Raclette grills are an ingenious Swiss invention. This tabletop grill is used to cook raclette cheese, a unique sort of cheese produced by the happy cows of Valais. Swiss designer Michael Parson created a typeface in 2002 that speaks endearingly to his hearty homeland tradition - endearingly enough, he named it Raclette. Raclette most likely started out as a bold, condensed sans serif. But then, just as one pulls little trays off of a raclette grill, Parsons quickly removed many rectilinear bits from the edges of each letter. Text set in Raclette looks like an old brick wall, or perhaps like a raclette party for several hundred people, that ended an hour ago! Raclette is one of ten of Michael Parson's experiments in type design featured in the Take Type 5 collection from Linotype GmbH."

Early Texas patriots had fascinating penmanship. In researching Texas Hero years ago, I had occasion to pore over copies of letters by the likes of Stephen F. Austin, William B. Travis, Thomas J. Rusk, and others. Austin's hand was pretty messy. Young, brave Travis wrote his last during the Alamo siege. Rusk's suited my original task. But a couple other styles caught my eye -- among them the bold yet graceful strokes of Sam Houston, the prototypical Texas Hero. Houston Pen has a complete character set.