The letterforms that we now accept as the historical standard for printing latin alphabets were developed in Italy around the end of 1400. Deriving from Roman capitals and from italic handwriting, they soon replaced the blackletter letterforms that were used a few years before by Gutenberg for his first moveable types. Between these two typographical traditions there's an interesting and obscure middle ground of historical oddballs, like the Pannartz-Sweynheym Subiaco types, cut in Italy in 1462. Keratine is the result of Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini's exploration of that territory. Like our Kitsch by Francesco Canovaro it explores the impossible territory between antiqua and blackletter, not as a mere historical research, but rather as a way to re-discover and empower an unexpected and contemporary dynamism. Using contemporary digital aesthetics to combine the proportions of humanistic type with the gestural energy of Fraktur letterforms, Keratine develops a "digitally carved", quasi-pixelated appearance (clearly stressed in Keratine's italics) that allows an unexpected balance between small-size readability and display-size personality. Keratine also relies heavily on a variable identity as the letterforms change dynamically with weight, developing from a contrasted, text-oriented light range to more expressive and darker display range, for a total of 8 weights with italics. Open type features and glyph alternates further enrich the usage possibility of this typeface that embodies our contemporary swap culture by embracing the contradictory complexity at the crossroads between Gothic and Humanist styles, while playfully empathising with a digital, brutalist spirit.

Vala™ dances across printed pages and shines on screen. This is a high-energy design that blends the grace of an English Roundhand script with the gravitas of an extra bold Bodoni. There is even a bit of romance in the design. Vala speaks with a resonant voice – and knows few bounds. The typeface enhances print headlines, subheads, cover art and packaging. The design also brings its distinctive melding of verve and poise to banners, headings, navigational links and branding in web sites, blog posts, games and apps. Oscar Guerrero found inspiration for Vala in shop window lettering near his home in Bogotá, Colombia. “The capital A, R and V caught my attention and I photographed the window for future reference,” he explains. “Later I started to draw more letters inspired by the ones in the window.” Guerrero admits that he has always admired the work of Giambattista Bodoni and allowed his classic Didone designs to infuse Vala. Striking contrast in stroke weights, lively ball-terminals and a large x-height give Vala the grace and force of a Waikiki wave. Not satisfied with just a basic character set, Guerrero also took advantage of OpenType’s capabilities and drew a complete set of swash capitals, a bevy of fancy ligatures, and a suite of lowercase alternative designs. The result is that Vala easily emulates custom lettering in posters, headlines and logotypes. The “romantic” part of Vala? Guerrero dedicated the design to his girlfriend, Valentina, and named it after her.

This is Tchig Mono, a monospaced type family that doesn't take itself too seriously. Why make a monospaced font? For coding, sure, but display? It’s my humble opinion that it’s the aesthetic choices driven by the constraints of the monospaced environment that makes them attractive. It’s a challenge for the type designer to squash and expand glyphs into a rigid bounding box, and the more unorthodox shapes that spring from this have a feel about them which lends them to postmodernist layouts and hipsterish anti-design. And the payoff for the type designer - no kerning! Yay. So what’s different about Tchig? Like I said before, it doesn't take itself too seriously. Even the name Tchig is just a stupid, fun sound (although it does show off that nice g!). There are a selection of playful alternates that give text a slightly alien feel. Stylistic set 1 chops off ascenders and descenders of lowercase letters, giving it a kind of small caps meets unicase feel (it is also accessible using the small caps feature). The other sets (or stylistic alternates if you don't have access to stylistic sets) make certain letters more twirly, more square, more “experimental”. Automatic fractions use a half-width numerator and denominator so fractions like one half and five eighths have the same width as figures (and every other glyph). There you go then - a monospaced type family not initially intended for use in the usual ways monospaced families are intended to be used. Give it a try. You could even do some coding with it if you like.

The courageous Russian author of the best seller Anastasia, Vladimir Megre, once said that this remarkable woman would inspire creative people around the world to produce their best work. Since I consider myself a creative person who has been deeply touched by her story, I sincerely hope that this will be true for me also. Anastasia talks a lot about God, the wonders of the natural world and how all things have been created so perfectly. This belief in universal perfection, however, is not confined to mystics alone. Many great mathematicians and scientists, including Albert Einstein, were of the same opinion. Having read Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, I became quite fascinated with the so-called Fibonacci series; "a sequence of integers in which each integer (Fibonacci number) after the second is the sum of the two preceding integers; specif., the series 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, . . ." (Webster’s Dictionary). These mysterious numbers, which are said to give divine proportions, are found throughout nature in everything from a rose to a spiral galaxy. Many believe that this reinforces the argument that there is a divine intelligence back of creation. With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to see if I could somehow create a font using these numbers in the design process. If I have succeeded - even partially - in attaining these mystical proportions, it will definitely have been worth all the hard work. And, I sincerely hope that many will enjoy using this font in producing their own best work.