Daniel Berkeley Updike seems to have stimulated the architect Bertram G. Goodhue to design the prototype in 1896 for Ingalls Kimball at the Cheltenham Press. Six years later Morris Fuller Benton at ATF developed it into the design and then the series that we know today. “Owing to certain eccentricities of form,” writes Updike, “it cannot be read comfortably for any length of time.” But he concludes: “It is, however, an exceedingly handsome letter for ephemeral printing.” Mergenthaler bought composing machine rights to the original design c. 1896, but bought the Benton design in 1904.

Stratic Script is an elegant family of seven fonts, all based on handwriting. The main idea was to create a script font with almost no contrast, easy to use and quite legible. The design is flawless, every letter is carefuly connected to another, in all fonts. The 6 weights, which are very close to each other, allow the designer to choose precisely the weight he needs. It’s an ideal font for fashion magazines, posters, book covers, etc… This family contains OpenType features, such as Proportional Figure, Tabular Figures, Standard & Discretional ligatures.

ITC Mudville was Christopher Wolff's entry in the 1998 U&lc Type Design Competition, for which he won an Honorable Mention (Display). Mudville evolved from variations on hand-lettering that Wolff had done on a variety of projects over the years. The underlying shapes of the letters are formal roman letterforms, but the actual strokes retain the look of letters sketched casually on a layout. Mudville straddles the line between inline and outline type designs. It recalls some of the styles of popular lettering used in display advertising in the '20s.

If you've had too much coffee but not enough of Too Much Coffee Man you can now indulge in an excess of characters created by the hand of Too Much Coffee Man's creator, Mister Shannon Wheeler. Don't worry, in our efforts to ensure clean and confident lettering samples, we kept Shannon on decaf until he was done. Dip this font in your system folder and your hard drive will get a caffeine and sugar rush guaranteed to increase its memory partition and bring the images on your monitor into sharper focus.

This typeface was inspired by a font used by Henrie Ballard. Ballard operated on Fleet Street at the Signe of the Bear in London, England. He was active in the industry from 1597-1608. The font is meant to capture the feel of the original typeface with the capability of reproducing the many ligatures that are part of what make that era's printing interesting. The Italic version has a dramatic feel that is almost handwritten in appearance. Every Proportional Lime font comes with a complete guide to its Unicode extended character set.

The inspiration for this font (as well as the name!) comes from a London cafe I visited years ago. I was fascinated with the handwritten menu - irregular and awkward, yet refreshingly charming. I did my best to recall that particular look by adding 4 slightly different versions of each lowercase letter. The name of the font comes from the speed of the waiter...or the lack of it! But luckily he took his time, otherwise I wouldn't have had the time to really look at the handwritten menu! :)

Laro Soft this is a modern sans-serif font that includes nine weights from thin to black and nine weights in Italic style. This multi-purpose font captures a huge range for the design and creation of your project. Laro will perfectly cope with a variety of tasks and he will always look stylish and modern. With it, you can create logos, labels, use in advertising, packaging, branding, book covers and magazines, cosmetics, banners, posters, headings, descriptions and much more. This font is easy to use has OpenType features.

ITC Bailey Sans is the first typeface family created by Kevin Bailey, a graphic designer in Dallas, Texas. He was once looking for an understated block serif for a design project and could find nothing suitable. Bailey began working on his own serif face but then found that the basics of his new design worked well as a sans serif and continued on that track. ITC Bailey Sans font is available in four weights: book, book italic, bold and bold italic and even has a companion serif display font, ITC Baily Quad Bold.

ITC Matisse was designed by Gregory Gray while he was designing an editorial layout for Madame Figaro, a supplement to the Paris newspaper Figaro. While working on a feature on the work of Henri Matisse, Gray created a typeface with paper and an X-Acto knife, and then scanned the cutouts into a computer. The style of the design comes in part from Gray's passion for African art, with its contrasts between flat areas and protruding surfaces. ITC Matisse is ideal for offbeat display applications and initial capitals.

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.

A book in the library of University of Wisconsin caught David Berlow’s attention. It was set in a clear text face - a predecessor of Bookman, cast by the Western Type Foundry who called it Custer. Upon noting how well the typeface worked in 6 and 7 points, he developed it into a member of the Reading Edge series specifically designed for small text on screen. Custer RE was a broad and approachable typeface drawn large on the body with a tall x-height to maximize its size when set very small.

Laro this is a modern sans-serif font that includes nine weights from thin to black and nine weights in Italic style. This multi-purpose font captures a huge range for the design and creation of your project. Laro will perfectly cope with a variety of tasks and he will always look stylish and modern. With it, you can create logos, labels, use in advertising, packaging, branding, book covers and magazines, cosmetics, banners, posters, headings, descriptions and much more. This font is easy to use has OpenType features.

Thomas Oldfield’s typeface, Reaper, is reminiscent of inscribed Greek letterforms but he claims that its origin is much simpler than that. “I recall”, Tom says, “that I just began the design by making the uppercase ‘I’ and continued using it to make up the other characters.” The cap only typeface has alternate cap forms in the lowercase positions, including a vastly scaled downed O and Q that make for some unusual text settings. Contrary to what the name might have you believe, there’s a lot of life in this quirky typeface.

Griffo Classico™ was produced by Franko Luin in 1993. It is a revival inspired by the types cut by Francesco Griffo for the Venetian printer Aldus Manutius at the end of the fifteenth century. The roman is based on the type Griffo cut in 1496 for Bembo's de Aetna," and the italic on a type he cut in 1501 for an edition of Virgil. Griffo did not make separate italic caps, so Luin designed his own for Griffo Classico. This is a serviceable family with five weights, including small caps.

Bertram Plain is the perfect font for setting titles in comic strips and similar designs. UK designer Martin Wait created this font 1991, after he was inspired by the casual style of circus graphics. In fact, this jolly and lighthearted font was even named after one circus in particular: the Bertram Mills Circus. Bertram Plain is an all-caps font, with capital letters placed on both the upper and lowercase keyboard strokes. Additionally, Bertram Plain letters sport a 3D-like drop shadow, a distinctive feature when comparing this to many other display fonts.

The Gillery - Modern Serif Typeface - Expressive Feminine Branding Logo Font. The Gillery Serif comes with several alternatives and ligatures, so you can combine them to create the perfect typography design. It's perfect for your upcoming project. Such as luxury logos and branding, classy editorial designs, women's magazines, cosmetic brands, fashion promotions, art gallery branding, museums, architectural history, boutique branding, stationery design, blog design, modern advertising design, invitation cards, art quotes, home decoration , book titles/covers, special events, and more. There he is! Have fun with the Gillery Serif Font. Thank You! Zane Std

My 9-year old son Sam asks a lot (a LOT!) of questions. Like: ‘what killed the dinosaurs?’ (probably an asteroid), ‘what is the distance to Pluto’ (about 7.5 billion km), ‘how big is space’ (93 billion lightyears - give or take). I am pretty sure he asked me about gravity as well. Gravitational Pull is a messy pencil script font. It comes with a whole bunch of double-letter ligatures and some really wonky glyphs. And no, in its virtual form, this font is not subject to the Earth’s gravitational pull.

Distill draws its inspiration mainly from Theo van Doesburg's De Stijl era lettering. The type he designed for the Aubette Café, De Stijl Magazine, etc was used as a starting point and then expanded upon. While this typeface was inspired by historical references, it also has the ability to invoke a contemporary feel under the right conditions. Distill will work hard whether you are designing a neo-constructivist poster or a futuristic website. Distill is a family of 12 fonts: 4 weights, each containing condensed, regular, and expanded widths. It also features several alternate characters.

Are you looking for a modern typeface? Geometrico. Round without Compromises. Now 12 Italic Styles added. Even more futuristic than the classical Bauhaus typeface Futura, “Geometrico” is a geometric typeface based on round shapes as suggested by its name. Designed without compromises, neither in form nor in function: Geometrico is ideal for logotypes, headlines and other modern typographic purposes. Would Paul Renner be delighted? Or would he turn around in the grave? Make your own opinion. Try Geometrico for free. Download a free trial version of Geometrico with a reduced character set. Check it out!

Architype Crouwel is a collection of typefaces created in collaboration with Wim Crouwel, following his agreement with The Foundry, to recreate his experimental alphabets as digital fonts. Crouwel's most recognized work was for the Van Abbe and Stedelijk museums (1954 –72) where he established his reputation for radical, grid-based design. Architype Vierkant was developed from the few letterforms that Crouwel created for an opening spread in a 1972 Drupa catalogue, on the theme ‘typo vision international’ – this single reference showed an interesting interplay of the experimental ideas underpinning his controversial ‘new alphabet’ and Fodor.

Edda Pro is another art nouveau revival by German type designer Ralph M. Unger. Edda Pro is based on Edda, designed in 1900 by Heinrich Heinz Heune for Schelter & Giesecke, Leipzig, Germany. Unger redesigned the beautiful forms, completed and expanded this outline caps-only typeface for the profonts library. Also, he added a nice collection of very useful frames and ornaments in EPS format supplied with the OTF version of Edda Pro.Edda Pro can be used for anything in advertising, signmaking, posters, restaurants, hairdressing, paint, wallpaper and so on.

Frederic W. Goudy (1865-1947) created over 100 typefaces during his lifetime. Like most type designers, he is known principally to most people only through his eponymously titled faces such as Goudy Modern, Goudy Old Style etc. This set includes one of Goudy's rarest Arts & Crafts styled faces, a font known as Aries. The font was originally created by Goudy for a private press in Eden, New York in 1926. Also included in this set are two decorative fonts: one font of 52 decorative Ornaments & one font that contains 52 Ampersands.

Big Jim Roberts was my dad. A dedicated family man who taught us about faith, values and love is missed by our family. Jim just about did it all. He was a military man, a police officer, a power company engineer and a photographer. This typeface (which is comprised of a bold lower-case alphabet) has a 70s retro feel. Jim might have like it. The net profits from my font sales help defer medical expenses for my siblings, who both suffer with Cystic Fibrosis and diabetes. Thank you.

Fortuna has some resemblance with handtexted characters based, loosely, on the classic italic. But, like Ad Hoc, Fortuna is drawn on a monitor in every detail. The name is Latin and means fate, luck. The composer Carl Orff was actual at the time when I worked with Fortuna, because he had been born 100 years earlier. Orff's Carmina Burana were being introduced on the radio when I was wondering what to call my most recent creation. The song cycle begins with a song to Fortuna: a fated choice of name. Fortuna was released in 1995.

John Baskerville (1706-1775) was an accomplished writing master and printer from Birmingham, England. He was the designer of several types, punchcut by John Handy, which are the basis for the fonts that bear the name Baskerville today. The excellent quality of his printing influenced such famous printers as Didot in France and Bodoni in Italy. Though he was known internationally as an innovator of technique and style, his high standards for paper and ink quality made it difficult for him to compete with local commercial printers. However, his fellow Englishmen imitated his types, and in 1768, Isaac Moore punchcut a version of Baskerville's letterforms for the Fry Foundry. Baskerville produced a masterpiece folio Bible for Cambridge University, and today, his types are considered to be fine representations of eighteenth century rationalism and neoclassicism. Legible and eminently dignified, Baskerville makes an excellent text typeface; and its sharp, high-contrast forms make it suitable for elegant advertising pieces as well. The Linotype portfolio offers many versions of this design: ITC New Baskerville® was designed by John Quaranda in 1978. Baskerville Cyrillic was designed by the Linotype Design Studio. Baskerville Greek was designed by Matthew Carter in 1978. Baskerville™ Classico was designed by Franko Luin in 1995."

Article to appear on the font family page: According to the Catholic faith, a well known náhuatl story called "Nican Mopohua" (translated as "Here it's narrate") about the Marianas apparitions on the Tepeyac's hill, to the north of the actual Mexico City. After four apparitions, La Virgen de Guadalupe (LVG) told Juan Diego (JD) that he must introduce himself to the first Bishop of Mexico. JD took in his "ayate" some roses (that aren't natives to Mexico's barren territories) and when he dropped them in front of the bishop, the image of LVG appeared in front of him with indigenous features. I’ve worked a lot in this font that appears to came out of nowhere, just like the image of LVG itself, the fact is that I started first sketching some flowers, because I wanted to do something related to this mexican story, so, taking some features from this flowers I started sketching some letters, for example “r” and “i” and the counter forms for some letters like “a” and “o” (that I didn’t use by the way) and the punctuation marks, all inspired by this leaf forms. Lighter weight coming soon! Hope you like it. Any comments: rodrigonabo@gmail.com

Frutiger Capitalis Regular and Outline belong to the group of typefaces for the Linotype’s Type Before Gutenberg project. However, they are not based on direct historical sources. At first glance, they may seem related to the roman type Capitalis Monumentalis, but upon closer examination, the fonts reveal a vitality unknown to the characters the Romans etched in stone. Frutiger confesses that creating Capitalis was “a liberation”. After working on so many sophisticated and meticulously designed typefaces, Frutiger Capitalis was a breath of fresh air. Stylistically, Frutiger Capitalis Outline forms a bridge to Frutiger Capitalis Signs, a whole universe of its own. Frutiger Capitalis Signs is a personal cosmos of symbols, many are immediately “legible”, others leave room for interpretation. Some of the symbols are the product of Frutiger’s imagination, such as his “Life Signs” — soft, hand drawn figures whose lines have no apparent beginning or end, creating both interior and exterior spaces, new forms emerging at each glance. These contoured drawings have accompanied Frutiger throughout his professional life, a fantasy garden which has provided an important balance to his many years of disciplined typeface design. Yet he does not consider himself an artist. Frutiger says he simply “wants to tell stories, to draw thin lines, create contours of signs; that is my style”.

John Baskerville (1706-1775) was an accomplished writing master and printer from Birmingham, England. He was the designer of several types, punchcut by John Handy, which are the basis for the fonts that bear the name Baskerville today. The excellent quality of his printing influenced such famous printers as Didot in France and Bodoni in Italy. Though he was known internationally as an innovator of technique and style, his high standards for paper and ink quality made it difficult for him to compete with local commercial printers. However, his fellow Englishmen imitated his types, and in 1768, Isaac Moore punchcut a version of Baskerville's letterforms for the Fry Foundry. Baskerville produced a masterpiece folio Bible for Cambridge University, and today, his types are considered to be fine representations of eighteenth century rationalism and neoclassicism. Legible and eminently dignified, Baskerville makes an excellent text typeface; and its sharp, high-contrast forms make it suitable for elegant advertising pieces as well. The Linotype portfolio offers many versions of this design: ITC New Baskerville® was designed by John Quaranda in 1978. Baskerville Cyrillic was designed by the Linotype Design Studio. Baskerville Greek was designed by Matthew Carter in 1978. Baskerville™ Classico was designed by Franko Luin in 1995."

The font family Univers is one of the greatest typographic achievements of the second half of the 20th century. The family has the advantage of having a variety of weights and styles, which, even when combined, give an impression of steadiness and homogeneity. The clear, objective forms of Univers make this a legible font suitable for almost any typographic need. In 1954 the French type foundry Deberny & Peignot wanted to add a linear sans serif type in several weights to the range of the Lumitype fonts. Adrian Frutiger, the foundry’s art director, suggested refraining from adapting an existing alphabet. He wanted to instead make a new font that would, above all, be suitable for the typesetting of longer texts — quite an exciting challenge for a sans-serif font at that time. Starting with his old sketches from his student days at the School for the Applied Arts in Zurich, he created the Univers type family. In 1957, the family was released by Deberny & Peignot, and afterwards, it was produced by Linotype. The Deberny & Peignot type library was acquired in 1972 by Haas, and the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) was folded into the D. Stempel AG/Linotype collection in 1985/1989.

John Baskerville (1706-1775) was an accomplished writing master and printer from Birmingham, England. He was the designer of several types, punchcut by John Handy, which are the basis for the fonts that bear the name Baskerville today. The excellent quality of his printing influenced such famous printers as Didot in France and Bodoni in Italy. Though he was known internationally as an innovator of technique and style, his high standards for paper and ink quality made it difficult for him to compete with local commercial printers. However, his fellow Englishmen imitated his types, and in 1768, Isaac Moore punchcut a version of Baskerville's letterforms for the Fry Foundry. Baskerville produced a masterpiece folio Bible for Cambridge University, and today, his types are considered to be fine representations of eighteenth century rationalism and neoclassicism. Legible and eminently dignified, Baskerville makes an excellent text typeface; and its sharp, high-contrast forms make it suitable for elegant advertising pieces as well. The Linotype portfolio offers many versions of this design: ITC New Baskerville® was designed by John Quaranda in 1978. Baskerville Cyrillic was designed by the Linotype Design Studio. Baskerville Greek was designed by Matthew Carter in 1978. Baskerville™ Classico was designed by Franko Luin in 1995."

John Baskerville (1706-1775) was an accomplished writing master and printer from Birmingham, England. He was the designer of several types, punchcut by John Handy, which are the basis for the fonts that bear the name Baskerville today. The excellent quality of his printing influenced such famous printers as Didot in France and Bodoni in Italy. Though he was known internationally as an innovator of technique and style, his high standards for paper and ink quality made it difficult for him to compete with local commercial printers. However, his fellow Englishmen imitated his types, and in 1768, Isaac Moore punchcut a version of Baskerville's letterforms for the Fry Foundry. Baskerville produced a masterpiece folio Bible for Cambridge University, and today, his types are considered to be fine representations of eighteenth century rationalism and neoclassicism. Legible and eminently dignified, Baskerville makes an excellent text typeface; and its sharp, high-contrast forms make it suitable for elegant advertising pieces as well. The Linotype portfolio offers many versions of this design: ITC New Baskerville® was designed by John Quaranda in 1978. Baskerville Cyrillic was designed by the Linotype Design Studio. Baskerville Greek was designed by Matthew Carter in 1978. Baskerville™ Classico was designed by Franko Luin in 1995."

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!

John Baskerville (1706-1775) was an accomplished writing master and printer from Birmingham, England. He was the designer of several types, punchcut by John Handy, which are the basis for the fonts that bear the name Baskerville today. The excellent quality of his printing influenced such famous printers as Didot in France and Bodoni in Italy. Though he was known internationally as an innovator of technique and style, his high standards for paper and ink quality made it difficult for him to compete with local commercial printers. However, his fellow Englishmen imitated his types, and in 1768, Isaac Moore punchcut a version of Baskerville's letterforms for the Fry Foundry. Baskerville produced a masterpiece folio Bible for Cambridge University, and today, his types are considered to be fine representations of eighteenth century rationalism and neoclassicism. Legible and eminently dignified, Baskerville makes an excellent text typeface; and its sharp, high-contrast forms make it suitable for elegant advertising pieces as well. The Linotype portfolio offers many versions of this design: ITC New Baskerville® was designed by John Quaranda in 1978. Baskerville Cyrillic was designed by the Linotype Design Studio. Baskerville Greek was designed by Matthew Carter in 1978. Baskerville™ Classico was designed by Franko Luin in 1995."

The x factor How do you make a font like FS Albert unique, distinctive? “When designing a font I try to question every letter,” says Jason Smith, “but all you need is a few that have an x factor. With FS Albert, they’re the lowercase ‘a’ and ‘g’ and the uppercase ‘I’ and ‘J’. “I remember a friend saying, ‘Why on earth have you designed the ‘a’ like that? Isn’t it too friendly for this kind of font?’ And, in a way, that’s what I wanted – honesty and warmth, because a lot of big brands at the time really needed to show a more human side.” Range of weights and styles FS Albert is a charismatic type: a warm, friendly sans serif face with a big personality. Open, strong and amenable, and available in a wide range of weights and styles, FS Albert suits almost every task you put it to. Fontsmith has crafted five finely-tuned upright Roman weights and four italic weights, as well as a special Narrow version to provide the best coverage and give headlines and text an easy-going character. The chunky kid “FS Albert was inspired by – and named after – my son, who was a bit of a chunky kid,” says Jason Smith. “I designed an extra bold weight because I always felt that the really big font heavy weights had the most personality. “I recently told Albert this story. He laughed, and forgave me for thinking he was a fat baby. He liked the big personality bit, though.” 1000s of glyphs Not content with a character set that covered Europe and the whole of the Western world, the studio decided to go further afield. There are now FS Albert character sets that cover western and eastern European languages, including those of Russia, as well as Cyrillic, Arabic and Greek scripts. In fact, the font now covers more than 100 languages, making it ideal for bringing a consistent typographic style to the communications of global brands.

Sublime45-Regular Sublime Revised for 2021. One font in Opentype format as Sublime45. Families and all TT Truetype versions eliminated in this wonderful stand alone. The Spring 1997 original release of Sublime —borne an organic creature of black water soluble ink & digitized by Coniglio Type. Sublime is a fun font to use in commercial layouts. It is soft and fluid as ink. Like the wrinkles of time, it is imperfect. That in itself makes it incredibly attractive, warm and “human factor”. Sublime offers legibility so sorely missed in the current recreational font market. Sublime was inspired by World War II US fighter pilot Donald Alling. He flew missions over Nazi Germany. His squadron also dropped food, medicine and relief supplies over the Netherlands. Known as “the Colonel” to his friends. Don as a civic engineer ruled literally miles of ink letter callout’s with a template device called a LeRoy in peacetime on vellum and mylar across his career as a technical illustrator. You didn't want to screw up inking into a template with wet black permanent ink. You really had to have a steady hand and it was all done by hand. You can say Don worked “unplugged”. And that is cool! He was part of the broad stroke of postwar industrial expansion that helped keep America strong, rendering exploded views on top secret projects. Many of us were not even born yet when all this was going on. Today at over 80 years young Don is like a national treasure, savvy and bright—and the ladies love him! The Colonel remains a dedicated master airbrush man, stand–up man, caricature artist and letterman all without use of a computer! He was lucky enough to retire before a desktop cathode tube was put in his face. Today the Colonel enjoys restoring VW’s, flying and freelance consulting when not being called to supper by his lovely wife Rea.

In Adrian Frutiger, the discipline of a mathematically exact mind is joined with an unmistakable artistic sense. His independent work possesses the controllable language of letterforms. Personal and intensive, this work is the manifestation of his expressive will. Frutiger's precise sense of outline reveals itself two- or three-dimensionally in wood, stone, or bronze, on printing plates and in the form of reliefs. However, even his independent work can be understood as objectivized signs; in their symbolism, they are embedded in the fundamental questions of human existance. They might have developed in the spirit of playfulness, but their nature is always conceptual, directed towards a complex, yet harmonic, whole. Following function, form also necessarily follows the content of the language. The entire spiritual world becomes readable through letters. Essentially, Adrian Frutiger attempts to fathom the basic, central truth which defines our lives: change, growth, division - beginning and end. In a virtual synthesis, he seems to close the circle in which the world reflects itself in symbolic forms. Frutiger Stones is for Adrian Frutiger the example of his formal artistic sensibility par excellence. Searching for the fundamental elements in nature, he has discovered the pebble, rounded and polished over innumerable years by gently flowing water. And out of this, he has created his complete system, a ruralistic typeface of letters and symbols. It depicts animals and plants, as well as astrological and mythical signs. Because of its unique aura, Frutiger Stones is particularly well-suited to different purposes - in headlines and prominent pictograms, as symbol faces, illustrations, and more. Frutiger Symbols is a symbol font of plants, animals and stars as well as religious and mythological symbols. Together with Frutiger Stones this typeface builds a complete design system, which offers endless possibilities. It can be used for illustrations or a symbol type with its distinctive pictograms. Frutiger Symbols is available in the weights regular, positive and negative.

American graphic designer William Addison Dwiggins' (W.A.D. for short) first typefaces were the Metro family, designed from 1927 onward. The project grew out of Dwiggins' dissatisfaction with the new European sans serif typefaces of the day, such as Futura, Erbar, and Kabel, a feeling he expressed in his seminal book Layout in Advertising. Urged by Mergenthaler Linotype to create a solution for the problem, Dwiggins began a professional relationship that would span over the next few decades. The first Metro family typeface to be released was Metroblack, brought to market by Linotype in 1929 (Metroblack #2™ the only one of the two versions that Mergenthaler Linotype eventually put into production which is available in digital form). With more of a humanist quality than the geometric styles popular in Europe at the time, Dwiggins drew what he believed to be the ideal sans serif for headlines and advertising copy. Metroblack has a warmer character than the Modernists' achievements, and the type is full of mannered curves and angled terminals (Metroblack also has an astoundingly beautiful Q). The other weights of the Metro family, Metromedium #2™ and Metrolite #2™, were designed by Mergenthaler Linotype's design office under Dwiggins' supervision. Despite having been created more than three-quarters of a century ago, the Metro family types have aged well, and remain a popular sans serif family. Although spec'd less often than other bestsellers, like Futura, Metro continues to find many diverse uses. The typeface has appeared throughout Europe and the North America for decades in newspapers and magazines, and can even help create a great brand image when used in logos and corporate identity. Dwiggins ranks among the most influential graphic designers and typeface designers of the 20th Century. He has several other quality fonts in the Linotype Originals, including the serif text faces Electra™ and New Caledonia™, as well as Caravan™, a font of typographic ornaments."

The x factor How do you make a font like FS Albert unique, distinctive? “When designing a font I try to question every letter,” says Jason Smith, “but all you need is a few that have an x factor. With FS Albert, they’re the lowercase ‘a’ and ‘g’ and the uppercase ‘I’ and ‘J’. “I remember a friend saying, ‘Why on earth have you designed the ‘a’ like that? Isn’t it too friendly for this kind of font?’ And, in a way, that’s what I wanted – honesty and warmth, because a lot of big brands at the time really needed to show a more human side.” Range of weights and styles FS Albert is a charismatic type: a warm, friendly sans serif face with a big personality. Open, strong and amenable, and available in a wide range of weights and styles, FS Albert suits almost every task you put it to. Fontsmith has crafted five finely-tuned upright Roman weights and four italic weights, as well as a special Narrow version to provide the best coverage and give headlines and text an easy-going character. The chunky kid “FS Albert was inspired by – and named after – my son, who was a bit of a chunky kid,” says Jason Smith. “I designed an extra bold weight because I always felt that the really big font heavy weights had the most personality. “I recently told Albert this story. He laughed, and forgave me for thinking he was a fat baby. He liked the big personality bit, though.” 1000s of glyphs Not content with a character set that covered Europe and the whole of the Western world, the studio decided to go further afield. There are now FS Albert character sets that cover western and eastern European languages, including those of Russia, as well as Cyrillic, Arabic and Greek scripts. In fact, the font now covers more than 100 languages, making it ideal for bringing a consistent typographic style to the communications of global brands.

Celestina is the lively spirit, just like drops of ink on a piece of paper or clouds in the sky. The same spirit is maintained by the rounded letters of the script and by the characters' small whorls. Celestina has come to life as a result of a peculiar game in which I tried to bring together the letters with different tempers with help of calligraphic instruments. I wanted to create a very light and playful font which would look like a quick inscription on a piece of paper, but would also be easy to read in a text array. As I was working on the font, my cat Celestina has been very interested in the brush painting process, and I had no other option but to name the font after her! Celestina works perfect for both Moomins stories and personal blogs, as well as for the design of hand-made things, and even just then when you want to put yourself into a good mood!