ITC Orbon font is the work of New York designer James Montalbano, inspired in part by a demo of black letter calligraphy in which letters were created out of only four or five basic strokes. I combined that idea with the notion of taking historical forms like German gothic blackletter and progressively paring them down to achieve a futuristic version, as if this old form naturally evolved over several hundred years to arrive at its post-modern incarnation." Text should be set in point sizes of 20 and higher for optimal legibility. ITC Orbon is a highly condensed font with unique, oblong shapes which are ideal for a number of display applications."

Jim Spiece has a taste and a talent for reviving type styles from earlier in this century. ITC Deli Supreme is a “futuristic retro” face that would be at home as a logo on a car or a roadside diner from the 1940s or '50s; the lowercase nearly joins, in script style, thanks to the long extenders stretching out from the bottom-right corner of most letters, while the caps have beginning strokes leading in from the top left. ITC Deli Supreme, like ITC Deli Deluxe, features slightly rounded corners on all the letters, for a soft, streamlined look despite the squareness of the letterforms.

George Ryan's ITC Migrate is a highly condensed sans serif display face that effectively complements ITC Adderville. Migrate represents what Ryan calls a “more highly evolved version” of a typeface he designed for Bitstream in 1991 called Oz Handicraft. “Both faces,“ says Ryan, “are based on designs of the popular early 20th-century type designer Oswald Cooper.” His inspiration came from drawing samples found in the Book of Oz Cooper, published in 1949 by the Society of Typographic Arts in Chicago. “Oz worked extensively with the sans serif form long before it became popular in the States, eschewing a popular belief of the time that sans serifs were only skeletons of letters.” Where Oz Handicraft was informal and quirky, ITC Migrate has a more restrained feel. “The uppercase characters and figures, in particular, have been reworked,” says Ryan, ”resulting in a more formal and traditional, compressed sans serif typeface.”

ITC Simran was created by the London designer Satwinder Sehmi in 1998. The Indian influence is recognizable at first glance and lends the font an exotic feel - at least to the western eye. Sehmi borrowed forms and feelings from northern Indian writing systems for this typeface. Both the upper and lowercase letters make use of the same lowercase forms, but the upperacse letters have the addition of a horizontal bar running over them at the ascender height. This feature is directly reminiscent of writing systems in northern India, and is ITC Simran's most distinguishing characteristic. But there were other influences as well: Sehmi was also inspired by uncial forms when designing this typeface. ITC Simran exhibits the typical look of writing with a broad-tipped pen, with its strong strokes, as well as characteristic letter forms, for example, the a or h. ITC Simran is a fascinating and harmonious symbiosis of a variety of influences from different cultures. This font is best used for headlines and short texts in point sizes of 12 and larger.

Novarese font is the work of designer Aldo Novarese. He created 218 typeface cuts but as he was writing his book, Alfabeta, he decided to include only those he considered indispensable. He divided his fonts into 4 categories and in the designing of Novarese, took the best characteristics of each group and combined them into this font. In the style of Latin stone scripts of the second century BC. Novarese is a well-balanced and relatively wide text font with classic forms. ITC Novarese™ font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Canadian Serge Pichii was inspired by decorative lettering produced during the early 1920s by Jan Tschichold to create Ironwork. Similarly, his ITC Ancestor family was influenced by early work, but in this case, much earlier work: the characters carved by native British Columbian people on solid rock. He worked with anthropologists and linguists to produce a series of books dedicated to the history and culture of the people.

ITC Coconino is the work of Serbian designer Slobodan Miladinov. His original inspiration for this monostroked typeface was the idea of translating certain auditory impressions into type, in this case, the surprising and confusing music of the Serbian hip hop musician Voodoo Popeye." Miladinov is an art director in Belgrade and created Coconino using a "freemouse" technique with Adobe Illustrator and sees his work as "computer calligraphy which allows for a specific directness and immediacy in notation." The strokes of this font are simple and abrupt with a studied irregularity. The forms can look either cheerful and lighthearted or chaotic and subtly disturbing. Coconino was named for the home of hte Krazy KAt comics and even includes a few additional characters from the strip."

Einhorn is a peculiar typeface. Difficult to classify, this upright, bold, script-like semi serif typeface was designed in 1980 by Alan Meeks. Meeks was inspired by the art nouveau period, and may have been trying to liven up the design scene. In 1980, typefaces like Helvetica and Univers were ubiquitous, and the digital revolution was still years away. Experimental faces like Einhorn helped fill the gap for creative designers looking for untraditional choices in which to set headlines and advertising work. The merit of pioneer display faces like Einhorn have never lessened; Einhorn still sets a mean display text, and works great in logos and other corporate ID solutions.

Static looks almost like it was stamped on paper: the black color is not evenly distributed and the background comes through the letters and consciously irregular forms reinforce the effect. The characters do not all have the same height, nor do they stand straight and regularly on the base line. Static is a robust font with bold, rounded serifs and is best used for headlines and short texts in point sizes of 12 and larger.

ITC Anna is a labor of love by Daniel Pelavin. He designed the font for his wedding invitation and reused it on the birth announcement of his first child, Anna, whose namesake it is. The simple geometric forms and their proportions create a unique font appropriate for any special occasion.

ITC Flora is the work of Dutch designer Gerard Unger, and is named for his daughter. He started by doing calligraphy experiments with felt-tip and ballpoint pens, and developed these drawings into a formalized script typeface. Swiss typographer Max Caflisch advised the Dr.-Ing Rudolf Hell GmbH technology firm to add a new round-nibbed script face to their Digiset type library, and in 1984, Flora was released by Hell. Unger used a chancery cursive skeleton in this design, which imparts grace and movement. Flora was also intentionally designed to be simple and sturdy, and with its minimal variation in thick/thin stroke ratio, it worked well on the early digital typesetting machines. In 1989, the International Typeface Corporation released the font. ITC Flora continues to work well on current printers and typesetters, and it has an enduring popularity for uses that range from short text passages to display headlines.

While designing ITC Spirit, Patty King was influenced by classic typeface styles. The letter forms are clearly based on those of the Unziale, which, like ITC Spirit, is also composed of only capital letters. Hints of the Asian brush script style also show in this font. The irregular outer contours are best highlighted in larger point sizes and give the font the look of handwriting. ITC Spirit with its calligraphic style is best used for headlines and short texts in point sizes of 12 and larger.

ITC Isbell font is the work of Dick Isbell and Jerry Campbell of Detroit, Michigan, a highly stylized roman typeface which retains an exceptional legibility. The unusual arches and curves of several lowercase characters give the typeface its individuality. ITC Isbell font is ideal for advertising, brochures, menus, and a variety of other applications.

Designer Nick Curtis found the inspiration for this typeface on a 1920s poster for a German bookseller, by Berlin poster artist Paul Scheurich. ITC Jeepers retains the spontaneity and playfulness of Scheurich's original lettering and adds a few surprises of its own, one being the somewhat exclamatory ear on the lowercase "g". It was, in fact, the excited look of this particular character that gave rise to the font's name. Not to be outdone, the exclamation point takes on an even more startling demeanor. The monoweight, slab serif design has a friendly personality, perfect for headlines and other display uses.

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.”

ITC Kokoa is the work of German graphic designer Jochen Schuss. Schuss found the seeds of inspiration on a trip to Ghana and expanded and experimented with the idea on the computer. It includes an array of symbols and borders to complement its stylized letters. ITC Kokoa retains a touch of its African roots but is overall a modern, funky font.

ITC Juanita is the work of Argentinian-born designer Luis Siquot and was inspired by a text set only with woodcuts which he was reading during a long international flight. ITC Juanita is a series of six distinct typefaces which Siquot sees as a personal reinterpretation of designs that originated in the 1930s and 40s and were still popular during his childhood in the 1950s. For me, Juanita is like a toy, charming, expressive, and also dramatic," says Siquot. The ITC Juanita series offers designers a range of variations based on similar structures, each variation with its own look."

On a cold winter's night, George Ryan, of Galápagos Design Group, began musing on the possibilities for a “truly original” sans serif typeface. What came out of his musing, and his always-present sketchpad, was ITC Adderville, a typeface whose visual impact is immediate and strong. Ryan explains how he did it: “The rounded ends of its strokes and their skewed baseline contact create an illusion of dancing feet. The tops of lowercase stems emit serif buds, suggesting transition into or out of the serifed form. The spear-like lowercase stroke terminators, along with other distinctive elements such as the stylized reticulation of the lowercase 'g' segments, the salute of that same character's spur, and the bold, non-self-conscious 'i' and 'j' dots, all contribute to the playful and unique nature of this design.” The result is a friendly, lively type family whose graduated weights -- book, medium, and heavy -- lend themselves especially well to use at small display sizes and in short blocks of text.

ITC Abaton, by Argentinian designer Luis Siquot, is an exercise in geometry and simplification. “It is done,” says Siquot, “with few elements, with modules of only straight lines (horizontals, verticals and diagonals of almost 45 degrees). Drawing the I and the O, I got the basic elements, and so started the fight between strict geometry and optical impression, until I obtained the rest of the characters.” The basic rectangular form is characterized by wedge-shaped serifs, almost like caps on the heads and feet of the letters. “Abaton has the 'spirit' of 19th-century faces used on money bills or postage stamps, but the realization is totally different,” Siquot explains. Abaton is a “shaded” typeface of caps and slightly smaller caps, upright and slightly condensed in form. Although the letterforms are legible at small sizes, the shading tends to clog up if it gets too small, so Abaton is happiest as a distinctive display face.

ITC Noovo is from British designer Phill Grimshaw and grew out of his work on ITC Rennie Mackintosh. He says, I still had 'Nouveau' coming out of my ears" and he drew it after a series of computer-intensive projects, "when I was missing the smell of permanent marker pens and the feel of paper." ITC Noovo is highly stylized yet works as both a text and display typeface."

Pacella was designed by Vincent Pacella and fashioned in the tradiation of Century Schoolbook, Corona and Nimrod. Pacella maintains high legibilty and exhibits a character and personality all its own.

ITC Merss proves that sometimes accidents work out just fine. Late one evening Eduardo Manso, an Argentinean graphic and type designer, spilled coffee on his desk. When he began to wipe up the mess, he noticed that one of the splashes looked like a roman letter 'l' - complete with serifs. This triggered his imagination. “What if a complete alphabet was created with this same irregular flow to the character designs?” ITC Merss was the result of Manso's experiments with “fluid” letter shapes. The oddly handsome design looks aged and spontaneous at the same time. Its irregular texture is striking-the result of careful modeling of character shapes. While Manso wanted to maintain the free-form character of spilled liquid, he also knew the individual letters had to work together with an underlying harmony. When not experimenting with typefaces - or spilled coffee - Manso creates award-winning graphic and publication designs. A contributor to the design magazine el Huevo (the Egg), he also writes articles on type and typography and is part of the publication's design team.

ITC Jaft is the work of New York designer Frank Marciuliano, an adventurous, energetic display typeface. It began with a series of posters designed by Marciuliano for the New York Times. The lettering was drawn with a bamboo pen and then filled in to create the unusual angles that give ITC Jaft its unique look.

ITC Farmhaus is the work of British designer Tim Donaldson and is, in his own words, Neil Young meets Paul Renner." Donaldson borrowed the perfect circles and clean lines of Renner's drawings for Futura and gave them jagged edges and uneven, thick strokes. Farmhaus contains one set of capitals and two sets of lower case letters."

ITC Kristen is the work of American designer George Ryan. He describes it as not your average text or display font." The inspiration for the design came from the handwritten menu at a neighborhood restaurant. With time, the forms moved away from the originals and towards something more like a child's scrawl. The result is singularly unique. ITC Kristen remains legible without losing any charm.

ITC Redonda is the work of Montreal designer Gerard Mariscalchi and based on a common style of 19th century French handwriting. It comes with two sets of caps, both highly flourished, which are complemented by a refined lowercase. ITC Redonda is a distinctive upright script with intricate forms and will lend elegance to any application.

ITC Esprit is the work of designer Jovica Veljović and blends the classic proportions of a serif typeface with the grace and charm of calligraphy. Highly legible even in small point sizes, the font can also be used as an impressive display face for use with sans serif text. In 2010 Veljovic revised this family and released this as ITC New Esprit.

ITC Rastko began as a series of initial letters for a book of poetry. Serbian designer Olivera Stojadinovic had been working with a small publishing house creating a special series of books under the Masterpieces" brand. Her goal was to draw a new set of initial letters for each book. ITC Rastko, named after the Serbian poet Rastko Petrovic, was a project that required initial letters for the entire alphabet. Once Stojadinovic had drawn the majority of the capital letters, she realized that a companion lowercase would make a distinctive script typeface. Sketches of the letters were drawn quickly with a pointed pen. Stojadinovic then refined these, keeping the spontaneous, hand-drawn quality. Capitals are wide and flourished, while the lowercase letters are more condensed and subdued. It's no surprise that the capitals also make great initial letters."

The Sans Serif is crafted for complex display typography with friendly extravagance and high readability. Each font has an extended character set and provides latin based languages. The typefaces include ligatures, alternate- & swash letters, various ampersands, smallcaps, fractions, lining-, tabular numbers, superior/inferior figures and other extras. Go with the flow!

Los Lana Niu was designed by Bruno Jara and Luciano Vergara. The typeface is based on Los Lana (2007). Along with the redesign, the font has increased from 1 to 24 different styles. This new version preserves the rustic aesthetics of the original typeface, but it lacks of curves and it visually looks as if it was a nirregular font. Los Lana Niu comes with a wide range of ligatures included in every weight: from Thin to Black. In order to offer a wide array of uses, the typeface has been structured by adding acomplete family of small caps, which makes this font well-suited for headlines, posters, branding and publishing design. Los Lana Niu comprises 3 subfamilies: Los Lana Niu Essential (392 glyphs) – including both regular and alt versions, Los Lana Niu Small Caps (392 glyphs) and Los Lana Niu (820 glyphs), which includes a variety of OpenType features such as stylistic ligatures, contextual alternates and small caps.

Lina sans is an Arabic typeface from Lina type family, it expresses modern vigor based on simplicity and clarity. It's Strong, Bold, legible, clear, simple, Modern. With a handful set of OpenType features and alternatives. Lina type family consists of Lina soft, Lina sans, Lina round. the design is inspired by the Kufic calligraphic style and influenced by the Naskh style. Lina sans was highly crafted in order to perform well both on screen and in print. The large x-height and open counters make it function well even on small font sizes. It has a wide range of use possibilities headlines, logotypes, branding, books, magazines, motion graphics, and use on the web and Tv. Lina sans consists of 7-weight versions from thin to bold.

Pure and not-so-simple Maybe it’s the air of purity, openness and transparency that they transmit, but geometric typefaces are more popular than ever among leading brands. Based on near-perfect circles, triangles and squares, geometric letterforms look uncomplicated, even though making them readable is anything but – something the designers of the first wave of geometric fonts discovered nearly a century ago. Many of the world’s most recognisable brands in technology, retail, travel, food, manufacturing and other industries continue to be drawn to the straightforward, honest character that geometric fonts convey. Fontsmith set out in 2015 to develop a typeface in the same tradition, but optimised for the demands of modern brands – online and offline usage, readability and accessibility. And, of course, with the all-important Fontsmith x-factor built in. FS Lucas is the bold and deceptively simple result. Handle with care The letterforms of FS Lucas are round and generous, along the lines of Trajan Column lettering stripped of its serifs. But beware their thorns. Their designer, Stuart de Rozario, who also crafted the award-winning FS Millbank, wanted a contrast between spiky and soft, giving sharp apexes to the more angular letterforms, such as A, M, N, v, w and z. Among his inspirations were the colourful, geometric compositions of Frank Stella, the 1920s art deco poster designs of AM Cassandre, and the triangular cosmic element symbol, which led him to tackle the capital A first, instead of the usual H. The proportions and angles of the triangular form would set the template for many of the other characters. It was this form, and the light-scattering effects of triangular prisms, that lit the path to a name for the typeface: Lucas is derived from lux, the Latin word for light. Recommended reading Early geometric typefaces were accused of putting mathematical integrity before readability. FS Lucas achieves the trick of appearing geometric, while taking the edge off elements that make reading difficult. Perfectly circlular shapes don’t read well. The way around that is to slightly thicken the vertical strokes, and pull out the curves at the corners to compensate; the O and o of FS Lucas are optical illusions. Pointed apexes aren’t as sharp as they look; the flattened tips are an essential design feature. And distinctive details such as the open terminals of the c, e, f, g, j, r and s, and the x-height bar on the i and j, aid legibility, especially on-screen. These and many other features, the product of sketching the letterforms in the first instance by hand rather than mapping them out mechanically by computer, give FS Lucas the built-in humanity and character that make it a better, easier read all-round. Marks of distinction Unlike some of its more buttoned-up geometric bedfellows, FS Lucas can’t contain its natural personality and quirks: the flick of the foot of the l, for example, and the flattish tail on the g and j. The unusual bar on the J improves character recognition, and the G is circular, without a straight stem. There’s a touch of Fontsmith about the t, too, with the curve across the left cross section in the lighter weights, and the ampersand is one of a kind. There’s a lot to like about Lucas. With its 9 weights, perfect proportions and soft but spiky take on the classic geometric font, it’s a typeface that could light up any brand.

Lupa Slim 1 – a warm and handsome family, giving texts a harmonic and pure, human atmosphere. Lupa's kind manners deliver clear and female qualities in Sans Serif environment. The family has a tiny handwritten touch. It can be used in any application, where feeling good and pleasant is necessity. This can be in daily business life, but also in kids surroundings, health, mood, spa, mothers, dads … Do spread some soft qualities! The 10 weights plus true Italics allow a fine tuning and include smallcaps, variable numbers, fractions, fleurons plus some other extras. Lupa Slim 1 is highly legible.

Lina soft is an Arabic typeface from Lina-type family, with a warm and humane feeling. It's legible, soft, clear, flexible, simple, and contemporary. With a handful set of OpenType features and alternatives. Lina type family consists of Lina soft, Lina sans, Lina round. The design is inspired by the Kufic calligraphic style and influenced by the Naskh style. Lina soft was highly crafted in order to perform well both on screen and in print. The large x-height and open counters make it function well even on small font sizes. It has a wide range of use possibilities headlines, logotypes, branding, books, magazines, motion graphics, and use on the web and Tv. Lina Soft consists of 7-weight versions from thin to bold.

Los Lana Pro is a handmade display typeface. Unlike other font families, this type has not a modular structure, that is, each character has been individually designed. The coherence of structure elements across different characters is given by irregular strokes. This curveless typeface is perceived as being curved because of its straight lines, which form different-size angles. Los Lana Pro is a rustic typeface that captures the stereotypical “Andean hippie” handmade aesthetics. Irregular shapes and broken lines give it a distinct personality. Los Lana Pro looks better in larger sizes. Includes many ligatures, two groups of alternate characters, and titling caps characters. Languages include: Basic Latin, Western European, Euro, Catalan, Baltic, Turkish, Central European, Romanian and Pan Africa Latin. Photos by Sergio Recabarren.

Clair De Lune is part of the famous Suite Bergamasque, written by Claude Debussy in 1890, and published in 1905. It means Moonlight in French, a kind of romantic name. The name is exactly what I had in mind for this übercute font. Clair De Lune can be used to design postcards and posters, liven up websites and give your designs an overall happy feel. Clair De Lune was handmade using a 0.5 pen, eco friendly Italian paper and a wooden kitchen table.