Letterpress type, crafted by H. Th. Wijdeveld, founding editor and chief designer of the legendary Dutch art and architecture magazine Wendingen, provided the inspiration for this typeface. The original design graced a 1925 issue examining the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, and Wijdeveld created his typeface by assembling bits of standard brass rules. This version features several of the meanders typical of Wijdeveld’s graphic design in the dagger, double dagger, ASCII tilde and ASCII circumflex positions. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Marcelo's new typeface Emperator —based on his knowledge gained from instruction by master calligraphers— provides a fresh perspective on classic typefaces. Emperator comes in 3 variants that make your designs look elegant, legible and expressive. This font is perfectly suitable for a wide range of applications such as titles, wedding invitations, short text, logos, labels, book covers, posters, packaging, etc. Emperator's character set includes small caps (letters, figures and symbols), fractions, stylistic alternates, ligatures, mathematical symbols, etc.— more than 750 glyphs in all, supporting over 200 Latin-based languages.

Hi everyone. This is my new signature style script. Any inscription will look like a natural stroke. This will give a unique look to your projects. Try my new font, it is lined with all the distances and it looks professional and at ease. It is ideal for signature or design, postcards and greetings, websites or blogs. Test it out below to see how it could look for your next project! Includes: Uppercase and lowercase Numbers and punctuation Foreign language support Ligatures Check out my blog: https://www.instagram.com/zloillev pinterest.com/dmitriychirkov7 Enjoy

Andeeta! A sweet handwritten font that will add fun to your creativity. the font consist of a charming all-caps font and a sweet handwritten script font for the perfect and fun blend of your content. Andeeta has also added 26 doodles to add interest to your content in separate files. Each font file includes uppercase, lowercase, numbers, punctuation, and multilingual support. That's it! I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to comment if there are issues or queries. You can also say hi to me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tlatoustype/ Thank You!

My affection for Slab Serifs began in the early 1960s in Kansas City with Rob Roy Kelly and his fabulous collection of wood type. In the 1970s tried to re-create a Nebiolo Egiziano for Roger Black. Again for Roger, in the 1980s I designed a Slab Serif logo for Newsweek Magazine. Finally, in 2003, designed the Sutro Family. There were things I didn't like about it, so when I did Version 2 for Open Type, I changed it around a little, making it a much nicer Sutro.

Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle (1791–1847) was an English officer and military engineer who served in the War of 1812 and ultimately settled in Canada. I stumbled upon copies of some of his charts and maps, became infatuated with the hand-lettered titles—and the result is the eponymous Bonnycastle. The font has a bold weight and an italic style but is intended as an eye-catching standalone, evocative of its period in history. Use as a titling face on branding materials, event posters, book covers, presentation graphics, historical illustrations, and the like.

Brody’s fonts borrow elements from both Art Deco and non-Western styles. His designs received international recognition for their innovative, computer-oriented style, reaching almost cult status. Four original Brody fonts are available from Linotype Library GmbH: Insignia, Industria-Solid, Industria Inline and Arcadia. For your convenience, we have gathered all four into one package. Insignia has the basic forms of constructed grotesque fonts and was influenced by the New Typography of the Bauhaus during the 1930s. Its image reflects the Zeitgeist of that age, suggesting technology and progress.

In 1899, Robert Wiebking (who worked for a number of foundries in his time) designed an all-caps typeface named Engravers Roman (see Engravers #2). American Type Founders, Inc. (ATF) released a heavier variant in 1902, Engravers Bold, designed by Morris Fuller Benton. Engravers Bold was also released by the Barnhart Brothes & Spinder foundry. Today, Linotype's Engravers brings turn-of-the-century elegance directly to your keyboard. Use the Engravers typeface on any formal piece -- from table cards, to menus, invitations, or advertising work. Engravers is similar to Copperplate Gothic, Sackers Gothic and Nicolas Cochin.

The Techno sound of the 1990s, a personal computer, a font creation software and some inspiration had been the sources to the F2F (Face2Face) font series. Alessio Leonardi and his friends had the demand to create new unusual faces that should be used in the leading german techno magazine "Frontpage". Even typeset in 6 point to nearly unreadability it was a pleasure for the kids to read and decrypt the messages. About Al Retto: "Al" means "Alessio Leonardi" and Retto "straight", but if you read it as an italian world means "in the a**".

DonnaBodoni was inspired by David Farey. He once wrote, somebody should honor the widow of Giambattista Bodoni the brave Signora Paola Margherita Dall 'Aglio for her effort to have the Manuale tipografico di Giambattista Bodoni published after his death. Since I have redesigned a good deal of Bodoni’s work and added some of my own, I thought it was my duty to do at least this for Bodoni’s unknown widow. Here is my 3-cut script in her honor. The design is remotely based on Bodoni’s English-Initials. Your honorable Gert Wiescher

This font was inspired by the well-known philosopher René Descartes' hand writing. In 1634, from Amsterdam, he wrote a famous letter to his friend Mersenne, a great scientist monk, in which he spoke about Gallileus works. The greatest part of our glyphs is based on this document. We have added some letters Descartes himself didn't use, like modern s and j (he used exclusively s long and i instead of j). A lot of ligatures and alternates are enriching the font, giving a better appearance of real handwriting.

Beatnik Barbie is a unconventional font design inspired by Jack Kerouac and the ‘Beat Generation’. It is an original design by Alex Kaczun and it is a derivative work based on his original ‘Beatnik’ font. It has an informal style about it, and invokes a casual and friendly mood. Beatnik Barbie incorporates many alternate letter forms, which work like ligatures, so when you type, it automatically substitutes different letter forms for a truly custom hand-written look. Perfect for any application. Beatnik Barbie truly has the heart and soul of the beat mentality. Groovin' baby.

Marsha & Joshua! A sweet handwritten font that will add fun to your creativity. the font consist of a charming all-caps font and a sweet handwritten script font for the perfect and fun blend of your content. Marsha & Joshua has also added 26 doodles to add interest to your content in separate files. Each font file includes uppercase, lowercase, numbers, punctuation, and multilingual support. That's it! I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to comment if there are issues or queries. You can also say hi to me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tlatoustype/ Thank You!

Poplar is an Adobe Originals typeface designed by Barbara Lind in 1990 for the Adobe Wood Type series. Poplar, a Gothic condensed, was designed from photographs taken by Rob Roy Kelly of the one surviving copy of an 1830 William Leavenworth type specimen book. Leavenworth possessed unusual artistic abilities, and his treatment of the letterform counters as narrow slits made it the only wood type of its kind displayed during the nineteenth century. Poplar is an excellent display face, its simplicity making it useful for a broad range of work.

The wind howled, the night grew long, and British type designer and lettering artist Tim Donaldson created the typeface Banshee. This dramatic display face is modeled after one of Donaldson�s handwritten lettering styles. Banshee began as letters rapidly written by Donaldson with one of his homemade ruling" pens. The letterforms are firmly rooted in the tradition of classical chancery italics. With its ragged lines and counters, Banshee realistically captures the irregularity of pen and ink on paper, lending an immediacy to packaging, advertisements, posters, and invitations that few digital typefaces can match."

Bike Decals JNL captures the fun and nostalgia of the 1950s and 1960s when kids all around the country ran to their local five and dime or hobby store to purchase water applied decals. The "cool" thing would be to customize your bike, little red wagon or anything that would be fair game with various racing symbols, weird space creatures or other unusual images. In this font, Jeff Levine has put his own spin on some of the classic designs of yesteryear, drawing from scratch some of the most popular of their day.

Architype Konstrukt is a collection of avant-garde typefaces deriving mainly from the work of artists/designers of the inter-war years, whose ideals have helped to shape the design philosophies of the modernist movement in Europe. Due to their experimental nature character sets may be limited. Architype Schwitters was developed from the phonetic experiments made by Kurt Schwitters with his 1927 universal alphabet, where he attempted to link sound and shape. He ‘played with’ using heavier, wider, rounded forms to convey the vowels, creating a unique visual speech texture.

Foundry Wilson is a lovingly drawn revival of a 1760 font from Scottish type founder Alexander Wilson, a learned and cultured man who crafted his types with care and skill. Many of Wilson’s fonts were produced exclusively for the Foulis brothers' classics published by Glasgow University Press. This creative relationship produced typography that earned the praise of their peers. A fresh alternative to the contemporary Baskerville, with a taste of the incised letterforms of its time, Foundry Wilson is a robust and lively type design that displays a beautiful colour and texture on the page.

Hi, I'm Migaela. I'm optimistic, inspiring and expressive typeface. My friend told me I'm cheerful, positive and charming. My designer made me with three optional style, Regular, Overlap and Smooth (rounded), each with oblique version. It has unique stylistic and ornament. Don't you see that lowercase I with snow flake. It's so cute isn't it. Before I forget, kindly look my ligature, I know you like it. Buy me know, let me works together in your Christmas project, Holiday card, New Years event, and of course your next Valentine project.

Hi, peaches! Glad to introduce to you our latest “Romes” font duo that combines classy serif and cute script fonts. The exquisite curves of the serif font and natural beautiful flow of the script font can give your projects a voguish and elegant touch! Romes Script is a lovely and at the same time clear and easy-to-read handwriting font. Romes is a moderately bold font that blends traditional influences into a contemporary aesthetic. This font duo works well for branding, weddings, social media, product design, stationery, advertising, and many more.

Shelley Script was designed by Matthew Carter and appeared with Mergenthaler Linotype in 1972. It is based on intricate English scripts of the 18th and 19th centuries. The musical terms Andante, Allegro and Volante were chosen by Carter to describe the mood of the three different cuts of his font. Andante is the most reserved, Allegro has a few more flourishes, and Volante’s capital letters are surrounded with swirling strokes. Perfect for invitations or other cards, Shelley Script, like other fonts of its kind, seems to appeal particularly to America.

SK Clumster Sans is an extravagant multilingual geometric grotesque, developed under the impression of the unique and exciting aesthetics of font design. Its structure is enlivened by an innovative combination of geometric and organic shapes that transform the familiar letter pattern. SK Clumster Sans creates a unique visual impression through a combination of shapes, a large symbolic and weights set, in addition to lively and dynamic angles and lines. The font is suitable for creating original design works that reflect the creative potential of the author and his bold experiments in the field of design.

Morenita is a script letter style, very basic geometric construction which refers to the style and the Art Deco glory, designed to provide a highly readable. It comes in two weights, Regular and Bold, italic versions both comes equipped with terminals and final words or tails in ways very easy to apply glue. Ideal for creative banner ads, versatile and readable form makes it’s ideal to creating logos or marks or create modern invitations, children’s publications or interesting or video or film credits. His look goes from vintage to contemporary.

This font set was created in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art to coincide with the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary. This font set includes faithfully reproduced letterforms digitized directly from images of impressions made by Benjamin Franklin and his printing office circa 1750. The printing conditions of the time involved handmade paper with textured surfaces and handmade inks which were hand-applied for each impression. By digitizing the printed type in its real-life state, an authentic look of Franklin's actual work is achieved and, ultimately, has a timeless appeal.

Thorowgood was originally released by the Stephenson Blake typefoundry in the UK. The types were first cut by the English typefounder Robert Thorne, predecessor of William Thorowgood, and first shown in his specimen books in the early nineteenth century. The fat face was revived in roman (1953) and italic. The S and the C appear to be smaller than the other capitals. Most serifs are flat and thin horizontals. In the italic the main strokes of h, k, m, n, and r are curved inwards at the foot.

The 'VanderHand' font is a friendly and easy to use handwritten font. It is so loaded with ligatures it could easily pass for actual handwriting. The font was created with a felt-tip brush pen and so there are natural thick and thin parts in the characters. All writing was done upright with tightly fit characters. As a result this font has a unique 'instant logo' quality. But you should really try this out for yourself. O, and the font was written by Jeroen van der Ham. It's his handwriting. That's why it's called VanderHand.

It's not everyday that you want to have dark chocolate with your favorite latté. But sometimes, as out of the ordinary as it is, it can be just the ticket. Cafelatte's design offers a somewhat unpolished calligraphic concept, reminiscent of wooden type, but done with the unique brush of Angel Koziupa and Bezier wizardry of Alejandro Paul. The discerning packaging designer will certainly find it refreshing to be able to put a darker, unconventional touch on his or her design. And who says primal instincts can't express themselves elegantly?

By the 1990s, the availability of font creation software opened the door to an explosion of creativity, experimentation and exploration into the world of digital typography by amateur and professional alike. The undisputed king of the freeware fonts was Ray Larabie through his Larabie Fonts website. It seemed at the time that Ray’s output was endless, and he amassed dozens upon dozens of fonts that ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime. In fact, Ray was the driving force of encouragement and a behind-the-scenes “mentor” who helped Jeff Levine Fonts get underway in January of 2006. As Larabie’s focus changed to higher-quality commercial type design with the launch of Typodermic, Inc., many of his “less than perfect” font experiments were withdrawn and shelved. Ray eventually turned those lost (and sometimes questionable) typefaces into a bundled zip archive released into the public domain through Creative Commons. One particular design “Boron” (circa 1996) featured computer-oriented lettering as if etched onto a circuit board. Running with this idea, and with Ray's approval, the electronic elements were stripped away, the characters cleaned up and modified, and the font reworked in Retro Checkbook JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

New Orleans, June 25, 1895 My dear Edmond, I found upon my return home to dinner yesterday, your letter informing me of your affection for Annie and asking that we confide her future happiness to your keeping... This excerpt was taken from a letter written by designer Kathryn Podorsky’s great-great-grandfather, Lucien Doize, in response to Edmond’s request to marry his daughter, Annie. The letter was not only beautiful contextually, but exquisitely penned and epitomized the delightful charm of the New Orleans people of the time. Vena Amoris, or “Vein of Love” refers to a phrase coined by Henry Swinburne in his A Treatise of Espousal published in 1686. Vena Amoris also refers to the fourth finger on the left hand which was traditionally believed to contain a vein running directly to the heart, hence “the ring finger.” As a digital font, Vena Amoris boasts an extensive Latin-based character set that supports 51 languages. Also included are stylistic and contextual alternates, ligatures, swash variants, oldstyle figures, and roman numerals and calligraphic words that will undoubtedly bring a dynamic quality to any setting. All of those extras are driven by cleverly applied OpenType features allowing you to add harmony and calligraphic beauty to your layout.

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

Churchward Typestyle is a clean sans serif font, originally designed as a photo font by Joseph Churchward back in 2002. Under exclusive license, BluHead Studio has digitized this typeface by using his original drawings. We added any missing glyphs, being careful to maintain the aesthetic that makes this a classic Churchward design. Joseph intended this to be a six weight family, so we digitized the Light and Ultra Bold weights and interpolated the middle four. We enhanced the functionality of the family by creating a complimentary set of small caps, as well as creating a 10 degree oblique of each weight, being careful to correct the slanted curve forms of the letters. Churchward Typestyle is now an extensive 12 weight family, ranging in weights from Light to Ultra Bold, making it extremely useful in a broad range of design applications, from text and print, to display, posters and billboards. It’s sanserif design is clean and open, with a few of those characteristic Churchward goodies. Joseph loved his ink traps, so look for many of those! They especially become more apparent in the heavier weights. All of the Churchward Typestyle fonts support the major Western European languages, and have OpenType features for ligatures, smallcaps, tabular figures, superiors, inferiors, fractions, and ordinals.

Minuet, an informal script with crossover deco elements giving it an unmistakable 1940s flavor, is a revival and expansion of the Rondo family, the last typeface drawn by Stefan Schlesinger before his death. This family was initially supposed to be a typeface based on the strong, flowing script Schlesinger liked to use in the ads he designed, particularly the ones he did for Van Houten’s cocoa products. But for technical reasons the Lettergieterij Amsterdam mandated the face to be made from unattached letters, rather than the original connected script. Schlesinger and Dooijes finished the lowercase and the first drawings of the uppercase just before Schlesinger was sent to a prison camp in 1942. Dooijes completed the design on his own, and drew the bold according to Schlesigner’s instructions. The typeface family was finished in February of 1944, and Schlesinger was killed in October of that same year. Though he did see and approve the final proofs, he never actually saw his letters in use. It took almost four more years for the Lettergieterij Amsterdam to produce the fonts. The typeface was officially announced in November of 1948, and immediately became a bestseller. By 1966, according to a memo from the foundry, the typeface had become “almost too popular”. This digital version of Schlesigner’s and Dooijes’s work greatly expands on the metal fonts. Both weights include a complete set of lowercase alternates — based on Schlesinger’s own drawings, as well as alternative variations for some of the capitals, a few ligatures, and extended language support covering Western, Eastern and Central European languages, plus Baltic, Celtic/Welsh, Esperanto, Maltese and Turkish. Minuet is available in all popular formats. The OpenType version, Minuet Pro, takes advantage of internal font programming to combine the main and alternate fonts into a single file per weight, making all alternates and ligatures automatically available at the push of a button in OpenType supporting programs.

Steinweiss Script began its journey towards daylight when Michael Doret was asked by Taschen Publishing to do cover lettering for the huge commemorative edition they were putting together on the work of Alex Steinweiss—“The Inventor of the Modern Album Cover”. The lettering was to be created to appear similar to the famous “Steinweiss Scrawl” the calligraphy that Steinweiss had used on countless album covers. While designing this piece of lettering, Michael realized that there was great potential for a font that was designed in the spirit of that famous “scrawl”. Through his contacts at Taschen Publishing, he was fortunate enough to be able to contact the Steinweiss family, and get the official Steinweiss approval to proceed with his “Steinweiss Script” project. Michael decided that in addition to giving the font his name as an homage, that he would donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this font to the man himself: Alex Steinweiss. Read more about the background of Steinweiss Script in Steven Heller’s article in Imprint. Steinweiss Script is a family of fonts in three weights: Light, Medium, and Bold. Additionally, within each weight there are three variations: Simple, Fancy, and Titling. These variations relate to the size/ratio of the caps to the lowercase, the complexity of those caps, and the size of the ascenders/descenders on the lowercase characters. These variations add usefulness to the font, making it accessible not just for headlines, but for longer passages of text as well. For a better understanding of its unique features please download The Steinweiss Script Users Guide from the Gallery section. PLEASE NOTE: the three Steinweiss Script fonts are cross-platform fonts which depend to some extent on certain advanced OpenType features, therefore they can be used to their full potential only with programs that support those features. When setting Steinweiss Script one should almost ALWAYS select the “Standard Ligatures" and “Contextual Alternates” buttons in your OpenType palette. See the “Read Me First!” file in the Gallery section.

Handy Andy Andy Lethbridge had only just completed his graphic design BA at the University of Portsmouth when he was spotted by Jason, who’d seen Andy’s exquisite hand lettering at his degree show and on Instagram. Keen to push the handwritten theme further, having recently launched a digitally-created, chalky script font (FS Sammy), Jason offered Andy a job and the chance to develop a suite of more stylised, truly hand-drawn fonts. Andy duly got out his pads, pencils and pens, and started experimenting with styles and textures. Magic followed. Imperfection perfected Most ‘handwritten’ typefaces are created entirely digitally. Not FS Shepton. From the start, the intention was to create a collection of alphabets of similar character but different texture and style – 100% hand-drawn and purposely imperfect, with the kind of inconsistent, organic shapes and textures of market stall signs, dashed off in chalk or paint. FS Shepton Regular, drawn with a wet brush pen, is solid with a rough outer edge and a casual but controlled feel. The dry brush used to create FS Shepton Light gives it more inner texture and a more formal, slanted, calligraphic style. FS Shepton Bold, drawn using a wider, looser dry brush pen, has a woody grain in the middle of its broad strokes and greater solidity where the brush moves more slowly. Fresh as a daisy Think of FS Shepton not as a family of three weights of the same font so much as a collection of three fonts penned by the same author. All of them – the light, regular and bold – were created independently as display fonts that offer something different to labelling, packaging, point-of-sale and advertising. Lovingly crafted by hand, they’re a good match for products and settings that share the same artisinal qualities: organic foods, drinks and healthcare products, as well as premium chocolate, coffee and condiments.

P22 ST.G Shrift is a font series based on the type designs of Stefan George with an italic version designed by Colin Kahn. Stefan George (1868-1933) was a German poet who led the revolt against realism in German literature. All of his works were privately published and the typefaces that were used reflected his neo-classic and anti-industrial (progessive) aesthetics; oftentimes consisting of his own hand lettering designs. The original font was cast in 1907 by a small foundry in Germany and was used primarily for the works of George as well as other books including a monumental edition of Dante's Divine Comedy. The ST.G Shrift Fonts contained in this set are derived from 3 known variations of the original roman typeface, St.G., found in various books published in Berlin in the early 20th century. ST.G Shrift One contains the most idiosyncratic characters, while ST.G Shrift Two uses more familiar characters as well as a redesign of characters including the t and the k to be more in keeping with modern san-serif designs. The OpenType version of the roman contains both one and two and expands on them by including central European characters, small caps, and small caps titling figures. The Small Caps titling figures are derived from the first version of the typeface. Below is a features list (accessible through the type palette in Adobe programs) and their functions: ST.G Shrift Opentype Features: Small Caps: Changes Lowercase to Small Caps Titling Figures: Changes Uppercase to Titling Caps, and Small Caps to Small Caps Titling Figures Contextual Alternates: Changes Character Set to match ST.G One and changes Small Caps to Titling Small Caps Ornaments: Changes < > and ? (greater, less and bullet) to ornaments ST.G Shrift Italic is an art nouveau version of the roman. The OpenType version includes central European characters, small caps, titling caps, titling small caps and ornaments.

The concept of the Baroque Roman type face is something which is remote from us. Ungrateful theorists gave Baroque type faces the ill-sounding attribute "Transitional", as if the Baroque Roman type face wilfully diverted from the tradition and at the same time did not manage to mature. This "transition" was originally meant as an intermediate stage between the Aldine/Garamond Roman face of the Renaissance, and its modern counterpart, as represented by Bodoni or Didot. Otherwise there was also a "transition" from a slanted axis of the shadow to a perpendicular one. What a petty detail led to the pejorative designation of Baroque type faces! If a bookseller were to tell his customers that they are about to choose a book which is set in some sort of transitional type face, he would probably go bust. After all, a reader, for his money, would not put up with some typographical experimentation. He wants to read a book without losing his eyesight while doing so. Nevertheless, it was Baroque typography which gave the world the most legible type faces. In those days the craft of punch-cutting was gradually separating itself from that of book-printing, but also from publishing and bookselling. Previously all these activities could be performed by a single person. The punch-cutter, who at that time was already fully occupied with the production of letters, achieved better results than he would have achieved if his creative talents were to be diffused in a printing office or a bookseller's shop. Thus it was possible that for example the printer John Baskerville did not cut a single letter in his entire lifetime, for he used the services of the accomplished punch-cutter John Handy. It became the custom that one type founder supplied type to multiple printing offices, so that the same type faces appeared in various parts of the world. The type face was losing its national character. In the Renaissance period it is still quite easy to distinguish for example a French Roman type face from a Venetian one; in the Baroque period this could be achieved only with great difficulties. Imagination and variety of shapes, which so far have been reserved only to the fine arts, now come into play. Thanks to technological progress, book printers are now able to reproduce hairstrokes and imitate calligraphic type faces. Scripts and elaborate ornaments are no longer the privilege of copper-engravers. Also the appearance of the basic, body design is slowly undergoing a change. The Renaissance canonical stiffness is now replaced with colour and contrast. The page of the book is suddenly darker, its lay-out more varied and its lines more compact. For Baroque type designers made a simple, yet ingenious discovery - they enlarged the x-height and reduced the ascenders to the cap-height. The type face thus became seemingly larger, and hence more legible, but at the same time more economical in composition; the type area was increasing to the detriment of the margins. Paper was expensive, and the aim of all the publishers was, therefore, to sell as many ideas in as small a book block as possible. A narrowed, bold majuscule, designed for use on the title page, appeared for the first time in the Late Baroque period. Also the title page was laid out with the highest possible economy. It comprised as a rule the brief contents of the book and the address of the bookseller, i.e. roughly that which is now placed on the flaps and in the imprint lines. Bold upper-case letters in the first line dramatically give way to the more subtle italics, the third line is highlighted with vermilion; a few words set in lower-case letters are scattered in-between, and then vermilion appears again. Somewhere in the middle there is an ornament, a monogram or an engraving as a kind of climax of the drama, while at the foot of the title-page all this din is quietened by a line with the name of the printer and the year expressed in Roman numerals, set in 8-point body size. Every Baroque title-page could well pass muster as a striking poster. The pride of every book printer was the publication of a type specimen book - a typographical manual. Among these manuals the one published by Fournier stands out - also as regards the selection of the texts for the specimen type matter. It reveals the scope of knowledge and education of the master typographers of that period. The same Fournier established a system of typographical measurement which, revised by Didot, is still used today. Baskerville introduced the smoothing of paper by a hot steel roller, in order that he could print astonishingly sharp letters, etc. ... In other words - Baroque typography deserves anything else but the attribute "transitional". In the first half of the 18th century, besides persons whose names are prominent and well-known up to the present, as was Caslon, there were many type founders who did not manage to publish their manuals or forgot to become famous in some other way. They often imitated the type faces of their more experienced contemporaries, but many of them arrived at a quite strange, even weird originality, which ran completely outside the mainstream of typographical art. The prints from which we have drawn inspiration for these six digital designs come from Paris, Vienna and Prague, from the period around 1750. The transcription of letters in their intact form is our firm principle. Does it mean, therefore, that the task of the digital restorer is to copy meticulously the outline of the letter with all inadequacies of the particular imprint? No. The type face should not to evoke the rustic atmosphere of letterpress after printing, but to analyze the appearance of the punches before they are imprinted. It is also necessary to take account of the size of the type face and to avoid excessive enlargement or reduction. Let us keep in mind that every size requires its own design. The longer we work on the computer where a change in size is child's play, the more we are convinced that the appearance of a letter is tied to its proportions, and therefore, to a fixed size. We are also aware of the fact that the computer is a straightjacket of the type face and that the dictate of mathematical vectors effectively kills any hint of naturalness. That is why we strive to preserve in these six alphabets the numerous anomalies to which later no type designer ever returned due to their obvious eccentricity. Please accept this PostScript study as an attempt (possibly futile, possibly inspirational) to brush up the warm magic of Baroque prints. Hopefully it will give pleasure in today's modern type designer's nihilism.

Style and elegance in 14 styles PS Fournier, created by Stéphane Elbaz, is designed in tribute to Pierre Simon Fournier. Fournier was the prolific Parisian type designer whose work is best known for its iconic representation of French transitional style. PS Fournier elegantly represents the transition to the modern era of typography. Featuring three optical sizes, PS Fournier is designed to perform in any context. The Pierre Simon Fournier heritage Pierre Simon Fournier (1712—1768) was a leading innovative type designer of the mid-18th century. Early in his career, the young Pierre Simon developed a strong aesthetic that he cultivated throughout his life. His art is representative of the pre-revolutionary “Age of Enlightenment” (Siècle des Lumières). Precursor of the Modern style, Fournier’s body of work deeply influenced his times, and created the fertile ground from which the Didot family and Giambattista Bodoni developed their own styles. During the historical period of the 18th century, Fournier exemplified the intellectual pursuits of the times with his own research on type, documenting in detail the typefounding process. He also offered a unique vision: he is the first to clearly comprehend the concept of “type family,” sorting a set of similarly styled alphabets by sizes, width, and by x-heights. In addition, Fournier is one of the earliest advocates of the point system to organize the practice of typography, the point system that contemporary typographers continue to use to this day. The refined and discreet elegance of PS Fournier With a close look at the family, one finds you’ll find that the difference between the optical sizes (Petit, standard and Grand) is more than a contrast variation between the thin and the thick; the eye can also denote a palette of distinct tones: More streamlined and robust in the smaller sizes (Petit), more refined and detailed in the larger sizes (Grand). The PS Fournier standard family is designed to adapt to any situation with its intermediate optical size, from body copy to headlines. With a bit of tracking, PS Fournier Petit will make the smallest captions perfectly readable. However, Petit family is not limited to body and captions — its “slabby robustness” will make a relevant headline choice as well. PS Fournier Grand presents a higher contrast adapted to large text sizes, displays or banners. Its refined elegance makes it a perfect choice for Design, Fashion or Luxury publications. As a “modern” type PS Fournier Grand features a larger x-height than the preexistent old style typefaces such as Garamond or Jenson. These proportions provide any basic text set in PS Fournier Grand a strong typographic texture. As a result, the PS Fournier global family is a versatile alternative to the Modern typefaces commonly used in the publishing industry. The optical sizes, the large range of weights, and the design variations make this family adaptable to captions, paragraphs, and pages, as well as to large texts and displays. A leading-edge typography in the 18th century In the spirit of modernity, Pierre Simon Fournier did not find any use for the conventional swashes still produced by peers such as Caslon or Baskerville. Nevertheless the French designer created many inventive elements to decorate the page and set delightful variations in the text itself. To this regard PS Fournier includes a large set of glyphs variations, ligatures and more than one hundred glyphs for borders, rules and ornaments or — as called in French — “vignettes.” PS Fournier: A tribute to the French modern typography era by Stéphane Elbaz