the Character Map (Windows), Nexus Font (Windows) Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters, using the Windows Character Map with Photoshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9vacoYmBw If you need help or advice, please contact me by email Thank you for watching!

Introducing Daily Sans, a complete sans serif font family with 10-weights, plus italics (20-fonts total). Daily Sans was designed to be an everyday-use geometric typeface with excellent legibility and a neutral tone. It's a perfect go-to for branding, web, and print design projects and can stand out on its own or play a supporting role in font pairings. It’s great for body/paragraph type as well as for larger display type. Because the goal was to create a font you can truly use for any project, purpose, or occasion, Daily Sans includes a wide range of weights starting from the very thin Hairline all the way through to the very bold Heavy. This means that you’re always able to find just the right weight for your needs, and it makes creating type hierarchies a breeze. Daily Sans comprises 20 fonts, each with approximately 450 glyphs - including 16 standard and discretionary ligatures, three ampersand variants, a full set of arrows, and more - and supports over 200 languages. The OpenType features can be very easily accessed by using OpenType-savvy programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign. (To access these awesome features in Microsoft Word, you'll need to get comfortable with the advanced tab of Word's font menu.) PLEASE ENJOY! I can't wait to see what you make with Daily Sans. Feel free to use the #upupcreative and #dailysansfont tags to show me what you've been up to.