Impressed by the quality of the Aachen typeface that was originally designed for Letraset in 1969 and extended to include Aachen Medium in 1977, Jim Wasco of Monotype Imaging has extended this robust display design to create an entire family. Derived from the serif-accented Egyptienne fonts dating to the early 20th century, Aachen has serifs that are very solid but considerably shorter than those of its precursor. The incorporated geometrical elements, such as right angles and straight lines, provide the slender letters of Aachen with a slightly technological, stencil-like quality. Despite this, the effect of Aachen is by no means static; its dynamism means that this typeface, originally designed for use in headlines, has come to be used with particular frequency in sport- and fitness-related contexts. Jim Wasco, for many years a type designer at Monotype Imaging, recognized the potential of Aachen and decided to extend the typeface to create an entire typeface family. He appropriated the existing Aachen Bold in unchanged form and first created the less heavy cuts, Thin and Regular. Wasco admits that he found designing the forms for Thin a particular challenge. It took him several attempts before he was able to achieve consistency within the glyphs for Thin and, at the same time, retain sufficient affinity with the original Aachen Bold. But he finally managed to adapt the short serifs and the condensed and slightly geometrical quality of the letters to the needs of Thin. The weights Light, Book, Medium and Semibold were generated by means of interpolation. Supplemented by Extralight and Extrabold, the new Neue Aachen can now boast a total of nine different weights. Wasco initially relied on his predilection for genuine cursives in his designs for the Italic cuts. But it became apparent with these first trial runs that the soft curves of cursives did not suit Aachen and led to the loss of too much of its original character. Wasco thus decided to compromise by using both inclined and cursive letters. Neue Aachen Italic is somewhat narrower than its upright counterparts; the lower case 'a' has a closed form while the 'f' has been given a descender, but the letters have otherwise not been given additional adornments. The range of glyphs available for Neue Aachen has been significantly extended, so that the typeface can now be used to set texts not only in Western but also Central European languages. Wasco has also added a double-counter lowercase 'g' while relying on the availability of alternative letters in the format sets for the enhancement of the legibility of Neue Aachen when used to set texts. The seven new weights and completely new Italic variants have enormously increased the potential applications of Aachen and the range of creative options for the designer. While the Bold weights have proved their worth as display fonts, the new Book and Regular cuts are ideal for setting text. And the subtlety of Ultra Light will provide your projects with a quite unique flair. The new possibilities and opportunities in terms of design and applications that Neue Aachen offers you are not restricted to print production; you can also create internet pages thanks to its availability as a web font.

A Postmodern vernacular sanserif in 8 fonts Prosaic designed by Aurélien Vret is a Postmodern typographic tribute to the french vernacular signs created by local producers in order to directly market their products visible along the roads. These signs drawn with a brush on artisanal billboards do not respect any typographic rules. The construction of these letterforms is hybrid and does not respect any ductus. Nevertheless the use of certain tools provokes a certain mechanism in the development of letter shapes. It’s after many experiments with a flat brush, that’s these letterforms have been reconstructed and perfected by Aurélien Vret. This is the starting point for the development of an easily reproducible sanserif with different contemporary writing tools. From non-typographical references of Prosaic towards readability innovation The influence of the tool is revealed in the letterforms: angular counterforms contrasting to the smoothed external shapes. This formal contrast gives to Prosaic a good legibility in small sizes. These internal angles indirectly influenced by the tool, open the counterforms. In the past, to deal with phototype limitations in typeface production, some foundries modified the final design by adding ink traps. In our high resolution digital world, these ink traps — now fashionable among some designers — have little or no effect when literally added to any design. Should one see in it a tribute to the previous limitations? Difficult to say. Meanwhile, there are typeface designers such as Ladislas Mandel, Roger Excoffon, and Gerard Unger who have long tried to push the limits of readability by opening the counters of their typefaces. Whatever the technology, such design research for a large counters have a positive impact on visual perception of typefaces in a small body text. The innovative design of counter-forms of the Prosaic appears in this second approach. Itself reinforced by an exaggerated x-height as if attempting to go beyond the formal limits of the Latin typography. It is interesting to note how the analysis of a non-typographical letters process has led to the development of a new typographic concept by improving legibility in small sizes. Disconnected to typical typographic roots in its elaboration, Prosaic is somewhat unclassifiable. The formal result could easily be described as a sturdy Postmodern humanistic sanserif! Humanistic sanserif because of its open endings. Sturdy because of its monumental x-height, featuring a “finish” mixing structured endings details. The visual interplay of angles and roundness produces a design without concessions. Finally, Prosaic is Postmodern in the sense it is a skeptical interpretation of vernacular sign paintings. Starting from a reconstruction of them in order to re-structure new forms with the objective of designing a new typeface. Referring to typographic analogy, the Prosaic Black is comparable to the Antique Olive Nord, while the thinner versions can refer to Frutiger or some versions of the Ladislas Mandel typefaces intended for telephone directories. Prosaic, a Postmodern vernacular sanserif Prosaic is radical, because it comes from a long artistic reflection of its designer, Aurélien Vret, as well a multidisciplinary artist. The Prosaic is also a dual tone typeface because it helps to serve the readability in very small sizes and brings a sturdy typographic power to large sizes. Prosaic, a Postmodern vernacular sanserif

Polias is an all-caps uniwidth typeface inspired by an ancient inscription carved on a monoblock stone in hybrid characters — between no-contrast linear sans to low-contrast flared serif. The inspiring inscription is the dedication by Alexander the Great, discovered in the Temple of Athena Polias in the ancient Ionian city of Priene. Stanley Morison mentioned this inscription in one of his lectures: “The distinctive feature of this inscription consists of a consistent thickening towards the ends of perpendiculars and horizontals.” … “We have not the right to say that the serif was invented for Alexander the Great's inscription, only that this is its first datable appearance.” The letter proportions are almost identical to the original, but the stroke features have been reinterpreted and characterized. Serif-like nodes at the end of the strokes are subtle extensions that serve to accentuate rather than break its monoline elegance. With an analogy, they are not flowers, but like blooming buds. Polias is a flared sans typeface which is closer to sans-serif forms on the spectrum between sans and serif. It’s especially light looking by design to convey rather thin and white typographic color of its original monumental look. It comes in eight weights and a variable font, scaled from Thin to Bold. It is multiplexed, so the weights do not affect text lengths. Light weights are closely based on the actual carving of the inscription. Thicker weights can be used on smaller typesettings to compensate for the weight difference of larger letters’ strokes, and to keeping the monoline appearance of the entire text block intact. This method can be used for any purpose, such as setting a hierarchy between the lines or to justify their lengths. Some of the original letterforms have been preserved and stylistic alternatives such as Ionic four-bar Sigma, dotted Theta, palm Y are provided as open type feature. Some of the other ancient forms, such as the three-bar Sigma (S), the pointed U, were also added for both the Greek and Latin scripts. Polias is preferable for big type settings such as logos and headlines as a modern representation of perennial classical forms. Its a fine fit for product branding, movie posters, book covers, packaging materials, and more, which require an epic look to attracting attention with a distinctive elegance. Polias can be considered for distinctiveness wherever Roman Capitals work. As a noun, Polias is one of the epithets of Athena / Minerva, and in this case referring to her role as the protector of the city of Priene. Polias is one of the seven typeface designs in Esintype's ancient scripts of Anatolia project, Tituli Anatolian series.

Polias Varia is an all-caps uniwidth variable weight typeface inspired by an ancient inscription carved on a monoblock stone in hybrid characters — between no-contrast linear sans to low-contrast flared serif. The inspiring inscription is the dedication by Alexander the Great, discovered in the Temple of Athena Polias in the ancient Ionian city of Priene. Stanley Morison mentioned this inscription in one of his lectures: “The distinctive feature of this inscription consists of a consistent thickening towards the ends of perpendiculars and horizontals.” … “We have not the right to say that the serif was invented for Alexander the Great’s inscription, only that this is its first datable appearance.” In Polias Varia, the letter proportions are almost identical to the original, but the stroke features have been reinterpreted and characterized. Serif-like nodes at the end of the strokes are subtle extensions that serve to accentuate rather than break its monoline elegance. With an analogy, they are not flowers, but like blooming buds. Polias Varia is a flared sans typeface which is closer to sans-serif forms on the spectrum between sans and serif. It’s especially light looking by design to convey rather thin and white typographic color of its original monumental look. It comes in eight weights and a variable font, scaled from Thin to Bold. It is multiplexed, so the weights do not affect text lengths. Light weights are closely based on the actual carving of the inscription. Thicker weights can be used on smaller typesettings to compensate for the weight difference of larger letters’ strokes, and to keeping the monoline appearance of the entire text block intact. This method can be used for any purpose, such as setting a hierarchy between the lines or to justify their lengths. Some of the original letterforms have been preserved and stylistic alternatives such as Ionic four-bar Sigma, dotted Theta, palm Y are provided as open type feature. Some of the other ancient forms, such as the three-bar Sigma (S), the pointed U, were also added for both the Greek and Latin scripts. Polias Varia is preferable for big type settings such as logos and headlines as a modern representation of perennial classical forms. Its a fine fit for product branding, movie posters, book covers, packaging materials, and more, which require an epic look to attracting attention with a distinctive elegance. Polias Varia can be considered for distinctiveness wherever Roman Capitals work. As a noun, Polias is one of the epithets of Athena / Minerva, and in this case referring to her role as the protector of the city of Priene. Polias (family) is one of the seven typeface designs in Esintype’s ancient scripts of Anatolia project, Tituli Anatolian series.