Get your Aussie on! The new typeface, Ainslie, with its mix of influences from Oz, makes its mark as the first semi-serif from insigne Design. Ainslie, named for Mt. Ainslie and Canberra’s inner suburb of the same name, was originally developed for the Canberra Australia Centennial Typeface Competition. Canberra is Australia’s capital, and it’s a planned city designed by American Walter Burley Griffin, a contemporary and one-time associate of Frank Lloyd Wright. Griffin’s plan involved a distinctly geometric design with several focal points--one of which was Mt. Ainslie. This same purely geometric scheme is now the basis for insigne’s new release. Similar to the Chatype project in its scope, its challenge, and the way its concept was developed, Ainslie incorporates influences from Canberra and surrounding areas to form a font that is uniquely Australian. In comparison, Chatype was developed for the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee by insigne in conjunction with designer Robbie de Villiers. Chatype took elements from Chattanooga’s industrial character and Cherokee past and merged them with the area’s technological influences. Likewise, Ainslie takes Canberra’s distinct, geometric design and blends it with the organic, flowing effect of aboriginal art. Add in touches from the smooth, aerodynamic design of the boomerang and Ainslie gives you a look uniquely Australian yet usable in a wide range of applications. The fashionable typeface includes a multitude of alternates that can be accessed in any OpenType-enabled application. These stylish alternates along with a number of swashes as well as meticulously refined details with ball terminals and alternate titling caps keep the font well accessorized. Also included are capital swash alternates, old style figures, and small caps. Peruse the PDF brochure to see these features in action. OpenType enabled applications such as the Adobe suite or Quark can take full advantage of the automatic replacing ligatures and alternates. This family also offers the glyphs to support a wide range of languages. While Ainslie wasn't selected as the final font in the Canberra competition, the outcome allowed for additional adjustments to the typeface. Several approaches were attempted for the final product including a technological hexagonal concept, which may still be developed to another form later. Some of the organic forms were removed and substituted with more abrupt endings, leaving the face looking pretty spiffy and a fair bit more legible. In the end, Ainslie was pulled back to the basic forms from which it was started. Give it a go for your next project. It’s guaranteed to be anything but a barbeque stopper.

Here I am, once again digging up 60-year sign lettering and trying to reconcile it with the typography of my own time. The truth is I've had this particular Alf Becker alphabet in my sights for a few years now. But in the typical way chaos shuffles the days, Buffet Script and Whomp won the battle for my attentions way back when, then Storefront beat the odds by a nose a couple of years ago. Nevertheless, revisiting Alf Becker’s work is always a breath of fresh air for me, not to mention the ego boost I get from confirming that I can still hack my way through the challenges, which is something I think people ask themselves about more often as they get older. You can never tell what may influence your work, or in this case remind you to dig it out of dust drawers and finally mould it into one of your own experiences. On my recent visits to the States and Canada, I noticed that quite a few high-end steak houses try their best to recreate an urban American 1930s atmosphere. This is quite evident in their menus, wall art, lighting, music, and so on. The ambience says your money is well spent here, because your food was originally choice-cut by a butcher who wears a suit, cooked by a chef who may be your neighbour 20 minutes from downtown, and delivered by a waitress who can do the Charleston when the lights dim and who just wouldn't mind laughing with you over drinks at the bar later. So Steak is just that, a face for menus and wall art in those places that see themselves in the kind of jazzy, noirish world where one-liners rule and exclamation points are part of a foreign language. As is usual with my lettering-inspired faces, there is very little left of the original Alf Becker alphabet. Of course, the challenges present in bringing typographic functionality to what is essentially pure hand lettering gives the spirit of the original art a hell of a rollercoaster ride. But I think that spirit survived the adventure, and may in fact be even somewhat magnified here. This font is over 850 glyphs. It’s loaded with ligatures, swashes, ending forms, alternates, ascender and descender variations, and extended Latin language support. Steak comes in 3 versions. According to your taste you can choose Barbecue, Braised or Smoked. It’s up to you!

Solantra is a solidly crafted handwritten script. I’ve long felt that beautiful writing is more pleasing to the eye than the more attention grabbing swashes and flourishes. That being said, both have their role in design and Solantra has a large slice of each. Solantra combines vintage style handwriting with all its quirks and English Roundhand of that same era. The result is a solid setting script filled with charm and personality. With default Adobe Illustrator settings for Ligatures and Contextual Alternates active, the vintage charm is in full display. Want to add more flair? There are loads of more embellished letters inside the full version. Solantro takes into account how scripts are actually written so that connections from letter to letter are more fluid and rhythmic than the average script font. In natural script/handwriting most letters end at the bottom right and move up to connect with the next. Some letters like o, v, and w, however; end at the top right. Rather than force these letters to dip down and go back up they should ideally connect from that upper right point. This is accomplished through a series of alternate letters and ligatures with extensive contextual feature programming. So, for example, you might get one version of a ligature in the middle of a word and a different one at the beginning or end of that word. Solantra also takes into account another often overlooked feature of natural handwriting. When you write you inevitably pick your pen up from the paper at times. This is often just to reposition the hand, but in the days of writing with dip pens this was also needed to attain a fresh supply of ink. Having these occasional breaks in connections makes the writing less static and more rhythmic. While the Basic versions are limited to a standard character set and several ligatures and alternates for better settings of text, the full pro versions contains 1292 glyphs and an abundance of features. Even with numbers there are options like Oldstyle numbers, fractions, and ordinals. Central European language support is included as well as some select ligatures that use accents. To see more on the technical aspects and instructions on using Solantra, please check out the user’s guide in the Gallery section. **Note: The Pro versions of Solantra which do not have the word “Basic” attached to the title, have everything in them. So if you license a Pro version there is no need to get the Basic versions.

Early in the 19th century, foundries began releasing a variety of decorated ornamental letters based on the Tuscan letterform. Fancy Tuscan letters quickly became so popular, they eventually came to represent the cluttered extremes of Victorian design. Foundries competed with each other to produce most extravagantly decorated letterforms. As often happens, success turned to excess. What is often overlooked is the long history of the Tuscan style. Early examples have been traced back to ancient Rome. Indeed, the characteristic bifurcation may have represented a fishtail to the early Christians, thus sharing in the roll of symbolic identification played by the simple drawing of a fish as a whole. Later. trifurcation was developed as an alternate termination, followed by loops, full fishtails, curls, hooks and other fancy variations. Nicolete Gray provides an extensive history in her Appendix One of NINETEENTH CENTURY ORNAMENTED TYPEFACES. According to Gray, the first metal typeface based on the Tuscan form was the Ornamented of 1817 by Vincent Figgins of London. Thorowgood followed suit in 1821, Fry in 1824 and Caslon in 1830. Each was to re-visit the form many times during the Victorian era. Here we present our interpretation of what Figgins might have produced in a basic, plain Tuscan form - free of the decorative additions. We are pretty safe here because Figgins was very creative. He explored many of the terminal variations listed above and combined them with different decorative devices to produce a constant stream of new faces to meet the demands of the marketplace. Figgins Tuscan ML represents a major extension of the original release, with the following changes: 1. Added glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. There are also a few glyphs for Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic and Old Gaelic. Total of 355 glyphs. 2. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: aalt, ornm and liga ˜ with total 34 lookups. 3. Added 351 kerning pairs. 4. Redesigned several glyphs: the comma, quotes, brackets, braces, acute accent, and grave accent. 5. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. Please note that some older applications may only be able to access the Western Europe character set (approximately 221 glyphs). The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS (Post Script Type 1) format and a TTF version which is in Open TT (True Type)format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

Since its foundation in 1901, the iconic building in the Rotterdam neighborhood Kop van Zuid, is shining. Where previously the Holland America Line was housed, you will now find Hotel New York. A building with a tremendous history. We’re glad to take you back in time with captivating memories. In 1991, catering entrepreneurs Daan van der Have, Hans Loos and Dorine de Vos refurbished the at the time vacant property into a hotel/restaurant. To honor its 25 years existence, we celebrate this happening with a brand-new font, ‘America Line’. A tribute to Wim ten Broek, the multi-talented Dutch Graphic Designer. As early as the 1930’s before the Second World War, Wim ten Broek made the famous posters for the Holland-America Line. The influence of A.M. Cassandre here in, is clearly recognizable. Wim ten Broek also worked for HAL with large surfaces and fixed lines in which primary colors dominate, accentuated with shadows acquired by spraying technique. He also made graphic works for, among others, the World Exhibition in New York, the Dutch railway company ‘Werkspoor’ and the royal Dutch steel factory ‘Hoogovens’. His drawings and lettering gave me a love for the trade and naturally gave me a completely different view on fonts. That’s how I slowly but surely made my way to the trade. Based on the letters I had at my disposal from the Holland – America Line poster, I started to complete the alphabet in the same style as the original text. I digitized everything in order to acquire a usable and modern font. The Holland America Line Font comes with uppercase and lowercase with all the needs of modern times to create a good digital font and to be able to use it for all graphic purposes. The font is ideal for headtext, posters, logos, etc... Don't hesitate and use this unique historical font! It will give your work that glamour that you will find in few fonts. Enjoy the Holland America Line. The Holland America Line Font comes with uppercase, lowercase, numerals, punctuations so you can use the Holland America Line font to customize all your designs. The Holland America Line font is designed by Coert De Decker in 2018 and published by Kustomtype Font Foundry. The Holland America Line Font can be used for all graphic purposes. It is ideal for headtext, posters, logos,  logos, letterhead, apparel design, package design, label design etc... Don't hesitate any longer and enjoy this unique historical font! It will give your work the glamour that you will only find in a few fonts. Enjoy your journey with the Holland America Line!

Hear ye, hear ye! Adventurers of all realms, allow me to regale you with a tale of Mikadan, a font of great splendor and beauty. Behold, its letterforms are imbued with the grace and character of the medieval age, yet tempered with modern sensibilities. This typeface is a tribute to the great Verona of Stephenson Blake, a typeface of old that harks back to the days of yore, the age of kings and queens, and the rise of chivalry. Mikadan also draws inspiration from William Dana Orcutt’s Illumanistic, a font of great power and mystery from the turn of the century. Moreover, Mikadan possesses some of the accessible qualities of Morris Fuller Benton’s Motto, a font that has stood the test of time since 1915. Truly, Mikadan is a font that combines the best of old and new, of medieval fantasy and modern design. With its easy-to-read letterforms and medieval design, Mikadan is the ideal choice for all modern applications. Whether you’re designing a poster for a tournament, a sign for a market, or a banner for your guild, Mikadan will serve you well. And if your program supports OpenType alternates, you can access unique drop-down capital letters that will truly set your design apart. So come forth, brave adventurers! Embrace the medieval fantasy design of Mikadan and set forth on your journey to create designs that will endure through the ages. Most Latin-based European, and most Cyrillic-based writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Buryat, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dungan, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kalmyk, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kazakh, Khalkha, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Komi-Permyak, Kurdish, Kurdish (Latin), Kyrgyz, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Macedonian, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Russian, Rusyn, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tajik, Tatar, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec, Zulu and Zuni.

Friendly is an homage to Morris Fuller Benton's adorable Announcement typeface. It is not a strict interpretation, digital revival or reverent reproduction of the original letterforms… but I would be remiss and shady to not acknowledge the letterforms that inspired this typeface. If you are looking for a more accurate 'scanned revival' I would recommend searching "Announcement" on MyFonts. As stated earlier, it is an homage to the original letterforms of the typeface but takes a great bit of freedom tightening the construction up in order to loosen up the movement of the variant letterforms to allow a great deal of usable personality. I enjoy stating this dichotomy… "loosen up to tighten up the forms" and vice versa. It seems counterintuitive or silly but by allowing the letterforms to normalize, I felt more comfortable going back and adding rather indulgent personality. Infused with stylistic alternates, swashes, titling, many many contextual alternates, 9 stylistic sets and 2 stylistic sets with wordmarks, the typeface became far more 'friendly' for me… how could it not? With so many loops, swashes and typographic indulgences, it was bound to be fun. The more elaborate and 'overdone' Friendly got, the more I wanted to slant it. Here's where my thinking differs from MFB's original. I like slanted romans… especially ones with long ascenders, but I do not like much of a slant. It has to be the lettering person in me. It's hard for me to do a completely upright serif and not pair it with an angle, but I did not feel Announcement's 'Italic' offered much and the actual slant needed to be far less. If it's not an italic, I prefer the letters to slant with an angle equivalent to the thickness of the vertical stroke. The Slanted version of Friendly is set at 3.6 degrees, is quite subtle, and very fitting for me. You will find that most characters have a contextual, stylistic, swash and titling alternate assigned to them and some have an echoed alternate to the swash and titling options if the stylistic alt has been selected in tandem. Additionally, all of these are accessible in the glyph palette directly from the base glyph typed or through selecting options through the Stylistic Sets 1–9. Stylistic Sets 10 & 11 are a little different. They are actually configured as complex majuscule ligatures… a result of me getting carried away. Other features like a default old style numeral set and coordinating glyphs have been produced along with case support, ordinals, and more have been added to make it more relevant for contemporary use.

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

Imagine being printer in the early nineteenth century, your stock isn’t the finest, your lead characters are worn out: Voilá Kandidat Rough. But wait, Kandidat isn’t the usual scan-an-old-book,-put-the-glyphs-in-a-font-and-you’re-done-font. Kandidat Rough has a variety of whopping 14 alternates for most characters. Our algorithm changes the letters automatically. All you have to do is turn on Contextual Alternates in your layout app. The algorithm is the best we’ve seen so far, and it’s so good that even same words appear in different forms. And should by coincidence words have the same glyphs, just assign a different Style Set to the first letter, and all other letters in the word will change as well (well, it depends a bit on your software). The mechanism isn’t perfect and maybe we stretched OpenType capabilities a bit over the top, but we yet haven’t seen any better routine for switching letters on the fly. Is it worth to mention that Kandidat Rough not only speaks English, but also German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Croatian, Turkish and most likely some other languages? Maybe. To be sure whether your language is supported, this is the typeset of all letters: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝĆČĐĞ݌ފŸŽ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïñòóôõöøùúûüýÿćčđğıœşšž Apart from that we also included the following punctuation and currency symbols: !"#$%&'()*+,-./:;?@[\]_{|}¡©«®°±¶·»¿×–—‘’‚“”„†•…‹›⁄≠☞ €¢$£¥ This sums up to nearly 3000 glyphs per font, and we have three of them: Regular, Italic and Bold. All neatly kerned. All in all a great repertoire for even the most demanding book or advert jobs with a look of old times. And now imagine you are sick of the rugged print experience Kandidat Rough delivers: go for Kandidat. This is our Scotch-ish ancestor the Rough version was made from. A sturdy, friendly, round, warm friend from the beginning of the nineteenth century. A bit dark, maybe. You will like it. Kandidat has the aforementioned type set plus complete Baltics, Eastern Europe and Cyrillic. Plus a couple of gimmicks like fleurons, stars, circled numbers, arrows, and, and, and… Kandidat Regular additionally has small caps for Latin based scripts (not Cyrillic). The spick and span Kandidat font set also consists of Regular, Italic and Bold cuts. The bold cut is on the very bold side and can nicely be used for headings, whereas Italic is a great companion for Regular. It took us some time and trouble to finish this project, but after all we are very proud of our little feat and hope you will enjoy Kandidat as much as we do. Enjoy!

Squalo, the genesis The idea of this project called Squalo popped into my mind while I was working with excitement on some sketches. I was chasing after a strong typographical character, something that for me has to be crystallized in form which is always legible and functional. The concept The concept of Squalo arises from the observation of an athlete’s body: you notice that even if most are lean, they are also strong, cut and chiselled. The sport they play molds and modify their bodies.  Just think, for instance, on a professional swimmer: during the competition every single muscle, tendon, tissue, cell is working to swim faster. Every single part is there to give strength and speed like in a “squalo” (shark in italian). Not as an eel, nor as a mermaid, nor as a hake. Just like a shark. If you take a quick look, you will notice that the width of the typeface is slightly more condensed than that of a standard sans serif. We designed Squalo this way specifically to assist and strengthen your concepts through stylized typography. We designed the joins and terminals (tip ends) of the characters A, V, W, Z, v, w, z, to create a feeling of “tension”, reinforcing the concept of shark, danger, caution, as well explicit, intentional movement. Pure strength. We wanted to recall the exact moment of the start of the 100 meters race: when the sprinter initially spreads all of his powerful energy. The italic version, starting with the former two typographical concepts of width and tension, emphasizes them. First of all, we compressed the characters 10 percent more, and slanted it 10 degrees to the right. With this movement I intended to convey the gorgeous feeling of tension in power and rapidity. The typeface has 9 weights, from “hair” to “black”, and two versions, “regular” and “italic”.  All 18 fonts include small caps, unicase, tabular and oldstyle numbers, numerators and denominators, and much more. Squalo is an ideal typeface that I recommend for use in marketing campaigns, design of packaging, magazines, branding for tv programs, films, book texts, editorial, publications, logos, corporate projects, web texts, and graphic design in motion. Squalo supports the following languages: Abenaki, Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Amis, Anuta, Aragonese, Aranese, Aromanian, Arrernte, Arvanitic (Latin), Asturian, Atayal, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Bemba, Bikol, Bislama, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Chickasaw, Cimbrian, Cofán, Corsican Creek,Crimean Tatar (Latin),Croatian, Czech, Dawan, Delaware, Dholuo, Drehu, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian Filipino, Finnish, Folkspraak, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Gikuyu, Gooniyandi, Greenlandic (Kalaallisut)Guadeloupean, Creole, Gwich’in, Haitian, Creole, Hän, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hopi, Hotcąk (Latin), Hungarian, Icelandic, Ido, IgboI, locano, Indonesian, Interglossa, Interlingua, Irish, Istro-Romanian, Italian, Jamaican, Javanese (Latin), Jèrriais, Kala Lagaw Ya, Kapampangan (Latin), Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Karelian (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kiribati, Kirundi, Klingon, Ladin, Latin, Latino sine Flexione, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lojban, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Manx, Māori, Marquesan, Megleno-Romanian, Meriam Mir, Mirandese, Mohawk, Moldovan, Montagnais, Montenegrin, Murrinh-Patha, Nagamese Creole, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Ngiyambaa, Niuean, Noongar, Norwegian, Novial, Occidental, Occitan, Old Icelandic, Old Norse, Oshiwambo, Ossetian (Latin), Palauan, Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Potawatomi, Q’eqchi’, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Rotokas, Sami (Inari Sami), Sami (Lule Sami), Sami (Northern Sami), Sami (Southern Sami), Samoan, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Seri, Seychellois Creole, Shawnee, Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Slovio (Latin), Somali, Sorbian (Lower Sorbian), Sorbian (Upper Sorbian), Sotho (Northern), Sotho (Southern), Spanish, Sranan, Sundanese (Latin), Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tokelauan, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Tzotzil, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Wallisian, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Warlpiri, Wayuu, Welsh, Wik-Mungkan, Wiradjuri, Wolof, Xavante, Xhosa, Yapese, Yindjibarndi, Zapotec, Zulu, Zuni

Amazing Slab is a typeface family designed by Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli as a development of the Amazing Grotesk family designed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini. Mixing an egyptian serif, low contrast approach with the curved endings and open shapes of humanist sans grotesques, it was developed to embody the energetic and friendly nature of the startup scene: a feeling of innovation, information and energy, with a desire for simplicity and straightforward communication. The basic design shapes for the font come from the strong personality of the extrabold letterforms drawn by Francesco Canovaro for his StartupItalia logo, that informed the display design of the four darkest weights (from medium to black). Each of these weights, has been paired with an inline version, designed by Mario De Libero, to extend the range of uses for the typefaces, from bold signage to logo design, to editorial titling. The lighter range of the family features two weights (regular and light) that are designed for text use, complemented by the thin and extralight weights that are better suited to big point size, for editorial and signage use. All the weights of Amazing Slab, as well the matching true italics forms, feature an extended charset of over 900 glyphs, covering 211 languages using latin, cyrillic and greek alphabets, and sporting a complete set of Open type features including positional numbers, annotation and case-sensitive forms, standard ligatures and a wide array of stylistic sets to customize glyph shapes for logo and display usage. With its friendly, energetic mood and its versatile range of application use, Amazing Slab is born to make every design project look simply... amazing! Suggested uses: old signage, logo design, editorial titling, display 21 styles: 8 weights, 8 italics, 4 inline styles, 1 variable font 965 glyphs in each weight Useful OpenType features: Small Capitals; Standard Ligatures; Discretionary Ligatures; Stylistic Alternates; Stylistic sets 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06; Ordinals; Fractions; Tabular Figures; Old-style Figures; Slashed Zero; Circled Numbers; Case Sensitive Forms; Numerators; Denominators; Subscript; Superscript; Scientific Inferiors; 211 languages supported: extended Latin, Cyrillic, Greek English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Javanese (Latin), Turkish, Italian, Polish, Afaan Oromo, Azeri, Tagalog, Sundanese (Latin), Filipino, Moldovan, Romanian, Indonesian, Dutch, Cebuano, Malay, Uzbek (Latin), Kurdish (Latin), Swahili, Greek, Hungarian, Czech, Haitian Creole, Hiligaynon, Afrikaans, Somali, Zulu, Serbian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Shona, Quechua, Albanian, Catalan, Chichewa, Ilocano, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Neapolitan, Xhosa, Tshiluba, Slovak, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Sicilian, Sotho (Southern), Kirundi, Tswana, Sotho (Northern), Belarusian (Latin), Turkmen (Latin), Bemba, Lombard, Lithuanian, Tsonga, Wolof, Jamaican, Dholuo, Galician, Ganda, Low Saxon, Waray-Waray, Makhuwa, Bikol, Kapampangan (Latin), Aymara, Zarma, Ndebele, Slovenian, Tumbuka, Venetian, Genoese, Piedmontese, Swazi, Zazaki, Latvian, Nahuatl, Silesian, Bashkir (Latin), Sardinian, Estonian, Afar, Cape Verdean Creole, Maasai, Occitan, Tetum, Oshiwambo, Basque, Welsh, Chavacano, Dawan, Montenegrin, Walloon, Asturian, Kaqchikel, Ossetian (Latin), Zapotec, Frisian, Guadeloupean Creole, Q’eqchi’, Karakalpak (Latin), Crimean Tatar (Latin), Sango, Luxembourgish, Samoan, Maltese, Tzotzil, Fijian, Friulian, Icelandic, Sranan, Wayuu, Papiamento, Aromanian, Corsican, Breton, Amis, Gagauz (Latin), Māori, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Alsatian, Atayal, Kiribati, Seychellois Creole, Võro, Tahitian, Scottish Gaelic, Chamorro, Kashubian, Faroese, Rarotongan, Sorbian (Upper Sorbian), Karelian (Latin), Romansh, Chickasaw, Arvanitic (Latin), Nagamese Creole, Saramaccan, Ladin, Palauan, Sami (Northern Sami), Sorbian (Lower Sorbian), Drehu, Wallisian, Aragonese, Tuvaluan, Zuni, Montagnais, Hawaiian, Marquesan, Niuean, Yapese, Vepsian, Bislama, Hopi, Megleno-Romanian, Creek, Aranese, Rotokas, Tokelauan, Mohawk, Warlpiri, Cimbrian, Sami (Lule Sami), Jèrriais, Arrernte, Murrinh-Patha, Kala Lagaw Ya, Cofán, Gwich’in, Seri, Sami (Southern Sami), Istro-Romanian, Wik-Mungkan, Anuta, Cornish, Sami (Inari Sami), Yindjibarndi, Noongar, Hotcąk (Latin), Meriam Mir, Manx, Shawnee, Gooniyandi, Ido, Wiradjuri, Hän, Ngiyambaa, Delaware, Potawatomi, Abenaki, Esperanto, Folkspraak, Interglossa, Interlingua, Latin, Latino sine Flexione, Lojban, Novial, Occidental, Old Icelandic, Old Norse, Slovio (Latin), Volapük

Quill-formed roman/gothic with an olde-worlde flavor. Some background in the designer's own words: "A series of fonts came to mind which would be rooted in the medieval era -for me, a period of intense interest. Prior to Gutenberg's development of commercial printing with type on paper in the mid-1400s, books were still being written out by hand, on vellum. At that time, a Bible cost more than a common workman could hope to earn in his entire lifetime. Men like William Tyndale devoted their energies to translating the Scriptures for the benefit of ordinary people in their own language, and were burned to death at the stake for doing so. Those in authority correctly recognized a terminal threat to the fabric of feudal society, which revolved around the church. "This religious metamorphosis was reflected in letterforms: which, like buildings, reflect the mood of the period in which they take shape. The medieval era produced the Gothic cathedrals; their strong vertical emphasis was expressive of the vertical relationship then existing between man and God. The rich tracery to be seen in the interstices and vaulted ceilings typified the complex social dynamics of feudalism. Parallels could be clearly seen in Gothic type, with its vertical strokes and decorated capitals. Taken as a whole, Gothicism represented a mystical approach to life, filled with symbolism and imagery. To the common man, letters and words were like other sacred icons: too high for his own understanding, but belonging to God, and worthy of respect. "Roman type, soon adopted in preference to Gothic by contemporary printer-publishers (whose primary market was the scholarly class) represented a more democratic, urbane approach to life, where the words were merely the vehicle for the idea, and letters merely a necessary convenience for making words. The common man could read, consider and debate what was printed, without having the least reverence for the image. In fact, the less the medium interfered with the message, the better. The most successful typefaces were like the Roman legions of old; machine-like in their ordered functionality and anonymity. Meanwhile, Gutenberg's Gothic letterform, in which the greatest technological revolution of history had first been clothed, soon became relegated to a Germanic anachronism, limited to a declining sphere of influence. "An interesting Bible in my possession dating from 1610 perfectly illustrates this duality of function and form. The text is set in Gothic black-letter type, while the side-notes appear in Roman. Thus the complex pattern of the text retains the mystical, sacred quality of the hand-scripted manuscript (often rendered in Latin, which a cleric would read aloud to others), while the clear, open side-notes are designed to supplement a personal Bible study. "Tyndale is one of a series of fonts in process which explore the transition between Gothic and Roman forms. The hybrid letters have more of the idiosyncrasies of the pen (and thus, the human hand) about them, rather than the anonymity imbued by the engraving machine. They are an attempt to achieve the mystery and wonder of the Gothic era while retaining the legibility and clarity best revealed in the Roman form. "Reformers such as Tyndale were consumed with a passion to make the gospel available and understood to the masses of pilgrims who, in search of a religious experience, thronged into the soaring, gilded cathedrals. Centuries later, our need for communion with God remains the same, in spite of all our technology and sophistication. How can our finite minds, our human logic, comprehend the transcendent mystery of God's great sacrifice, his love beyond understanding? Tyndale suffered martyrdom that the Bible, through the medium of printing, might be brought to our hands, our hearts and our minds. It is a privilege for me to dedicate my typeface in his memory."

Phinney Jenson ML is a font with deep historical roots firmly planted in the fertile soil of the Italian Renaissance. Twenty years after Lorenzo Ghiberti finished his famous East Doors, the Gates of Paradise, of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and about fifteen years before Sandro Botticelli painted his “Birth of Venus,” a French printer by the name of Nicolas Jenson set up a small print shop in the powerful city-state of Venice. The fifteenth century marked the end of the plague and the rise of Venetian power, as the merchants of Venice controlled the lucrative trade of the eastern Mediterranean and sent their ships as far as London and even the Baltic. In 1470, Jenson introduced his Roman type with the printing of De Praeparatio Evangelica by Eusebuis. He continued to use his type for over 150 editions until he died in 1480. In 1890 a leader of the Arts & Crafts movement in England named William Morris founded Kelmscott Press. He was an admirer of Jenson’s Roman and drew his own somewhat darker version called GOLDEN, which he used for the hand-printing of limited editions on homemade paper, initiating the revival of fine printing in England. Morris' efforts came to the attention of Joseph Warren Phinney, manager of the Dickinson Type Foundry of Boston. Phinney requested permission to issue a commercial version, but Morris was philosophically opposed and flatly refused. So Phinney designed a commercial variation of Golden type and released it in 1893 as Jenson Oldstyle. Phinney Jenson is our version of Phinney’s version of Morris' version of Nicolas Jenson’s Roman. We selected a view of the Piazza San Marco in Venice for our gallery illustration of Phinney Jenson ML because most of the principal buildings on the Piazza were already standing when Jenson arrived in Vienna in 1470. The original Campanile was completed in 1173 (the 1912 replacement is partially visible on the left). The Basilica di San Marco was substantially complete by 1300. The Doge’s Palace (not in the photo, but next to the Basilica) was substantially complete by 1450. Even the Torre dell'Orologio (Clock Tower) may have been completed by 1470—certainly by 1500. Phinney Jenson ML has a "rough-and-ready" strength, suitable for headlines and short blocks of text. We have sought to preserve some of the crudeness of the nineteenth-century original. For comparison, see the more refined Centaur, Bruce Rogers's interpretation of Jenson Roman. Phinney Jenson ML has a strong presence that will help your documents stand out from the Times New Roman blizzard that threatens to cover us all. Phinney Jenson ML Features: 1. Glyphs for the 1252 Western Europe, 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Accented glyphs for Cornish and Old Gaelic. Total of 393 glyphs. 400 kerning pairs. 2. OpenType GSUB layout features: onum, pnum, salt, liga, dlig, hisy and ornm. 3. Tabular (std), proportional (opt) & old-style numbers (opt). 5. CcNnOoSsZz-kreska available (salt).

Before Bodoni, there was Didot. With the publication by Francois Ambroise Didot of Paris in 1784 of his prospectus for Tasso’s La Gerusalemme Liberata, the rococo typographical style of Fournier de Jeune was replaced with a spartan, neo-classical style that John Baskerville pioneered. The typeface Didot used for this work was of Didot’s own creation and is considered by both G. Dowding and P. Meggs to be the first modern face. Three years later, Bodoni of Parma is using a very similar face. Just as Bodoni’s typeface evolved over time, so did that of the Didot family. The eldest son of Francois Ambroise Didot, Pierre, ran the printing office; and Firmin ran the typefoundry. Pierre used the flattened, wove paper, again pioneered by Baskerville, to permit a more accurate impression and allow the use of more delicate letterforms. Firmin took full advantage of the improved paper by further refining the typeface introduced by his father. The printing of Racine’s Oeuvres in 1801 (seen in our gallery image #2) shows the symbiotic results of their efforts, especially in the marked increase in the sharpness of the serifs when compared to their owns works of only six years earlier. It has been suggested that one reason Bodoni achieved greater popularity than Didot is the thinner hairlines of Didot were more fragile when cast in metal type and thus more expensive for printers to use than Bodoni. This ceased to be a problem with the advent of phototypesetting, opening the door for a renewed interest in the work of the Didot family and especially that of Firmin Didot. Although further refinements in the Didot typeface were to come (notably the lower case ‘g’ shown in 1819), we have chosen 1801 as the nominal basis for our presentation of HiH Firmin Didot. We like the thick-thin circumflex that replaced the evenly-stroked version of 1795, possible only with the flatter wove paper. We like the unusual coat-hanger cedilla. We like the organic, leaf-like tail of the ‘Q.’ We like the strange, little number ‘2’ and the wonderfully assertive ‘4.’ And we like the distinctive and delightful awkwardness of the double-v (w). Please note that we have provided alternative versions of the upper and lower case w that are slightly more conventional than the original designs. Personally, I find the moderns (often called Didones) hard on the eyes in extended blocks of text. That does not stop me from enjoying their cold, crisp clarity. They represent the Age of Reason and the power of man’s intellect, while reflecting also its limitations. In the title pages set by Bodoni, Bulmer and Didot, I see the spare beauty of a winter landscape. That appeals to a New Englander like myself. Another aspect that appeals to me is setting a page in HiH Firmin Didot and watching people try to figure out what typeface it is. It looks a lot like Bodoni, but it isn't!

Worldly Even though it’s a new arrival, FS Brabo has seen the world. Designed by a Brazilian working in London and studying in Belgium under a Dutchman, it’s certainly well-travelled. And it was inspired by the extraordinary archive of early book typefaces at the world-renowned Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, while Fernando Mello was attending Frank Blokland’s Expert class Type Design course at the Plantin Institute of Typography. It was there that Fernando became engrossed in the collection of early metal type, matrices, punches and type samples by figures such as Garamond and Granjon. So much so that he took on the mighty task of developing ‘a beautiful, functional, serifed text font’ of his own. Heroic FS Brabo’s journey from sketch to font family took an epic three years, starting in Antwerp, continuing at Fontsmith in London, and reaching its conclusion back in Fernando’s home city of São Paulo. No wonder Fernando was reminded of another titanic face-off: that of Antwerp’s Roman hero of legend, Silvius Brabo, and the evil ogre, Antigoon. Brabo came to the town’s rescue after the tyrannical giant had been charging ships’ captains extortionate taxes and chopping off the hands of those who refused to pay up. Having finally downed Antigoon after a long and terrible duel, Brabo cut off the giant’s own hand and threw it into the river Scheldt, unwittingly giving the town its name: the Dutch for ‘hand-throw’ is hand werpen. What better way for Fernando to name his literary typeface than after the hero of Antwerp’s oldest tale? The garalde factor FS Brabo is not a revival, but a very much a contemporary, personal interpretation of a garalde – a class of typeface originating in the 16th century that includes Bembo, Garamond and Plantin, with characteristically rounded serifs and moderate contrast between strokes. Brabo’s ‘ct’ and ‘st’ ligatures, upper-case italic swashes and contextual ending ligatures – ‘as’, ‘is’, ‘us’ – all preserve the beauty and character of traditional typefaces, but its serifs are chunkier than a garalde. Their sharp cuts and squared edges give them a crispness at text sizes, helping to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. A workhorse with pedigree It may give the appearance of a simple, four-weight typeface, but FS Brabo has hidden depths beneath its simplicity and beauty. OpenType features such as cap italic swashes, contextual ending swashes – programmed only to appear at the end of words – and stylistic alternatives make this a complete and well-equipped typeface. Comprehensive testing was carried out at text and display sizes, too, to prevent counters from filling in. All of which makes FS Brabo a very modern take on a traditional workhorse serif typeface: colourful and versatile enough to adorn not just editorial projects but also signage, advertising and logotypes.

The font superfamily Vianova contains each 12 weights of Sans and Slab and 8 weights of the Serif style. The design from Jürgen Adolph dates back into the 1990s, when he studied Communication Design with Werner Schneider as a professor at the Fachhochschule Stuttgart. Adolph started his carrier 1995 at Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett. He was responsible for trade marks as Adidas, BMW, Germanwings and Merz. He has been honored as a member of the Art Directors Club (ADC) with more than 100 awards. On February 26, 2014, Jürgen Adolph wrote the following: “I was already interested in typography, even when I could not yet read. Letterforms, for instance, above storefronts downtown, had an irresistible appeal for me. Therefore, it is probably not a coincidence that, after finishing high school, I began an apprenticeship with a provider of signage and neon-advertising in Saarbrücken, and – in the late 1980s – I placed highest in my field in my state. When I continued my studies in communications design in Wiesbaden, I was introduced to the highest standards in calligraphy and type design. “Typography begins with writing” my revered teacher, Professor Werner Schneider, taught me. Indefatigably, he supported me during the development of my typeface “Vianova” – which began as part of a studies program – and accompanied me on my journey even when its more austere letterforms did not necessarily conform to his own aesthetic ideals. The completely analogue development of the types – designed entirely with ink and opaque white on cardboard – covered several academic semesters. In order to find its appropriate form, writing with a flat nib was used. Once, when I showed some intermediate designs to Günter Gerhard Lange, who occasionally honored our school with a visit, he commented in his own inimitable manner: “Not bad what you are doing there. But if you want to make a living with this, you might as well order your coffin now.” At that time, I was concentrating mainly on the serif version. But things reached a different level of complexity when, during a meeting with Günther Flake which had been arranged by Professor Schneider, he suggested that I enlarge the offering with a sans and slab version of the typeface. So – a few more months went by, but at the same time, Elsner+Flake already began with the digitilization process. In order to avoid the fate predicted by Günter Gerhard Lange, I went into “servitude” in the advertising industry (Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett) and design field (Rempen& Partner, SchömanCorporate, Claus Koch) and worked for several years as the Creative Director at KW43 in Düsseldorf concerned with corporate design development and expansion (among others for A. Lange & Söhne, Deichmann, Germanwings, Langenscheidt, Montblanc.”

Almost a half of a millennium after being mistaken for the original 4th century Gothic alphabet and falsely labeled "barbaric" by the European Renaissance, the blackletter alphabet was still flourishing exclusively in early 20th century Germany, not only as an ode to Gutenberg and the country's rich printing history, but also as a continuous evolution, taking on new shapes and textures influenced by almost every other form of alphabet available. Blackletter would continue to go strong in Germany until just before the second World War, when it died a political death at the height of its hybridization. For almost 50 years after the war, blackletter was very rarely used in a prominent manner, but it continued to be seen sparely in a variety of settings, almost as a subliminal reminder of western civilization's first printed letters; on certificates and official documents of all kinds, religious publications, holiday cards and posters, to name a few. In the early 21st century, blackletter type has been appearing sporadically on visible media, but as of late 2005, it is not known how long the renewed interest will last, or even whether or not it will catch on at all. The last few years before World War II were arguably the most fascinating and creative in modern blackletter design. During those years, and as demonstrated with the grid-based Leather font, the geometric sans serif was influencing the blackletter forms, taking them away from their previous Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) hybridizations. Blackhaus is a digitization and elaborate expansion of a typeface called Kursachsen Auszeichnung, designed in 1937 by Peterpaul Weiss for the Schriftguss foundry in Dresden. This is one of very few designs from that time attempting to infuse more Bauhaus than Jugendstil into the Blackletter forms. This is why we used a concatenation of the words blackletter and Bauhaus to name this face. The result of injecting Bauhaus elements into blackletter turned out to be a typeface that is very legible and usable in modern settings, while at the same time harking back to the historical forms of early printing. The original 1937 design was just one typeface of basic letters and numbers. After digitizing and expanding it, we developed a lighter version, then added a few alternates to both weights. The Rough style came as a mechanically-grunged afterthought, due to current user demand for such treatment. Having the flexibility of 2 weights and many alternates of a blackletter typeface is not a very common find in digital fonts. More specifically, having the flexibility of 2 weights and alternates of a 20th century blackletter typeface is almost unheard of in digital fonts. So the Blackhaus family can be quite useful and versatile in an imaginative designer's hands.

Silent films evoke a sense of nostalgia that is as timeless as the era itself. While the stars of silent cinema may have faded into the past, their influence is still felt in modern-day art, fashion, and design. Silentina is a typeface that embodies the spirit of the silent film era, inspired by the intertitles that were used to convey crucial information to audiences during these films. Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, Clara Bow, and Rudolph Valentino all graced the silver screen with their emotive faces during the silent film era. These icons used their expressions to convey a range of emotions that captivated audiences and made them fall in love with the magic of cinema. Intertitles, the brief messages that would appear on-screen during the film, were just as essential in conveying information to moviegoers. Silentina is a typeface that pays homage to the unsung heroes of the silent film era—the intertitles. It channels the glitz and glamour of the roaring twenties, taking us back to a time of flapper dresses, jazz music, and speakeasies. But Silentina isn’t just a typeface—it’s a portal to another era. It transports us to a time when movies were an escape from reality, and each trip to the cinema was a chance to lose ourselves in a world of adventure and romance. With Silentina, you can project your message in the same way that the stars of silent cinema projected theirs. This typeface captures the essence of a bygone era, bringing it to life in the modern world. Use it to convey plot information, set the scene, or add a touch of vintage charm to your design. Whatever your message, Silentina will help you communicate it in the same glitzy way as the intertitles of the silent film era. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

The font superfamily Vianova contains each 12 weights of Sans and Slab and 8 weights of the Serif style. The design from Jürgen Adolph dates back into the 1990s, when he studied Communication Design with Werner Schneider as a professor at the Fachhochschule Stuttgart. Adolph started his carrier 1995 at Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett. He was responsible for trade marks as Adidas, BMW, Germanwings and Merz. He has been honored as a member of the Art Directors Club (ADC) with more than 100 awards. On February 26, 2014, Jürgen Adolph wrote the following: “I was already interested in typography, even when I could not yet read. Letterforms, for instance, above storefronts downtown, had an irresistible appeal for me. Therefore, it is probably not a coincidence that, after finishing high school, I began an apprenticeship with a provider of signage and neon-advertising in Saarbrücken, and – in the late 1980s – I placed highest in my field in my state. When I continued my studies in communications design in Wiesbaden, I was introduced to the highest standards in calligraphy and type design. “Typography begins with writing” my revered teacher, Professor Werner Schneider, taught me. Indefatigably, he supported me during the development of my typeface “Vianova” – which began as part of a studies program – and accompanied me on my journey even when its more austere letterforms did not necessarily conform to his own aesthetic ideals. The completely analogue development of the types – designed entirely with ink and opaque white on cardboard – covered several academic semesters. In order to find its appropriate form, writing with a flat nib was used. Once, when I showed some intermediate designs to Günter Gerhard Lange, who occasionally honored our school with a visit, he commented in his own inimitable manner: “Not bad what you are doing there. But if you want to make a living with this, you might as well order your coffin now.” At that time, I was concentrating mainly on the serif version. But things reached a different level of complexity when, during a meeting with Günther Flake which had been arranged by Professor Schneider, he suggested that I enlarge the offering with a sans and slab version of the typeface. So – a few more months went by, but at the same time, Elsner+Flake already began with the digitilization process. In order to avoid the fate predicted by Günter Gerhard Lange, I went into “servitude” in the advertising industry (Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett) and design field (Rempen& Partner, SchömanCorporate, Claus Koch) and worked for several years as the Creative Director at KW43 in Düsseldorf concerned with corporate design development and expansion (among others for A. Lange & Söhne, Deichmann, Germanwings, Langenscheidt, Montblanc.”

Timeless Renaissance looks, gently updated. For novels and billboards alike. Allrounder Antiqua is an old-style serif member of the Allrounder superfamily. A timeless typeface based on classical proportions, Allrounder Antiqua is perfectly suitable for advanced book and editorial design well as packaging and branding. True: its main purpose is to set flawless body copy and to generate an evenly textured page—but its refined shapes work fantastically in display applications, too. Some details, such as the small and sharp bowl of the lowercase a, are fully appreciated in large sizes only. If you need a sophisticated serif typeface for packaging, food, fashion, consumer goods, or lifestyle branding, Allrounder Antiqua is up for it. It's also apt as an outstanding corporate typeface, be it for a more conservative venture or the latest hipster start-up. This classy serif typeface comes in four weights with corresponding true italics. Just like its sans-serif counterpart, Allrounder Grotesk, Allrounder Antiqua is equipped with plenty of Opentype Features like small caps, six sets of figures, case-sensitive forms, superiors, fractions and many ligatures. You will find alternate letters with swashes within this extended character set, as well as all the accented glyphs necessary to support more than 200 Latin-based languages. Historical Background The (French) Renaissance-influenced typeface started as Moritz Kleinsorge's graduation project within the "Expert Class Type design" course of the Plantin Institute for Typography, located in the famous Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp, Belgium. There, Moritz Kleinsorge decided to create a revival of Robert Granjon's "Ascendonica Romain", described as "a beautiful face; typical of Granjon's mature style" in the inventory list of available material. "To touch punches and matrices cut by Robert Granjon back in 1567 was an invaluable inspiration", Moritz explains. Over time, the typeface moved away from being a true revival. Rather, it evolved into a Granjon-inspired typeface. That typeface is now available as Allrounder Antiqua. Perfect Pairing: Allrounder Antiqua + Allrounder Grotesk Allrounder Grotesk is the ideal complement to Allrounder Antiqua. They both share common vertical metrics and a common color. This allows you to pair both typefaces within the same layout—even within the same paragraph—without creating visual disruption. Head over to the Family Page of Allrounder Grotesk to get more information about this typeface. Design Trick: Bilingual Design With the Allrounder Superfamily Combining Allrounder Grotesk with Allrounder Antiqua is an ideal approach for bilingual designs, wherein both languages get the same emphasis yet are distinguished with two different typefaces. It's also best practice to set headlines in a different typeface than the body text if they harmonize with each other. Allrounder Grotesk and Allrounder Antiqua provide you with the perfect pair for this purpose.

A gentle breeze caressed his face as his body took on the easy posture of a dancer on break. Flickering sparklets of light sprinkled the glass-smooth surface of the aqua liquid on which he floated. His mind wandered; he was only days away from his scheduled departure date. This day was no different from a hundred other days he had spent melded to his windsurfer, skittering along the breadth of the modest lake, soaking up the sun's rays and forgetting about the entire rest of the world. Lake Quannapowitt, and the town of Wakefield, Massachusetts, were familiar to Steve, a long-time resident of the picturesque New England town. This is where he grew up; this is where he married and lived for many years; and this is the place he was preparing to leave, not one week hence. Not generally prone to nostalgia, it was in just such a state he nonetheless found himself once Zephyrus retreated, as was his custom, periodically, while patrolling the resplendent lake. Steve was going to miss the lake, and he was going to miss the town. How many hours of how many days had he spent exactly like this, standing on his motionless board, waiting for his sail to fill, and staring at the lake's shores, its tiny beach, the town Common with its carefully maintained greenery, and equally well-tended gazebo, the Center church - its spire shadow piercing the water's edge, like a scissor-cut the better to begin a full-fabric tear? Yes, he was going to miss this place - this town which all of a sudden had become a place out of time, just as he was about to become a person out of place. Once this idea struck him, he couldn't shake it. He was transported back in time four score years, now watching his ancestors walk along the shore. Nothing in view belied this belief - not the church's century old architecture, not the gazebo frozen in time, nor the timeless sands of the beach, nor the unchanging Common. Everything belonged exactly where it was, and where it always would be. This, he decided, was how he would remember his hometown. And this is when it occurred to Steve to design a typeface that would evoke these images and musings - a typeface with an old-fashioned look, reflected in high crossbars, an x-height small in size relative to its uppercase, and an intangible quality reminiscent of small-town quaintness. Wakefield, the typeface, was born on Lake Quannapowitt in the town for which it was named, shortly before Steve moved away. It is at once a tribute to his birthplace and a keepsake.

Worldly Even though it’s a new arrival, FS Brabo has seen the world. Designed by a Brazilian working in London and studying in Belgium under a Dutchman, it’s certainly well-travelled. And it was inspired by the extraordinary archive of early book typefaces at the world-renowned Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, while Fernando Mello was attending Frank Blokland’s Expert class Type Design course at the Plantin Institute of Typography. It was there that Fernando became engrossed in the collection of early metal type, matrices, punches and type samples by figures such as Garamond and Granjon. So much so that he took on the mighty task of developing ‘a beautiful, functional, serifed text font’ of his own. Heroic FS Brabo’s journey from sketch to font family took an epic three years, starting in Antwerp, continuing at Fontsmith in London, and reaching its conclusion back in Fernando’s home city of São Paulo. No wonder Fernando was reminded of another titanic face-off: that of Antwerp’s Roman hero of legend, Silvius Brabo, and the evil ogre, Antigoon. Brabo came to the town’s rescue after the tyrannical giant had been charging ships’ captains extortionate taxes and chopping off the hands of those who refused to pay up. Having finally downed Antigoon after a long and terrible duel, Brabo cut off the giant’s own hand and threw it into the river Scheldt, unwittingly giving the town its name: the Dutch for ‘hand-throw’ is hand werpen. What better way for Fernando to name his literary typeface than after the hero of Antwerp’s oldest tale? The garalde factor FS Brabo is not a revival, but a very much a contemporary, personal interpretation of a garalde – a class of typeface originating in the 16th century that includes Bembo, Garamond and Plantin, with characteristically rounded serifs and moderate contrast between strokes. Brabo’s ‘ct’ and ‘st’ ligatures, upper-case italic swashes and contextual ending ligatures – ‘as’, ‘is’, ‘us’ – all preserve the beauty and character of traditional typefaces, but its serifs are chunkier than a garalde. Their sharp cuts and squared edges give them a crispness at text sizes, helping to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. A workhorse with pedigree It may give the appearance of a simple, four-weight typeface, but FS Brabo has hidden depths beneath its simplicity and beauty. OpenType features such as cap italic swashes, contextual ending swashes – programmed only to appear at the end of words – and stylistic alternatives make this a complete and well-equipped typeface. Comprehensive testing was carried out at text and display sizes, too, to prevent counters from filling in. All of which makes FS Brabo a very modern take on a traditional workhorse serif typeface: colourful and versatile enough to adorn not just editorial projects but also signage, advertising and logotypes.

The font superfamily Vianova contains each 12 weights of Sans and Slab and 8 weights of the Serif style. The design from Jürgen Adolph dates back into the 90th, when he studied Communication Design with Werner Schneider as a professor at the Fachhochschule Stuttgart. Adolph started his carrier 1995 at Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett. He was responsible for trade marks as Adidas, BMW, Germanwings and Merz. He has been honoured as a member of the Art Director Club (ADC) with more than 100 awards. On February 26, 2014, Jürgen Adolph wrote the following: “I was already interested in typography, even when I could not yet read. Letterforms, for instance, above storefronts downtown, had an irresistible appeal for me. Therefore, it is probably not a coincidence that, after finishing high school, I began an apprenticeship with a provider of signage and neon-advertising in Saarbrücken, and – in the late 1980s – I placed highest in my field in my state. When I continued my studies in communications design in Wiesbaden, I was introduced to the highest standards in calligraphy and type design. “Typography begins with writing” my revered teacher, Professor Werner Schneider, taught me. Indefatigably, he supported me during the development of my typeface “Vianova” – which began as part of a studies program – and accompanied me on my journey even when its more austere letterforms did not necessarily conform to his own aesthetic ideals. The completely analogue development of the types – designed entirely with ink and opaque white on cardboard – covered several academic semesters. In order to find its appropriate form, writing with a flat nib was used. Once, when I showed some intermediate designs to Günter Gerhard Lange, who occasionally honored our school with a visit, he commented in his own inimitable manner: “Not bad what you are doing there. But if you want to make a living with this, you might as well order your coffin now.” At that time, I was concentrating mainly on the serif version. But things reached a different level of complexity when, during a meeting with Günther Flake which had been arranged by Professor Schneider, he suggested that I enlarge the offering with a sans and slab version of the typeface. So – a few more months went by, but at the same time, Elsner+Flake already began with the digitilization process. In order to avoid the fate predicted by Günter Gerhard Lange, I went into “servitude” in the advertising industry (Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett) and design field (Rempen& Partner, SchömanCorporate, Claus Koch) and worked for several years as the Creative Director at KW43 in Düsseldorf concerned with corporate design development and expansion (among others for A. Lange & Söhne, Deichmann, Germanwings, Langenscheidt, Montblanc.”

This is a cute story about a mother and her son. :) About a decade ago my own mother got very interested in my work. She used to say my letters had so many swirls and dazzling swashes, and suggested my job seemed to be very fun. She wondered if she could ever try to make her own alphabet... Well, she is a civil engineer and a maths teacher, and appeared to be a little tired of exact sciences... I remember answering this, while she was listening with her typical tender look: -"Mamá... While type-design may be a really enjoyable thing to do, it also involves having a great eye and knowledge about the history of letters: nice curves and shapes require a meticulous study and, like it happens in many fields, practice makes perfect"-. Well, she raised her eyebrows at me. -"and so what?"- She didn't have any experience neither in the field of art nor in the field of graphic design so, I told her that if she really wanted to get into this she should borrow some of my calligraphic books from my beloved shelves in my office. So... she did. Some weeks after that, she came to me with many sketches made with pencils and markers: some letters where very nice and unique while others naturally needed some work. I remember she added ball terminals to all of her letters (even if they didn't need them) because that was one of the rules she imposed. After some back and forth, we had the basis for what would be today, ten years later, the seed of this lovely font Girasol. Her proposal was nice, something I was not accustomed to do, that’s why many years later I decided to watch it with fresh new eyes and finished it. While she was in charge of making the lowercase letters, I helped with the uppercase and also added my hallmark in the alternates, already seen in others of my expressive fonts. The result is an upright decorative font that follows the behavior of the copperplate nib with a naive touch that makes it really cute and useful for a wide range of products. Many alternates per glyph make Girasol a very fun to use font which will delight you. Above posters are a proof of that! This font is a gift for my mother, Susana, who, in spite of her exacts academic background, taught me that beauty can also be found in the imperfect. 1 NOTES (1) In my fonts I'm always in seek of the perfect curve. When I designed Erotica and Dream Script, I read about Fibonacci’s spirals!

Mundo Sans, by Carl Crossgrove for the Monotype Studio, is distinctive, approachable – and ready to tackle jobs both big and small. Its open counters and large x-height, which give the design a straight-forward no-nonsense mien, are softened by inviting calligraphic undertones. With 10 weights and a complementary suite of cursive italics, there is little outside the range of the Mundo Sans family. The light weights are elegant in packaging and brochure design, the medium are easy readers in digital blogs and print periodicals and the bold command attention in banners and headlines. Mundo Sans is at home in a wide range of sizes, and comfortable in everything from wayfinding to mobile apps. Mundo Sans takes on complicated branding projects with efficient grace. The family enables companies and products to express their brand seamlessly in websites, advertising, corporate messaging, packaging – virtually everywhere visible engagement is possible. A large international character set, that includes support for most Central European and many Eastern European languages, ensures ease of localization. Mundo Sans was originally released with seven weights. The family was updated with three new roman weights and their italics in 2019 that extend and diversify its range of use: a fine hairline weight, a book weight, slightly lighter than regular, and a demi that is subtly lighter than the medium. The design is also is a good mixer. It easily pairs with everything from refined Didones to stalwart slab serif designs. And if you need a more harmonious palette, look no further than Mundo Sans’ relative, Mundo Serif. The two designs harmonize with each other perfectly in weight, typographic color and proportion. Mundo Sans’ italics are true cursive designs, with fluid strokes and obvious calligraphic overtones. The flick of the down-stroke in the ‘a,’ the descending stroke of the ‘f’ and baseline curve of the ‘z’ add grace to the design and distinguish it from more mechanistic styles. Mundo Sans is a design with deep roots. It was originally drawn to pair with classic Renaissance book typefaces like Bembo® and ITC Galliard®. With a hint of diagonal stroke contrast and gentle flaring of strokes, Mundo Sans complements these designs with warmth and grace. Crossgrove says that Mundo isn’t meant to be showy or distinctive. It is intended to follow the tradition of sans serif designs that have a wide range of uses, enabling comfortable reading and clear expression. Crossgrove has designed a variety of typefaces ranging from the futuristic and organic Biome™ to the text designs of Monotype’s elegant Walbaum™ revival. His work for Monotype also often takes Crossgrove into the realm of custom fronts for branding and non-Latin scripts.

❧ Useful links: Luther’s Manuscripts at the UNESCO Memory of the World at Google Arts and Culture Martin Luther font on Kickstarter (with Film about the creation) Each letter of the Martin Luther font is strictly based on original samples found in Martin Luther’s 500 year old handwritten manuscripts. Letters that occur more often for example vowels have two or more different versions stored in the font. (➶ Figure 4) These alternative forms are exchanged automatically by the font as you type, and create a vivid look that comes close to actual handwriting. The font avoids that two identical letters are placed next to each other like, for example the two “o” in the word “look”. ➸ What Historic Sources is the Font based on? Two historic documents were used to base the font on. The notes Luther took before giving his speech in Worms in 1521 and a 6 page letter he wrote immediately after to Emperor Charles V., summarising his speech (➶ Figure 2). Both documents have been added to the UNESCO “Memory of the World” and can be seen at the Google Arts and Culture website. ➸ The Creation of a Handwriting Font The creation of a handwriting font is very different from the creation of a regular font. Harald Geisler has specialised in recreating handwriting in preceding projects with Albert Einstein’s, Sigmund Freud’s and his own handwriting. His experience working with Archives and Museums has gone into this project. First Geisler analyses the movement in the writing to understand how each letter is drawn. This involves partially learning how to write like a person. In this process not the outlines of the sample are reproduced but the original movement path of the handwriting (➶ Figure 3). In a second step width and contrast is added to reproduce Martin Luther’s characteristic impetus and the writing tools used at the time. (Link: Youtube Playlist showcasing the creation of individual letters) How about signs that can’t be found in archives? Some Glyphs can not be found in 500 year old manuscripts, for example the @-sign. Towards the end of the creation one collects a profund amount of details about how a writer moves on paper and addresses certain tasks moving the pen. Keeping this knowledge in mind an improvisation can be based on similar letter forms. For example the @ sign is based on of the movement of a lowercase a and parenthesis. ➸ Features of the Martin Luther font ❶ Extensive Documentation of the creation of the font, including high quality reproduction of the used manuscripts. ❷ Additional texts from Historian Dr. Henning Jürgens and Palaeographer (and Luther handwriting expert) Prof. Ulrich Bubenheimer ❸ Alternating Letters - in handwriting every word looks a bit different. To avoid that two identical letterforms are placed next to each other (for example in the word look) the font actively changes between different versions of letters as you type. ❹ Ligatures - characteristic writing forms when two letters are combined (for example “ct”) (➶ Figure 5) ❺ Terminal Letterforms - renders a special letterform when letter is at the end of a word. (➶ Figure 8) ❻ ‘’’Initial and Medial Letterforms''' - some letterforms are different when placed in the beginning or middle of a word, for example the lowercase s. ❼ Luther Rose - is a seal Luther used to authorise his correspondence. Today it is a widely recognized symbol for Luther. When you enter the numbers of Luthers year of birth and death 14831546 using the Martin Luther PRO font, it will render a stylised version of the Luther Rose. (➶ Figure 7) ❽ Historic letter-forms - letter-forms that are specific to medieval writing around 1500. For example the long-s or h with a loop at the bottom. (➶ Figure 6) ⚑ Multi language support - see the technical information tab for a full list of supported languages. (➶ Figure 11) ➸ The different Styles explained ❋ Martin Luther PRO - this includes all features listed above and is geared towards writing texts that are more readable today. It features alternating letters to create a natural handwriting look as well as two stylistic sets accessible through the OpenType menu. Historic forms are available through the glyph picker. ❋ Martin Luther Historic - this font creates a historically correct reproduction (i.e. with long-s) of Luther’s medieval latin handwriting. It features alternating letters to create a natural handwriting look as well as two stylistic sets accessible through the OpenType menu. ❋ Martin Luther Expert-1 - Dedicated access to the first set of letters only. ❋ Martin Luther Expert-2 - Dedicated access to the second set of letters only. ❈❈❈ Family Pack - recieve all fonts at a discounted price. ❈❈❈ ➸ Kickstarter The creation and development of the Martin Luther font was financed by 500 supporters on ➸Kickstarter.

TT Fors useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options TT Fors is a modern geometric sans serif with characters and shapes contrasting in width, as close as possible to the basic geometric shapes (circle, square, triangle). TT Fors is a great addition to TypeType's line of functional sans serifs, which already includes such fonts as TT Norms Pro, TT Commons, TT Hoves and TT Interphases. The main inspiration for the creation of TT Fors was the study of geometric grotesques of the early to mid-20th century (Futura, Neuzeit Grotesk, Twentieth Century, Avantgarde Gothic, etc.), and the analysis of the contribution they made to the visual environment of that time. We gave ourselves the task to create the most versatile functional typeface that draws inspiration from the visual environment of the early to mid-20th century, but at the same time is aimed at uninterrupted use in all modern media, from branding and packaging design to work in interfaces and applications. This versatility is reflected in the title TT Fors (for), a typeface for a wide range of uses. The rounded characters in the font family tend to be shaped as the correct circle as much as possible, while the rest of the characters have narrower proportions. For more functionality, the typeface has rather high lowercase characters. Thanks to the correct and precisely selected geometric shapes and uniform construction rules, TT Fors works great both in the format of large headings and in very small text sizes used in book printing and in web design. In addition, the TT Fors family has a display subfamily TT Fors Display, which is a trendy pair for the text fonts. The main feature of the display subfamily is high contrast in horizontal or vertical strokes. When choosing a contrasting stroke, we paid attention that the shape of the letter would not go into reverse contrast and become a stressed sans serif. The subtle strokes in TT Fors Display have added sufficient display vibe to give the font a vibrant character, while remaining intelligent and serious. In total, TT Fors family includes 34 fonts: 9 weights and 9 italic styles in the text subfamily, 6 weights and 6 italic styles in the display subfamily, 2 outline styles and 2 variable fonts for both subfamilies. TT Fors has stylistic alternatives, ligatures, small caps (text family only), numbers in circles, arrows and a set of alternative round full stops and punctuation marks (text family only), slashed zero, and other useful features. More details about all OpenType features can be found in the font specimen. And, by good tradition, TT Fors has two variable fonts, for each of the subfamilies. Each variable font supports two axes of variability—thickness and slant. An important clarification—not all programs support variable technologies yet, you can check the support status here: https://v-fonts.com/support/. To use the variable font with two variable axes on Mac you will need MacOS 10.14 or higher. TT Fors supports more than 180+ languages, such as: Acehnese, Afar, Albanian+, Aleut (lat), Alsatian, Aragonese, Arumanian+, Asu, Aymara, Azerbaijani+, Banjar, Basque+, Belarusian (lat), Bemba, Bena, Betawi, Bislama+, Boholano+, Bosnian (lat), Breton+, Catalan+, Cebuano+, Chamorro+, Chichewa, Chiga, Colognian+, Cornish, Corsican+, Cree, Croatian, Czech+, Danish, Dutch+, Embu, English+, Esperanto, Estonian+, Faroese+, Fijian, Filipino+, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian+, Gaelic, Gagauz (lat), Galician+, Ganda, German+, Gusii, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiri Motu, Hungarian+, Icelandic+, Ilocano, Indonesian+, Innu-aimun, Interlingua, Irish, Italian+, Javanese, Jola-Fonyi, Judaeo-Spanish, Kabuverdianu, Kalenjin, Karachay-Balkar (lat), Karaim (lat), Karakalpak (lat), Karelian, Kashubian, Kazakh (lat), Khasi, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kongo, Kurdish (lat), Ladin, Latvian, Leonese, Lithuanian, Livvi-Karelian, Luba-Kasai, Ludic, Luganda+, Luo, Luxembourgish+, Luyia, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malagasy, Malay+, Maltese, Manx, Maori, Marshallese, Mauritian Creole, Minangkabau+, Moldavian (lat), Montenegrin (lat), Morisyen, Nahuatl, Nauruan, Ndebele, Nias, Norwegian, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Palauan, Polish+, Portuguese+, Quechua+, Rheto-Romance, Rohingya, Romanian +, Romansh+, Rombo, Rundi, Rwa, Salar, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Sasak, Scots, Sena, Serbian (lat)+, Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Shona, Silesian, Slovak+, Slovenian+, Soga, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho+, Spanish+, Sundanese, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish+, Swiss German+, Tagalog+, Tahitian, Taita, Talysh (lat), Tatar+, Teso, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tongan+, Tsakhur (Azerbaijan), Tsonga, Tswana+, Turkish+, Turkmen (lat), Uyghur, Valencian+, Vastese, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Walloon, Welsh+, Wolof, Xhosa, Zaza, Zulu+, Belarusian (cyr), Bosnian (cyr), Bulgarian (not localization), Erzya, Karachay-Balkar (cyr), Khvarshi, Kumyk, Macedonian, Montenegrin (cyr), Mordvin-moksha, Nogai, Russian+, Rusyn, Serbian (cyr)+, Ukrainian

TT Knickerbockers useful links: Specimen PDF | Graphic presentation | Customization options About TT Knickerbockers: TT Knickerbockers is a contrasting pair of fonts that continues our project series dedicated to different cities. The new project is dedicated to New York with its multiculturalism, historicity, creativity, energy, and to its inhabitants. TT Knickerbockers Grotesk symbolizes the monumentality of New York expressed in both its traditional historic architecture and skyscrapers. Energy, constant movement and the round-the-clock life of New York—all this is reflected in our TT Knickerbockers Script. TT Knickerbockers Grotesk is a narrow contrast sans-serif with characteristic elements sending us back to the 19th century. There’s also a reference to antiqua fonts to be noticed in the font: where in traditional antiqua there would be serifs, TT Knickerbockers Grotesk features a straight stroke ending, and traditional drops (finals, tails and ears) are substituted with rounded strokes. In TT Knickerbockers Grotesk you will find unusual characters, stylistic alternatives and ligatures. The following OpenType features are implemented: ordn, case, frac, sups, sinf, numr, dnom, onum, tnum, pnum, liga, dlig, salt, ss01. TT Knickerbockers Script is a bright and at the same time a little restrained brushpen script with a slight touch of aristocracy. TT Knickerbockers Script consists of 967 characters and also contains a huge number of contextual alternatives and ligatures. For all lowercase and uppercase letters of basic Latin and Cyrillic alphabets we have drawn 236 swashes which, depending on the context, can appear both at the beginning and at the end of a letter. Do not forget to enable OpenType support and enjoy all the opportunities that the typeface provides and its built-in features: ordn, frac, case, sups, sinf, numr, dnom, onum, tnum, pnum, calt, swsh, liga. FOLLOW US: Instagram | Facebook | Website TT Knickerbockers language support: Acehnese, Afar, Albanian, Alsatian, Aragonese, Arumanian, Asu, Aymara, Banjar, Basque, Belarusian (cyr), Bemba, Bena, Betawi, Bislama, Boholano, Bosnian (cyr), Bosnian (lat), Breton, Bulgarian (cyr), Cebuano, Chamorro, Chiga, Colognian, Cornish, Corsican, Cree, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Embu, English, Erzya, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Gaelic, Gagauz (lat), Galician, German, Gusii, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiri Motu, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Innu-aimun, Interlingua, Irish, Italian, Javanese, Judaeo-Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish, Kalenjin, Karachay-Balkar (lat), Karaim (lat), Karakalpak (lat), Kashubian, Khasi, Khvarshi, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kongo, Kumyk, Kurdish (lat), Ladin, Latvian, Laz, Leonese, Lithuanian, Luganda, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Macedonian, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malay, Manx, Maori, Mauritian Creole, Minangkabau, Moldavian (lat), Montenegrin (lat), Mordvin-moksha, Morisyen, Nahuatl, Nauruan, Ndebele, Nias, Nogai, Norwegian, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Palauan, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rheto-Romance, Rohingya, Romanian, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Russian, Rusyn, Rwa, Salar, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Scots, Sena, Serbian (cyr), Serbian (lat), Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Shona, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Swiss German, Swiss German, Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Tatar, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Tsonga, Tswana, Turkish, Turkmen (lat), Ukrainian, Uyghur, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Xhosa, Zaza, Zulu.

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

Minicomputer is an exceptional typeface that pays homage to the antique look of computer fonts from the mid-20th century. It is a magnetic ink typeface, characterized by a versatile range of seven weights and italics, which is perfect for graphic design themes. Minicomputer also includes OpenType fractions and numeric ordinals, as well as an array of mathematical symbols that can add depth to any design. With its OpenType old-style numerals feature, Minicomputer enables users to evoke the original MICR E-13B numerals, the very numerals that were once used in bank checks. Back in the 1950s, the MICR E-13B numerals were printed in magnetic ink and were associated with the innovative technology of the time. But that didn’t stop Leo Maggs from creating Westminster, a typeface that emulated the look of the MICR E-13B. Soon after, dozens of magnetic typefaces appeared and quickly became fashionable. By the 1980s, home computers emerged, and the once fashionable magnetic typefaces became outdated. They were replaced with pixel fonts and dot matrix typefaces, which gave a fresh look to digital designs. However, designers today are reviving the magnetic typeface trend in a new context. Magnetic typefaces are now associated with a vintage look that has a unique and synthetic feel and an association with 1960s fashion trends. Despite the half-century since the first magnetic typefaces appeared, designers had limited choices when it came to using them, mainly having to rely on digitized versions of analog fonts from the 1990s. Minicomputer offers an exciting and modern take on the magnetic ink typeface and is a must-have for any designer or writer looking to add a touch of the past to their work. Most Latin-based European, Vietnamese, Greek, and most Cyrillic-based writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Buryat, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dungan, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Gikuyu, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaingang, Khalkha, Kalmyk, Kanuri, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kazakh, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Komi-Permyak, Kurdish, Kurdish (Latin), Kyrgyz, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Macedonian, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Nahuatl, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Russian, Rusyn, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tajik, Tatar, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Uzbek (Latin), Venda, Venetian, Vepsian, Vietnamese, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xavante, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec, Zarma, Zazaki, Zulu and Zuni.