The market for humanistic sans serif type families is saturated, so what can a new release add, and what does it take to stand out from the crowd? Asterisk Sans Pro (named after my favourite glyph to make) aims to be a highly versatile type family; massively useful due to its pan-European language support and bounty of OpenType features which make it the ideal choice for demanding typography. The look is contemporary; details which give the fonts character at large sizes all but disappear when small, making the middle weights suitable for large chunks of text. The family ranges from a hairline ultra light to a pretty weighty black – a must in a new typeface. Asterisk Sans Pro supports Latin, modern Greek and Cyrillic, with localized forms for Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian to boot. This is rare enough, but to have small caps for all these scripts in both upright and italic fonts is a big plus. Your client may not need all this language support right now, but this typeface gives them the option to grow while keeping a consistent look, and at a similar price point to families with a much narrower scope. The ability to customize Asterisk Sans Pro through the use of Stylistic Sets in OpenType savvy layout programs means you are really in control. Want more italic forms in the uprights? Go for it. A more Roman italic? Easy! The spurless m, n, r and u, accessible through SS13 give a graphic, almost bauhaus feel. The Dutch IJ glyph can be changed to a much cooler thing using SS14, and the family even supports ij-acute. Other OpenType features include a wealth of numeral styles (tabular and proportional, lining and oldstyle, plus small cap figures, numerators, denominators, subscript and superscript) and automatic fractions. There are also case-sensitive forms for all caps settings, a bunch of useful arrows, and superscript lower case Latin letters. All in, there are well over 1200 glyphs per font, making Asterisk Sans Pro an invaluable tool in your typeface arsenal, great for everything from corporate identities to editorial work, apps to cookbooks.

When Candy Script was officially released and in the hands of a few designers, I was in the middle of a three-week trip in North America. After returning to Buenos Aires, I found a few reactions to the font in my inbox. Alongside the congratulatory notes, flattering samples of the face in use, and the inevitable three or four “How do I use it?” emails, one interesting note asked me to consider an italic counterpart. 

I had experimented with a few different angles during the initial brainstorming of the concept but never really thought of Candy Script as an upright italic character set. A few trials confirmed to me that an italic Candy Script would be a bad idea. However, some of these trials showed conceptual promise of their own, so I decided to pursue them and see where they would go. Initially, it seemed a few changes to the Candy Script forms would work well at angles ranging from 18 to 24 degrees, but as the typeface evolved, I realized all the forms had to be modified considerably for a typeface of this style to work as both a digital font and a true emulation of real hand-lettering. Those were the pre-birth contractions of the idea for this font. I called it Sugar Pie because it has a sweet taste similar to Candy Script, mostly due to its round-to-sharp terminal concept. This in turn echoes the concept of the clean brush scripts found in the different film type processes of late 1960s and early 1970s.
 
While Candy Script’s main visual appeal counts on the loops, swashes, and stroke extensions working within a concept of casual form variation, Sugar Pie is artistically a straightforward packaging typeface. Its many ligatures and alternates are just as visually effective as Candy Script’s but in a subtler and less pronounced fashion. The alternates and ligatures in Sugar Pie offer many nice variations on the main character set. Use them to achieve the right degree of softness you desire for your design. Take a look of the How to use PDF file in our gallery section for inspiration.

Geometric/Technical style logotypes have been developed for car chrome labels since the early 1980’s, but automobile companies don't monopolize the style by any means. Shoe companies have a foothold in the geometric sans serif styles as well, and range from straightforward to full of techno styled play. Nonetheless, these logotypes all lack an expansive family which shows off all the logotypes are and what they "could" be and do. And that's where we come in. The Midsole Family finds its origin of inspiration in the CONVERSE shoe company logo, or an older version fo their logo, and from there expanded it into a 40 font family of weights, widths, and obliques. Midsole pays homage to the styling of the earlier logotype, including unicase variations to match the original look, while further evolving beyond the brand inspiration to yield a family that pulls on modern and historical styles. It adopts a sturdy yet approachable and recognizable style with its uniform stroke forms and curves, and goes on to include a lowercase, numerals, and a comprehensive range of weights, creating a straightforward, uncompromising collection of typefaces that lend a solid foundation and a broad range of expression for designers. Here’s what’s included with the Midsole Family bundle: 489 glyphs per style - including Capitals, Lowercase, Numerals, Punctuation and an extensive character set that covers multilingual support of latin based languages. (see the 10th graphic for a preview of the characters included) Stylistic Alternates - alternate characters and unicase variants for a less standardized text look. 4 weights in the family: Light, Regular, Medium & Bold. 4 obliques in the family, one for each weight: Light, Regular, Medium & Bold. Here’s why the Midsole Family is for you: - You’re in need of stylish sans font family with a range of weights and obliques. - You’re love that older CONVERSE letter styling, and want to design anything within that genre. - You’re looking for an alternative to Eurostile & Handel Gothic. - You’re looking for a clean techno typeface for your rave poster designs. - You just like to collect quality fonts to add to your design arsenal.

Mymra fonts – an upgraded version of Mymra Forte and Mymra Mono (2009), with a careful re-dress of glyph shapes, and the extension of glyph amounts – which enables support of more Latin languages. One more weight – Black – has been added to the original three of Mymra Forte fonts. Fonts are intended for use in a vast variety of publications.

ITC Legacy¿ was designed by American Ronald Arnholm, who was first inspired to develop the typeface when he was a graduate student at Yale. In a type history class, he studied the 1470 book by Eusebius that was printed in the roman type of Nicolas Jenson. Arnholm worked for years to create his own interpretation of the Jenson roman, and he succeeded in capturing much of its beauty and character. As Jenson did not include a companion italic, Arnholm turned to the sixteenth-century types of Claude Garamond for inspiration for the italics of ITC Legacy. Arnholm was so taken by the strength and integrity of these oldstyle seriffed forms that he used their essential skeletal structures to develop a full set of sans serif faces. ITC Legacy includes a complete family of weights from book to ultra, with Old style Figures and small caps, making this a good choice for detailed book typography or multi-faceted graphic design projects. In 1458, Charles VII sent the Frenchman Nicolas Jenson to learn the craft of movable type in Mainz, the city where Gutenberg was working. Jenson was supposed to return to France with his newly learned skills, but instead he traveled to Italy, as did other itinerant printers of the time. From 1468 on, he was in Venice, where he flourished as a punchcutter, printer and publisher. He was probably the first non-German printer of movable type, and he produced about 150 editions. Though his punches have vanished, his books have not, and those produced from about 1470 until his death in 1480 have served as a source of inspiration for type designers over centuries. His Roman type is often called the first true Roman." Notable in almost all Jensonian Romans is the angled crossbar on the lowercase e, which is known as the "Venetian Oldstyle e."" ITC Legacy® Sans font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Ten years or so after his unique treatment of Garalde design with Trump Mediaeval, Georg Trump took on the transitional genre with Mauritius, which was to be his last typeface. He started working on it in 1965. The Stuttgart-based Weber foundry published a pamphlet previewing it under the name Barock-Antiqua in 1967, then announced the availability of the metal types (a roman, a bold and an italic) a year later. The global printing industry was already in third gear with cold type technology, so there weren't that many takers, and Weber closed its doors after more than 140 years in business. Subsequently, Trump’s swan song was unfairly overlooked by typography historians and practitioners. It never made it to film technology or scalable fonts. Thus, one of the most original text faces ever made, done by one of the most influential German type designers of the 20th century, was buried under decades of multiple technology shifts and fading records. The metal cuts of Mauritius seem to have been rushed in Weber’s desperation to stay afloat. So the only impressions left of the metal type, the sole records remaining of this design, show substantial problems. Some can be attributed to technological limitations, but some issues in colour, precision and fitting are also quite apparent, particularly in Mauritius Kursiv, the italic metal cut. This digital version is the result of obsessing over a great designer’s final type design effort, and trying to understand the reasons behind its vanishing from typography’s collective mind. While that understanding remains for the most part elusive, the creative and technical work done on these fonts produced very concrete results. All the apparent issues in the metal types were resolved, the design was expanded into a larger family of three weights and two widths, and plenty of 21st century bells and whistles were added. For the full background story, design analysis, details, features, specimens and print tests, consult the PDF available in the Gallery section of this page.

Petrarka may be described as a Condensed, Sans-Serif, Semi-Fatface Roman. Huh? Bear with me on this. The Fatface is a name given to the popular nineteenth-century romans that where characterized by an extremity of contrast between the thick and thin stroke. The earliest example that is generally familiar is Thorowgood, believed to have been designed by Robert Thorne and released by Thorowgood Foundry in 1820 as "Five-line Pica No. 5." Copied by many foundries, it became one of the more popular advertising types of the day. Later, in the period from about 1890 to 1950, you find a number of typeface designs with the thin stroke beefed up a bit, not quite so extreme. What you might call Semi-Fatfaced Romans begin to replace the extreme Fatfaces. Serifed designs like Bauer’s Bernard Roman Extra Bold and ATF’s Bold Antique appear. In addition, we see the development of semi-fatface lineals or Sans-Serif Semi-Fatfaces. Examples include Britannic (Stephenson Blake), Chambord Bold (Olive), Koloss (Ludwig & Mayer), Matthews (ATF) and Radiant Heavy (Ludlow). Petrarka has much in common with this latter group, but is distinguished by two salient features: it is condensed and it shows a strong blackletter influence, as seen in the ‘H’ particularly. Petrark was released about 1900 by the German foundry of Schelter & Giesecke of Leipzig and is one of the designs of the period that attempts to reconcile roman and blackletter traditions. Making a cameo appearance in this Multi-Lingual font is the Anglo-Saxon letter yogh (#729), which, along with the thorn and the eth, is always useful for preparing flyers in Old English. There are still pockets of resistance to the Norman French influence that washed up on England’s shores in 1066. This font stands with King Canute, seeking to hold back the tide (ignoring the fact that Canute was a Dane). Support the fight to preserve Anglo-Saxon culture. Buy Petrarka ML today. Petrarka Initials brings together the Petrarka upper case letters with a very sympatico Art Nouveau rendering of a female face.

In the world of webfonts, Condensed proportions are key to maximizing your page's premium real estate while keeping your copy clean and catchy as you cut down to the essentials. Soon after the introduction of webfonts, I began to see Insigne's Le Havre used frequently for web headlines, not so much for its Art Deco look as for its more compact proportions. There seemed to be a need for a font that was designed to be used solely for the web's unique constraints. Enter Coegit Sans. Coegit is built specifically for web applications. Its highly Condensed forms range from thin--offering the greatest number of uses--to the attractive, accenting black. With three widths--Compressed, Compact, and the widest, Condensed --the family holds a total of sixteen fonts. The typefamily has also been hinted for excellent, onscreen display quality, even at small sizes. Overall, its lighter, humanist features provide the reader a more congenial welcome than its square, sans-serif counterparts can offer. Coegit is equipped for complex professional typography with stems, small caps and plenty of alts, including titling capitals. The face includes a number of numeral sets, including fractions, old-style and lining figures with superiors and inferiors. OpenType-capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe suite can take full advantage of automatically replacing ligatures and alternates. You can find these features demonstrated in the .pdf brochure. The family also includes glyphs to support a wide range of languages, including Central, Eastern and Western European languages. In all, Coegit supports over 40 languages that use the Latin script, making the new addition a great choice for multi-lingual publications and packaging. While the advanced OpenType features of webfonts are not currently supported in many browsers, the near future promises wide support. As acceptance of these features grow, Coegit Sans will prove to be a versatile element for your wide range of web projects.

Lindemann Sans is an immediately-inviting typeface with a pleasing distinct visual voice grounded by geometry and golden proportions. This modern geometric san serif typeface serves the interpretive needs of modern design through its legibility. This legibility is achieved through proportional balance of each letter based on the golden ratio, open counters, high x-height and wider individual shapes. In addition, a high level of legibility is arrived through distinctive glyphs like a, e, @, and f, which are engaging and add to Lindemann Sans visual voice. Being a modern, spirited, tech-savvy typeface, Lindemann Sans has many of the features demanded by today's designers. These features include 800 characters within each font, many ligatures, full numbers sets, small caps, alternative characters and other niceties found in opentype fonts. Due to Lindemann Sans high legibility, geometric sans tradition, and a large feature set list, it is a very versatile typeface and can be used in replacement of the more commonly used sans. Specifically, Lindemann Sans can be used by technology corporations, architectural firms in their supporting materials, in magazines as headers and key-points, as the typeface for professional keynotes, for the package design industry as a whole, in automotive concept projects, and for cosmetic branding for high class hair products. With its inviting nature it may also be used for liberal arts promotional materials. In addition, this typeface can be used by green industries because of its nature derived proportions. Each style and weight of Lindemann Sans adheres to the same geometric and golden proportions, however, each weight is innately noteworthy. For example, there is a charm that is found in the ultralight weight's elegant geometry and lights impressive use as oversized headlines. It shines with true clarity of vision with the book weight and the versatility of the medium. One cannot overlook the power and pacing of the bold and extra bold weights with its clear counters and restrained letter forms. Within Lindemann Sans family each weight has a distinctive role to play but stays true to its purpose.

American graphic designer William Addison Dwiggins' (W.A.D. for short) first typefaces were the Metro family, designed from 1927 onward. The project grew out of Dwiggins' dissatisfaction with the new European sans serif typefaces of the day, such as Futura, Erbar, and Kabel, a feeling he expressed in his seminal book Layout in Advertising. Urged by Mergenthaler Linotype to create a solution for the problem, Dwiggins began a professional relationship that would span over the next few decades. The first Metro family typeface to be released was Metroblack, brought to market by Linotype in 1929 (Metroblack #2™ the only one of the two versions that Mergenthaler Linotype eventually put into production which is available in digital form). With more of a humanist quality than the geometric styles popular in Europe at the time, Dwiggins drew what he believed to be the ideal sans serif for headlines and advertising copy. Metroblack has a warmer character than the Modernists' achievements, and the type is full of mannered curves and angled terminals (Metroblack also has an astoundingly beautiful Q). The other weights of the Metro family, Metromedium #2™ and Metrolite #2™, were designed by Mergenthaler Linotype's design office under Dwiggins' supervision. Despite having been created more than three-quarters of a century ago, the Metro family types have aged well, and remain a popular sans serif family. Although spec'd less often than other bestsellers, like Futura, Metro continues to find many diverse uses. The typeface has appeared throughout Europe and the North America for decades in newspapers and magazines, and can even help create a great brand image when used in logos and corporate identity. Dwiggins ranks among the most influential graphic designers and typeface designers of the 20th Century. He has several other quality fonts in the Linotype Originals, including the serif text faces Electra™ and New Caledonia™, as well as Caravan™, a font of typographic ornaments."

TT Ricordi Marmo useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options TT Ricordi Marmo extends the series of experimental projects within the TT Ricordi fonts collection. The main goal of the TT Ricordi project is to look for gems in old signs and on stone and bringing those inscriptions back to life in the form of contemporary fonts with the umbrella name TT Ricordi. TT Ricordi Marmo is an original experimental project by Eugene Tantsurin inspired by inscriptions at Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence. Working on it, we wanted to create a contemporary typeface that would unite the elements of a Florentine sans-serif mixed with more traditional visual solutions typical for the period's serifs. As a result, we got a bright and somewhat provocative typeface with irregular serif distribution, some unusual contours and a free spirit. In small body size TT Ricordi Marmo makes a neutral impression, but as the size gets bigger, the user is taken on a playful quest to search for interesting moves, graphic peculiarities and unusual solutions. TT Ricordi Marmo is great for poster design, packaging, and setting large and medium-sized inscriptions. Thanks to its idiosyncrasy, the typeface may look nice both at a poster in a grand academic theater and at an acid rave party. You can find a set of icon patterns that can be used in several ways. First, you can substitute letters with these patterns, thus getting an inscription with a visible graphic element. Then you can also construct borders and interval marks, or just use them as icons. All patterns are perfectly adapted to the design of letters in the font. TT Ricordi Marmo consists of 2 styles and one variable font. Each of the styles contains over 630 glyphs and 18 OpenType features. As we have conceived TT Ricordi Marmo as a poster typeface from the very beginning, it features small capitals instead of lowercase characters. In addition, the typeface has a set of interesting ligatures, stylistic alternates, pointers, hands, and pattern icons. TT Ricordi Marmo OpenType features list: AALT, CCMP, LOCL, NUMR, ORDN, TNUM, PNUM, CASE, SS01 (Alternative latin E), SS02 (Alternative Eszett), SS03 (Alternative Cyrillic I), SS04 ( Alternative Amper- sand), SS05 (Romanian Comma Accent), SS06 (Dutch IJ), SS07 (Catalan Ldot), DLIG, CALT, SALT.

Actium is a contemporary multilingual sans serif typeface developed to help perfect typography automatically. Type Mafia has focussed on words with odd combinations of capital letters and numbers, such as product names and postal codes such as WD40 and H1N5, jump out of the text. They sit awkwardly together as the numerals have been designed to work with the lowercase, not the uppercase letters – affecting readability.To fix this Type Mafia invented Smart Capo™. Smart Capo™ Smart Capo is a feature that automatically activates once you type an uppercase letter together with a number. When a capital letter is sat next to a numeral, Smart Capo converts the letter to a mid-cap — a contemporary alternative to small caps — and the default old-style numeral to a lining numeral. Actium’s mid-caps and lining numerals have been designed with the same height (between cap and x-height) so they sit comfortably next to each other and fit more harmoniously into text. Smart Capo applies equal attention to capitalised words without any numbers, such as NAVO and USA, and are also automatically set into mid-capitals. Working on its own, Smart Capo saves time and money for the typographer — taking the pain out of text formatting — and makes it a more pleasurable experience for the reader. This feature is made possible by the use of ‘contextual alternates’, an OpenType feature used in modern font software, working with a set of characters specially designed at mid-cap height. By default these changes automatically take place so it doesn't need to be switched on, it will just work. Actium Actium’s design has an unusual diagonal contrast — much more common in a serifed face than in a sans serif — giving it more bite. The typeface looks elegant when set in large sizes and remains very legible when shown in small sizes. The family consists of six weights in two styles, making a dozen fonts. Weights range from light to black in roman and true italic. All fonts are fully loaded with functional elements. Actium boasts an extended Latin character set and with Greek. This means a wide range of Western languages are supported: perfect for use in bilingual publications and packaging. For numerals, each font includes old-style and lining figures in both proportional and tabular widths, with superiors and inferiors. These allow you to select the right set of numbers for the right task.

Aire is what Sproviero would call a < big display family >. We recommend seeing its user’s guide. After his success with Reina, Sproviero comes out with this big family of 7 members: Each of them loaded with lots of sophisticated ligatures, alternates and the entire cyrillic alphabet. The overall impression that the font gives is lightness and delicateness; that’s the reason the designer chose to call it Aire, or Air, in English. "Aire was somehow having a rest from my fat face Reina [...] It started as a really thin style of Reina, but it rapidly migrated from it and grew up alone. And how it grew..." The inspiration came from his own past creations: “The heavy strokes of Reina were shouting for a more delicate thing. Something more feminine. More fragile. Something which had a lot of elegance and fresh air inside”. Aire responds to this: Sproviero found that many of the typefaces of nowadays which are used for headlines (best known as display fonts) have almost always just one, maybe two weight styles. This was his opportunity to try something new. Aire makes it easier for the user to generate different levels/layers of communication thanks to its variety of styles. With this font you can solve entire decorative pieces of design with just one font, and that was the aim of it. Aire was designed to be playful yet formal: While none of its alternates are activated it can be useful for short to medium length texts; and when the user chooses to make use of its open-type decorative glyphs, it can be useful for headlines with dazzling results. On March of 2012, Aire was chosen to be part of the most important exhibition of typography in Latinoamerica: Tipos Latinos 2012. TECHNICAL Aire is a family with many members. In total, the user can choose between almost 6,000 (!) glyphs (1,000 per style). Each member has variants inside, which are open-type programmed: The user decides which glyph to alternate, equalizing the amount of decoration wanted. Every decorative glyph has its weight adjusted to the style it belongs to. Exclusively for decoration, Aire Fleurons Pro is an open-type programmed set of ornaments. And last but not least, remember Aire is delicate. What’s my point? It is not recommended to activate all the alternates at the same time. It is typo-scientifically proved: A maximum of 3 or 4 alternates per word would be more than enough.

A very expanded sans serif font in capital letters inspired by the inscription on a bank note Old bank notes tend to have a very typical typography. Usually they carry decorative and elaborately designed markings. For one thing, they must be practically impossible to forge and for another, they should make a respectable and legitimate impression. And in the days of copper and steel engravings, that meant nothing less than creating ornate, shaded or otherwise complicated scripts. Designing the appropriate script was literally in the hands of the engraver. That’s why I noticed this bank note from 1948. It is the first 20 mark bill in the then newly created currency ”Deutsche Mark.“ All other bank notes of the 1948 series show daintier forms of typography with an obvious tendency toward modern face. The 1949 series which followed shortly thereafter reveals the more complicated script as well. For whatever reason, only this 20 mark bill displays this extremely expanded sans serif variation of the otherwise Roman form applied. This peculiarity led me in the year 2010 to create a complete font from the single word ”Banknote.“ Back to those days in the 40’s, the initial edition of DM bank notes was carried out by a special US-American printer who was under pressure of completing on time and whose engravers not only engraved but also designed. So that’s why the bank notes resemble dollars and don’t even look like European currency. That also explains some of the uniquely designed characters when looked at in detail. Especially the almost serif type form on the letters C, G, S and Z, but also L and T owe their look to the ”American touch.“ The ingoFont Banknote 1948 comprises all characters of the Latin typeface according to ISO 8859 for all European languages including Turkish and Baltic languages. In order to maintain the character of the original, the ”creation“ of lower case letters was waived. This factor doesn’t contribute to legibility, but this kind of type is not intended for long texts anyway; rather, it unfolds its entire attraction when used as a display font, for example on posters. Banknote 1948 is also very suitable for distortion and other alien techniques, without too much harm being done to the characteristic forms. With Banknote 1948 ingoFonts discloses a font like scripts which were used in advertising of the 1940’s and 50’s and were popular around the world. But even today the use of this kind of font can be expedient, especially considering how Banknote 1948, for its time of origin, impresses with amazingly modern detail.

Ceundah font is inspired by thick and thin Hand Sketches. This font can be used for film titles, magazine titles, newspaper front pages, billboards, or company brands.

Carter Sans: a wonderfully accomplished humanist sans serif with a beautiful twist Matthew Carter has been involved in designing typefaces since before many of us were in diapers. With dozens of great typefaces to his name, he has finally put his name to one. His newest typeface, Carter Sans™, brings together those decades of wisdom, experience, and technical expertise. The result is a humanist sans with flared strokes and terminals, a feature that has more in common with the chisel rather than the broad nib pen. Subtle detail, elegant curves, and graceful proportions make for an exceptional and distinctive sans serif typeface, that Carter himself describes as a 'humanist stressed sans.' This imbues the letterforms with a dynamism sometimes lacking in humanist sans serifs. Use it to striking effect in all-caps settings, or for extended texts. Carter Sans was recently used to great effect by Michael Bierut and Joe Marianek of Pentagram, in their work for the Art Directors Club.Carter Sans italics are unfussy, with the only remnants of cursiveness in letters like e and f. It sets beautifully with the roman. Award winning type designer Dan Reynolds (Malabar™ et al.) collaborated with Carter to produce a type that looks just magnificent in print; it would also make a fine choice for that letterpress project! Certainly a welcome addition to anyone's type library.

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!

Akagi started as a rough sketch while on a really long plane ride to Tokyo in 2007. I wanted to develop a sans that was a complete departure from my successful Aaux Pro (now Aaux Next) sans serif family. Whereas Aaux and its siblings are rather unforgiving and stark in their presentation, I wanted this new sans serif to "smile" at you when it's on the page. When the plane landed and I realized I did not sleep through the 15 hour trip, my brain shut off, the laptop closed and I hopped in the car to the hotel—forgetting the "new sans" folder on my desktop. Fast forward a few months and I found myself seeing a lot of crisp, rigid, robot-like sans serif typefaces everywhere... I enjoy these new crop of faces but wanted to see something "friendlier" and remembered my earlier sketch work. The groundwork was there screaming at me to complete and Akagi arose from the ashes. To be truly satisfied with it personally, a great deal of time was spent trying to create a harmony between line and curve in an attempt to show that you can be crisp, clean and legible and still keep some personality. The Light and Fat weights (regular and italic) are my favorites and I hope to see them as the workhorses of the typeface.

Continuo is a fascinating, all-uppercase display typeface wherein the contour of each letterform is described with a single, continuous line. The challenges presented by that simple idea are similar to constructing letterforms with neon tubing. For example, when the strokes of a letterform need to be heavier than the width of the neon tube, two tubes are employed to create the outer contours, effectively leaving an unfilled void inside the stroke. Also, since neon tubes cannot be broken apart as they trace the contours, they must follow a path that, for reasons of economy and to avoid optical massing (or bright spots in neon), the tubes are not crossed. So too, the construction of Continuo follows. The newly updated Continuo now has alternate forms of letters A-Z available in the lowercase a-z and by extension those alternates are also present in the lowercase diacritics. The new Latin Plus glyph repertoire of Continuo contains almost 900 glyphs, supporting 224 languages, including Vietnamese and multiple African languages. A handy set of arrows and additional international currency symbols were added as well. The name is derived from the musical term “Basso Continuo” meaning an almost constant bass line, an integral part of most musical melodies. As an in-line display type, Continuo is ideal for headlines and most oversized applications and its unique appearance commands attention from viewers.

At this pivotal juncture, where every choice casts long shadows, the imperative of pinpointing the archetype of typefaces is of paramount importance. One mere oversight, and the soul of your endeavor risks being lost in the mists of time. Yet, amidst these crossroads, "Winsel" emerges as the North Star in your typographical odyssey. Birthed in the revered sanctums of insigne design, this typeface is a magnum opus, echoing the artistic brilliance of British poster craft from epochs of golden jazz to times of renaissance. Winsel, in its sheer magnificence, stands as a testament to artistry, each stroke demanding undivided reverence. Be it the valiant weights reminiscent of a guardian sentinel or the graceful finesse mirroring a maestro's touch, Winsel is an unparalleled behemoth. Imbued with the finesse of OpenType, it's poised to embrace the multifaceted European Latin tapestry, while its Small Caps and Titling Caps take pride of place across its grand suite of nine weights. Sculpted with precision, Winsel is the beacon that challenges the ordinary and pledges to be an immortal testament. Seldom has the cosmos aligned to present such an illustrious moment. Fortified with Winsel, you stand on the precipice of legend. Carve your tales into the annals of perpetuity, voice your ethos with unyielding conviction, and let each letter be a symphony of undying commitment. In this epoch, in this narrative, Winsel beckons you to etch history.

The German designer Emil Rudolf Weiss originally created Weiss Rundgotisch for the Bauer typefoundry in 1937. In their catalog for the typeface, Bauer began with this quote from Leonhard Wagner: The round gothic (rundgotisch) script is the most beautiful kind of script; she is called the mother and the queen of all the rest." While designing Weiss Rundgotisch, Weiss was inspired by Renaissance types cut by the Augsberg printer Erhard Ratdolt. Ratdolt had spent some time in Venice, which is most likely where he became familiar with round gothic letters. This sort of letterform was never as popular in Germany as Fraktur or Gotisch may have been, but round gothic types were used there for centuries to represent arts and craft feelings, as well as old-fashioned handwork. For a blackletter typeface, Weiss Rundgotisch is very similar to normal serif and sans serif designs, especially its uppercase letters, which seem to have some uncial influence in them as well. Therefore, Weiss Rundgotisch is more legible for contemporary readers, making this an excellent choice for anyone looking to set text, logos, or headlines with in blackletter. Weiss Rundgotisch was apparently quite a difficult typeface to design, even for a master designer like Weiss. He began work on the face in 1915; Weiss Rundgotisch's development took over 20 years to complete."

Remastered in 2019. Wasabi is the re-imagining of my very first release, Iru. Like Iru, Wasabi was heavily influenced by the monument lettering style, Vermarco. The simple, geometric forms allowed for small lettering sizes to be sandblasted cleanly and has been a monument lettering workhorse for decades… the only issue centered around the lack of a lowercase or any other letters beyond the 26 uppercase glyphs and the numerals. Wasabi solves this with the same simple, efficient line reminiscent of the old Vermarco while bringing it into the 21st century. Visual and optical incongruities of the original uppercase were replaced with new interpretations for the capital letters, a new lowercase and small caps were​ produced and the original single weight alphabet was replaced with six new weights. Wasabi has several ‘lighter’ weights primarily because the thin lines and simple transitions produce very elegant relationships… and I wanted to make sure those relationships could be explored regardless of the scale of letter. Stylistic Alternates show up through the upper, lowercase and small cap glyphs that attempt to simplify these shapes even more when the opportunity arises. Wasabi is as much a utilitarian typeface as it is a headline face. This realization led to the decision to produce a companion Condensed version shortly after the initial regular weights were developed and tested; so, try them all!

Remastered in 2019. Wasabi is the re-imagining of my very first release, Iru. Like Iru, Wasabi was heavily influenced by the monument lettering style, Vermarco. The simple, geometric forms allowed for small lettering sizes to be sandblasted cleanly and has been a monument lettering workhorse for decades… the only issue centered around the lack of a lowercase or any other letters beyond the 26 uppercase glyphs and the numerals. Wasabi solves this with the same simple, efficient line reminiscent of the old Vermarco while bringing it into the 21st century. Visual and optical incongruities of the original uppercase were replaced with new interpretations for the capital letters, a new lowercase and small caps were​ produced and the original single weight alphabet was replaced with six new weights. Wasabi has several ‘lighter’ weights primarily because the thin lines and simple transitions produce very elegant relationships… and I wanted to make sure those relationships could be explored regardless of the scale of letter. Stylistic Alternates show up through the upper, lowercase and small cap glyphs that attempt to simplify these shapes even more when the opportunity arises. Wasabi is as much a utilitarian typeface as it is a headline face. This realization led to the decision to produce a companion Condensed version shortly after the initial regular weights were developed and tested; so, try them all!

Pauline Script is a Vintage inspired Monoline script. It's a contemporary script inspired by the past, now available to the Instagram era. Pauline Script is a follow up to the popular Pauline typeface. Pauline was one of my first typefaces, all the way back in 2008. Inspired by a variety of influences, from Art Deco signage, to a simple spice label, Pauline Script has very little stroke contrast and was inspired by Retro connected scripts. Over the course of its evolution, it started to take on more influence from geometric sans serif typefaces and lost the connectors. There's a strong geometric streak, derived from 1930s sans serifs like Futura. Tall ascenders and descenders give it a unique look. Now, this script version has now come full circle, utilizing the original sans serif face design and adding connectors back in, with an optically corrected dynamic slant. For invitations, signage, logos or other applications, Pauline Script is there when you need something that stands out with a touch of class and a sense of uniqueness. Turning on Contextual Alternates (non connecting ending forms) and Discretionary Ligatures (better letter connections) is highly recommended. There's a wide range of weights available. It's a playful typeface with options to either have everything connected, or alternate forms which allow for letter connections that still maintain the sense of flow of a script. Includes plenty of ligatures!

More than a century ago, Frank H. Atkinson presented this hand lettered style as Broken Poster. It was one of a hundred styles he demonstrated in his manual on sign painting. Even before his book was published (and certainly after), Broken Poster was a favorite with sign painters and letterers. It has graced show cards and movie posters, signs and windows displays, and advertisements of all varieties. We presented the our first digital revival of this classic in 2000. It is long overdue for an upgrade. Broken Gothic expands the basic Broken Poster to four weights, two specialty formats and some cool layed effects. The language base includes Greek, Cyrillic, Latin A, and some of Latin B and Latin Extended. There are also some nice alternates and ligatures. All weights are quite suited to posters, headlines, display copy, web headers, etc. At first glance, Broken Gothic may seem to have limited uses. Give it a chance and it will surprise you. Broken shouts out that there is a sale, a giant monster or the end of the world. Broken Gothic is comfortable in a wide range of themes and applications from zombie movie titles to salsa jar labels. While I can't recommend it for text, Broken is great for headers, banners, signs, titles, product presentation and other display applications. When you need a rough customer, Broken Gothic fills the bill.

Jantar Flow is a humanist sanserif type family tailored for continuous reading for both printing and screen. With its large x-height and low contrast it also performs very well in captions, side notes, and short paragraphs set in small sizes. Jantar Flow Italic is distinct and readable. Following a proper italic construction, it shows the fun side of the family yet keeps the features of the upright. Jantar Flow – as well as its teammate Jantar Sharp – comes in seven weights from ExtraLight to Heavy, each with accompanying italics. It has a tabular and proportional set of figures in both old style and lining options, and also a special set of hybrid figures sitting between x-height and capitals. Superscripts and subscripts are provided together with a vast collection of diacritics covering all European languages as well as a set of case-sensitive characters. Jantar, the pairing superfamily. ‘Jantar’ is an old Polish name for ‘amber’, a fossilised resin – a substance that is robust and organic at the same time. These qualities somehow reflect the feeling behind the Jantar families, ‘Flow’ and ‘Sharp’. Jantar Flow was designed along with Jantar Sharp. As part of the Jantar superfamily these two faces are perfectly paired: though not based on the same skeleton, they share the same design parameters and the same character set, but each one works independently with its peculiar features. Designed for publishing for print and web, as well as for branding, the Jantar superfamily was inspired by common font pairings of the digital age like Helvetica/Times or Verdana/Georgia. Jantar Flow and Jantar Sharp communicate with individual yet complementing voices, just like two trained acrobats can perform alone but also know well how to perform together.

Introducing Winthorpe, a typeface that’s steeped in history and inspired by the classic letterforms of traditional metal fonts. With its transitional style, Winthorpe bridges the gap between the old and the new, giving your designs a timeless, sophisticated edge. But Winthorpe is more than just a pretty face. It’s available in small caps and italics, in Regular, Semi-Bold, and Bold weights, giving you plenty of options to play with. And with its versatile range of characters, including lining and old-style numerals, fractions, superiors, inferiors, and ordinals, Winthorpe is perfect for any project that requires a touch of elegance and refinement. So if you’re looking to add a touch of classic sophistication to your designs, look no further than Winthorpe. With its carefully crafted letterforms and attention to detail, it’s the perfect choice for any project that demands the highest level of quality and style. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Though there are many thousands of digital typefaces available, none seem to be made exclusively of letters that tessellate, a complete tessellating alphabet. This void is now filled with not one typeface, but a group of typefaces, the Tescellations kinship group. Even though I am aware of only one use for this typeface--writing about tessellations--that does not mean there are not hundreds or perhaps thousands of other uses. These typefaces are a byproduct of two maze books I designed, Puzzling Typography and Puzzling Typography A Sequel. I found the challenge of making mazes from tessellations, including letter tessellations, intriguing and these typefaces are a byproduct that endeavor. There are seven members of this typeface kinship group. I tried to select the the glyphs that fit together best to form Tescellations; it is the most readable of the lot. The reason for an Italics version is that I needed one for the maze project. In constructing it, I tried to include as many different lower-case glyphs as I could rather than just skew the regular version. A purist might insist that the tessellation deal with the counters. My approach was to worry only about the exterior of any letter that has an interior, but for anyone who who might object to the counters, versions with filled counters are included. What did not fit into Tescellations was dumped into Tescellations Two, which is somewhat of a ransom-note type of face. It comes in two styles, a regular version and a version in which the counters are removed. TescellationPatterns shows how many of the characters in these typefaces tessellate. It has over 100 tessellation patterns, each on only one character. Simply type several lines with any character and make sure the leading is the same as the font size, and you have an instant tessellation pattern of a letter.

Some typefaces need time to ripen; Burian and Scaglione made the first sketches for Ebony back in 2008, but it took a few years of maturing in a drawer to be developed into a multi-functional type family. While keeping in tune with TypeTogether’s focus on complex typographic structures needed for magazine, newspapers and books —whether printed or digital—, Ebony goes far beyond editorial use and promises great performance in branding and advertising. The range of dark weights with taut and powerful curves can boost any headline, while the lighter styles create an approachable and clean feel in blocks of continuous text. Ebony does not fall short on aiding legibility either; letterforms have a distinct direction of ductus and features like the top serif on ‘l’ help making them clearly distinguishable from each other. It is a type family that cleverly seeks a balance between the openness and legibility of humanist sans serifs and the striking and more regularised character of grotesques. The letter-shapes feature generous counters and open terminals with crisp angles, and daringly grow both in colour and width as the fonts get bolder. Infused with this strength, Ebony also shows a quirky side in some of her shapes; the vertical fractions, the at-symbol, the old-style numbers, … The predominantly slanted style of the italics is broken up in some letterforms, such as ‘a e f l’, that are more in line with a classic cursive appearance. This, together with a forceful italic angle, ensure a change in texture within a block of text, despite sharing the same letter weight and width with the uprights. With 18 styles, tending towards the heavier part of the weight-spectrum, this face has a powerful quality!

Chef Script is an experimental font designed by Carlos Fabian Camargo G. Its fantasy design contains 1463 glyphs to compose words, phrases and short messages on small and large sizes. The idea was born in a sketchbook that was perfected again by hand and achieving "non-neutral drawings" on tracing paper. With bezier digitization the empty and full parts of letters appeared with soft and eloquent curves as calligraphic result produces optimal readability. Chef Script combines warmth and good humor running in countless design applications such as labels and base plates, covers, posters, movie titles, seals and any printed design that needs an unusual typographic tool. In that sense, Chef Script is influenced by Speedball lettering manual (1957), Ross F. George. The illustrative nature of "ChefScript-complete" does not look anything like the traditional type design hierarchies. Therefore offers 7 hierarchical resource groups to design comfortable contexts flavored with illustration and typography: • ChefScript-Basic: Letters with horizontal and vertical thrifty proportions mimic an uninterrupted calligraphy brush made with flat tip. Thus its letters have ascenders and descenders strokes perpendicular to its base line and equal to the height of the lowercase. • ChefScript-Swashes: Letters expressive and unique flourishes to design highlighted words or phrases. • ChefScript-Caps: Uppercase with lowercase height give the impression of interrupted uppercase italics writing within what is written with uninterrupted lowercase letters producing strong contrast within a paragraph fragment. • ChefScript-Containers: Container drawings designed to exchange with infinite possibilities each order so that its inferior serve to store information written or drawn. • ChefScript-Dingbats: Pictograms that communicate: kitchen, chef, restaurant, food, etc. • ChefScript-Numbers: Bulky and useful numbers to highlight prices or figures containing points or dollar signs. • Chef Script-Words: Predesigned words with uninterrupted letters diagonally leveled highlighting various thoughts in writing.

Monarda™ is Terrance Weinzierl’s take on the loud and splashy brush scripts of the 1950s. It’s energetic, playful, and equally at home in hardcopy headlines as it is in interactive banners. In addition to the basic alphabet, OpenType® fonts of Monarda are also awash in super-sized swash caps, contextual alternate characters and ligatures. Pair Monarda with a mid-century structural sans like Trade Gothic® or a sturdy slab serif like Egyptian Slate™ to create typographic counterpoint that’s confident, compelling and memorable! Named for a riotous bright red flower that attracts butterflies and humming birds, Monarda is a rare combination of flamboyance and effortless beauty. Weinzierl describes it as “casual yet precise: a stiff denim jacket or perfectly white sneakers at a formal event.” Monarda clearly stands out – and always fits in. Well, almost always. Drawn for print, the design’s robust x-height, open counters and wide apertures also make Monarda screen-friendly. Monarda can be perfect for a wide variety of food and lifestyle applications as well as travel, stationery and packaging projects. Advertising campaigns and product branding are also well within its reach. Monarda works best when used large – but economically. Two or three words are its sweet spot. Think: product name, print headline or the lettering on the side of a truck. It could easily become your go-to design for projects that call for a script with a bright personality and fearless demeanor. The excellence of Weinzierl’s work has been recognized by the Type Directors Club and Print Magazine. When not working on creating new typefaces, he augments his professional practice through calligraphy, lettering, and letterpress printing. Monarda is another winner from Weinzierl’s creative mind and talented hand.

Homelessfonts is an initiative by the Arrels foundation to support, raise awareness and bring some dignity to the life of homeless people in Barcelona Spain. Each of the fonts was carefully digitized from the handwriting of different homeless people who agreed to participate in this initiative. A biography/story of each homeless person captures their story, to help raise awareness and bring some dignity to the life of homeless people. Monotype is pleased to donate all revenue from the sales of Homelessfonts to the Arrels foundation in support of their mission to provide the homeless people in Barcelona with a path to independence with accommodations, food, social and health care. Juan Carlos was born in Barcelona, Spain 46 years ago. Since the age of 17 – and during eleven years – he worked double shifts of eight hours every day in a factory. Excessive work and family problems debilitated his health and he lost his job. He then faced a dilemma: to spend unemployment benefits to pay for rent or for food. For a few years, he worked helping in the kitchens of different restaurants while he lived on a pension, until he was definitively left without work and ended up living in the street for 10 years. “In the street I tried to find rest in the ATMs of banks. I preferred to be alone, and if I ran into conflictive people, I looked for somewhere else” he explains. Living in the street he was the victim of an aggression. Since then, with the help of Arrels he moved into a pension. Today, Juan Carlos is a volunteer in the shower service of Arrels, the same showers he used during years. He also collaborates with the maintenance team, helps prepare hygienic and cleaning material, and participates in activities such as the theatre group and the football team.

Antique Tuscan No.9 was one of the earlier wood-type designs by William Hamilton Page. It was first shown among the specimens produced in 1859, shortly after Page entered into a new partnership with Samuel Mowry, owner of the Mowry Axle Company. The new company was named Page and Company and was located at the Mowry facility in the Greenville section of Norwich, Connecticut. Antique Tuscan No.9 is an extra-condensed version of the tuscan style that had been released in moveable type by Vincent Figgins of London in 1817 and had become so popular for advertising in the intervening years. Because of the extreme compression in the design, we might be tempted to describe it as "Triple-X," but that might be misleading. The analogy would, of course, be to clothing sizes, not movie ratings. Because of the compression, this typeface reads best when set extra-extra-extra large. For printing, we recommend 36 points or larger. For the screen, we suggest at least 72 points. An unusual and distinctive design, it is best used with discretion. If I were doing a term paper for school or submitting an article to a magazine for publication, I might use it for the title page, to grab someone’s attention. I would certainly not use it for the main body of text - not if I expected anyone to read what I wrote. If you wonder why we make this recommendation, take the Ten-Point challenge. Print this paragraph using Antique Tuscan No.9 and set the font size at 10 points. If you are young and blessed with good eyesight, you will probably be able to read it - with effort. So, here is the challenge: hand it to your Grandmother and ask HER to read it.

In the fast-paced world of journalism, time is always of the essence. That’s why we need tools that work as quickly as we do. And in the world of typography, Mitigate is the answer. Mitigate is the condensed slab-serif typeface that every designer needs in their arsenal. You see, in a world of broad and regular typewriter fonts, Mitigate stands out with its compact design that makes it perfect for fitting in more text in less space. But that’s not all. Mitigate also features two distressed styles, giving your text that authentic typewriter effect that readers love. And if you’re using OpenType-aware apps, you’ll appreciate the custom ligature combinations that make your text even more unique. So, don’t let your message get lost in a sea of words. Choose Mitigate and make your words stand out. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.