Kъnig – the old Bulgar runes The writing kъnig emerged in the places of ancient Thraco-Bulgarian migrations in ante-deluvial times and developed in stages paralleling the other ancient writings. There have been many interactions and loanings between kъnig and these other writings. The root of the word kъnig (OBg: кънигъı) comes from the Old Chinese k'üen 'scroll' (ModCh: 纸卷 zhǐjuǎn) [57]. The word was loaned directly in the Bulgar language (*kün'ig > *küniv) restoring two individual Old Chuvash forms: 1. *k'ün'čьk > кўнчěк kind of ornament on a woman's garment; *k'ün'-gi / *k'ün'-üg > k'ün'iv book, codex, which is evidenced by the Hungarian könyv book and Mordvinian konov paper borrowings; 2. *k'ün'i- > *k'ün'i-gi > к'әn'iγь > кънигъı. This word has been preserved in Sumerian as kunuku (inscription) and kəniga (writing, knowledge). It is inherited from Bulgar to Slavic: книга (Bulgarian and Russian), књига (Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian), kniha (Czech and Slovak), książka (Polish), and non-Slavic: könyv (Hungarian) languages. Kъnig letters (kъni) have been known from archeological finds for more than 100 years already; however, until recently, no attempt has been made to decipher them, find their phonological value, or connect them to their natural successors: the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets. The oldest mention on the Bulgar runes is found in the mid-9th c. AD work On the Letters by the Bulgarian writer Chernorizets Hrabъr. Being already a Christian, he wrote pejoratively about the pagan Bulgars

The classic modernist FS Alvar grew out of a library of pure modular shapes gathered by Fontsmith’s master of the abstract starting point, Mr Phil Garnham. “It was a collection that just had to be explored and brought to life in a typographic voice. “We debated long and hard about this. It was big decision to make a shift away from the typefaces that people knew us for. And we didn’t want to compromise our reputation of well crafted typographic quality”. Modular forms A headline font that’s both graphic and functional, in the modernist tradition, FS Alvar focused Fontsmith’s eyes on the bigger issue of what makes a font show its age. “Looking at those fonts from the 1980s that were supposed to represent the ‘future’,” says Phil, “they looked so dated now. With Alvar, we weren’t concerned with creating future-thinking typography but with exploring form for form’s sake, and how that can evolve to create letterforms. Modular forms with a typographic eye.” Stencilled The concept for Alvar first materialised back in 2001 with some sketches Phil made while still at Middlesex University. Eight years later, something made him dig them out again. “There was something really nice about the proportions of that first design. Working on it again, I thought about it properly, but it still needed something to give it that edge. “Jason stood up in the studio and supplied the missing link: ‘Why don’t we make it stencilled?’ He didn’t mean in an obvious way, but by building a kind of architectural stencil into the form. It worked and the idea of using an architect’s name (Alvar Aalto) to describe the font felt perfect.” Featured in... The three weights of FS Alvar are made for standout headlines in advertising campaigns and magazines. Alvar has had a starring role in campaigns for brands from Nike to Amnesty International, as well as on CD covers, record labels and packaging.

Le Griffe is the work of French designer Andre-Michel Lubac. A superb calligraphic script, Le Griffe includes two fonts of separate alternates and swash characters. In contrast to its more reserved lowercase, Le Griffe's capitals are quite lively- especially those with swashes and flourishes. With Le Griffe, Lubac has imitated the skilled penmanship of free-flowing calligraphy in digital form. Now, instead of writing out beautiful text by hand, you can set it quickly and easily with this masterful type!

Hyper Kids is a cool, bold and thick lettered display font. Whether you’re using it for crafts, digital design, presentations, or making greeting cards, this font has the potential to become your favorite go-to font, no matter the occasion! Hyper Kids is specifically designed to support children's themed designs, which can also be used as a logo that has a fun value for children. and many more designs that can use this Hyper Kids font.

Banco was the first typeface work of French designer Roger Excoffon and was released in 1952. The strong forms look as though they were rolled out of sheet metal and feature upright, tapering strokes. The slight slant, the varying heights of stroke ends, and the relationships between line and curve give Banco font its sense of liveliness and dynamism. Excoffon did not design a matching lower case alphabet for his capitals, but this was accomplished later by Phill Grimshaw, who also designed the light weight. He deliberately 'underdesigned' the lower case forms, producing a more reserved alphabet based on the design ideas of the original.

You are looking at the friendliest, happiest and most faithful of puppies. It comes to greet you as soon as your eyes see it, radiates its joy, wags its tail, jumps in circles, and begs to be played with. Showboat is a very unique bragger of a font. Its bouncy metrics and whimsical shapes are a sure formula for attention. People will soak it in and feel happy while they do. How can anyone greet such happy letters with anything other than a smile? No matter how many fonts your design box has, you can be sure that none of them is this radiant, lively or cute. This happy camper comes in four fonts: two weights and a large number of corresponding ligatures and alternates. Showboat can be used in a vast number of design applications; flyers and webs for parties, pre-teen and teen events, scrapbooking, candy branding, posters, children's publications and web sites, pet stores and products, toys, and many many other things.

This type crept up the sense that it was made in Eastern Europe by poorly trained urbanites from a crippled nation, or that it is the remains of a contemporary gothic (like Eckmann) stencil. The choice of what this type signifies is up to the public. Lately I like the idea of 'putting on' (in McLuhan's sense) a genre of idea that is somewhat different from my tradition's beliefs, and fitting a core category of that toward a teleological/eschatological advantage. Therefore postmodernist/apocalyptic carelessness (which I may 'put on' by using this type) is how I abstain from the cravings of immortality, or more so that wanting it is pointless. It’s stands as memento morí; that I will have to die someday. I have to become less, He must become more. Of course, Interzone may signify a classic Joy Division track from Unknown Pleasures as well as the Cold Warish ongoings of conflicted eastern European life. I considered naming this Lunik 9.

Einhorn is a peculiar typeface. Difficult to classify, this upright, bold, script-like semi serif typeface was designed in 1980 by Alan Meeks. Meeks was inspired by the art nouveau period, and may have been trying to liven up the design scene. In 1980, typefaces like Helvetica and Univers were ubiquitous, and the digital revolution was still years away. Experimental faces like Einhorn helped fill the gap for creative designers looking for untraditional choices in which to set headlines and advertising work. The merit of pioneer display faces like Einhorn have never lessened; Einhorn still sets a mean display text, and works great in logos and other corporate ID solutions.

Мир is Mir. The Russian word Мир (Mir) means both World and Peace. The rendezvous of the two terms seems quite unique and utopistic today, but it is comforting to see that it was natural at some time deep down in Russian history. Bits of both meanings were going through my mind while I was designing this typeface. Mir’s character set is multiscript – Latin, Cyrillic and Greek – and extends to many parts of the linguistic world. In fact it covers more than 100 languages. Stylistic consistency between the language systems make typographic border crossings painless even where national borders are still closely guarded. And in regions where mathematics, physics or chemistry are to be expressed, a rich set of OpenType features lets Mir master also these situations. Serious things are best be said in a relaxed, unpretentious way. So Mir doesn’t put on a show. Mir has authority without being authoritarian, it is serious but not stern. It can explain difficult things and stay calm and down to earth at the same time. Mir Medium has another useful feature: It can be freely downloaded and used by anybody anywhere. You can test the Mir Family with free Mir Medium and get more styles when you need them. @juliasys

In the late 1930s, old Egyptiennes (or Italiennes) returned to the collective consciousness of European printers and type houses — perhaps because political news were front a centre, especially in France where Le Figaro newspaper was seeing record circulation numbers. In 1939 both Monotype and Lettergieterij Amsterdam thought of the same idea: Make a new typeface similar to the reverse stress slab shapes that make up the titles of newspapers like Le Figaro and Le Frondeur. Both foundries intended to call their new type Figaro. Monotype finished theirs first, so they ended up with the name, and their type was already published when Stefan Schlesinger finished his take for the Amsterdam foundry. Schlesinger’s type was renamed Hidalgo (Spanish for a lower nobleman, ‘son of something’) and published in 1940 as ‘a very happy variation on an old motif’. Although it wasn’t a commercial success at the time, it was well received and considered subtler and more refined than the similar types available, Figaro and Playbill. In the Second World War, the Germans banned the use of the type, and Hidalgo never really recovered. Upon closer inspection, Schlesinger’s work on Hidalgo was much more Euro-sophisticated and ahead of its time than the too-wooden cut of Figaro and the thick tightness of Playbill. It has a modern high contrast, a squarer skeleton, contour cuts that work similarly outside and inside, and airy and minimal solutions to the more complicated shapes like G, K, M, N, Q and W. It is also much more aware of, and more accommodating to, the picket-fence effect the thick top slabs create in setting. Basilio (named after the signing teacher in Mozart’s Figaro) is the digital revival and major expansion of Hidalgo. With nearly 600 glyphs, it boasts Pan-European language support (most Latin languages, as well as Cyrillic and Greek), and a few OpenType tricks that gel it all together to make a very useful design tool. Stefan Schlesigner was born in Vienna in 1896. He moved to the Netherlands in 1925, where he worked for Van Houten’s chocolate, Metz department store, printing firm Trio and many other clients. He died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1944. Digital revivals and expansions of two of his other designs, Minuet and Serena, have also been published by Canada Type.

Freda Sack and Colin Brignall collaborated to produce the Victorian typeface. Their work was inspired by late 19th century display letterforms, and they sought to create a new ornate font in the same style. Victorian superbly reflects the refinement of the late 19th Century. Victorian Inline Shaded was designed by Nick Belshaw. He was inspired by late 19th century display letterforms, and sought to create a new ornate font in the same style. Victorian Inline Shaded superbly reflects the refinement of the late 19th Century.

Gene Gable is known to many graphic artists from his on-line column 'Scanning Around with Gene', which was on the Creative Pro website for a number of years, covering a variety of topics ranging from printing techniques to paper ephemera; water applied decals to lettering stencils. Gene has also been a great help in providing vintage source material to Jeff Levine, which resulted in many additional font designs. It seems only fitting that he should be bestowed with his own-named font as well. Gene Condensed JNL is offered in both regular and oblique versions.

Cedarwood is a classic serif with a regal, elegant touch. Inspired by the work of the old masters, Cedarwood is perfectly suitable for creating classy yet still elegant designs such as logos, packaging, editorial, and more.

PODIUM Sharp is Extended version of DUDU typeface designed in 2012. After many years I’ve decided to rebuild and develop this typeface by adding new masters and weights. Finally PODIUM Sharp consist of 234 styles: from ultra compressed hairline to extra expanded heavy. Main purpose of this project was idea to make hybrid between different modular and geometric woodtypes that I found in old polish specimens: Rex, Blok, Bacarat etc. Thanks to big range of different styles, PODIUM will be perfect choice for visual identities, posters and display usage. For better comfort of using PODIUM I’ve prepared new idea of styles naming based on Frutigres’s Universe and Climbing evaluation. First digit means width and the second weights of style. (So for example style 1.1 is ultra compressed hairline, 6.5 is something like regular and 9.13 is ultra expanded heavy.

Monotype Bembo is generally regarded as one of the most handsome revivals of Aldus Manutius' 15th century roman type, but the original had no italic counterpart. The story is told that Stanley Morison commissioned Alfred Fairbank, a renowned calligrapher, to create the first italic for Bembo, which was released as metal fonts in 1929. Alfred Fairbank, however, claimed that he drew the design as an independent project and then sold his drawings to Monotype. According to him, the statement has been made that I was asked to design an italic for the Bembo roman. This is not so. Had the request been made, the italic type produced would have been different." Whichever version you believe, it was obvious that Fairbank's design - while undeniably beautiful - was not harmonious with Bembo roman. A second, more conventional italic was eventually drawn and added to the Bembo family. Fairbank's first design, which was based on the work of sixteenth-century writing master Ludovico degli Arrighi, managed to have a modest life of its own as a standalone font of metal type. It never made the leap into phototype fonts, however, and the face could have been lost, were it not for Robin Nicholas, Monotype Imaging's Head of Typography in the United Kingdom, and Carl Crossgrove, a senior designer for Monotype Imaging in the US. Nicholas and Crossgrove used the original drawings for Fairbank as the starting point for a new digital design, but this was only the beginning. They improved spacing, added subtle kerning and optimized the design for digital imaging. In addition, Nicholas created an alternative set of lowercase letters, fancy and swash capitals and enough alternate characters to personalize virtually any design project. By the time his work was complete, Nicholas and Crossgrove had created a small type family that included Fairbank, a revived version of the earlier metal font, and Fairbank Chancery, a more calligraphic rendition of the design. An additional suite of ornate caps, elegant ligatures, and beginning and ending letters accompanies both fonts, as does a full complement of lowercase swash characters. Now, instead of a failed Bembo italic, Fairbank emerges in its true glory: a sumptuous, elegant design that will lend a note of grace to holiday greetings, invitations, and any application where its Italianate beauty is called for."

This font was created in honor of my husband for our 12th wedding anniversary. 14 years ago, I met this tall, skinny guy from Indiana in the lobby of a hotel in Hong Kong. We talked. The next day, we had lunch together. And that night we had dinner together. And the next day. And the next. We met just before my 19th birthday, and on my birthday he took me to the top of Victoria Peak, where we looked out over the city of Hong Kong- such a beautiful place to begin a lifetime of love! We spent 4 months together in Hong Kong, falling in love with each other and with the beautiful city we were privileged to call home for that short time. We married the next year. We've lived in Indiana, Texas, China, Kentucky, and Florida over those 12 years of marriage and have welcomed 2 daughters into our lives. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he completes my life in a way I didn't know was possible. And I know that I'm blessed beyond words to have a supportive, wonderful, encouraging husband who is also a loving, involved, caring dad to our daughters. This font is for you, Keith!

Hey guys! Once I got a book "Letters From Father Christmas" by J.R.R. Tolkien. He wrote them for the children every December from 1920 to 1943. I totally fell in love with the calligraphy in those letters. Now I created a font and you can use it to write your own letter from the North Pole. I've also redrawn stamps and patterns from that book, so you can decorate your blank. It's Icons font style. You'll get: Regular and Icons styles Numbers and symbols Multilingual support and alternative symbols Thanks! Feel free to request to add characters you need: kaer.pro@gmail.com

Neat, calligraphy-style handwriting using a chisel-tipped marker.

Shinano is an old province of Japan. Kobayashi Issa (1763 - 1828), a famous Japanese Haiku poet and Buddhist priest, was born here. Together with Bashō he is my favourite Haiku poet. Shinano font was hand made using a Japanese brush pen. At first glance it may look like a messy script, but underneath its rough appearance beats a poetic heart. Comes with some alternates and ligatures and a whole lot of diacritics.

ITC Cerigo is the result of a challenge which designer Jean-Renaud Cuaz set for himself: to create a typeface with the grace of Renaissance calligraphy but different from the numerous Chancery scripts. He calls Cerigo a 'vertical italic' and based it on 15th century calligraphic forms. The weights are carefully designed to complement each other and are made more flexible by a number of italic swash capitals. The flexible ITC Cerigo is suitable for both text and display.

A gothic blackletter font named after the Parler master builder family which built the Schwaebisch Gmuend cathedral. This font contains a bunch of useful ligatures, and by typing 'N', 'o' and period plus activating the Ordinals feature you get an oldstyle numbersign. In this blackletter font the # key is occupied by the 'round' s.

This font is based on the handwriting of author Franz Kafka and captures his expressive handwriting style, using the manuscript of The Trial and his diaries as the primary reference. The font presents the elegance and nervousness with which he wrote his letters and book manuscripts. To resemble naturalistic writing and remain as authentic and irregular as possible (without becoming impossible to read), a great number of extended ligatures was added. As an extra, several drawings from Kafka‘s diaries are included. A full international character set is featured.

Lutz Baar was born in Berlin, now living in Gothenburg, Sweden. He is an art director at his own advertising and Web design studio Miraculus. Among his typeface designs you find the award winning Linotype Pisa, the hand tooled looking Linotype Atlantis, and the strictly Linotype Ordinar, designed for Web usage.

Kostic Serif is a classic transitional typeface (like Baskerville, Bookman, Caslon, Times) with tall, clean characters and a large glyph set to support all European languages - Greek and Cyrillic script included. Excellent for setting multiple pages of text and packed with OpenType features (proportional lining and oldstyle numbers, tabular figures, superscript and subscript, numerator and denominator figures, fractions and 31 ligature in 659 characters), it should meet the demands of even the most demanding typographic works. Kostic Serif is made with fairly large x-height, so the text is legible in very small sizes. Zoran began the work on Kostic Serif around 2002 and after completing Regular, Bold and matching italics, he wasn’t too pleased with the design, so he dropped further work on it to make other fonts. In 2010 Nikola came upon unfinished files for Kostic Serif, and decided to redesign the letters, while retaining basic proportions and widths that Zoran established earlier. When they were both pleased with the new look of the font, they made Medium and decided to add CE and Greek script to the glyph set, to make it pan-european.

During a ‘type walk’ at the 2007 AtypI conference in Brighton, typographer Phil Baines pointed out what he considered to be a particularly egregious example of over-decorative art nouveau lettering on a war memorial. This made me determined to use it as the basis for a font. Released in Opentype, it now features ligatures, swashes and alternates. It’s not certain if the curved top bars on the E and F are a feature of the original design or due to climbers using them as footholds, but I incorporated them anyway. It has recently been used for invitations and supporting print material for formal charity dinners at the House of Lords.

Stuffed Shirt JNL acquires its name from a term popularized during the years when the Art Deco period flourished. The Great Depression further widened the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. Occasionally, some of those that 'had' (and some who pretended they did) came off as standoffish, egotistical and pompously arrogant. Such individuals were referred to as a "stuffed shirt"; a blowhard who thought he was better than others. In this case, Stuffed Shirt JNL is no more than a dual-line adaptation of Playwright JNL, itself an interpretation of the classic Broadway type design in a way that emulates the hand lettering of old-time sign painters.

The design of the typeface Moskau Grotesk and Moskau Pattern is based on the signage created for the Café Moskau in Berlin by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel in the beginning of the 1960s. The Café Moskau, across from the Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin Mitte was one of the prestige edifices of the former DDR (German Democratic Republic). Built in the early 1960s, it advanced over the years and changing social developments to a trademark building of the capital. The lettering display on the roof was created by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel (October 17, 1910 – September 19, 1985). He had been Professor at the School for Applied Arts in Berlin, and, in addition to the creation of many posters, book covers and postage stamps, he was responsible for the signage of the Kino International as well as for the complete graphic treatment for the Palace of the Republik. The signage for the Café Moskau with the words »RESTAURANT«, »CAFÉ«, »KONZERT« and »MOCKBA« set in capital letters, becomes the basis for the Moskau Grotesk which was developed by Björn Gogalla in 2013. This face should not be seen as an imitation. A few shortcomings were »fixed«. In favor of maintaining the core characteristics some unique features were, however, not relinquished. Lower case letters and the missing capital letters were designed from scratch. It is not surprising that the plain, unassuming geometrical direction of the basic character style forms a bridge to the architecture of the 1960s. Inspired by the then favored, diverse possibilities inherent in the architectural example and wall reliefs, two complimentary pattern fonts emerged.

The design of the typeface Moskau Grotesk is based on the signage created for the Café Moskau in Berlin by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel in the beginning of the 1960s. The Café Moskau, across from the Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin Mitte was one of the prestige edifices of the former DDR (German Democratic Republic). Built in the early 1960s, it advanced over the years and changing social developments to a trademark building of the capital. The lettering display on the roof was created by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel (October 17, 1910 – September 19, 1985). He had been Professor at the School for Applied Arts in Berlin, and, in addition to the creation of many posters, book covers and postage stamps, he was responsible for the signage of the Kino International as well as for the complete graphic treatment for the Palace of the Republik. The signage for the Café Moskau with the words »RESTAURANT«, »CAFÉ«, »KONZERT« and »MOCKBA« set in capital letters, becomes the basis for the Moskau Grotesk which was developed by Björn Gogalla in 2013. This face should not be seen as an imitation. A few shortcomings were »fixed«. In favor of maintaining the core characteristics some unique features were, however, not relinquished. Lower case letters and the missing capital letters were designed from scratch. It is not surprising that the plain, unassuming geometrical direction of the basic character style forms a bridge to the architecture of the 1960s. Inspired by the then favored, diverse possibilities inherent in the architectural example and wall reliefs, two complementary pattern fonts emerged.

GIBEon Display Serif Family- Basically, it seeks a psychedelic groove and freedom. For its evolved balances, the heights of uppercase(cap) and lowercase(x-) evenly arranged to eliminate the sense of imbalance. Glyphs are designed by reflecting their characteristics to preserve individual originality. The three master styles are complementary to each other, and the It enhances the imagination of designers. Ligatures and Alternates can also help with more natural layout editing. And, enjoy the freedom and groove of Italic Instants!

Haarlemmer is a recreation of a never-produced Jan Van Krimpen typeface that goes one step beyond authentic: it shows how he wanted it to be designed in the first place. The original, drawn in the late 1930s, was created for the Dutch Society for the Art of Printing and Books and was to be used to set a new edition of the Bible, using Monotype typesetting. Hence the problem: fonts for metal typesetting machines like the Linotype and Monotype had to be created within a crude system of predetermined character width values. Every letter had to fit within and have its spacing determined by a grid of only 18 units. Often, the italic characters had to share the same widths as those in the roman design. Van Krimpen believed this severely impaired the design process. The invasion of Holland in World War II halted all work on the Bible project, and the original Haarlemmer never went into production. Flash forward about sixty years. Frank E. Blokland, of The Dutch Type Library, wanted to revive the original Haarlemmer, but this time as Van Krimpen would have intended. Blokland reinterpreted the original drawings and created a typeface that matched, as much as possible, Van Krimpen's initial concept. While Van Krimpen's hand could no longer be on the tiller, a thorough study of his work made up for his absence. The result is an exceptional text family of three weights, with complementary italic designs and a full suite of small caps and old style figures. Van Krimpen would be proud.

Cartier was Canada’s first roman text typeface, created in 1967 to celebrate Canada’s centennial. Its designer, Carl Dair, was one of the country’s most celebrated graphic design pioneers, and a fine designer indeed — but he was not a trained type designer. He had spent a year at the Enschedé type foundry and printing works in the Netherlands, but that probably wasn’t enough to fully grasp all that was required to make an effective text face. It is also possible that Dair simply compromised his own design by not allowing any of the much needed alterations to be made to his working drawings when they were handed over to Linotype for production. Cartier, though a strikingly original oldstyle, never became the influential allround text face it might have been. A display typeface derived from it, Raleigh, was more successful. Realizing that Dair’s design was sound in concept, if not in execution, Rod McDonald began working on a new digital version in 1997. The final family is convincing proof that Cartier could have been the functional text face that Dair originally wanted.

Stadia is designed around a series of modular units: quartercircles, teardrop shapes, squares, circles and variations thereon. The versatility of these basic shapes is such that a teardrop, for example, can represent a looped bowl, as in the lower part of the a, while also representing a curved arc at the top of the same character. The strict grid is broken for the T and the Y, and the placement of accents. The alternative – basing a T, for example, across three units – though rational, is far less aesthetically pleasing. As always with type design, one has to know when the internal structural rules should be bent for a more beautiful result. The horizontal lines appear to travel through the letters, bursting into stars in the counters of lower-case characters such as the o and p. The outline version is weighted to the same width as the gaps between the units.

Inspired by the mechanical typewriter, Monoela interprets its characteristics in a contemporary way — whether in body text or emphasis. Despite being a non-proportional typeface, Monoela guarantees good legibility, both for man and machine. Matter-of-factly and rational at first sight, Monoela's character becomes visible in striking shapes and unexpected proportions.