Jugendstil Initials were designed by Heinrich Vogeler around 1905, based on the German blackletter tradition. A similar set of initials by Vogeler, but based on roman letters was released by Rudhardsche Geisserei of Offenbach at about this time. I believe the originals were woodcuts. The backgrounds to the letterforms may be seen as examples of Heimatkunst, an art movement within Germany that drew deliberate inspiration from the rural countryside. Like the Arts and Crafts Movement in England a little earlier, Heimatkunst may be seen, in part, as a romantic rejection of urban industrialization, while at the same time representing a back-to-roots nationalism. Like any river, it was fed by many streams. Jugendstil Initials is an experiment with which I am most pleased. It is far and away the most complex font HiH has produced and I was uncertain whether or not it could be done successfully. To oversimplify, a font is produced by creating outlines of each character, using points along the outline to define the contour. A simple sans-serif letter A with crossbar can be created using as few as 10 points. We decided to make a comparison of the number of points we used to define the uppercase A in various fonts. Cori, Gaiety Girl and Page No 508 all use 12 points. Patent Reclame uses 39 and Publicity Headline uses 43. All the rest of the A’s, except the decorative initials, fall somewhere in between. The initial letters run from 48 points for Schnorr Initials to 255 for Morris Initials Two, with 150 being about average. Then there is a jump to 418 points for Morris Initials One and, finally, to 1626 points for Jugendstil Initials. And this was only after we selectively simplified the designs so our font creation software (Fontographer) could render them. The average was 1678, not including X and Y. There was no X and Y in the original design and we have provided simple stand-ins to fill out the alphabet, without trying to imitate the style of the orginal design. We did a lot of looking to find a compatible lower case. We decided that Morris Gothic from the same period was the best match in color, design and historical context. We felt so strongly about the choice that we decided to produce our Morris Gothic font for the purpose of providing a lower case for Jugendstil Initials. The long s, as well as the ligatures ch and ck are provided. at 181, 123 (leftbrace) and 125 (rightbrace) respectively. This font was a lot of work, but I think it was worth it. I hope you agree.

Oxford Street is a signage font that began as a redrawing of the capital letters used for street nameplates in the borough of Westminster in Central London. The nameplates were designed in 1967 by the Design Research Unit using custom lettering based on Adrian Frutiger’s Univers typeface, a curious combination of Univers 69 Bold Ultra Condensed, a weight that doesn’t seem to exist but which would flatten the long curves of glyphs such as O, C and D, and Universe 67 Bold Condensed with its more rounded lobes on glyphs like B, P and R. Letters were then remodelled to improve their use on street signs. Thin strokes like the inner diagonals of M and N were thickened to create a more monolinear alphabet; the high interior apexes were lowered and the wide joins thinned. The crossbar of the A was lowered, the K was made double junction, and the tail of the Q was given a baseline curve. K-Type Oxford Street continues the process of impertinent improvement and includes myriad minor adjustments and several more conspicuous amendments. The stroke junctions of M and N are further narrowed and their interior apexes modified. The middle apex of the W is narrowed and the glyph is a little more condensed. The C and S are drawn more open, terminals slightly shortened. The K-Type font adds a new lowercase which is also made more monolinear so better suited to signage, loosely based on Univers but also taking inspiration from the Transport typeface both in a taller x-height and character formation. The lowercase L has a curled foot, the k is double junctioned to match the uppercase, and terminals of a, c, e, g and s are drawn shorter for openness and clarity. A full repertoire of Latin Extended-A characters features low-rise diacritics that keep congestion to a minimum in multiple lines of text. The font tips the hat to signage history by including stylistic alternates for M, W and w that have the pointed middles of the earlier MOT street sign typeface. Incidentally, Alistair Hall (‘London Street Signs’, Batsford, 2020) notes that when the manufacturer of signs was changed in 2007, Helvetica Bold Condensed was substituted in place of the custom design, “an unfortunate case of an off-the-peg suit replacing a tailored one” and a blunder that has happily since been rectified, though offending nameplates can still be spotted by discerning font fans.

The famous lettering “Capital Trajana” (inscription at the bottom of the column that bears its name erected in the year114 A.D.) is usually identified as the classic example that defines Imperial Capital forms. However, much earlier, there were already countless examples of Greco-Roman epigraphy of excellent execution, as evidenced by the monumental inscriptions from year 2 b.C. sculpted in the Portico di Gaio e Lucio Cesari in front of the facade of the Basilica Emilia, in the Roman Forum, erected by Augustus, dedicated to his two grandchildren for propaganda and dynastic needs. It has been more than two thousand years and the forms of these letters are still part of our daily life, product of their qualities of readability and beauty. It is probably the added semantic value that have made them an icon full of symbolism that expresses majesty, monumentality, order and universal power. Numerous authors, calligraphers and designers have studied this legacy such as Giovanni Francesco Cresci, Edward Catich, L.C. Evetts, Armando Petrucci, Carol Twombly, John Stevens, Claude Mediavilla, just to name a few. Marcus Traianus font is a fitted version of the two models mentioned, which is accompanied by Small Caps, lowercase (carolingas) and a set of numbers (Indo-Arabics) in addition to the Romans figures and diacritics for Central European languages Marcus Traianus is presented in two weight: Regular, Italic, Bold and ExtraBold.

And the day in which I introduce my second typographic family has arrived. In order to do this, I borrowed several passages from this beautiful book by Maurice Maeterlinck, “Life and Flowers”. His poetic observation of Nature made me reflect about the small discoveries behind the flow of my pen on paper. About that quick, spontaneous, overwhelmed stroke, with some awkwardness as well as certainty in it. About the writing that looms line after line. About the mischievous stains of ink flooding my writing tool. Lady Dodó was born as a product of these drawings, pieces of writing and reflections. Following the steps of its ancestor and friend, Lady René, it takes advantage of the goodness of the Open Type technology to propose a systematized as well as a personalized writing font. Both friendly and challenging. Due to the large number of alternate characters (both for lower and upper case as well as for numbers) and to its precise programming, it proposes to design diverse and rich typographical sets with multiple strokes in a simple way. However, Lady Dodó is not just made of typographical signs; it also proposes a set of modules to make patterns and another one to design frames. From the combination of these modular signs, an infinite universe of possibilities for decoration arises. Here is Lady Dodó, ready to get started and write its destiny. July 2015.

Street Tag vol 2 is the second version of Street Tag fonts. Inspired from realistic caligraphy tagging style in many big cities. This style is more bold and readable, perfect for your “street art” designs style. I combined the real graffiti experiences into computer fonts, I think it will be different with other fonts if you can feel it, cause I draw graffiti, tagging and throw ups since I was high school. The real tagging style is never be tidy, but don’t worry, I already adjust the kerning and spacing in the best possible way. You’ll find the better result when you adjust the kerning, and edit baseline manually, especially for the alternates font, if you unfamiliar with these one, you can find many tutorials in youtube, for the example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=251cTL029M4. what will you get You’ll get some alternates in several alphabet, see that in the font preview, some sample fonts I change the dot in “I” to stars, and I add ‘ into “O”, sometimes we do that in the real walls! You can explore more with this font!

Rabento is an original serif family, with articulate and big letterforms. The typeface was drawn and created by Mans Greback between the years 2018-2021, and is designed to assure a unique and confident character to any headline, logotype or title. A display typeface made for large text displays, it is still clear and legible. With great contrast, this lettering has precise hairline thin horizontal parts, a bold and expressive outline and fat slab serifs. It has traditional traits, but a new and modern design, which together makes for an impactful and notable type setting. Rabento is provided in six high-quality styles: Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Black & Black Italic. The font is built with advanced OpenType functionality and has a guaranteed top-notch quality, containing stylistic and contextual alternates, ligatures and more features; all to give you full control and customizability. It has extensive lingual support, covering all Latin-based languages, from North Europe to South Africa, from America to South-East Asia. It contains all characters and symbols you'll ever need, including all punctuation and numbers.