The original Avenir typeface was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, after years of having an interest in sans serif typefaces. The word Avenir means “future” in French and hints that the typeface owes some of its interpretation to Futura. But unlike Futura, Avenir is not purely geometric; it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an “o” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These nuances aid in legibility and give Avenir a harmonious and sensible appearance for both texts and headlines. In 2012, Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next to life, as a new take on the classic Avenir. The goal of the project was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. Since then, Monotype expanded the typeface to accommodate more languages. Akira’s deep familiarity with existing iterations of the Frutiger designs, along with his understanding of the design philosophy of the man himself, made him uniquely suited to lead the creation of different language fonts. Avenir Next World family, the most recent release from Monotype, is an expansive family of fonts that offers support for more than 150 languages and scripts that include Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian and Thai. Avenir Next World contains 10 weights, from UltraLight to Heavy. The respective 10 Italic styles do not support Arabic, Georgian and Thai, since Italic styles are unfamiliar in these scripts/languages. Separate Non-Latin products to support just the Arabic, Cyrillic, Georgian, Hebrew and Thai script are also available for those who do not need the full language support.

Teramo™ is daring, sharp and dynamic. Its personality is derived from asymmetry and movement. It is a contemporary serif family full of modern design elements playing with proportions of works of XV and XVI century masters such as Francesco Griffo or Claude Garamond. The family features four optical sizes. Display sizes feature extreme stroke contrast and are intended for fashion, lifestyle, cosmetics, magazine, business, hi-tech and advertising use. Text styles are created for all kinds of body copy — long and short paragraphs, books and websites in any modern design context. They are crafted to be elegant and legible, featuring more generous spacing and scrupulous kerning. Display weights are designed as modern, extraordinary variations on didone style. Teramo’s letterforms are merging classical proportions and precise, contemporary details such as asymmetric serifs, sharp edges and unconventional glyph shapes. Another important factor constituating Teramo’s personality is an angled axis, unusual for didone families and giving the typeface much more organic and dynamic feel. Teramo features a lively true italics strongly related to cursive handwriting. The italic styles imply movement, energy and fluency, introducing a new color to paragraph text, as well as being a powerful and interesting standalone display type. The family introduces additional titling letter variations for headlines and display uses, such as sharp and modern lowercase “y” or uppercase alternates for better all caps typography. Teramo consists of 56 fonts in 4 optical sizes - 28 uprights and their corresponding true italics + 2 variable fonts. It has extended language support as well as broad number of OpenType features, such as case sensitive forms, standard and discretionary ligatures, titling alternates, contextual alternates, lining, oldstyle figures, slashed zero, fractions, superscript and subscript, ordinals, currencies and symbols.

Always intrigued by Bodoni's original work, I was set out—back in 2000—to examine his work and study Manuale Tipografico, one of the greatest specimen books ever printed. Issued in 1818 at Parma, Italy by Bodoni's widow, the two-volume work shows an impressive array of 142 roman alphabets and some foreign ones such as Greek and Cyrillic. After a careful examination of all characters, I decided to create a typeface based on the distinct script capitals presented in the book. Matching lowercase italics were later selected and designed to complete the series. Since my intention was not to create simply a digital version of Bodoni's work, this typeface was designed with connected characters and capitals with extra calligraphic elements. The result was released in 2002 and published in our award-winning catalog/book IDEA/Trendsetting Typography vol.1. Later in 2005 we revived a large number of ornaments and borders (credit goes to designer George Lygas). All this work was left behind till recently when it was revisited to create a complete 'Pro' family. Several new uppercase and lowercase glyphs were designed in order to create a distinct typeface, which is based on Bodoni but yet it stands out on its own. The new version also takes care of conflicts between neigbouring letters, something that was not included in the first version. Bodoni Script Pro is a 3-weight superfamily. It supports 10 special opentype features including 'contextual alternates' as well as support for both Latin and Greek. Each font comes with 725 glyphs including a large number of alternates as well as 144 ornaments. Furthermore, when you purchase the whole package you get a bonus font which contains 120 frame parts. These parts, when put together, create some truly amazing borders. -Panos Vassiliou

Peter Behrens’ renowned art nouveau type from 1902 – with ornaments. Newly revised and neatly digitalized by Ingo Zimmermann In 1902, Peter Behrens (1869–1940), architect, designer and typographer, created a new ”German“ type which became very successful very quickly for the Rudhard’sche Gießerei (foundry which later became Gebr. Klingspor AG) in Offenbach am Main. It served, for example, as the official German type for the world expositions in 1904 and 1910. Behrens himself writes about the development of this type ”...For the actual form of my type, I took the technical principle of the Gothic script, the stroke of the quill feather. The proportions of height and width and the boldness of the strokes of the Gothic letters were also decisive for me in producing a German character. A cohesive character could be hoped for by avoiding all non-necessities and by strictly carrying out the design principle of holding the quill at an angle…“ By the way, when “long s” is activated, the typographically correct “round s” is automatically placed at the end of the word so that you need only pay attention to the correct s on syllable endings within words. When using “long s,” you must ensure the correct use of the rules for the Fraktur font: “round s” is always at the end of the word, also in compound words. For those of you who want to be even more correct, read the corresponding article in >> Wikipedia. Peter Behrens also drew matching ornaments for his typeface – we have likewise carefully revised these decorative touches and arranged them into a font. The "Behrens-Schrift" fits best on all topics that have something to do with art history or the time around 1900.

A common creation: (to pass from one hand to the other): For the first time, various hand-signs from diverse sources are unified into one single visual style. This compendium is the result of 15 years of incubation and 7 years of creation. In his travels throughout the world, graphic designer Jean-Benoit Levy, principal of the visual studio AND, has collected pictures of multiple hand signage. Uncertain what to do with those signs, he kept them year after year until the idea came to unify almost 200 handsigns into one single family. In accordance with this entire collection, the name of the typeface is a mix: "h-and-s". A global collection: (To put in good hands): We all have one thing in common: Hand-signs are an international language, they are meant to be understood by all of us. Each of us regularly comes in contact with modern hieroglyphs such as the hand-sign-codes that are so prevalent in our daily life. This way of communication belongs to no one in particular and to all of us in general. Even if the sense of certain signs varies from one culture to the other, there is a common hand-sign language. We are surrounded by this language of handsigns each time we step in a store, we eat, open a container of milk, we clean up, use package of wash-powder, by shaving, when we work, use tools, at home, by tearing the envelope of a condom, by traveling, etc. When we encounter these signs, we all understand them easily. A visual connection: (To go hand in hand): This typeface is a global visual statement. Collecting, ordering, redrawing, unifying. Reconstructed and assembled into one original alphabet, H-AND-S is a unique and complex signs program. Our choice is based on daily gestures and global hand-codes. Logically this typeface starts with the "American Sign Language" and expands on two type-variations, each on two levels of keyboard. The international team of H-AND-S would like to send his special thanks to all of the anonymous graphic designers throughout the world who designed different hand-signage and who influenced and inspired to create such a sign collection into one unified family. We, the global nomad team of AND, hope that you will enjoy our H-AND-S. Additional Credits Production: Studio AND. www.and.ch. Concept, Idea & Creative Direction: Jean-Benoît Lévy, Switzerland / USA. Research & Sketches: Eva Schubert, Germany. Illustration, Graphic Design & Visual Fusion: Diana Stoen, USA. Transfer, Adaptation & Refining: Moonkyung Choi, Korea. Finalization & Checking: Sylvestre Lucia, Switzerland. Coaching & Technical Advice: Mike Kohnke, USA. Creative Energy & Implementation: Joachim Müller-Lancé, Germany / USA.

“Hand Sketch Rough Pos­ter” is a hand­made, rough and dirty sans-serif dis­play font for deco­ra­tive head­line sizes. Hand drawn. A–Z (× 2), a–z (× 2) and 0–9 (× 4) are each many dif­fe­rent forms. Con­text­ual alter­na­tes. Is inten­ded to show the hand-made cha­rac­ter and the vibrancy of the dis­play font. The dif­fe­rent forms of rough­ness crea­tes a live­li­ness in the typeface. Stan­dard liga­tures like ae, oe, AE, OE, ff, fl, fi, fj, ffl, ffi, ffj and more deco­ra­tive liga­tures like CT, LC, LE, LH, LI, LO, LU, LY, TOO, TC, TE, TH, TU, TZ and ch, cl, ck, ct, sh, sk, st, sp, addi­tio­nal logo­ty­pes like BPM, fff, ppp, sfz and many more … plus Ver­sal Eszett (Capi­tal Let­ter Dou­ble S) give the font more life and shows that des­pite their retro-looks works with modern Open­Type tech­no­logy (type the word note for the sym­bol ♫ and the word love for the ding­bat ❤ … ). Sym­bols like play, stop, eject, for­ward, back­ward, skip, pause and so on. The topic for the dis­cre­tio­nary liga­tures and the sym­bols are music. Have fun with this font – turn up the volume! How To Use – awe­some magic OpenType-Features in your lay­out application ■ In Adobe Pho­to­shop and Adobe InDe­sign, font fea­ture con­trols are wit­hin the Cha­rac­ter panel sub-menu → Open­Type → Dis­cre­tio­nary Liga­tures … Che­cked fea­tures are applied/on. Unche­cked fea­tures are off. ■ In Adobe Illus­tra­tor, font fea­ture con­trols are wit­hin the Open­Type panel. Icons at the bot­tom of the panel are but­ton con­trols. Dar­ker ‘pres­sed’ but­tons are applied/on. ■ Addi­tio­nally in Adobe InDe­sign and Adobe Illus­tra­tor, alter­nate gly­phs can manu­ally be ins­er­ted into a text frame by using the gly­phs panel. The panel can be opened by selec­ting Win­dow from the menu bar → Type → Gly­phs. Or use sign-overview of your ope­ra­ting sys­tem. ■ For a over­view of OpenType-Feature com­pa­ti­bi­lity for com­mon app­li­ca­ti­ons, fol­low the myfonts-help http://www.myfonts.com/help/#looks-different ■ It may pro­cess a little bit slowly in some app­li­ca­ti­ons, because the font has a lot of lovely rough details (anchor points). TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS ■ Font Name: Hand Sketch Rough Pos­ter ■ Font Weights: Regu­lar ■ Fonts Cate­gory: Dis­play for Head­line Size ■ Desktop-Font For­mat: OTF (Open­Type Font for Mac + Win) + TTF (True­Type Font) ■ Web-Font For­mat: SVG + EOT + TTF + WOF ■ Font License: Desk­top license, Web license, App license, eBook license, Ser­ver license ■ Glyph cover­age: 715 ■ Lan­guage Sup­port: Afri­kaans, Alba­nian, Alsa­tian, Ara­go­nese, Ara­paho, Aro­ma­nian, Arr­ernte, Astu­rian, Aymara, Bas­que, Bela­rusian (Lac­inka), Bis­lama, Bos­nian, Bre­ton, Cata­lan, Cebuano, Cha­morro, Che­yenne, Chi­chewa (Nyanja), Cim­brian, Cor­si­can, Croa­tian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Espe­ranto, Esto­nian, Fijian, Fin­nish, French, French Creole (Saint Lucia), Fri­sian, Fri­ulian, Gali­cian, Genoese, Ger­man, Gil­ber­tese (Kiri­bati), Green­lan­dic, Hai­tian Creole, Hawaiian, Hili­gaynon, Hmong, Hopi, Hun­ga­rian, Iba­nag, Iloko (Ilo­kano), Indo­ne­sian, Inter­g­lossa (Glosa), Inter­lin­gua, Irish (Gae­lic), Istro-Romanian, Ita­lian, Jèr­riais, Kas­hubian, Kur­dish (Kur­manji), Ladin, Lat­vian, Lithua­nian, Loj­ban, Lom­bard, Low Saxon, Luxem­bour­gian, Malag­asy, Malay (Lati­ni­zed), Mal­tese, Manx, Maori, Megleno-Romanian, Mohawk, Nahuatl, Norfolk/Pitcairnese, Nort­hern Sotho (Pedi), Nor­we­gian, Occi­tan, Oromo, Pan­gasinan, Papia­mento, Pied­mon­tese, Polish, Por­tu­guese, Pota­wa­tomi, Que­chua, Rhaeto-Romance, Roma­nian, Romansh (Rumantsch), Roto­kas, Sami (Inari), Sami (Lule), Samoan, Sar­di­nian (Sardu), Scots (Gae­lic), Sey­chel­lois Creole (Seselwa), Shona, Sici­lian, Slovak, Slove­nian (Slovene), Somali, Sou­thern Nde­bele, Sou­thern Sotho (Seso­tho), Spa­nish, Swa­hili, Swati/Swazi, Swe­dish, Taga­log (Filipino/Pilipino), Tahi­tian, Tau­sug, Tetum (Tetun), Tok Pisin, Ton­gan (Faka-Tonga), Tswana, Tur­kish, Turk­men, Turk­men (Lati­ni­zed), Tuva­luan, Uyghur (Lati­ni­zed), Veps, Vola­pük, Votic (Lati­ni­zed), Wal­loon, Warl­piri, Welsh, Xhosa, Yapese, Zulu ■ Spe­cials: Alter­na­tive let­ters, logo­ty­pes, ding­bats & sym­bols, accents & €. OpenType-Features like Access All Alter­na­tes (aalt), Con­text­ual Alter­na­tes (calt), Glyph Composition/Decomposition (ccmp), Dis­cre­tio­nary Liga­tures (dlig) Deno­mi­na­tors (dnom), Frac­tions (frac), Kerning (kern), Stan­dard Liga­tures (liga), Lining Figu­res (lnum), Nume­ra­tors (numr), Old Style Figu­res (onum) Ordi­nals (ordn), Pro­por­tio­nal Figu­res (pnum), Sty­listic Alter­na­tes (salt), Sty­listic Set 01 (ss01), Sty­listic Set 02 (ss02), Sty­listic Set 03 (ss03), Sty­listic Set 04 (ss04), Super­script (sups), Tabu­lar Figu­res (tnum) ■ Design Date: 2015 ■ Type Desi­gner: Manuel Viergutz

Dulcinea is the title of Ramiro Espinoza’s in-depth look at Spanish Baroque calligraphy’s most extreme tendencies, and especially at some of those produced by the writing masters Pedro Díaz Morante and Juan Claudio Aznar de Polanco. These 17th and 18th centuries alphabets with their plentiful calligraphic flourishes represented a marked break with the harmonic and angular Renaissance Cancellaresca style. It was Morante who first introduced and popularized the use of the pointed quill in Spain, and although his famous text entitled “Arte Nueva de escribir” – first volume published in 1616 – contains alphabets that have much in common with traditional broad nib Cancellaresca calligraphy, most of the examples therein are outgrowths of the new models put forward by the Italian master Gianfrancesco Cresci. The writing’s swashes are complex and intricate, but at the same time they feature a profusion of defects. Many of them sometimes come close to ugliness. However, these pages contain an artistic essence that bears a relationship to the ironic and sometimes somber character of Spanish Baroque. That’s why the name of the font pays homage to “Dulcinea del Toboso”, the fictional beauty from Miguel de Cervantes’s ‘Don Quixote’, a work that reveals many of the period’s conflicts, such as the contrast between utopian ideals and reality, uncertainty and madness. But Dulcinea is far from being just a revival. Its forms are not careful tracings of the outlines of Morante and Polanco’s letters, nor are they attempts to reproduce them digitally. In fact, the author of the letters says that had the font been created that way it would have been too archaic to serve as acceptable contemporary typography. However, he believes that there are myriad interesting details that can be rescued and preserved, along with the playful spirit of the original. The work of designing Dulcinea consisted of combining original historical elements with the creativity and calligraphy of the font’s author in order to produce a modern typography that isn’t based on the same traditional sources as many recently created scripts fonts. Dulcinea offers attractive options for the setting of texts and headlines: abundant ligatures and swashes along with intricate alternate characters. It sophisticated forms make it an ideal option for women’s magazines, recipe books, lingerie products or perfume packaging.

My goal was to make a design that might fit in anywhere,” says Jim Ford about his Quire Sans™ typeface. “I wanted it to be highly functional and sexy at the same time.” With one foot comfortably in the realm of oldstyle design and traditional book typography, and the other in evolving electronic media, the Quire Sans family does, indeed, fit in just about anywhere. As for sexy, someone once quotably wrote, “A great figure or physique is nice, but it's self-confidence that makes someone really sexy.” Yes, Quire Sans is sexy, performing confidently in virtually any setting. 2014-06-26 00:00:00.000 57.9900 F43063-S193385 42831 Neue Frutiger World Monotype https://www.myfonts.com/collections/neue-frutiger-world-font-monotype-imaging https://cdn.myfonts.net/cdn-cgi/image/width=417,height=208,fit=contain,format=auto/images/pim/10000/279026_ed8c8093fe1ac59ebe9e3ee1d9262c8e.png Neue Frutiger World is designed for global use with an impressive range of 10 weights, from Ultra Light to Extra Black, with matching italics. It embodies the same warmth and clarity as Adrian Frutiger’s original design, but allows brands to maintain their visual identity, and communicate with a consistent tone of voice, regardless of the language. Neue Frutiger World supports more than 150 languages and scripts including Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Georgian, Armenian, Hebrew, Arabic, Thai and Vietnamese. “Before Neue Frutiger World it was not an easy task for western brands to find families in Arabic, Hebrew, Thai and Vietnamese which match with their Latin,” says Monotype type director Akira Kobayashi, who led the Neue Frutiger World project. “They may find a type with closer expression, but there was no guarantee if the bold version in the non-Latin family matches the bold in their Latin. Neue Frutiger World offers a better solution.” In addition to Neue Frutiger World’s linguistic versatility, it works hard across environments – suited to branding and corporate identity, advertising, signage, wayfinding, print, and digital environments. The Neue Frutiger World fonts can be paired with Monotype’s CJK fonts: M XiangHe Hei (Chinese), Tazugane Gothic (Japanese), Tazugane Info (Japanese), and Seol Sans (Korean). These were all designed to address brands’ needs to expand into Asian cultures and solve for global typographic challenges.

The shapes of the f-holes on a violin reminded German designer André Maaßen of an italic letter "f". Maaßen used these captivating contours as the theme for his type family, Varius. The name "Varius" is an homage to the manufacturer of the violin that inspired Maaßen's project, Antonio Stradivarius, the most famous manufacturer of violins in music history. Varius has three separate styles. Varius 1 and its italic are the base style of the family, and are typefaces in the baroque serif manner. Varius 2 and its italic are slab serif egyptiennes, slightly heavier than Varius 1's more classical forms. Varius 3 and its italic are semi serif faces; their characters are serifed, but some of the serifs have been cut off. The family is rounded out with two pi faces: an ornaments font (which can be used in conjunction with the text fonts, or on its own to create beautiful borders or individual decorative elements), and a font of musical symbols and notations. Each of the six text fonts has dozens of supplemental ligatures included in their character sets. When these fonts are used in an OpenType-supporting application, such as Adobe InDesign, these ligatures automatically appear in text when the "Discretionary Ligatures" feature is activated. Additionally, the character sets include added alternate glyphs, such as a swash "m" or "n" to finish off a line of text. These can be inserted manually in applications that include glyph palettes (e.g., Adobe InDesign or Illustrator CS). All of the Varius family's letterforms appear slightly narrow, and traces of the wide-nibbed pen can be seen within their forms. Additionally, the shape of a violin's f-hole is a reminiscent element within all of the family's curves. Varius is particularly suited for use many applications, such as body text, newspaper text, display text, headlines, posters, books, screen design, and corporate identity. Use in sizes ranging from body copy text to display and poster format allow the different facets of the typeface to effectively present themselves. The effects can be as versatile as the possibilities! Due to its special character, the typeface could be used in the design of a logo, or within an appropriate corporate design context, to particularly stress individuality.

Harald Geisler wants to make you as brilliant as Albert Einstein. Or at least let you write like him. Or at least write in his handwriting. — The Wall Street Journal Imagine you could write like Albert Einstein. The Albert Einstein font enables you to do exactly that. In an joined effort, creators Harald Geisler and Elizabeth Waterhouse, spend over 7 years on finalising the project. It was made possible with the help of the Albert Einstein Archive, the Albert Einstein Estate, and funding by a successful Kickstarter Campaign of 2, 334 backers. The outcome was worth the effort: a font unprecedented in aesthetic technique and a benchmark for handwriting fonts. To create a result that is true to the original, Harald Geisler developed a method to analyse the movement of the famous writer. Letter by letter, every glyph was digitally re-written to create a seamlessly working font. It is the only font that holds 5 variations for each lowercase and uppercase-letter, number, and punctuation sign. Each based on meticulous detail to the original samples of Albert Einstein’s handwriting. The OpenType contextual alternates feature dynamically arranges the letters automatically as you type to ensure that no repeated letter forms are placed next to each other. Stylistic variants can also be accessed through stylistic sets. The font has 10 fine-tuned weights ranging from extra-light to fine and extra bold to heavy. The result is a vivid handwritten text true to the original. A PDF documentation, showing step by step how the font was made and comparing numerous original samples, is included with the font and can be downloaded here. The work has been recognised internationally, by press, Einstein fans, and designers. Some quotes used in images: “The font is beautiful“ — Washington Post “If you could write like Einstein, would it help you to think like Einstein?” — The Times (London) “Finally, if your colleagues aren’t taking you seriously, then perhaps you could start sending e-mails in a new font that mimics the handwriting of Albert Einstein.” — Physics World “Geisler and Waterhouse are really asking deeper questions about the diminishing (or evolving) role of our flawed, variable penmanship as a conduit of thought in today’s pixel-perfect landscape.” — QUARTZ “Your writing will look imaginative — which is exactly what Einstein would've wanted." — Huffington Post Arts & Culture "Forget Myriad Pro, Helvetica or Futura. The only font you’ll ever need" — Gizmodo “Capture a piece of Einstein's genius in your own writing." — Mashable

Avenir Next Pro is a new take on a classic face—it’s the result of a project whose goal was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. This family is not only an update though, in fact it is the expansion of the original concept that takes the Avenir Next design to the next level. In addition to the standard styles ranging from UltraLight to Heavy, this 32-font collection offers condensed faces that rival any other sans on the market in on and off—screen readability at any size alongside heavy weights that would make excellent display faces in their own right and have the ability to pair well with so many contemporary serif body types. Overall, the family’s design is clean, straightforward and works brilliantly for blocks of copy and headlines alike. Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next Pro to life. It was Akira’s ability to bring his own finesse and ideas for expansion into the project while remaining true to Frutiger’s original intent, that makes this not just a modern typeface, but one ahead of its time. Complete your designs with these perfect pairings: Dante™, Joanna® Nova, Kairos™, Menhart™, Soho® and ITC New Veljovic®. Avenir Next Variables are font files which are featuring two axis, weight and width. They have a preset instance from UltraLight to Heavy and Condensed to Roman width. The preset instances are: Condensed UltraLight, Condensed UltraLight Italic, Condensed Thin, Condensed Thin Italic, Condensed Light, Condensed Light Italic, Condensed, Condensed Italic, Condensed Demi, Condensed Demi Italic, Condensed Medium, Condensed Medium Italic, Condensed Bold, Condensed Bold Italic, Condensed Heavy, Condensed Heavy Italic, UltraLight, UltraLight Italic, Thin, Thin Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, Italic, Demi, Demi Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Heavy, Heavy Italic. Featured in: Best Fonts for PowerPoints

When Aldo Novarese designed his “tipo inglese” Juliet typeface, he had a simple objective in mind: Reduce the inclination angle of the traditional 18th and 19th centuries English script in order to make the punchcutter’s job easier and the resulting metal type more durable. But when Juliet was released by Nebiolo in 1955, it was a big surprise to both typesetters and calligraphers all over Europe. Novarese’s idea of working the standard copperplate script within the limited technology of the time proved to be a marvel in optical metal sizing (Juliet was available in sizes ranging from 12 to 60 pt), but also opened the door to new calligraphic possibilities. Easier readability and a very friendly color were obvious side effects of the reduced angle. So soon after its release, calligraphers worldwide began emulating the angle reduction and experimenting with the application of the same concept to other calligraphic genres. Today, more than 50 years later, many professional calligraphers point to Novarese’s Juliet as an opening to fresh ideas and new directions in 20th century elegant calligraphy. Ambassador Script, this digital version of Aldo Novarese’s surprising masterpiece, is the result of more than a thousand hours of work. Going above and beyond its duty as a revival, it was expanded by a great number of alternates, swashes, beginning and ending forms, as well as accompanying flourishes and snap-on strokes for even more ending forms. Ambassador Script also supports almost every known Latin-based language, which makes its name all the more fitting. Ambassador Script is available in all popular font formats. The True Type and Postscript Type 1 versions come in 12 fonts, available in different piecemeal configurations or a full volume. The OpenType version collects more than 2300 characters in a single feature-rich font that can sing mightily in OpenType-supporting applications. Ambassador Script is ideal for weddings, invitations, greeting cards, book and magazine covers, or anywhere a touch of calligraphic elegance is desired.

The impetus behind Felbridge was both ambitious and highly practical: to develop an ideal online" typeface for use in web pages and electronic media. Robin Nicholas, the family's designer, explains, "I wanted a straightforward sans serif with strong, clear letterforms which would not degrade when viewed in low resolution environments." Not surprisingly, the design also performs exceptionally well in traditional print applications. In 2001, to achieve his goal, Nicholas adjusted the interior strokes of complex characters like the M and W to prevent on-screen pixel build-up and improve legibility. Characters with round strokes were drawn with squared proportions to take full advantage of screen real estate. In addition, small serifs were added to characters like the I, j and l to improve both legibility and readability. "The result," according to Nicholas, "is a typeface with a slightly humanist feel, economical in use and outstanding legibility - even at relatively small point sizes. Most sans serif typefaces have italics based on the simple "sloped Roman" principle, but italic forms for Felbridge have been drawn in the tradition of being visually lighter than their related Roman fonts, providing a strong contrast when the italic is used for emphasis in Roman text. The italic letter shapes also have a slightly calligraphic flavor and distinctive "hooked" strokes that improve fluency. Felbridge is available in four weights of Roman - Light, Regular, Bold and Extra Bold - with complementary italics for the Regular and Bold designs. The result is a remarkably versatile typeface family, equally comfortable in magazine text copy or in display work for advertising and product branding. As a branding typeface, Felbridge works in all environments from traditional hardcopy materials to web design, and is even suitable for general office use. As part of a corporate identity, this no-nonsense typeface family will be a distinctive and effective communications tool." Felbridge™ font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

The silent film »The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari« (1920) is undoubtedly one of the breathtaking milestones within the German Expressionist Movement, a time of extraordinarily creative works of art as a reaction to a world in rapid change. The original intertitles of Caligari were worked out by the set designers (and painters) Walter Reimann, Walter Röhrig, and Hermann Warm, using a unique expressionistic language of form for dramatic and iconic lettering. When in 2010 KOMA AMOK’s Joerg Ewald Meißner and Gerd Sebastian Jakob were commissioned by the Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt and publisher Hatje Cantz to design the catalog for the exhibition »The Total Artwork in Expressionism«—showing works of art, architecture, film, literature, theater, and dance—it was soon perfectly clear that a new typeface, inspired by the Caligari intertitles, should speak for all the expressionistic arts. An intense process of research and analysis began. The original letters of the Caligari intertitles were individuals on their own. Furthermore, each of the three title designers had added his specific approach to the basic Caligari type style. From hundreds of different As to Zs a choice had to be made, which should be THE characteristic Caligari letter for a digital typesetting font. Finally the chosen letters were cut and drawn again, missing letters were added according to the formal priniciples, all-in-all 1000 glyphs were digitised to complete a usefull OpenType font ready for use. When in the autumn of 2010 the exhibition started successfully with great media interest, the posters all over Darmstadt announced »You must become Caligari!« – set in the brandnew typeface. The font Caligari Pro offers alternative forms for every letter and a whole bunch of ligatures, thus creating an expressive, individual image of headlines and text. By using included Stylistic Alternates the image will get even more vivid. Caligari comes with a complete set of expressionist ornaments and true old style figures—thus the heyday of the Expressionist Movement and the era of the silent films can be revived typographically by the means of today: »Express Yourself!«.

Feel Script is based on lettering that calligrapher and logo designer Rand Holub created for Intertype for his face Monterey. Fortunately, I didn’t have the technological limitations today that Intertype had back then. Holub’s lettering is presented in its entirety within Feel Script. Some letterforms were redrawn from vintage American magazine ads (some by Holub himself), along with many new alternates, ligatures, ending forms, and strangely beautiful character combinations. The experience I’ve accumulated from my previous calligraphy typefaces (Ministry Script, Affair, Buffet Script, Burgues Script, et al.) made it easier for me to apply Holub’s lettering in a new context using OpenType technology. The usual extended treatment was given to Feel Script, all the way into the implementation of three-letter ligatures and the dreamiest swashes I could imagine. I changed some of the connections between the lowercase letters in order to fit Holub’s calligraphy as opposed to the limited Intertype metal attempt. I hope you like Feel Script. I also hope what I contributed to this particular Holub design is somewhat of a happy ending to a calligraphy story that crosses many technologies. From the pen to computer Bézier. My part of this story stops here ... and yours begins. Feel Script has more than 1200 glyphs including: stylistic alternates, contextual alternates, titling alternates, swashes, and ligatures. Check out the PDF!

Pellegrino Artusi was a celebrated Italian food writer, who is credited with the creation of one of the most influential cookbooks in the history of Italian cuisine. Taking inspiration from his legacy, Francesco Canovaro decided to work on a typographic homage to the delicacy and finesse of Italian traditional cuisine. Aptly named Artusi, the typeface is an enchanting combination of traditional Italian style, contemporary refinement and a playful touch of innovation. It is a transitional serif typeface with both text and display versions, developed on a wide range of seven weights and including a huge range of alternates, OpenType features and ligatures. Each weight of Artusi works like a different course in a balanced meal. Lighter weights are our starters, with their high contrast between thicks and thins, delicate curves, balanced proportions and subtle spiky serifs. The main course are naturally the regular and bold weights, where traditional Italian old style is enriched with a peppery kick of modern details. For dessert, the heavy weights offer luscious curves, opulent calligraphic swashes and eye-catching details, suitable for packaging and logos. When it comes to typography, let Pellegrino Artusi’s legacy inspire you. From packaging to web pages, Artusi typeface will bring a feeling of tradition, craft and quality to any project. Because, as Pellegrino would say, “To make a great impression, you have to choose the finest ingredients”... Buon Appetito!

FF Bauer Grotesk is a revival of the metal type Friedrich Bauer Grotesk, released between 1933 and 1934 by the foundry Trennert & Sohn in Hamburg Altona, Germany. The geometric construction of the typeface, infused with the art deco zeitgeist of that era, is closely related to such famous German designs as Futura, Erbar, Kabel and Super Grotesk that debuted a few years earlier. However, FF Bauer Grotesk stands out for being less dogmatic with the geometry, lending the design a warmer, more homogenous feeling. The oval “O” is a good example of that, as well as characteristic shapes like the capital M or the unconventionally differing endings of “c” and “s” which make for a less constructed look. The design was started by Thomas Ackermann, and he collaborated with Felix Bonge to evolve his original ideas into this fresh, modern geometric typeface family. FF Bauer Grotesk contains 6 weights with accompanying italics, and a wide range of OpenType typographic features including small caps, figure styles, fractions and contextual alternates. NEW: the new FF Bauer Grotesk W1G versions features a pan-European character set for international communications. The W1G character set supports almost all the popular languages/writing systems in western, eastern, and central Europe based on the Latin alphabet including Vietnamese, and also several based on Cyrillic and Greek alphabets.

For several years I have been thinking about the design of a type family that explores, on the one hand, the modernist aesthetic that we know, from the Alphabet "a.r." designed by Władysław Strzemiński, and on the other, to the multiscript pre-war Warsaw. This is how the idea of creating the Polin Sans typeface was born. After researching on geometric variants of the Cyrillic alphabet, I was inspired by the text "Towards an open layout: A letter to Volodya Yefimov". I was intrigued by the fact that circular forms, which we are mostly familiar with in the Bulgarian Cyrillic, can be implemented in the classical version, without disrupting the reading process. At the same time, while working on typoteka.pl, I was fascinated by the Hebrew typeface jaffa, published by the Idźkowski & Sk-a foundry, which at some points looks like the Hebrew equivalent of the Alphabet "a.r.". Ben Nathan from Israel joined the project and was responsible for creating his native script. The idea of creating a multiscript family expanded to include Greek and Vietnamese. As a result, Polin Sans is a historical journey through the nooks and crannies of Polish modernism, which was created by people with diverse cultural backgrounds. The Polin Sans family was designed by Mateusz Machalski and Ben Nathan with the support of Michał Gorczyca and Małgorzata Bartosik.

“For those who regret what keyboards and touch screens have done to their penmanship, typographer Harald Geisler has an answer: Sigmund Freud.” — The Wall Street Journal Sigmund Freud was a neurologist who lived from 1856 to 1939. His research and studies led to the foundation of ‘Psychoanalysis’. When I first saw Freud’s century old letters, I was fascinated by the beauty of these historic manuscripts. It made me smile to imagine a person writing his or her shrink a letter set in Freud’s handwriting. I started to plan creating a font based on his manuscripts. I contacted the Sigmund Freud Museum Vienna and Freud Museum London. To start the creation I selected eight handwritten documents from the archive in Vienna – This selection of specimen was my orientation during the design process. The Samples were created between 1883 to 1938 and are of various character such as handwritten scientific papers, personal letters, notes and a telegram. A successful Kickstarter Campaign "The Sigmund Freud Typeface - A Letter to your Shrink" with over 1400 Backers enabled me to visit the archive in Vienna and study the original manuscripts of Sigmund Freud. After a year of preparation and design work, I finished four alphabets based on Freud’s handwriting. What are the different Versions PRO, Kurrent, #1, #2, #3 and #4 about? “This project gives people the convenience afforded by the computer while maintaining the romantic nostalgia, beauty, and character of letter writing with real handwriting.” — Daniel Vahab, The Huffington Post When you write with your hand, every letter looks a little different. When you write a text on your computer every letter looks exactly the same. In order to make type look like handwriting, I chose four different variations of each letter from Freud’s manuscripts, drew and stored them in the font. The font is then programmed to exchange letters while you are typing. This makes the rendered result on your screen or print look like unique handwriting. PRO While you are typing… the PRO Version actively combines all four alphabets and exchanges them automatically. Through this mechanism never the same two o’s will stand next to each other. With every touch a unique look is generated. This works in certain applications i.e. Word 2010(or newer), Pages, TextEdit, Editor(Pre-installed on Windows 7 or newer), InDesign, Illustrator… →Here you can see an animation of what this effect looks like in action. (Please Note: some applications like LibreOffice, OpenOffice do currently not support this feature. Date: December 2013) #1 #2 #3 and #4 The Sigmund Freud Typeface #1, #2, #3 and #4 each hold one individual lowercase alphabet based on Freud’s handwriting. Kurrent Most of Freud’s correspondence was written in German. Until the 1950′s a different handwriting was taught throughout German speaking countries (Switzerland, Austria, Germany). This style is called Kurrent. The name Kurrent and Cursive derive from the Latin word currere - to run, hurry - both styles were designed to write fast. As you can see in the samples above, Freud practiced both Kurrent and when writing english Cursive (Latin script or Joined-up). Kurrent has three significantly different letters (s,h,e). Use Kurrent to render the authentic look of an historic Sigmund Freud letter in German. Bundle On the Top of this page you can get all six fonts of the Sigmund Freud Typeface Family in a bundle. International Typeface All styles of the Sigmund Freud Typeface feature a wide range of accented letters so you can write to all your friends in Sweden (Bjørn) France (Chloé & Zoë), Ireland (Dáirine), Poland (Łucja), Germany (Jörg) and almost everywhere around the globe (Find a complete list in the tech specs). Usage recommendations I hope that this design will be valuable to you and most of all that you have fun with this typeface! 1. Point Size — To reproduce the size of Sigmund Freud’s handwriting adjust the type size between 18-24 point in your word processor. If you are using an imaging software like Photoshop set the resolution to 300dpi and adjust the point size between 18-24. 2. Line Spacing — Narrow the line hight until swashes of capital letters touch the baseline above. This also happens when you write a letter and gives the document a unique handwritten look. 3. Right Aligned — Freud had the habit to write towards the right edge of the page and start loosely on the left. Set your text alignment to ‘right’ to incorporate this dramatic expression also to your documents. What do other People say about the Sigmund Freud Typeface? “Wouldn’t you love to write a letter to your shrink using the Sigmund Freud typeface?” — Dorothy Tan, Design TAXI ''“JUST DON’T WRITE A LETTER TO YOUR MOTHER WITH IT… …until the reader looks a bit closer, and they see 70+ years of modern science weighing in on turn-of-the-century pop psychology."'' — Mark Willson, Fast Company “Doctor, what does it mean if you dream of creating a font of Freud’s handwriting?” — Ayun Halliday, Open Culture “…geekily romantic, at once artistic and scientific” — Edie Jarolim, Freud’s Butcher “…sympathisch” — Jürgen Siebert, Fontblog !WOW! Thank you for reading the complete font description! You are awesome! If you still have a question please contact me through MyFonts or my website haraldgeisler.com. Credits This project was made possible by the help of 1481 Backers on Kickstarter and the kind support of the Sigmund Freud Museum Vienna and the Freud Museum London. Thank you. All of Freud’s Manuscripts shown are © Sigmund Freud Museum Vienna. Poster Image: IN17 - Sigmund Freud, Germany 1932. © Freud Museum London. Flag Image: IN19 - Sigmund Freud 1930’s. © Freud Museum London.

Palatino® Nova is Prof. Hermann Zapf's redesign of his own masterpiece, Palatino. The original Palatino was cut in metal by August Rosenberger at D. Stempel AG typefoundry in Frankfurt, and released in 1950. Palatino was later adapted for mechanical composition on the Linotype machine, and became one of the most-used typefaces of the 20th Century. Palatino was designed for legibility, and has open counters and carefully weighted strokes. The type was named after Giambattista Palatino, a master of calligraphy from the time of Leonardo da Vinci. Palatino is a typeface based on classical Italian Renaissance forms. A modern classic in its own right, Palatino is popular among professional graphic designers and amateurs alike, working well for both text and display typography. Hermann Zapf and Akira Kobayashi redeveloped Palatino for the 21st Century, creating Palatino Nova. Released by Linotype in 2005, the Palatino Nova family is part of Linotype's Platinum Collection. Palatino Nova includes several weights (Light, Regular, Medium, and Bold), each with companion italics. Four styles (Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic) have Greek and Cyrillic glyphs built into their character sets. The Palatino Nova family also includes revised versions of Aldus (now called Aldus Nova), as well as two titling weights. The first titling weight, Palatino Nova Titling, is based on Hermann Zapf's metal typeface Michelangelo, including Greek glyphs from Phidias Greek. The heavier titling weight, Palatino Nova Imperial, is based on Sistina. The fonts in the Palatino Nova family support all 48 Western, Central, and Eastern European languages. Additional features: ligatures and historical ligatures, Small Caps, ornaments, and a range of numerals (proportional & tabular width lining and Old style Figures, fractions, inferiors, and superiors)."

Linotype Univers is a completely reworked version of the original Univers typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1957. After a long process of painstakingly detailed revision, Frutiger and the design staff at Linotype completed this large joint project in 1997. The result: a brilliant and cohesive font family of 63 weights and styles including the 4 monospaced typewriter weights. All the existing weights were completely redrawn, with careful attention paid to making the proportions more consistent with each other and improving fine details such as curves and thick-to-thin stroke ratios. The family was expanded from 27 to 63 weights, providing a much larger framework to graphic designers for choosing just the right style. The bold and condensed weights were reworked for improved legibility and on-screen application. The stroke weights were revised for consistency within each face as well as in relationship to the other weights. By following Frutiger's original designs, the humanist character of the sans serif Univers now comes through more distinctly. The systemized numbering system has also been updated. With its sturdy, clean forms Univers can facilitate an expression of cool elegance and rational competence. In fact, the strong familial relationships between all the styles and weights make it a serviceable choice for large graphic design projects that require versatility with consistency. Frutiger was successful in staying true to his initial aims; the new Linotype Univers does indeed work in longer texts as well as for display settings. In 2010 the typeface family was extended and renamed into a more logical naming of "Univers Next" to fit better in the Platinum Collection naming.

Linotype Univers is a completely reworked version of the original Univers Univers typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1957. After a long process of painstakingly detailed revision, Frutiger and the design staff at Linotype completed this large joint project in 1997. The result: a brilliant and cohesive font family of 63 weights and styles including the 4 monospaced typewriter weights. All the existing weights were completely redrawn, with careful attention paid to making the proportions more consistent with each other and improving fine details such as curves and thick-to-thin stroke ratios. The family was expanded from 27 to 63 weights, providing a much larger framework to graphic designers for choosing just the right style. The bold and condensed weights were reworked for improved legibility and on-screen application. The stroke weights were revised for consistency within each face as well as in relationship to the other weights. By following Frutiger's original designs, the humanist character of the sans serif Univers now comes through more distinctly. T he systemized numbering system has also been updated. With its sturdy, clean forms Univers can facilitate an expression of cool elegance and rational competence. In fact, the strong familial relationships between all the styles and weights make it a serviceable choice for large graphic design projects that require versatility with consistency. Frutiger was successful in staying true to his initial aims; the new Linotype Univers does indeed work in longer texts as well as for display settings. In 2010 the typeface family was extended and renamed into a more logical naming of "Univers Next" to fit better in the Platinum Collection naming.

Palatino® Nova is Prof. Hermann Zapf's redesign of his own masterpiece, Palatino. The original Palatino was cut in metal by August Rosenberger at D. Stempel AG typefoundry in Frankfurt, and released in 1950. Palatino was later adapted for mechanical composition on the Linotype machine, and became one of the most-used typefaces of the 20th Century. Palatino was designed for legibility, and has open counters and carefully weighted strokes. The type was named after Giambattista Palatino, a master of calligraphy from the time of Leonardo da Vinci. Palatino is a typeface based on classical Italian Renaissance forms. A modern classic in its own right, Palatino is popular among professional graphic designers and amateurs alike, working well for both text and display typography. Hermann Zapf and Akira Kobayashi redeveloped Palatino for the 21st Century, creating Palatino Nova. Released by Linotype in 2005, the Palatino Nova family is part of Linotype's Platinum Collection. Palatino Nova includes several weights (Light, Regular, Medium, and Bold), each with companion italics. Four styles (Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic) have Greek and Cyrillic glyphs built into their character sets. The Palatino Nova family also includes revised versions of Aldus (now called Aldus Nova), as well as two titling weights. The first titling weight, Palatino Nova Titling, is based on Hermann Zapf's metal typeface Michelangelo, including Greek glyphs from Phidias Greek. The heavier titling weight, Palatino Nova Imperial, is based on Sistina. The fonts in the Palatino Nova family support all 48 Western, Central, and Eastern European languages. Additional features: ligatures and historical ligatures, Small Caps, ornaments, and a range of numerals (proportional & tabular width lining and Old style Figures, fractions, inferiors, and superiors)."

ITC Greengate is the result of a time-traveling, intercontinental collaboration--one between 21st century South African designer Richard Every, and early 20th century Scottish artist Jessie Marion King. Jessie Marion King (1875-1949) began her professional career as a book designer and illustrator, but over time her creativity found its outlet in many forms, including posters, jewelry, ceramics, wallpaper, fabrics, murals, interior design and costumes. After eventually settling in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, she founded Green Gate Close, a center for women artists. Although her style is reminiscent of the Art Nouveau artist, Aubrey Beardsley, King's aesthetic was an offshoot of the “Glasgow Style,” a Scottish hybrid of the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau. Often, her illustrations included hand lettering. It was just this kind of lettering that gave Richard Every his inspiration for ITC Greengate. When he saw some children's book illustrations that King created in 1898, he knew on the spot he had to complete the hand lettering as a typographic font. He began working on the typeface in 1996, but it took six years to be released as an ITC typeface. Every simplified and harmonized King's letterforms slightly and, most importantly, added a suite of lowercase characters. The result is a somewhat earthy Art Nouveau design, with a character quite distinct from typical digital revivals. Every's career has been as diverse as King's. He was born in Durban, South Africa and studied graphic design at ML Sultan Technikon in Durban. He's been an art director, freelance designer, the owner and manager of a nightclub and co-manager of a South African band. “Through it all,” he says, “typography has always been one of my passions.”

Simplo: the ‘Italian Futura’. Simplo is a geometric sans serif typeface, built in sixteen styles. It is a tribute to the 1930s typeface Semplicità, designed by Nebiolo’s Alessandro Butti. Although many details of Simplo differ from Semplicità, it preserves the spirit of the original. Simplo is ideal for use in display sizes. It is also quite legible in text, and is well suited for graphic design and corporate identity design. Simplo has sixteen styles, extensive language support, eight different kinds of figures, sophisticated OpenType features — so it’s ready for advanced typographic projects. The most notable characteristics of this typeface are the ‘t’ and the ‘f’. The ‘t’ is the culmination of simplicity: a vertical line with just a simple right-side crossbar. The ‘f’ also has just a right-side crossbar, and is really tall: it reaches both the highest and lowest vertical position of the typeface. The top of the distinctive ‘s’, is much narrower than its bottom. The ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘g’, ‘p’, ‘q’, and ‘u’ are spurless, and show a family resemblance with Hans Reichel’s 1990s typeface Dax. However, these letters are rounder and more geometric than Dax’s counterparts, because of Dax’s higher x-height and narrower design. In Paul Shaw’s Imprint article about typefaces that have been overlooked and/or underappreciated, “Overlooked Typefaces”, he concluded his discussion of Semplicità as follows: “These idiosyncrasies suggest that Semplicità might find a warm reception today, given the current love affair with Gotham, Neutraface and Proxima—and the resurgence of ITC Avant-Garde Gothic.” Free demo font available. For more information about Simplo, download the PDF Specimen Manual.

One of the most widely used typefaces in the world is actually a legacy of 18th century aesthetics, representing the spirit of late Baroque design, architecture, fashion and society. It has been created and printed for millions of readers around the world for more than two and a half centuries. It influenced many modern typographers. It shaped culture, education, entertainment and science, but also the development of typography itself. As a calligrapher and technical innovator, Baskerville invented new design, papermaking and printing methods, and his typography is very natural and legible to this day. Graphic design today calls for clean and minimalistic solutions, where the use of historical typefaces can achieve a vivid contrast with contemporary elements on the page or screen. Baskerville is undoubtedly the best choice for any kind of publishing house. In keeping with the original inventor’s spirit of excellence, we hereby offer its most advanced digital version. This is not a precise remake of rare Baskerville prints or a restoration of the original punches cut by John Handy, but rather our ideal essence of transitional typography. The old masters were limited by the technology of the time, but today we can dare to have very fine lines, unlimited ligatures, size variations and sophisticated OpenType functions. Drawing, programming, proofing and testing took us many years of development and brought thousands of new letters and dozens of language options. We are convinced that your readers will enjoy this font mainly for reading extensive works, but also for creating corporate identity, orientation systems and cultural posters. Baskerville is perfectly modern in its antiquity, striking in its modesty and timeless in its transiency.

Operina is based on a 16th-century lettering model of the scribe Ludovico degli Arrighi (Vicentino Ludovico degli Arrighi) used in his 1522 instructional lettering book, "La Operina da Imparare di scrivere littera Cancellarescha." This book contains what is considered to be the earliest printed examples of Chancery Cursive. Rather than try to reproduce a perfect, smooth, type-like version of Ludovico's hand, which has been attempted in the past, the designer opted to leave in some rough edges and, thereby, create a look that mimics the endearing artifacts of quill and ink lettering on parchment. When reviving an old style, a designer is faced with many challenging decisions, such as whether to aim for ultimate authenticity or to modify the alphabet for modern use. The decision here was to create a font that resembles the 16th-century Italian hand-lettering master's, but is also useful to the contemporary user. Because the letters U u W w J j and our modern Arabic numerals were not in use during the advent of these original letterforms, these had to be interpolated. To make a complete and useable font set, we also had to fashion many of the extra and diacritical characters to match the look of the alphabet. There are three fonts in this set: Romano(simple), Corsivo(more complex), and Fiore(swash). Romano is the most subdued, it contains Roman looking caps and has lining figures. Corsivo is more elaborate, it has more decorative capital letters and an alternate version of the lowercase with longer ascenders and descenders, and old style figures. Fiore, the swash font, is the most elaborate with the longest ascenders and descenders. You may not wish to use the Fiore version on its own, especially as all caps; it is meant to enhance the other two alphabets because it contains the most elaborate capitals and has many extra ligatures. P22 Operina Pro is an OpenType version that contains over 1200 characters. It features Small Caps, Old Style Figures, full European, Cyrillic and Greek character sets and a new OpenType first with automatic Roman Numerals. Just type any number and with the feature, it will convert to Roman Numerals!

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!