Smart Sans is a personal tribute to Leslie (Sam) Smart, the first type director to be hired by a major typesetting house in Canada. Smart was a twentieth century design pioneer who raised the standards of Canadian typography. Together with three of his peers, he established the first Type Directors Club in Toronto. After Smart's death in 1998, type designer Rod McDonald decided that something should be done to commemorate Smart's life and achievements. I had first thought of establishing a scholarship in Sam's name, but a typeface design soon replaced this idea," says McDonald. "Once I decided to design a typeface, however, it became a foregone conclusion that it would be a sans serif - for no other reason than that I loved the name Smart Sans." Two typefaces served as inspiration for McDonald's work. "Like thousands of designers, I'm keen on Matthew Carter's Helvetica Compressed series. And, when I was younger, I also loved Fred Lambert's Compacta," says McDonald. "I thought there might be a place for a small range that could take over from these 'old workhorses' and, in the process, bring a fresher look to the genre." McDonald drew three weights for the Smart Sans family, all ideally suited for setting attention-getting headlines and powerful display copy. The two-storied 'g' contributes to the design's lively personality, and the short 'r' helps maintain tight, even spacing. Smart Sans is the perfect homage to a great typographer, because it raises the bar on what to expect from condensed sans serif typefaces. Sam Smart would be pleased."

In Adrian Frutiger, the discipline of a mathematically exact mind is joined with an unmistakable artistic sense. His independent work possesses the controllable language of letterforms. Personal and intensive, this work is the manifestation of his expressive will. Frutiger's precise sense of outline reveals itself two- or three-dimensionally in wood, stone, or bronze, on printing plates and in the form of reliefs. However, even his independent work can be understood as objectivized signs; in their symbolism, they are embedded in the fundamental questions of human existance. They might have developed in the spirit of playfulness, but their nature is always conceptual, directed towards a complex, yet harmonic, whole. Following function, form also necessarily follows the content of the language. The entire spiritual world becomes readable through letters. Essentially, Adrian Frutiger attempts to fathom the basic, central truth which defines our lives: change, growth, division - beginning and end. In a virtual synthesis, he seems to close the circle in which the world reflects itself in symbolic forms. Frutiger Stones is for Adrian Frutiger the example of his formal artistic sensibility par excellence. Searching for the fundamental elements in nature, he has discovered the pebble, rounded and polished over innumerable years by gently flowing water. And out of this, he has created his complete system, a ruralistic typeface of letters and symbols. It depicts animals and plants, as well as astrological and mythical signs. Because of its unique aura, Frutiger Stones is particularly well-suited to different purposes - in headlines and prominent pictograms, as symbol faces, illustrations, and more.

The courageous Russian author of the best seller Anastasia, Vladimir Megre, once said that this remarkable woman would inspire creative people around the world to produce their best work. Since I consider myself a creative person who has been deeply touched by her story, I sincerely hope that this will be true for me also. Anastasia talks a lot about God, the wonders of the natural world and how all things have been created so perfectly. This belief in universal perfection, however, is not confined to mystics alone. Many great mathematicians and scientists, including Albert Einstein, were of the same opinion. Having read Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, I became quite fascinated with the so-called Fibonacci series; "a sequence of integers in which each integer (Fibonacci number) after the second is the sum of the two preceding integers; specif., the series 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, . . ." (Webster’s Dictionary). These mysterious numbers, which are said to give divine proportions, are found throughout nature in everything from a rose to a spiral galaxy. Many believe that this reinforces the argument that there is a divine intelligence back of creation. With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to see if I could somehow create a font using these numbers in the design process. If I have succeeded - even partially - in attaining these mystical proportions, it will definitely have been worth all the hard work. And, I sincerely hope that many will enjoy using this font in producing their own best work.

Clinto Sans Serif Clinto Sans is a simple geometric sans serif font Clinto Sans are constructed using basic geometric shapes such as circles, squares, and triangles. The letterforms are based on simple geometric proportions, resulting in a consistent and harmonious visual rhythm. Clinto sans serif fonts embrace simplicity and have a minimalistic approach. They aim to reduce letterforms to their essential elements, eliminating any unnecessary embellishments or flourishes Clinto Sans also has Straight Lines and Clean Edges. Clinto Sans also have open apertures, which refer to the space enclosed by the curved or diagonal strokes of certain letters like "a," "e," "g," and "s." The open apertures contribute to legibility and readability, especially at smaller sizes. Special features: - Ink trap Ink traps are small recessed areas or notches incorporated into the corners or junctions of letterforms. They were originally designed for letterpress printing to prevent ink from filling in and distorting the shapes, especially at small sizes. However, in modern digital fonts, ink traps are often used as a design element to add visual interest and maintain legibility at small sizes or in low-resolution environments. - Alternates Stylistic alternates offer alternative shapes or forms for certain letters in the font, a, e, g, and r, etc. Stylistic alternates can be accessed through OpenType features in design software. OpenType is a font format that allows for advanced typographic features and character substitutions, you can access the alternate letterforms through the glyphs palette or the OpenType panel in their design software and apply them selectively to specific letters. Thank You _

Dolsáb was designed from scratch with uniqueness in mind. The subtle movement from thick to thin and the variants of sharp to rounded make this cutting edge san serif a must have. The inspiration for Dolsab was a simple pairing of a rhombus and calligraphy. While neither of those two elements can be seen in their entirety in any instance, the influence of both is strong. The rhombus can be notice on most ascenders like on the lowercase t & l, for example. And the calligraphy inspiration is most easily captured on the descenders such as the lowercase y & g. The most beautiful characteristics of Dolsab is definitely the calligraphy-influenced movement. These features really stand out on the lowercase a & e. It's almost amusing to let your eye follow the contours of those two letter forms as they travel from thick to thin, sharp to rounded and back again. Users are welcomed to try all font styles of Dolsab in any applique of their choosing. However, it will be quickly noticeable that only Dolsab Air & Demi (the thiner of the styles) will be best suited for body copy. Personally I like to see these letterforms as large as they can be to really showcase the subtle movement, especially in Dolsab Heavy where these movements become much more dramatic. You'll never know what really works best unless you experiment. Dolsab surely isn't the answer to all projects, but it's certainly worth trying. No other typeface moves quite like Dolsáb.

Alfie™ is lively, friendly, inviting and easy on the eyes. What more could you want in a script? How about four flavors of the same design? Alfie Script is a delightful connecting script with a touch of comfortable elegance. Use it for everything from social announcements to headlines and packaging. Alfie Casual is a little more laid-back with letters standing on their own. It works great in short blocks of text copy, subheads and navigational links. Alfie Informal has spirited serifs and its own demeanor, while Alfie Small Caps does a fine job of supporting its other siblings. There’s an immediacy to words and messages set in these lighthearted confections. Jim Ford was practicing drawing with a new brush pen when the inspiration for Alfie came to him. He had filled several pages in a notebook with letters and, at one point, realized that there might be a typeface among them. As it turned out, there were four. The process, however, wasn’t choosing one design and modifying it. The makings of all the designs were on the pages. It was just a matter of culling out the right collection of characters to build the foundations for the four flavors of Alfie. Because they share the same family roots, each design in the Alfie family can be paired and intermixed. Ford admits that there’s a hint of Emil Klumpp’s 1950s Murray Hill typeface (https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/bitstream/murray-hill/) in the Alfie family. Just enough to give the design a 50s vibe. (Some fashions never go out of style.)

A playful caricature of a midcentury grotesque, Guzzo is a fresh addition to the Monotype Library. Somewhat eccentric and full of surprises, its unmistakable quirk can be found on closer inspection, stemming from details proudly borrowed from brush lettering and calligraphy. The wide range of weights and style can take you through any design space, from the condensed weights squeezing in larger headlines or dense blocks of text with the condensed range, to experimenting with small point sizes, labels or packaging with the extended cut. However, Guzzo’s real charm is probably best expressed through its wonderfully playful shapes, its unusual 'laid-back italics' feature cursive forms and a backslant. The different stylistic sets allow you to decide what you make of Guzzo, with several sets of alternate glyphs steering it in any direction you want. Guzzo is a happy-go-lucky character, and has a warm, humble and painterly quality that - at a glance - may be unrecognizable as a typeface. It can almost pass for hand-lettering. Guzzo pairs exceptionally well with scripts and slab typefaces, and feels most at home in situ with toys, packaging, menus, broadcasting, cartoons and merchandising! Guzzo encourages you to turn up the silliness and is for designers who want to emulate hand-painted and casual motifs. Taking its name from American artist Jeremy Pinc, aka the painter Guzzo Pinc, the typeface channels the quirky, funny and poignant qualities of his paintings - with wacky characters, loosely painted geometric forms and bright colors. For this mid century, authentic, nostalgic typeface - the story is really what you make of it.

IngrimayneType has put letters inside a variety of objects, including bowling pins, book covers, coffee mugs, teapots, pumpkins, Christmas ornaments, train cars, tombstones, old bottles, circles, and rectangles. In each case the letters were placed on a single shape. The use of the Opentype feature of contextual alternatives makes it easy to use two different but alternating shapes. ButterflyWingz puts its letters on the right and left wings of a butterfly. The wings provide a large surface for drawing letters, but they have a odd shape so letters must be distorted to fit. The wings are symmetrical but some letters are not, so the right and left wing versions of the same letter are sometimes quite different. Without the contextual alternative feature one could design a typeface like ButterflyWingz but the user would have to alternate upper and lower case keys. With contextual alternatives turned on, the computer automatically alternates the letters creating a line of complete butterflies. Turning on the Opentype feature stylistic styles one (ss01) replaces the empty spaces with empty wings. However, sometimes an empty wing at the end of a line is unwanted and it can be removed by changing the typeface or by turning off the stylistic style for that character. The family contains two styles, a filled style and an outline style. They can be used separately or together in layers to add color. (Empty wings are on the logicalnot and registered characters.) ButterflyWingz is hard to read and should be used in small doses for decorative effects.

Aviano returns to lend its classic line to its newest variation, Aviano Royale--named so because of the rich flow the calligraphic capitals give the established font. The extended lowercase characters give an air of formality to the face as well and bestow on the family a deeper sense of wealth and power. This recent development of a timeless font, part of insigne’s annual tradition of adding to the Aviano family, was elected the clear winner in a poll of insigne design’s social media followers. And is it any wonder why? The long-handed elegance of Royale features graceful script capitals as well as widely tracked and smaller titling capitals, all which make Royale ideal in high-end applications and branding where titling with a taste of gentility is required. Royale’s suite boasts a number of OpenType alternates, most importantly of which are the alternate forms for the capitals. Whereas the default forms of the face are regal, it’s flourishes must be activated through the swash set. For a look more restrained, activate the stylistic alternates. It’s like having three different fonts in one! Additionally, there are baseline lowercase forms. The lowercase forms are 20% smaller in height than Aviano’s lowercase forms, so the families are not interchangeable. However, they can still be used well together. The script capitals could also be used separately as drop capitals and nicely complement any of the other 12 Aviano families. It’s time to look beyond common. For the look of refinement you desire, design with Aviano Royale.

An unadorned Grotesque with a refreshingly personal touch. If “Grotesque” mainly means “industrial, mechanical, anonymous typeface” to you, Klainy might redefine your image of the genre. Yes, it’s a Grotesque—but with a contemporary look and a lot of personality. Klainy’s apertures are more closed at the top and more open at the bottom, creating an informal rhythm that sets Klainy apart: a confident, optimistic voice with a clean appearance. Terminals are subtly back-bent: these quaint “hooks” make Klainy a bit more personal, a bit friendlier. (You can find them in the a, c, f, and r.) Just like its old-style Grotesque ancestors, Klainy is optimized for display sizes and short texts. There, its unobtrusive quirks can be wholly appreciated. However, the familiar Grotesque appearance makes sure that the typeface is comfortable to read in smaller sizes, as well. Use Klainy whenever a basically classic sans-serif typeface with a modern and individual twist is called for. This font family comes in eight weights ranging from Thin to Black, each with a matching italic style. More than 500 glyphs and a bunch of Open Type Features make it a reliable companion for all of your projects. You can fine-tune the flavor of Klainy with Stylistic Alternates such as a one-story a and a two-story g. Their simple construction blends perfectly with the design concept of this typeface. Klainy is a seasoned blue-collar worker that surprises you with wit and team spirit. It’ll be a great addition to your font library.

A gentle breeze on a warm summer's day. A cozy gathering of friends and family around a crackling fire. The sweet aroma of freshly baked cinnamon bread. A slow walk in the autumn woods, light sparkling down through the multi-colored leaves. Billowing white clouds against a stark azur sky, leisurely floating past the tops of palm trees. What do these idyllic scenes all have in common? A: Most people can never find the time to enjoy any of them. B: These are just some of the things you would never try to describe using a crankish font like Spleeny Decaf GD. Just as ITC Fontoon was designed to be used with the many critters that populate the "Toonie" series of fonts, Spleeny Decaf GD was created by Steve Zafarana for use in the balloned dialogue portions of a new panel cartoon feature currently under development. Spleeny Decaf GD is the first completed font in a family that ranges from the jittery san serif Spleeny Espresso GD to the sedate and serifed Spleeny Asleep GD. Each font in the series appears a little more relaxed and staid than its predecessor. None of them however, will find themselves being used for the text of any legal documents. Spleeny Decaf GD is the perfect font to use when the weight of the message is leaning towards the light and jocular side of things. So remember, if your documents are starting to put you on edge, it may be time to switch to decaf. Spleeny Decaf GD that is.

The Englishman William Caslon punchcut many roman, italic, and non-Latin typefaces from 1720 until his death in 1766. At that time most types were being imported to England from Dutch sources, so Caslon was influenced by the characteristics of Dutch types. He did, however, achieve a level of craft that enabled his recognition as the first great English punchcutter. Caslon's roman became so popular that it was known as the script of kings, although on the other side of the political spectrum (and the ocean), the Americans used it for their Declaration of Independence in 1776. The original Caslon specimen sheets and punches have long provided a fertile source for the range of types bearing his name. Identifying characteristics of most Caslons include a cap A with a scooped-out apex; a cap C with two full serifs; and in the italic, a swashed lowercase v and w. Caslon's types have achieved legendary status among printers and typographers, and are considered safe, solid, and dependable. A few of the many interpretations from the early twentieth century were true to the source, as well as strong enough to last into the digital era. These include two from the American Type Founders Company, Caslon 540 and the slightly heavier Caslon #3. Both fonts are relatively wide, and come complete with small caps, Old style Figures, and italics. Caslon Open Face first appeared in 1915 from the Barnhart Bros & Spindler Foundry, and is not anything like the true Caslon types despite the name. It is intended exclusively for titles, headlines and initials, and looks elegant whether used with the more authentic Caslon types or by itself.

MOTORWAY is the companion typeface to TRANSPORT, the British road sign lettering. The Motorway alphabet was created for the route numbers on motorway signage, and is taller and narrower than the accompanying place names and distances which are printed in Transport. However, for Motorway Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert created only the numbers 0 to 9, the capitals A, B, E, M, N, S and W, ampersand, slash, parentheses and a comma. So, although the lettering made its first appearance on the Preston bypass in 1958, K-Type Motorway is the first complete typeface and contains all upper and lower case letters, plus a full complement of punctuation, symbols and Latin Extended-A accented characters. As with the Transport alphabet the starting point was Akzidenz Grotesk, Motorway taking inspiration from condensed versions. Changes were mainly driven by a quest for legibility, resulting in some reduced contrast between horizontal and vertical strokes, and Gill-esque straight diagonal limbs on the 6 and 9, and high vertex for the M. Kinneir and Calvert designed the limited range of characters in two weights; a SemiBold 'Permanent' weight for use as white letters on blue motorway signs, and a Bold 'Temporary' weight for heavier black letters on yellow non-permanent signage. In addition to creating full fonts in both original weights, the K-Type family adds a new Regular weight, plus a set of italics, completing a highly usable condensed typeface which, while rooted in history, is fully functional for both print and web usage. The K-Type fonts are spaced and kerned normally, simply increase the tracking to recapture the generous spacing of motorway signage.

EngelNewSans is sans serif family of 12 weights and an upgrade of the typeface Engel also published by Die Gestalten Verlag. The project began with an extension to the original Engel character set and freshening up the typeface to suit the OpenType format. EngelNewSerif came about as a sibling to EngelNewSans as a corresponding serif family also of 12 weights, matching those of EngelNewSans. Both families are designed for a wide usage in running text and headlines. EngelNewSans is an evolved version of the original Engel typeface, which undergone improvements to the individual letterforms and the overall look which resulted in this sans serif type family with a more mature confident character and with softer, rounder and more harmonious shapes. The characteristics between the two could perhaps, very fittingly, be compared to a person showing different sides to their personality at different stages in life. With EngelNewSans portraying the more mature role while the original Engel shows traits of a cool teenager with rough edges, not yet fully developed. To make the light weights function with serifs attached for EngelNewSerif, the same low stroke contrast as seen in EngelNewSans was applied. Further discovery found that the serifs and the stem width had to be optically similar for the light weights not to appear too fragile. In the heavy weights however, the stroke contrast was higher than in the Sans versions, this was done to open up the counters and make room for the serifs to breathe. The intention of the families is to motivate an element of play and give the designer a larger selection to work with.

SHE'S DEAD, FRANK It's the year 1991, BC (Before Comicraft) when REM were still making records and Frank Miller’s memorable run on Marvel Comics’ DAREDEVIL was just over ten years old. Comicraft’s Richard Starkings found himself working in Anaheim, California for Graphitti Designs. Graphitti had produced the first hardcover edition of Miller’s Batman tale, DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and was now putting together the sequel to Miller’s DAREDEVIL — ELEKTRA LIVES AGAIN! Richard was not engaged to letter this book, the pages of Frank’s incredible original art that came through Graphitti’s studio were already lettered by Marvel Stalwart, Jim Novak. However, there were some cover elements that needed to be added, based on the logo originally rendered by Frank’s brother, Steve. Starkings set about the task of creating an alphabet that could be used to develop Steve’s idea for the trade dress -- the cover elements, the back cover copy and credits on the interior pages. This was long before Macintosh computers and font programs made this work considerably easier, so Rich sat down with a pencil and a sheet of vellum and rendered an alphabet that could be used as the basis for the text that was needed... Those sketches have languished in a drawer for nearly thirty years, but now, finally, Comicraft’s John Roshell has dusted off those old letterforms and Elektrakuted a font based on those designs, a font we HAD to call ELEKTRAKUTION! As for Elektra; she’s dead, Frank. Features: Ten weights (Light, Regular, Bold; Rough Light, Regular & Bold; Inline, Inline Rough, Outline & Outline Rough) with upper & lowercase characters, Western & Central European accents and Greek characters.

Introducing Gotti. Where Timeless Precision Meets Seventies Flair We are thrilled to unveil our latest creation, Gotti font family, born and meticulously crafted during an inspiring journey to Goteborg. This typeface seamlessly fuses the Bauhaus essence with the spirited vibes of the seventies, resulting in a font that's not just a visual treat but a design experience. Gotti draws its creative fuel from the geometric elegance of the Bauhaus movement, prioritising functional simplicity and razor-sharp lines. However, its design journey doesn't end there. Imbued with the unmistakable energy of the Seventies, Gotti emerges as a font family that encapsulates both nostalgic charm and contemporary boldness. At its core, Gotti boasts a geometric skeleton that has been intricately designed to redefine precision. Ranging from light to black, the weight variations offer a broad spectrum of expressive possibilities. Gotti is perfect for display use, advertising, and branding, it transforms your creative vision into a visual masterpiece. Stand out with confidence, whether it's a captivating logo, a compelling headline, or an unforgettable advertisement. Elevate your brand identity with Gotti. It brings strategic branding to life, communicating sophistication and modernity. Your advertising materials become memorable works of art, leaving a lasting impression on your audience. Curious about the magic Gotti can bring to your designs? Our showcase reveals real-world applications, demonstrating its adaptability and aesthetic appeal. See for yourself how this font family turns ordinary designs into extraordinary visual experiences. Follow us on social media for updates, inspiration, and a glimpse behind the scenes. Have questions or just want to share your thoughts? We're here for you!

Conceived specifically for intensive editorial use, whether it is in newspapers, magazines or digital media, Abril is a font family of two worlds. The titling weights, based on a contemporary revamp of classic Didone styles, display both neutrality and strong presence on the page, attracting the reader’s attention with measured tension in its curves, good color and high contrast. It also features typographic niceties such as ornaments, borders, special dingbats and alternate letters and numbers that propose a broad palette of tools to the designer. The text weights are more closely inspired by both, 19th century slab serifs and scotch roman types. They maintain consistency with the headline styles, and at first glance may appear to have the same shapes only with lower contrast. However, in reality the letter forms of Abril Text were engineered from scratch to achieve a color, texture and overall width that allow using the font comfortably in the most challenging environments for continuous reading, such as newspapers. This also makes it a great font family for pocketbooks and magazines. Abril competes, in terms of economy of space, head to head with some newspaper classics such as Utopia or Nimrod, but featuring a more contemporary look and feel; and unlike them, includes a full set of small caps with numbers and punctuation. The four main text weights of Abril Text were also manually hinted which grants the possibility of a smooth transition from printed media to web platform. Abril consists of 8 text styles and 12 display styles, all of them containing the standard TypeTogether character set that supports over 50 languages including those from Central and Northern Europe.

Evanston Alehouse is the first font in a larger collection of typefaces inspired by years leading up to the American prohibition. For the past two years I was living in Evanston, IL, a suburb of Chicago. After learning it was one of the birthplaces of the prohibition movement, I set out to learn more about it, and decided to develop a type collection that captures the dynamic era in our nation’s history. In the century that prefaced the ratification of the 18th amendment, saloons, taverns and alehouses boomed as the American working class enjoyed beer and discovered whiskey and gin. At the same time, the Temperance League was forming and gaining strength. By the turn of the century, these temperance societies were common in the culture of the country, with individual towns and states already on the move to abolish alcohol consumption. However, it was undeniable that by this time in history, America loved to drink. This font is inspired by the signage seen outside such drinking establishments. Back to the modern era, Evanston Alehouse is a 25 font family that includes 3 weights, 4 widths and 3 heights. It has special features that add depth to the font, with discretionary ligatures and stylistic alternatives. It also includes a complementary set of ornaments, including line breaks, frames, borders, and laurels. Here’s a snapshot of what you get with Evanston Alehouse: 2 Styles/Postions: Sharp (regular) and Round 3 Weights: Light, Medium and Black 4 Widths: 1826 (condensed), 1858 (narrow), 1893 (wide) and 1919 (expanded) 3 Heights: Capitals, lowercase and small caps 2 Alternatives: Discretionary Ligatures and Stylistic Alternatives 1 Ornament font with over 100 graphic extras

Remember clear summer days as a kid? Remember open fields that you explored? Sun shining? Simple breezes sweeping past your face as you ran far and free? The feeling was uncomplicated and enjoyable. It was natural. That’s Verao, the simple spirit of summer. Alive and vibrant, Verao takes a turn away from the cold structure of today’s rigid creations and embraces the movement back to the value of things handmade. This artisan creation represents the rare, soul-invested fusion of the craftsman’s tools, materials, and hand movements, which shapes the solid--but beautifully defined--parts, pieces that, when put together, breathe a measure of life into everyday paragraphs and other bodies of text. Verao’s hand-written brush script, with its characters’ imperfect elegance and handmade quality, keeps your work looking organic. Write a word in more than a hundred different ways thanks to the large number of extra letters it offers. Two sets of lowercase alternative letters without connectors are included as is a set of swashed endings. Verao contains stylistic substitutions and ligatures, too, that you can combine however you like. Whichever way you design, the elements continue to appear balanced and separate and will undoubtedly add more personality to your design. So stop switching out cogs in your rigid set of fonts. Take time again to play with a natural face that’s both easy and energetic. Verao’s great temperament makes it a joy to design with. Let this spirit of summer take you away from the mundane. There’s a good chance Verao will lead you where you need to go. Production assistance from Lucas Azevedo.

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

The design of the typeface Moskau Grotesk and Moskau Pattern is based on the signage created for the Café Moskau in Berlin by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel in the beginning of the 1960s. The Café Moskau, across from the Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin Mitte was one of the prestige edifices of the former DDR (German Democratic Republic). Built in the early 1960s, it advanced over the years and changing social developments to a trademark building of the capital. The lettering display on the roof was created by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel (October 17, 1910 – September 19, 1985). He had been Professor at the School for Applied Arts in Berlin, and, in addition to the creation of many posters, book covers and postage stamps, he was responsible for the signage of the Kino International as well as for the complete graphic treatment for the Palace of the Republik. The signage for the Café Moskau with the words »RESTAURANT«, »CAFÉ«, »KONZERT« and »MOCKBA« set in capital letters, becomes the basis for the Moskau Grotesk which was developed by Björn Gogalla in 2013. This face should not be seen as an imitation. A few shortcomings were »fixed«. In favor of maintaining the core characteristics some unique features were, however, not relinquished. Lower case letters and the missing capital letters were designed from scratch. It is not surprising that the plain, unassuming geometrical direction of the basic character style forms a bridge to the architecture of the 1960s. Inspired by the then favored, diverse possibilities inherent in the architectural example and wall reliefs, two complimentary pattern fonts emerged.

The new sans-serif Franzi typeface family – as neutral as can be, but at the same time individual and striking. Its unmistakable character lies in the detail, with no effect pushing itself to the fore. As a wide-running typeface with a relatively large x-height, the typeface family is perfectly suited to small text sizes but, with its elegant details, it leaves nothing to be desired in display applications either. Originally designed with constructed, often rectangular elements, Franzi has gradually been rounded during the development process and is now less hard in order to guarantee optimal legibility. Franzi Variable is designed alongside the italic and the weight axes. The italics are softly and elegantly drawn, while the upright characters appear much more severe. The design appeal reveals itself in the two-storey ‘a’ – a tribute to legibility in body copy; however, for those who prefer the geometric in applications, an alternative single-storey ‘a’ is also available. All styles have small caps, superscript and subscript lowercase letters, lining, non-lining and small caps figures, fractions as well as several ligatures, alternative fonts, symbols and arrows. The Latin uppercase letters are also available as discreet swash variants. In addition to the extended Latin alphabet, the typeface family also includes the complete Greek, Cyrillic and International Phonetic Alphabet IPA. Franzi was created as a further development of an order to produce a sign for a therapy practice in Vienna’s Franz-Hochedlinger-Gasse – hence the name, which is more common as an abbreviation for Franziska than as a diminutive for the male name Franz: Franzi is therefore a hybrid typeface name which has female tendencies.

Hermann is one of our most readable typefaces so far. Since last year, the W Design team had been examining closely the possibility of developing a text font. Thus, we dug into concepts within some of our favorite novels, such as The Steppenwolf and Brave New World, written by Hermann Hesse and Aldous Huxley respectively. Ideas like duality, surrealism, and wildness mainly appeared. With these concepts in mind, we analyzed carefully the typefaces used in both Hesse’s and Huxley’s creations; Sabon and Garamond showed up catching our attention and, of course, awakening our admiration. Consequently, the challenge was to combine the key features of these fonts with the concepts already identified. At first, we made a text font which was suitable to compose long texts. However, we realized that we needed to refine some characteristics to convey all the ideas. A full set of capital discretionary ligatures was designed, which convert Hermann in a display font when is required. We also designed swashes (from A-Z) and final forms (in letters h, k, m, n, r and x in romans, and in letters a, d, e, h, i, l, m, n, r, t, u, x and z in italics), conveying more dynamism and versatility when it comes to composing visually. Hermann was designed not only to be accurate in terms of legibility but also to be wild and bold. That is why we took a big leap and designed from the beginning a font that is inspired by the world of 20th-century novels, using the name of one of its greatest exponents, Hermann Hesse.

Brillig is a loose and informal handwriting font. It comes in four flavors, each of which has a very different feel. Brillig Gimble: more formal in that the characters are interconnected as in cursive script. To further enhance this effect, the characters have been created with a slightly "blobby" pen which provides a suggestion of precision. Brillig Earth: is bold and strong. It is more "down-to-earth" than the other styles, however, the boldness is tempered with quite wispy ends (terminuses) to the characters. It conveys a suggestion of speed and strength. Brillig Aire: is the most delicate and ethereal of the styles. Think of fairies, dandelions and dragonflies and you have an idea of what Brillig Aire conveys. Not only are the characters very light in weight, but they terminate in a wispy, delicate end. In spite of all this, Brillig Aire is very readable and can be used in a variety of contexts. Brillig Brave: is quite like Gimble in its feel with one important difference -- the characters are not connected as in cursive script. Each character stands alone. Brillig Line: is a clean, lightweight style using a mono width line for an informal, handwritten feel. There is a collection of the above four styles that is attractively priced and gives you the ability to use these four fonts in a variety of ways within the same document. The font is particularly useable for the promotion of products aimed at designers of: wedding invitations, party invitations, young clothing ranges, magazines, cosmetic packaging. It has been carefully letterspaced and kerned. All upper and lower case characters, punctuation, numerals and accented characters are present.

The designer of ITC Medea , Silvio Napoleone said: “I've always had an interest in early letter shapes, particularly how they influenced modern typographic designs. While I was on vacation in Greece, I had a chance to see, first-hand, examples of early letterforms and typography. They really made an impression on me.” The idea of combining the ancient and the modern to create something new was the primary inspiration behind ITC Medea. ITC Medea is essentially a careful blending of the modern sans serif with the elegant forms of the uncial. At first glance, Medea appears to be constructed of geometric shapes. However, closer inspection reveals many calligraphic subtleties. Stroke terminals are flared slightly in characters like the 'e' and 'c.' The top curve of the 'd' is more pronounced than the bottom, and characters like the 'o' are elliptical rather than round. “I gravitated towards the simplicity and legibility of the uncial and half-uncial,” Napoleone recalls. “I thought it would make a great titling font, and I was surprised at how attractive ITC Medea looked in a body text.”

The design of the typeface Moskau Grotesk is based on the signage created for the Café Moskau in Berlin by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel in the beginning of the 1960s. The Café Moskau, across from the Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin Mitte was one of the prestige edifices of the former DDR (German Democratic Republic). Built in the early 1960s, it advanced over the years and changing social developments to a trademark building of the capital. The lettering display on the roof was created by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel (October 17, 1910 – September 19, 1985). He had been Professor at the School for Applied Arts in Berlin, and, in addition to the creation of many posters, book covers and postage stamps, he was responsible for the signage of the Kino International as well as for the complete graphic treatment for the Palace of the Republik. The signage for the Café Moskau with the words »RESTAURANT«, »CAFÉ«, »KONZERT« and »MOCKBA« set in capital letters, becomes the basis for the Moskau Grotesk which was developed by Björn Gogalla in 2013. This face should not be seen as an imitation. A few shortcomings were »fixed«. In favor of maintaining the core characteristics some unique features were, however, not relinquished. Lower case letters and the missing capital letters were designed from scratch. It is not surprising that the plain, unassuming geometrical direction of the basic character style forms a bridge to the architecture of the 1960s. Inspired by the then favored, diverse possibilities inherent in the architectural example and wall reliefs, two complementary pattern fonts emerged.

First Ladies is a unique collection of signatures of almost all of the First Ladies of the United States plus the First Lady of the Confederacy in a high-quality font. A must-have for autograph collectors, desktop publishers, lovers of history, or anyone who has ever dreamed of sending a letter, card, or e-mail “signed” as if by one of these famous women. This font includes 45 signatures for the following First Ladies: Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, Abigail Smith Adams, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, Dolley Payne Todd Madison, Elizabeth Kortright Monroe, Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, Rachel Donelson Jackson, Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison, Julia Gardiner Tyler, Sarah Childress Polk, Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor, Abigail Powers Fillmore, Jane Means Appleton Pierce, Harriet Lane, Mary Todd Lincoln, Eliza McCardle Johnson, Julia Dent Grant, Lucy Ware Webb Hayes, Lucretia Rudolph Garfield, Ellen Lewis Herndon Arthur, Frances Folsom Cleveland, Caroline Lavinia Scott Harrison, Frances Folsom Cleveland, Ida Saxton McKinley, Edith Kermit Cardow Roosevelt, Helen Herron Taft, Ellen Axson Wilson, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, Florence Kling Harding, Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge, Lou Henry Hoover, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, Elizabeth Virginia Wallace Truman, Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy, Claudia Taylor (Lady Bird) Johnson, Patricia Ryan Nixon, Elizabeth Bloomer Ford, Rosalynn Smith Carter, Nancy Davis Reagan, Barbara Pierce Bush, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Laura Welch Bush, Michelle Obama, and Varina Howell Davis (First Lady of the Confederacy). This font behaves exactly like any other font. Each signature is mapped to a regular character on your keyboard. Open any Windows application, select the installed font, and type a letter, and the signature will appear at that point on the page. Painstaking craftsmanship and an incredible collection of hard-to-find signatures go into this one-of-a-kind font. Comes with a character map.

A tessellation is a pattern in which a shape or tile fits together with copies of itself to fill the plane with no gaps or overlaps. One type of tessellation is formed with sides of center-point rotation, that is, one half of an edge is rotated 180 degrees to form the other half. If a square template is made with sides of identical center-point rotation, there are exactly four shapes that are possible. If these shapes or tiles are fit together not edge to edge but vertex to vertex, the result is a checkerboard-like pattern of tiles and voids. However, the voids have four edges formed by the four possible shapes that the tiles can have, so the voids are limited to the same four shapes that that make up the tiles. The FabFours have 22 tile families that allow a wide variety of fascinating patterns. They form one, two, three, and four tile tessellation. Eleven of the seventeen symmetry groups can be formed with these patterns. In each tile family two of the shapes have two possible orientations, one shape has four possible orientations, and one has eight, for a total of 16 tiles. Each font has two families, one on letters A-P the other on a-p. For some of the families there are also other tiles using the same edge but using triangular and hexagonal templates. To get proper results, the leading must be set equal to the point size of the font. I discovered these fabulous families and their decorative possibilities as I was working on a book about tessellations. I have not been able to find anyone else who has written about these families of four and their decorative possibilities when arranged vertex to vertex.

TT Drugs useful links: Graphic presentation | Customization options TT Drugs Condensed—a modern font family which consists of 5 condensed sans serifs with a special contrast formula of lines and stems. TT Drugs Condensed is a condensed version of the TT Drugs font family. These fonts are perfect for design in the pharmaceutical industry: packaging, posters, blissery. However, those fonts can also be used in any other design, for example, in printing, logotypes and websites. Font family includes 10 most popular typefaces: thin, light, regular, bold, black and 5 appropriate italics. TT Drugs Condensed—a versatile tool for any design tasks. FOLLOW US: Instagram | Facebook | Website TT Drugs OpenType features: Case Sensitive Forms, Tabular Figures, Fractions, Numerators, Denominators, Superiors, Scientific Inferiors. TT Drugs language support: Acehnese, Afar, Albanian, Alsatian, Aragonese, Arumanian, Asu, Aymara, Banjar, Basque, Belarusian (cyr), Bemba, Bena, Betawi, Bislama, Boholano, Bosnian (cyr), Bosnian (lat), Breton, Bulgarian (cyr), Cebuano, Chamorro, Chiga, Colognian, Cornish, Corsican, Cree, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Embu, English, Erzya, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Gaelic, Gagauz (lat), Galician, German, Gusii, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiri Motu, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Innu-aimun, Interlingua, Irish, Italian, Javanese, Judaeo-Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish, Kalenjin, Karachay-Balkar (lat), Karaim (lat), Karakalpak (lat), Kashubian, Khasi, Khvarshi, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kongo, Kumyk, Kurdish (lat), Ladin, Latvian, Laz, Leonese, Lithuanian, Luganda, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Macedonian, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malay, Manx, Maori, Mauritian Creole, Minangkabau, Montenegrin (lat), Mordvin-moksha, Morisyen, Nahuatl, Nauruan, Ndebele, Nias, Nogai, Norwegian, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Palauan, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rheto-Romance, Rohingya, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Russian, Rusyn, Rwa, Salar, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Scots, Sena, Serbian (cyr), Serbian (lat), Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Shona, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Swiss German, Swiss German, Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Tatar, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Tsonga, Tswana, Turkish, Turkmen (lat), Ukrainian, Uyghur, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Xhosa, Zaza, Zulu.

Hispania Script is a distinctive and distinctly nineteenth century script. It was released by Schelter & Giesecke of Leipzig, Germany around 1890. Particularly noteworthy are the sharply-pointed legs of the upper case ‘K’ & ‘R’ that seem to be characteristic of the period. Similar strokes, often with a slight curve, may be seen in typefaces like Alt-Romanish and Tinteretto by Schelter & Giesecke, Artistic and Lateinsch by Bauer and Berthold and the poster lettering of Edward Penfield. The angle of this script (approximately 24 degrees) and the sharp delicate points must have made the manufacture of this face in metal type a challenge. The resulting type was probably quite fragile and subject to accidental damage. Additionally, the sharp points would be subject to wear. With digital type, these concerns are eliminated. As far as I know, no one has ever dropped a digital letter on the floor. Nonetheless, creating a digital outline for a typeface like Hispania Script, with many crossing strokes, can be quite time-consuming. Even with an accurate scan of a good quality original, it is usually necessary to construct each crossing stroke separately and then remove the overlap in order to obtain a sharp and convincing intersection. Steep internal angles are often defined with two points, rather than one, to minimize ink or toner fill that can muddy the rendering in smaller sizes. Like all formal scripts, Hispania Script is always useful for announcements and invitations. However, the distinctiveness of of this design strongly suggests that there are other applications that may benefit from its use. Step outside the box and try it in some unexpected places. It is the unexpected that often draws a person’s eye.

The Atrament font family was originally conceived in 2003 as the corporate display type family for Suitcase Type Foundry. Its original source of inspiration is the front cover of the Devetsil - Revolucni slovn’k almanac (1922), designed by Karel Teige. The lettering on this cover is a condensed sans serif with rounded stroke terminals. Atrament is significantly broader than the model and its characters are better balanced, reflecting the evolution of semi-condensed sans serifs throughout the 1960s. The horizontal strokes of both lower and upper case are less stressed than the vertical stems. Noteworthy are the unusual tiny gaps in the apex and vertex of letters with diagonal strokes, designed to prevent ink from spreading and smudging the letter shapes. This detail is one of the main features of the font's character. The general feel of the italics closely matches the strictly vertical, parallel character of the regular cut. When converting the family to OpenType the alternate character shapes from the Alternator weights were incorporated in the regular cut, which allows the user to switch selected characters from one shape to another within the same font. A number of glyphs and accents were corrected, and all the glyphs missing in the Suitcase Standard character set were added, along with the relevant kerning pairs. The individual weights of Atrament Std thus contain accented upper and lower case, small caps, alternate glyphs for most European languages, nine types of numerals, superscript characters, caps glyph versions, and much more. Its narrow proportions make Atrament the perfect choice whenever economy of space is a must. It is however not very well suited for setting long texts. Ideal for headlines and display use, it is perfect for situations where the text needs to make a great impact in a little space.

The sister fonts Andron 2 English and Andron 2 Deutsch provide a groundbreaking new possibility to render literature text bodies in a sophisticated traditional and yet modern way of type. In German typographic history there has once been a long-lasting struggle called the Frakturstreit (the blackletter quarrel). It was about wether German text ought to be composed in blackletter or rather in Roman type, a question upon which even Goethe, Schiller and other period celebrities got grey over time. However, blackletter type remained alive and has just recently seen an astonishing renaissance. This is not about a blackletter revisionism or some ‘mixture’ concept arguably bridging the gap between either worlds. Andron 2 English and Andron 2 Deutsch offer a new approach to circumvent that old antagonism. As for the lowercase letters I applied certain features of blackletter type onto the glyphs – but entirely abandoned the principle of the broken stroke as such. The result is a lowercase alphabet in the classical Andron style which may be considered an attractive alternative for text in English, German or even other languages. So it’s no longer entirely about choosing between ‘modern’ Roman or ‘ancient’ blackletter only. Andron 2 English Regular and Andron 2 Deutsch Regular feature the same lowercase glyphs but differ in the majuscules (Andron 2 English has normal Latin capitals). ++++ 2012 + NEW! +++ In response to its growing popularity we now present five new fonts as part of the Andron 2 series. Andron 2 English is completed by an Italic and a Bold font. Andron 2 Deutsch now contains three interesting alternative fonts: Italic, Scriptive and Laendlich. Last but not least – A new set of wonderful classical typographic ornaments is part of the Italic and Scriptive fonts. – You can also purchase these ornaments separately as “Andron Ornamente”.

Prepare yourself for a wild retro ride with Hot Rush – 80s nostalgia is about hit you harder than a DeLorean at 88 miles per hour. This Sans & Script font duo were simply meant to be together; the unmistakeable clean & condensed sans is complimented perfectly by the long, fast, textured strokes of the script. It’s the ideal font pairing for retro-inspired high impact display text, merchandise design, logos, packaging & more. The Hot Rush font family consists of; Hot Rush Script • A fast, textured script font hand-made with a marker pen. Hot Rush Script contains uppercase-only characters, however a full alternate set of uppercase letters is available when you switch to lowercase. Supports a full set of numerals & punctuation. Hot Rush Sans • A condensed sans-serif font with a big impact, containing uppercase-only characters. Supports a full set of numerals & punctuation. Hot Rush Sans Striped • A second version of Hot Rush Sans, with vertical stripes running through each letter for added retro style. Italic Versions • For Hot Rush Sans & Hot Rush Sans Striped are also included as separate fonts. Extra Stuff; End Forms For Hot Rush Script are available for the letters A, C, E, F, G, H, K, L, R & T. These have elongated horizontal strokes and look great as the last letter of a word. Simply turn on ‘Stylistic Alternates’ with any Opentype capable software to access these characters. 4 Swashes For Hot Rush Script are available, these are great for underlining your text for extra style. Simply type any of the square brackets [ ] { } in the Hot Rush Script font to access the swashes. Language Support; All fonts support English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Indonesian, Malay, Hungarian, Polish, Turkish, Slovenian

Bigfoot is the fattest font ever made. It began as a simple exercise given to students in a design course: Most people don't appreciate type because they don't really know what it actually is. One way to understand it is looking at it like a combination of sculptures that have to work together to achieve a certain harmony, where each letter form is one of those sculptures. Most people understand and appreciate that a sculpture starts from a rock of an incomprehensible form, which is manipulated by someone into becoming the recognizable or abstract work of art it eventually is. Consider type design a kind of two-dimensional sculpting. You have a rectangle. Take away as a little as possible from it until it is recognizable as the letter A. Repeat to get the letter B, and so on. After all 26 minimal letters are made, do they actually function as an alphabet to build words and sentences that are recognizable to the human eye? This exercise can trigger thoughts and theories about the overall subjective nature of identifying abstract yet somewhat familiar shapes. It can go into the psyche of art in general. But one thing for certain, this exercise has so far helped a few people find a new appreciation for finely crafted typefaces. If you are a design educator, your students' typographical perspective and arguments would benefit from it. And if you are a designer, well, fat faces are all the rage these days, and this is as fat as it can get. Please note that that this typeface, due to its minimalistic nature, does not include accented characters. It does however support the full C0 Controls and Basic Latin Unicode set. All proceeds from this font go to support the Type Club of Toronto.

Iza and Paulo W (Intellecta Design) are proud to announce Bradstone-Parker script Script. A free interpretation of the golden age writing style from American classical penmanship. Inspired in Zaner and his contemporaries Bradstone-Parker has evocative (sometimes exaggerated) ligature forms and voluptuous forms. This enhanced OpenType version is a complete solution for producing documents and artworks with a evocative and voluptuous style of calligraphic script: - many stylistic alternates for each letter (upper- and lowercase), accessed with the glyph palette; - ornaments and tails (“rasgos”) in the typical style from the XIX to the first decades of the XX century writing style, all accessed with the glyph palette using the Ornaments feature; - an extensive set of ligatures (100s of contextual alternates ligatures) providing letterform variations that make your designs really special, resembling real handwriting on the page; - a tour-de-force kerning work: over 4600 kerning paris soft adjusted handly. In non-OpenType-savvy applications it works well as an unusual and beautiful script style font. Because of its high number of alternate letters and combinations (almost 700 glyphs), we suggest the use of the glyph palette to find ideal solutions to specific designs. The sample illustrations will give you an idea of the possibilities. You have full access to this amazing stuff using InDesign, Illustrator, QuarkXpress and similar software. However, we still recommend exploring what this font has to offer using the glyphs palette: principally to get all the power of the Contextual Alternates feature. You can get an idea of the power of this font looking at the “Bradstone-Parker Script Guide”, a pdf brochure in the Gallery section. Take a special look at the Bradstone-Parker Words (ready words). Bradstone-Parker Script has original letters designed by Iza W and overall creative direction plus core programming by Paulo W.

The bâtarde flamande is a style of writing used predominantly in France and present-day Belgium in the 15th century. The style shares an ancestry with other writing styles traditionally grouped as blackletter— fraktur, textura, rotunda, and schwabacher. It had evolved, however, into an æsthetic far removed from its relatives. While high-contrast in nature, the bâtarde flamande is more delicate and dynamic than the austere and condensed fraktur and textura. Quick curves lack the rigidity of the schwabacher and rotunda. Flair through swashes is thematic, as are the variations in letterforms. The flowing rhythm, achieved through a letterform axis that is overall slightly rightward, is most noticable in the hallmark f and long s. Round forms are fused together for economy of space. It is a writing hand that, with its syncopation and fluidity, produces a vibrance uncharacteristic of other blackletters. Givry has been created in the spirit of the bâtarde flamande. It melds the particular traits compiled from the works of the style’s prominent scribes—Jean Fouquet, Loyset Liédet, and Jean Bourdichon. While suitable as an elegant and energetic display face, Givry was conceived for setting continuous text. The result of many refinements and adjustments is the preservation of the style’s irregular nature, as well as a consistency that continuous-text typography requires. Carefully researched and developed in OpenType format for a wealth of typographic features and support for more than forty languages, Givry is neither derivative nor experimental, but historically accurate. Of the many blackletter digital typefaces available, fraktur and all its connotations have become representative. In contrast, the bâtarde flamande is essentially non-existent in digital form, and has until now been overlooked. Givry provides designers and anyone searching for typographic expression a lively, delicate, and striking side to blackletter.

A very legible Renaissance Antiqua This typeface is based on the desire to create an Antiqua like those which might have existed at the beginning of the »printing age« — the basic form oriented on the classical Roman and early Middle Ages models, the ductus defined completely by writing with a wide pen and much individual expression in detail. In the spring of 2005 I had the opportunity to closely examine a few pages in the famous book »Hypnerotomachia Poliphili« from 1499. The script used here from Aldus Manutius is exemplary. Most of the book, however, is not very carefully printed. The characters do not stay on the line; the print is at times too strong and at times much too weak. And on these imperfect pages the true character of the letters is recognizable; that is, that they are cut with lively detail which is a result of the patterns provided by full-time writers. After all, around 1499 script was written as a rule and the printed type was oriented on this pattern. I prefer the typeface on the lightly printed pages. The characters are not placed neatly on the line, but the distinct and emerging lively ductus of the individual characters automatically presents harmonious word formations in the eye of the beholder, with the non-perfect line stepping into the background. Also in Charpentier Renaissance, the strokes of the wide pen are still noticeable. The font has very defined softly bent serifs. The forms are powerful and stand solidly on the baseline. Charpentier Renaissance is very legible and yields a solid and yet still lively line formation. The accompanying italic, like its historical models, has almost no inclination. The lower case characters of Charpentier Renaissance Oblique have such idiosyncratic figures that they can also form a font of their own. Please visit www.ingofonts.com

Many current poster artists like to reference the graphic type styles that were popular in the ’60s and ’70s. Zaftig is a contemporary font that takes the geometric and blocky inspiration from that era but then steps off in a modern direction. At first glance, it may appear that the capitals of Zaftig all take up the same amount of space, but certain letters have been designed proportionally for a better flow. However, if the designer would prefer to stack the capital letters in even columns, like blocks, then one can use the Titling Alternates feature. In this feature the metrics of all the capital letters are the same, and certain letters have been designed narrower, allowing for seamless stacking. The space, bullet, asterisk have also been given the same monospaced metrics in this feature to make stacking easy. The Small Caps feature in Zaftig is designed so that the small cap glyphs are the same height as the lowercase. This allows the graphic designer not only the option of small caps, but also the ability to mix and match both kinds of letters to create a distinctive style. There are also alternate numerals in the Small Caps feature that match the height of the small caps. In Stylistic Alternates 1 you will find alternate designs for the Q, A, I, J, L, n, and u glyphs. Or you can find alternates in the Glyph Pallet of your favorite OpenType savvy application. Zaftig is more than it appears on the surface. This OpenType font contains over 1200 glyphs and language support. That makes it an international font which contains letters for most languages that use Latin, Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts.

The new sans-serif Franzi typeface family – as neutral as can be, but at the same time individual and striking. Its unmistakable character lies in the detail, with no effect pushing itself to the fore. As a wide-running typeface with a relatively large x-height, the typeface family is perfectly suited to small text sizes but, with its elegant details, it leaves nothing to be desired in display applications either. Originally designed with constructed, often rectangular elements, Franzi has gradually been rounded during the development process and is now less hard in order to guarantee optimal legibility. A total of 20 well-developed fonts are available: 10 line thicknesses from hairline to black, each of which can be upright and italic. The italics are softly and elegantly drawn, while the upright characters appear much more severe. The design appeal reveals itself in the two-storey ‘a’ – a tribute to legibility in body copy; however, for those who prefer the geometric in applications, an alternative single-storey ‘a’ is also available. All styles have small caps, superscript and subscript lowercase letters, lining, non-lining and small caps figures, fractions as well as several ligatures, alternative fonts, symbols and arrows. The Latin uppercase letters are also available as discreet swash variants. In addition to the extended Latin alphabet, the typeface family also includes the complete Greek, Cyrillic and International Phonetic Alphabet IPA. Franzi was created as a further development of an order to produce a sign for a therapy practice in Vienna’s Franz-Hochedlinger-Gasse – hence the name, which is more common as an abbreviation for Franziska than as a diminutive for the male name Franz: Franzi is therefore a hybrid typeface name which has female tendencies.