Have you ever searched for a font that looked like it was really someone's handwriting, only to find that it was too feminine or too hard to read? I used to want a font like that, too, until I discovered that a font like that had been residing in my attic, in letters to me from my late grandfather. Not only was I thrilled to have a font like this at hand, but also one that would be a memory of my grandfather every time I used it. He was a hard-working man, raising a family during the Depression, yet was still fun-loving, kind, and generous. We called him Grandhappy. As a wedding present, I received from him rolling pins and a cutting board made of 8 different kinds of wood that he pieced together. In this font, the bullet is a rolling pin in honor of that! Other than the fact that this is a font from the hand of one greatly loved, my favorite thing is that although a True Type Font, it has some features of an Open Type font. There are many alternative letter choices available through the use of little-used keys on the keyboard and alt codes. This font was chosen to portray Jay Gatsby's handwriting in The Great Gatsby (2013).

A Nostalgic Signature Font for Christmas Sentimental Feeling is a script font that aims to capture the festive magic of Christmas with a retro design inspired by 1950s magazine editorials, classic movies and real hand-written signatures. It's a warm design that evokes Christmases of old, with a smooth brush-like flow and subtle human imperfections. It's equally at home singing carols, sharing Xmas Eve stories or serving cocktails at your New Years party. This happy holiday font comes with a complete set of uppercase and lowercase characters, plus numerals, punctuation, language support, symbols, alternatives, custom ligatures, underlines and a selection of festive clipart (including everything you might need to re-create the examples seen in my visuals). Add it to your toolbox and create the perfect Christmas designs, such as gifts and stationery products, ads, titles and much more!

In March 2011, the Society of Typographic Aficionados began organizing a collaborative project that would unite the typographic and design communities. The goal of Font Aid V: Made for Japan was to raise funds to expedite relief efforts after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Nearly 300 contributors from 45 countries sent in over 500 glyphs in a single week. Behind the scenes, volunteers Neil Summerour, Silas Dilworth, Delve Withrington, and Grant Hutchinson were up to their elbows in Adobe Illustrator and Fontlab assembling the typeface. The sheer number of submissions coupled with the complexity of some of the designs caused unforeseen delays in completing the typeface. The team not only managed the immense influx of submissions, it also had several technical hurdles and multiple content reviews to mitigate before the final font could be produced. Several months after the project was initiated, Font Aid V: Made for Japan was finally ready for distribution. With the help of Sogo Japan, all proceeds from sales of this typeface will be delivered directly to organizations in Japan, such as Second Hand and AMDA International (Association of Medical Doctors of Asia). Sogo Japan strives to help circumvent regular international charity channels and the inefficiencies associated with them. Thanks to everyone who participated and helped us spread the word about the Font Aid V: Made for Japan project. In particular, we would like to acknowledge the following individuals and groups for their participation and involvement: Jonathan Abbott, Rui Abreu, Frank Adebiaye, Tim Ahrens, Anonymous, Eero Antturi, Leonardo Aranda, Hector Carrillo Aspano, Danielle Atnip, Alejandro Cabrera Avila, Christophe Badani, Joanne Gyo Young Bae, Ben Balvanz, Cynthia Bataille, Priyanka Batra, Donald Beekman, Hannes Beer, David Berlow, Kevin Beronilla, Fabian Bertschinger, Nicole Bittner, Bart Blubaugh, Dathan Boardman, Andrew Boardman, Joel Vilas Boas, Konstantin Boldovskiy, Scott Boms, Michael Browers, Vickie Burns, Matt Burvill, Daniele Capo, Seymour Caprice, Mauro Caramella, Matevž Čas, Eli Castellanos, Sarah Castillo, Tom Censani, Pinar Ceyhan, Ivette Chacon, Hin-Ching Chan, Sarah Charalambides, Karen Charatan, Sinde Cheung, Todd Childers, Justin Chodzko, Felipe Coca, Antonio Coelho, Jefferson Cortinove, Alan Lima Coutinho, Nick Cox, Nick Curtis, Girish Dalvi, Christopher DeCaro, Thomas C Dempsey, Matt Desmond, Chank Diesel, Anum Durvesh, Suzie Eland, Engy Elboreini, Craig Eliason, Emi Eliason, James Elliott, Grace Engels, Exljbris, Hillary Fayle, Carol Fillip, Jeff Fisher, Scott Fisk, John Foley, Stuart Ford, Mathias Forslund, Brock French, Anina Frischknecht, Eric Frisino, Chiyo Fujimori, Kaela Gallo, Ayesha Garrett, Harald Geisler, Alfonso Gómez-Arzola, Adriana Esteve González, Richard Gregory, James Grieshaber, Grupoingenio, Kemie Guaida, Carlos Fabián Camargo Guerrero, Rachel Han, Erin Harris, Stefan Hattenbach, Magnus Hearn, Marissa Heiken, Georg Herold-Wildfellner, Jamie Homer, Ed Hoskin, Dav[id Hubner], Jonathan Hughes, Rian Hughes, Grant Hutchinson, Xerxes Irani, Masayuki Izumi, Jan Janeček, Hyun Kyung Jang, Julien Janiszewski, Dušan Jelesijevic, Cal Jepps, Meghan Jossick, Evamaria Judkins, July Twenty Fourth, Erica Jung, William K, Claes Källarsson, Kapitza, Asutosh Kar, Arno Kathollnig, Sami Kaunisvirta, Hajime Kawakami, Scott Kaye, Richard Kegler, Anna Keroullé, Bizhan Khodabandeh, Lara Assouad Khoury, Ilona Kincses, Becky King, Sean King, Megan Kirby, Max Kisman, Keith Kitz, Romy Klessen, Akira Kobayashi, Kokin, Kozyndan & Silas Dilworth, Atushi Kunimune, Andreas Kuschner, John Langdon, Ray Larabie, Jess Latham, Kelly D Lawrence, Matic Leban, Chien-Hao Lee, Bryan Levay, Enrico Limcaco, Andreas Lindholm, Andrew Loschiavo, Chris Lozos, Ian Lynam, John Lyttle, Gustavo Machado, Jonathan Mak, Ricardo Marcin, Jeannie Mecorney, Steve Mehallo, Cristina Melo, Martin Mendelsberg, The Midnight Umbrella Studio, Goro Mihok, Ojasvi Mohanty, Ahmed Mohtadi, Alixe Monteil, Veronica Monterosso, Dani Montesinos, Masanobu Moriyama, Misa Moriyama, Pedro Moura, John Moy Jr, Marc Marius Mueller, Shoko Mugikura, Joachim Müller-Lancé, Diane Myers, John Nahmias, Yoshihisa Nakai, Hiroshi Nakayama, Reiko Nara, Nathoo, Titus Nemeth, Nathanael Ng, Ngoc Ngo, Antoninus Niemiec, James Ockelford, Kunihiko Okano, Naotatsu Okuda, Toshi Omagari, Onikeiji, Ozlem Ozkal, Jason Pagura, Hrant Papazian, Brian Jongseong Park, John Passafiume, Patrick Griffin, Alejandro Paul, Vian Peanu, Dylan Pech, Rebecca Penmore, Peter Brugger, Jean François Porchez, Carolyn Porter, Andrew Pothecary, James Puckett, Rachel Hernández Pumarejo, James Random, Liam Roberts, Tom Rogers, David Jonathan Ross, Sumio Sakai, Sana, Stuart Sandler, Rafael Saraiva, Riccardo Sartori, Ai Sasaki, Yee Wen Sat, Agnes Schlenke, Giovanna Scolaro, Roland Scriver, Alessandro Segalini, Shawn Semmes, Jane Sheppard, Josh Sherwood, Paulo Silva, Mark Simonson, Luis Siquot, Greg Smith, Owen Song, James L. Stirling, Nina Stössinger, Tanya Turipamwe Stroh, Kevin Strzelczyk, Neil Summerour, Superfried, Shiho Takahashi, Shuji Takahashi, Yusuke Takeda, Naoyuki Takeshita, Bruno Tenan, Chung-Deh Tien, Tom, Ryoichi Tsunekawa, Alex Tye, Matthew Tyndall, TypoVar, Virginia Valdez, Beatriz Valerio, Tom Varisco, Brayden Varr, Catarina Vaz, Andy Veale, Yvette Claudia Velez, Marie-Anne Verougstraete, Abbie Vickress, Ray Villarreal, Pat Vining, Courtney Waite, Hoyle Wang, Viola Wang, Jim Ward, Grace Watling, Terrance Weinzierl, Robert Weiss, Stuart Weston, Kevin Wijaya, Dave Williams, Beau Williamson, Delve Withrington, Katherine Wood, Neil Woodyatt, Jesvin Yeo, Yokokaku, Kazuhi Yoshikawa, YouWorkForThem, Matt Yow, Charlton Yu, Yuriko, Ron Za, Jayson Zaleski, Víctor Zúñiga

Sam Suliman is a condensed display face supplied in three weights – Regular, Medium and Bold – plus a set of handy italics (obliques). All six fonts are included in the value family pack. The fonts are inspired by lowercase lettering on a Sarah Vaughan album cover designed by Sam Suliman in 1962, a style which contrasts sharp tight outer corners with soft rounded counters. The letters were perhaps influenced by a Solotype font called Herald Square, but without that font’s aversion to diagonals, and adding distinctive perky ascenders/descenders on the lowercase r, a, u, g and n. The Sam Suliman fonts also add the nubs to d, m, p, and q. Suliman was born in Manchester, England in 1927. After working for McCann Erikson in London, he moved to New York where he took on freelance work designing album covers, particularly celebrated are his striking minimalist designs for jazz records. He moved back to England in the early 1960s, designing many book jackets, film titles and fabrics, also working in Spain and India before settling in Oxford in the 1980s.

To describe what inspired Magneta would be to add a little Dwiggins, throw in some Benton with a hint of Austin, wrap it up in a crisp, contemporary package and serve. The skeleton of the family is a Garalde (like my earlier Epic) but with a desire to produce something much more transitional and contemporary, I sought to simplify, simplify, simplify. Cap and ascenders share the same height, the x-height is slightly larger than expected which should make a functional typeface for editorial, headlines or where more visually complex systems are needed. The modulation is much more intentional than historical and creates some interesting interactions between the various weights. There are both Normal and Condensed widths available with 6 different weights and matching italics, small caps, oldstyle figures, swashes, stylistic and discretionary ligatures (that includes some fun majuscule ligatures in the roman styles), there is no lack of typographic goodness for the designer. To add some spice, a set of Decorative Ornaments have been created that include geometric, floral, curvilinear patterns and much more.

The Ampersand Forest has its first book family! Budinger Oldstyle is elegant and approachable at the same time, with five different weights, making it a perfect choice for text or display in situations that require a hint of scholarship, fine arts, craft, erudition, and clarity. Budinger Oldstyle has the legibility of a Garalde (like those of Garamond, Manutius, et al.), with a whiff of Venetian revival (after the fashion of Schneidler & Goudy). The letters are arbitrary, with conventions like cupped serifs and leftward stress. It also has a higher x-height than might be expected, to give it an upright posture and openness in the counters. The italic is more compact, with more clearly calligraphic letterforms and conventions like Swash Caps. Its many features include OpenType alternates (a one-story a and g, and a K, R, and Q with elongated descenders), full and true small caps, both standard and discretionary ligatures, oldstyle and lining numerals, and Swash letterforms in the Italic (all capitals and descenders, plus the ascender of the d). Plus, the most adorable pudge of an ampersand you've ever seen!

The award-winning Conrad was created by Japanese type designer Akira Kobayashi. Its design was based on the fifteenth-century type by Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz, two German printers active in Rome at that time. They produced a unique, slightly unbalanced yet attractive type. Kobayashi says of his typeface, “I have designed a couple of typefaces inspired from the past, but this time the original print acted merely as a reference. The distinctive lowercase ‘a’ and some other letters were inspired by Sweynheym and Pannartz’s second roman type, but I revived the type in a more informal way. Here I used the historical type as a springboard. The resulting type looks different, taking on a rather temporary and lively look. I assume that the Conrad is the first revival of the Sweynheym and Pannartz type, though it does not closely resemble the original.” Conrad won first prize for the text typeface category in Linotype’s Third International Typeface Design Contest (2000) as well as the Certificate of Excellence in Type Design from the Type Directors Club (2001).

To describe what inspired Magneta would be to add a little Dwiggins, throw in some Benton with a hint of Austin, wrap it up in a crisp, contemporary package and serve. The skeleton of the family is a Garalde (like my earlier Epic) but with a desire to produce something much more transitional and contemporary, I sought to simplify, simplify, simplify. Cap and ascenders share the same height, the x-height is slightly larger than expected which should make a functional typeface for editorial, headlines or where more visually complex systems are needed. The modulation is much more intentional than historical and creates some interesting interactions between the various weights. There are both Normal and Condensed widths available with 6 different weights and matching italics, small caps, oldstyle figures, swashes, stylistic and discretionary ligatures (that includes some fun majuscule ligatures in the roman styles), there is no lack of typographic goodness for the designer. To add some spice, a set of Decorative Ornaments have been created that include geometric, floral, curvilinear patterns and much more.

Bushing is a quick serif experiment going for open light display type. For years I have always stopped and really liked what I saw with fonts like the original Cushing from the turn of the 20th century. This time the desire for a font was stirred by Felici's article in CreativePro on fonts from the beginning of the 20th century, especially his captures of Cushing No. 2 and the version commissioned for Norwood press from ATF. I'm not interested in historically accurate reconstructions. My desire is for the general feel I get when I see a font. As a result, Bushing has little to do with Cushing (other than the last six letters). But it is a Serif font with small serifs and a huge x-height with a very open feel. I like it. I hope you do also. I made it into a limited display version of OpenType Pro. I added small caps and oldstyle figures, as I can hardly work without them. But ligatures seemed silly for this one.

With the printing of the Futurist poem “Zang Tumb Tuuum” in 1914, modern art had taken a typographic twist: “words in freedom” (parole in libertà) were now a major part of the art world. The avant garde followed suit. Niedermann Grotesk is based on the everyday type that appeared in early modernist collages, journals and manifestos. It is a peculiar style of lettering—which was originally inspired by the Sachplakat (object poster) work of Lucian Bernhard—and adapted for hot metal in 1908 by Heinz Hoffmann. 100 years ago, the style became a workhorse of the German printing industry. Niedermann Grotesk is an updated variant, referencing the original poster art, each letter carefully drawn with an old brush. Bumpy, bold and blunt—with a suite of alternate characters and a few dingbats—Niedermann Grotesk is perfect for advertising, packaging, poetry, art, protests and retro homage.

Mark van Bronkhorst designed MVB Celestia Antiqua at a time when font choice was limited. Design was characterized by overuse of the few fonts that came with laser printers. A rustic typeface, recalling the roughness and irregularity of pre-digital printing, was a response to the cold crispness of DTP. MVB Celestia Antiqua holds its own among a large group of other “weathered” serif fonts, in part due to the size of the family: three weights, small caps, italics, and two titling styles. But it's also successful because it's simply drawn well, the contours only as rough as they need to be, enabling text at any size, large or small.

Max J. Gradl was a German jewelry designer. A Web search today turns up several examples of his work from the turn of the 20th century. He seemed to favor green stones in silver metalwork. Gradl also did advertising work and co-authored a book on architectural design. Most important for our purposes, though, are the incredible hand lettered alphabets and monograms the man left behind. I’ve digitized one of those delightful alphabets and tried to keep it true to the original. Beyond the base character set of letters, numerals and basic punctuation, I had to extrapolate forms that, I hope, hold true to Gradl’s design. Enjoy!

Thanks for checking out Squeamish! A fabulously fun yet elegant script font with tons of energy, allowing you to create beautiful hand-made typography in an instant. With extra bouncy curves & loops, Squeamish is guaranteed to make your text stand out - perfect for logos, printed quotes, invitations, cards, product packaging, headers and whatever your imagination holds. What's really awesome is that Squeamish comes with a complete set of lowercase alternates, which allows you to create even more authentic custom-feel text. Another great feature is the bonus ornaments font, which allows you to add some really unique and elegant finishing touches to your script text.

Looking for a font with that certain... umm... special mojo? Mojodelic might just be the niche font that you need to create that unique statement — one that really pops off the page. While this typeface certainly grooves with the 1960s – 1970s vintage psychedelic and pop art look, it's also a perfect fit with retro 1990s party-way-too-hard youth culture graphics. With its ultra-bold reverse-contrast design and whimsical little curlies, this one's got equal parts silliness and swagger. Try it on skateboard graphics, retro message t-shirts, apparel logos, beverage labeling, candy packaging, teen/tweener marketing, greeting cards... you name it. Enjoy.

Are you feeling a little dazed, silly, or light-headed? Are you talking incoherently as if you've received repeated blows to the head? Would you perhaps describe yourself as punch-drunk? Happy-go-lucky? Have you recently been sleep deprived or are experiencing excessive feelings of fatigue or tiredness? Have you become prone to inane semi-maniacal rambling? Have you been making strange and/or meaningless remarks? Are you demonstrating fits of random and inexplicable behavior? Did you just give yourself a wedgie? Experiencing bouts of uncontrollable laughter -- at your own jokes? Standing on a silver surfboard holding a hot dog and wondering why?! You're off your rocker, dude; Slaphappy!

Describe the 21st century politician. Left or right? Fat or thin? War or peace? Straight or gay? Hard or soft? Male or female? Pro or con? Young or old? East or west? Now look at the Politica super-family and see which font they may be. The overused sans serif faces don’t cut it anymore. This day and age requires a sturdy, modern and straight-to-the-point sans to cover the issues. The Politica family also come in OpenType variations which extend the character set to include Cyrillic, Greek, Baltic, Turkish and Central European languages. You have no excuse: the globe is yours with Politica.

Dez Yinznat Stencil is a condensed stencil sans serif inspired by the industrial city of Pittsburgh, PA USA. Stencil type was often used in the steel mills, scrap metal yards, railroads, warehouses, and other industrial institutions of Pittsburgh and is almost a signature for the City. The name comes from combining two colloquial expressions common to Pittsburgh. “Yinz” is used there like "Y'all" is used in Southern States. "n'at" or sometimes "N@" is used to replace “and that” when ending a phrase. This font is dedicated to the hard-working people who made Pittsburgh what it is, N@. High-tech subjects can also find a friend in Dez Yinz'nat.

Sheldon family draws inspiration from the beautiful and eloquent posters of Polish graphic artist Marian Stachurski. Generously sprinkled with stylistic oddities, this is the perfect typeface for having some cool typographic unevenness without losing the ever-handy sans-serifness. Sheldon is an all caps font but holds different characters on upper- and lower-case slots for a more consistent handcrafted feel. Its OpenType Contextual Alternates feature manages to instantly alternate these glyphs. The family includes 3 handy weights, so it can accommodate numerous typographic tasks. It also brings a very cool picture font, which charmingly completes this useful and visually striking font family. Have fun!

Musika" is a serene and elegant display typeface that is inspired by the vibe of soft jazz. Serene, elegant, soothing, somewhat sensual and at the same time feels like a warm hug. This typeface is made with the intention to be used in both titles and body text. The bold weight (even the light weight could also be used as a title card) holds really well as a title while the lighter weights (regular and light) can be used in body text. *This font includes letters, numbers, multi-language, and all essential marks needed. * Three (3) weights are currently available. (Light, Regular and Bold)

Sausage is unapologetically bold and bulbous. Influenced by magnetic fridge letters, hot dogs and 70s phototype fonts, it is retro, but not cloyingly so. It was a deliberate plan to make Sausage only a single style typeface. The freedom that not having to think about how the font should relate to other weights allowed me to push the glyphs to places they might not otherwise have been able to go. There isn't a single corner in the entire font, and you'd be hard pushed to find a straight line. This is as soft and friendly as they come, and still equipped with numerous ligatures, alternates and arrows for sophisticated typography.

Nantua Flava XL is a display font by heart. It's preferably seen on posters or flyers. It's inspired by the Op Art style of lettering in the USA from the 1960s and 70s. But it holds also very futuristic elements so it work very well on futuristic techno party flyers and posters. Nantua Flava XLi speeds up your design. It's powerful as a Ferrari engine, strong as a steam locomotive. The very close innerforms and low contract make it perfectly suited for background patterns as well as big headline texts. The stiff little brother of this is simply called Nantua. They are a happy family.

Aztek emerged as a custom face for an ethno-music festival, and gradually developed a more robust, geometric base. The original ethno roots can still be seen in some of the alternative caps, and the ease with which Aztek forms decorative elements and borders. There is also an alternative “Tall Caps” set, that goes alongside normal uppercase characters as if they were Small Caps. The font features Latin (extended to support German and Polish) and Сyrillic character sets. Though Aztek is an accidental face designed primarily for display work, it holds well at smaller sizes and can endure high ink gain printing found in letterpress and silk-screen processes.

Linotype Schachtelhalm is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from the entries of the Linotype-sponsored International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. The inspiration of German designer Ilka Kwiatkowski is not hard to figure out and the font carries the German name of the plant which was its model. The alphabet consists exclusively of capital letters with clear geometric basic forms. The font is meant for headlines in point sizes of 18 and larger. The details which make Linotype Schachtelhalm unique and true to its inspiration are however best seen in large point sizes, such as on posters, and Schachtelhalm is best combined with neutral fonts.

Asteric Vintage is a retro-vintage font family with an amazing set of ornaments. It comes in 3 different styles: Regular, Rough, Display, and also presents 26 beautiful and luxurious ornaments . The Rough Style has a characteristic that resembles rust on each character, thus creating results that seem strong and hard. The Display Style is very suitable for display, every work created with it becomes luxurious, wrapped in a classic atmosphere. The Regular Style is a style that has a clean character but still carries a classic scent that is thick and unique. This style is very suitable for use in magazines, books, newspapers, etc.

L-O-L-A Like the subject of the Kinks’ song, FS Lola is a little bit of both – a font with a rare combination of masculine and feminine. The font was inspired by the song, which itself was inspired by the night the Kinks’ manager spent dancing drunkenly in a Soho club with a beautiful woman... Or so he’d thought, until her stubble started to show halfway through the evening. Masculine/feminin Phil Garnham’s experience in designing FS Lola was similar to the one related by Ray Davies. Setting out to create a sans serif font, he realised along the way that he was actually dealing with a semi-serif. He went with it, though, and produced a font with the best masculine and feminine qualities: hard edges and corners tempered by shapes of softness and generosity, the outcome of what Phil calls an “organic” design process. “Initially, my designs were very graphic and hard but not very distinctive. By printing and redrawing the letters in pencil I achieved a softer and friendlier alphabet with a strong personality.” Broad Lola, as you’d expect, is very broad-minded. Available in five weights with italics – and fluent in central European languages – FS Lola offers a confident combination of feminine softness and male steeliness to any kind of design. As the song says, “It’s a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world... except for Lola.

Geometric typefaces can harken back and visually tie themselves to so many genres, from constructivist posters, to techno club flyers, to raw industrial era power. The Offroad family finds its origin of inspiration in the O’Neal MX logo for their motocross division, represented in its truest form in the MX styles of this family, and expanded to a type megafamily. Offroad grabs hold of that unique pseudo-unicase style and runs with it to create a range of widths and weights that are perfect for historical through modern use. It embodies the hardcore motocross rigidity from the limited inspiration of the original logotype and expands to include a full and expansive glyphset, and a comprehensive range of widths and weights, creating a straightforward, uncompromising collection of typefaces that lend a solid foundation and a broad range of expression for designers. Here's what's included with the Offroad Collection bundle: 382 glyphs per style - including Capitals, Lowercase (Unicase Style), Numerals, Punctuation and an extensive character set that covers multilingual support of latin based languages. (see the 6th graphic for a preview of the characters included) 45 fonts in 6 width subfamilies: Extra Condensed, Condensed, Standard, Expanded, & Wide. 5 weights per subfamily with obliques: Light, Book, Regular, Bold, & Black. Fonts are provided in TTF & OTF formats. The TTF format is the standard go to for most users, although the OTF and TTF function exactly the same. Here's why the Offroad Collection is for you: You're in need of a geometric pseudo-unicase family with a big range of weights and widths You're a die-hard motocross fan, and want to design anything within that genre You're a club flyer designer, and need a kick-ass techno style font family You're totally into constructivist design, and want to create designs within that genre You just like to collect quality fonts to add to your design arsenal