Most of the lettering on a piece of sheet music for a song from the 1921 George M. Cohan musical comedy entitled “The O’Brien Girl” was hand lettered in a playful, casual Art Nouveau design with rounded ends. The characters on that page took on a look reminiscent of cartoon or comic strip wording, and the result is a digital typeface named Cartoon Nouveau JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The mysterious Spooky, an alphabet to frighten even the bravest, was created by British designer Timothy Donaldson. The figures line themselves up, irregular and with uneven outer contours, and conjure up thoughts of ghosts, bats, vampires and darkness. Spooky is the ideal font for ghost stories with happy endings, a parody on horror and romance. As an added bonus, Spooky includes illustrations, from black cat to spider to witch - everything needed to earn its name.

Loophole is a visually striking display typeface in 3 weights (Light, Regular & Bold), its DNA firmly rooted in the Cyclic Sans family which makes the perfect foil to this somewhat decorative font styling. The Loophole name is quite simply based on the ubiquitous hole motif, which is strategically deployed on each character across the 3 font styles. Each font contains an extended Latin character set covering Western & Central Europe, the Baltic States & Turkey.

Gaheris is a decorative font in the same tradition as our Goddard and Ganelon fonts, but with a somewhat more calligraphic look. It is suitable for use as a text or title font, but has some characteristics of a script font, which gives it an unusual and appealing appearance. It's based on early 20th century advertising type of a style which you don't see much any more, but which deserves to be preserved.

Kanna Aoki drew the letters for MVB Emmascript while on a picnic near the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Mark van Bronkhorst adapted the writing as a font that maintains a very natural scrawl. Later a bold weight was added. MVB Emmascript has been used to add a lighthearted, human touch to everything from fiction paperbacks to potato chip packaging. The typeface is named for Aoki's 1968 Volkswagen, Emma.

Eckhardt Signwriter JNL is based on a casual display lettering face popular with many sign painters and show card writers of yesteryear, best suited for large print projects. Jeff Levine has named this font (along with others in a series) after the late Albert Eckhardt, Jr. (1929-2005) who had owned Allied Signs in Miami, Florida from 1959 until his passing. Al was a talented lettering artist and a good friend to Jeff.

Introducing our new product the name Playful Runway Sans Serif Font Family comes with 12 different weights. Modern Sans Serif font that beautiful classy, elegant, and modern. This font is perfectly suited for a wide variety of projects, such as signature, stationery, logo, wedding, typography quotes, magazine or book covers, website headers, clothing, branding, packaging design, and more. Also for fashion-related branding or editorial design and displays both masculine and feminine qualities.

Thank you for visiting our item. Whitegone is a hand-scratched script font that gives a natural-looking impression that is perfect for those of you who want to use a signature font. Whitegone is very suitable for digital branding, advertising, name cards, product labels, printing t-shirts, greeting cards, invitation cards, etc. Whitegone has several ligatures, alternates, begining and ending swashes to give a sweet touch at the beginning and end of words.

Aerioz is a monoline all caps font, comes with over 600 characters including 324 alternate letters. Smooth with rounded lines, simple, elegant, and perfect in any layout project such a headline magazines, custom name, neon sign and more typography work. Aerioz is packed with ornaments and OpenType alternates, you can combine the regular font with the ornament to make it more perfect. How to get access alternate glyphs from open type fonts : http://adobe.ly/1m1fn4Y

This typeface encapsulates a rhythm that is symmetrical and balanced due to a unique mix of different sources of inspiration. Proportions are precisely adjusted with subtle contours and subtle contrasts. These shapes give the font an attractive look without compromising on elegance and minimalism, ensuring that any glyph will work well in any graphic design purpose such as brochures, videos, advertising branding, logos, magazines, layout designs, posters, post templates, games and others

Smelly Blood is a bold and quirky display font. Add this font to your creative ideas and notice how it will make them stand out! Smelly Blood is perfect for branding, logo, invitation, stationery, social media post, product packaging, merchandise, blog design, game titles, cute style design, Book/Cover Title and more. What's Included : - Smelly Blood.otf - Multilingual Support (Afrikaans, Albanian, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portugese, Spanisch, Swedish, Zulu)

Pixel Promise is my wannabe pixel font. Yes, it is not a pixel font…but it is handmade and the “pixels” are deliberately off here and there. Nevertheless, when typing with Pixel Promise, you get that retro gaming feeling, and before you know it, you feel like you just want to insert another coin, press 1 or 2 players and complete that level! :) I have added 5 different versions of each letter and multilingual support

Mechanikschrift, roughly German for “mechanical writing”, is a typeface from Noah Rothschild and Victory Type. The aesthetic of this font is just what its name points towards: machine-like structure with a German flare. Minimalism is often associated with German design, and Mechanikschrift is a minimalist typeface. Furthermore, the designs of the characters, outside of the general theme of squared-off corners and angular appearance, are related to Herbert Bayer’s work at the Bauhaus.

Introducing our new product the name Nautica Rounded Geometric Sans Serif Family Font Family comes with 9 different weights. Modern Sans Serif font that beautiful classy, elegant, and modern. This font is perfectly suited for a wide variety of projects, such as signature, stationery, logo, wedding, typography quotes, magazine or book covers, website headers, clothing, branding, packaging design, and more. Also for fashion-related branding or editorial design and displays both masculine and feminine qualities.

Apparently, Lexicon is the most expensive font in the world. ‘Skiart Lexiconic’ has been on a long growing path getting to where it is now. This font family was originally inspired by the san serif font ‘Skia’, by Mathew Carter for Apple. ‘Skiart’ was designed to feel more like a serifed font, but without any actual serifs. It took a small step between sans serif and serif fonts. Next on the path towards a serif font came Skiart Serif Mini, with tiny serifs added. This was a true serif font, although they were subtle. Then came ‘Skiart Serif Leaf’. and now... We present to you... DT Skiart Lexiconic. Having evolved from the Skiart family, we chose to give it the serifed styling of Lexicon. This is no way a copy or clone of Lexicon. It still has the basic bones of the original Skiart font, but the position, shape and size of the serifs were very much influenced by the world famous Lexicon font. DT Skiart Lexiconic is not the most expensive font in the world.

Recta was one of Aldo Novarese’s earliest contributions to the massive surge of the European sans serif genre that was booming in the middle of the 20th century. Initially published just one year after Neue Haas Grotesk came out of Switzerland and Univers out of France, and at a time when Akzidenz Grotesk and DIN were riding high in Germany and Gill Sans was making waves in Great Britain, it was intended to compete with all of those foundry faces, and later came to be known as the “Italian Helvetica”. It maintains traditional simplicity as its high point of functionality, while showing minimal infusion of humanistic traits. It shows that the construct of the grotesk does not have to be rigid, and can indeed have a touch of Italian flair. While the original Recta family lacked a proper suite of weights and widths, this digital version comes in five weights, corresponding italics, four condensed fonts, and small caps in four weights. It also includes a wide-ranging character set for extended Latin language support.

This fontface is inspired on Argentinean classic and traditional art craft named as Fileteado Porteño. Caminito is available in 10 layered styles for compose with multi combinations and a extra of ornaments. Highly recommended to be used for colorized titles and display texts. Fileteado Porteño is a type of artistic drawing, with stylized lines and flowered, climbing plants, typically used in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is used to adorn all kind of beloved objects: signs, taxis, lorries and even the old colectivos, Buenos Aires’s buses. Filetes (the lines in fileteado style) are usually full of colored ornaments and symmetries completed with poetic phrases, sayings and aphorisms, both humorous or roguish, emotional or philosophical. They have been part of the culture of the Porteños (inhabitants of Buenos Aires) since the beginnings of the 20th century. One of the most highlighted and recognized artists nowadays is Alfredo Genovese, who does a great job of teaching and claim this art and craft. The name Caminito reminds the emblematic and iconic Buenos Aires neighborhood immortalized by Carlos Gardel in music, in the tango.

Bordonaro Script - Bordonaro Spur’s partner - is an interpretation of the “English Roundhand” style with a strong influence by the logos of American basketball and baseball teams. It is designed from simple shapes ideal to be used in long titles and fits perfectly into the branding design. Psss...Check out the NEW Bordonaro Script with Rounded corners , same version but soft! Bordonaro has a complete set of special and original characters: Stylistic Ligatures, Discretionary Ligatures, Swashes, Contextual Alternates, Titling, ss01,ss02, ss03 & apostrophes' ligatures that work as complements to enrich the text composition. Bordonaro Script and Bordonaro Spur are two typographic styles that were designed under the same characteristic features with the idea of combining them to obtain better results, for that reason, we recommend merging them in a creative way and you will realize everything you can design with them. The banners designs are based on old brands of beer labels, coffee packaging, sports logos and in some cases we use Copperplate Gothic but only as a complementary font in order to harmonize the layout of the elements in each banner.

Developed from the STP Display Cyrillic, the STP Stencil Cyrillic Typeface follows the same characteristic premise as its sister, in addition to composing the same number of Cyrillic and Latin characters. What distinguishes them it’s that the STP Stencil Cyrillic can be applied more easily anytime, anywhere, increasing the possibility of being used in a more craft and artistic way. Since it has characteristics of a stencil font, it brings a more urban and contemporary look, which makes ideal to use it in public spaces with large circulation of people. In addition, wayfinding, architectural, advertising, packaging, posters, among others projects, are a good request for STP Stencil Cyrillic show its vigor and all its beauty. The STP Stencil Cyrillic is a modular feature source, perfect to use it in major event signaling projects or similar. It can also be useful in any demands that requires improvisation and quick solutions. The STP Stencil has very expressive forms and counterforms, but still counts with the practicality of a stencil source and its infinite possibilities of use.

Kade is a display/semi display sans family of fonts based on vernacular lettering photographed over the last ten years in and around the harbors of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Hence the name Kade that translates into English as ‘quay’, also the name of its designer. Kade grew slowly from many different ideas and elements. The letters reflects the industrial method in which they are cut for the side of ships from large steel plates. Frequently subtleties of curves are compromised due to the cutting tools and the fact engineers are in control. Kade’s italics have an experimental character and were produced in an unorthodox manner by rotating 8 degrees, rather than slanting the roman characters, a method sometimes employed in shipyards. Kade constructed character is ideal for contemporary editorial works, architecture magazines, museums communication and posters. The six distinct styles are published in OpenType format, featuring small caps and four sets of numbers (proportional old style, tabular old style, proportional lining and tabular lining), as well as matching currency symbols and a complete set of fractions.

In most cities during the 1950s and 1960s the corner pharmacy or soda shop was a mainstay of teenage life. It was a place to hang out with friends, hear the latest hits on the jukebox and indulge in everything sugary from malted milkshakes to banana splits. During this time, a popular form of window advertising was supplied by the Coca-Cola Company to promote its product being served by these locations. Specialty window decals designed to emulate drawn (raised) Venetian blinds "bookmarked" by the soda's logo were adhered to the shop's windows, with a space provided to add in customized lettering. The store's name or its specialties were applied to each window pane, and this formed a consistent border at the top of all of the shop's windows. Although few visual images exist of this specific bit of advertising nostalgia, an old record album by a late-1950s singer named Chip Fisher called "Chipper at the Sugar Bowl" provided a somewhat usable sample for what is now Soda Fountain JNL.

Poetica font was designed by Robert Slimbach in 1992 with particularly generous characters. The typeface family consists of 21 weights to allow for an unusual variety of design possibilities within one typeface family. Numerous swash letters, ornaments and ligatures remind one of the early Renaissance and its unforgettable masters, for example, Giambattista Palatino, who later gave his name to Hermann Zapf's creation. Slimbach used the Lettera Cancellaresca as a model for his typeface, the cultivated humanistic italic which later served as a point of departure for the development of italics of the Renaissance and thereafter. Lettera Cancellaresca is very legible, extremely harmonic and impressively beautiful. The early forms display two different compositional tendencies, namely the static of the simple vertical capitals and the italic dynamic of the slanted lower case alphabet, as shown in the weight Chancery 4. The capitals later conform to the slant of the lower case, as shown in the weights Chancery 1-3. Poetica font should be set according to the included suggestion in order to see the full benefit of its grace and beauty.

Introducing our newest Font, Kentya the name This font is made with elegant calligraphy nuances and there are so many kinds you can combine various kinds of font choices to get the beautiful writing you want, this font is also good for writing your name and trademarks and logos and words, sentences that beautiful of course with the right typography harmony. This font also offers the beauty of abstract typography harmony for a wide variety of design projects, including natural handwriting in digital form for designs, quote designs, for social media business designs, advertisements, trademarks, promotional banners, posts, posters, signatures, and all. the design requires handwriting or whatever design you want. This font is equipped with uppercase, lowercase, numbers, punctuation marks, swhases and several variations on each character including multi-language. ================================================== This font is best suited for open type friendly applications. How to get alternative glyphs from open type fonts: http://adobe.ly/1m1fn4Y PUA Character Code - Fully accessible without additional design software. do not hesitate anymore start using this font. and Feel free to send any message you want to convey.

The starting point for VLNL Kouseband was spotted by Donald DBXL Beekman on the Christian Reformed Church in the Dutch town of Naarden. The iron wire lettering contained a number of unusual characters and details, which eventually led to this five weight family. The Kouseband fonts mix elements of geometric sans serifs and upright unconnected scripts, with a hint of Dutch school writing. VLNL Kouseband is monolinear and has an very large cap height compared to the (lowercase) x-height, giving the capital letters an elongated condensed appearance. Kouseband is the Dutch word for ‘garter (belt)’ and also gave the name to a long tropical bean known as Yardlong bean. Kouseband beans are a common ingredient in Roti and other Surinamese dishes. As the Dutch Christian church is sometimes referred to as ‘Zwarte kousenkerk’ (Black stocking church), and stockings are held up by garter belts, we have come full circle and VLNL Kouseband has a name. VLNL Kouseband contains a set of oldstyle numbers matching the lowercase letters, and a couple of wider alternate capitals (HMNOQ) to enhance the liveliness of your designs.

My name is Teruyoshi Matsui. I live in Japan. I am a Brush Artist. I artistically write the letters of the alphabet with a Japanese brush. I have created the font “ BrushType Longhand”. It was originally named "BrushType Alternative". But I changed my mind before it was completed. At first I aimed at an alternative font. But while I was trying to make it alternative, I realized that it was not. Of course there are many alternative letters that you have never seen before among them, so you have to be careful using the font. If you are a progressive and defiant designer trying to discriminate against others' designs, you should own my font "BrushType Longhand". Be ambitious! This is the word I will give you. I am ambitious ,too. No one in the world creates brush fonts like me. I am the only one as a Brush Artist though no one knows. I will be a world artist some day. So you should buy the font that is one of my favorite works. Thank you.

I do a lot of taller, narrower handwriting fonts; this time around, I was inspired to make a wider, shorter handwriting font! MUGGSY has everything you expect from one of my fonts: clean and smooth curves, a full set of alternates, and a feeling of fun! MUGGSY has two uppercase-height alphabets (with a few lowercase-style letters like a and e in the lowercase set), plus a full set of 63 "smallternates" -- the same letters, numbers, and ampersand sized down to 75%, and beefed up in weight so they can be mixed in with the full-size letters. Plus 30 double-letter ligature sets, and a few additional alternates for variety! You also get a ton of punctuation, and my usual 300+ extended Latin characters for language support, for a total of over 600 glyphs! And just because you may want things a bit heavier, I've also made Muggsy Heavy, a bolder weight of Muggsy with all of the same alternates and extras. Enjoy, my fonty friends!

TT Severs useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options TT Severs is a geometric grotesque with emphasized elements of internal brackets. A distinctive feature of TT Severs is the unusual form of internal ovals, which refers us to the style of traditional Arabic writing. TT Severs has a strong character and is great for use in high tech (IT), the web, in robotics, computer games, and sports. TT Severs is a 2-in-1 font family. In a large body size, it works great as a display font, creating a distinctive character for logos and headings. At the same time, when TT Severs is used in a small body size or in large text arrays, the font’s peculiarities of bracket construction fade, and it perfectly functions as a text font, thanks to both the low contrast between vertical and horizontal strokes and the detailed logic of interaction of black and white letter elements. The font family TT Severs includes 18 fonts, each of which consists of 558 glyphs. The family has standard and discrete ligatures, which include experimental ligatures for the Cyrillic alphabet. In addition, TT Severs can be made a little more humanist—it is enough to turn on stylistic alternates, and due to them the font takes the form of a humanist grotesque, which refers us to traditional broad nib writing. As part of the font family, you will also find old-style figures and a large number of OT features such as case, ordn, sups, sinf, dnom, numr, onum, tnum, pnum, liga, dlig, salt (ss01), frac.

Gerard Unger’s new typeface Alverata is a twenty-first-century type-face inspired by the shapes of Romanesque capitals in inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, without being a close imitation of them. It is additionally based on the early twentieth-century model, but tweaked so as to prevent blandness and monotony. Alverata performs beautifully in both screen and on paper, delivering excellent legibility. Its letters are open and friendly in small sizes and lively and attractive in large sizes. They are robust, and show refinement in their detail. Unger’s Alverata is an extensive type family, with versions for both formal and informal applications, and with Greek and Cyrillic relatives. Alverata consists of three different fonts: Alverata, Alverata Irregular and Alverata Informal, that vary in form and width, but maintain the same spirit. The Irregular version is particularly inspired by the Insular letterforms, the uncials, and their constantly changing positioning. Alverata strikes a balance among Europe’s diversity of languages, combining contemporary typographical practices with features of medieval letterforms, from the time when Europe came into being. Visually, some written languages, such as Czech and Maltese, differ quite strongly from languages like English and German, notably because of their many accented characters. While other typefaces will show this difference, Alverata removes it. As a result, Alverata enables harmonious convergence of languages.  For the development of the Greek letterforms, Unger collaborated with Gerry Leonidas (University of Reading) and Irene Vlachou (Athens), and with Tom Grace on the Cyrillic letterforms.

Vala™ dances across printed pages and shines on screen. This is a high-energy design that blends the grace of an English Roundhand script with the gravitas of an extra bold Bodoni. There is even a bit of romance in the design. Vala speaks with a resonant voice – and knows few bounds. The typeface enhances print headlines, subheads, cover art and packaging. The design also brings its distinctive melding of verve and poise to banners, headings, navigational links and branding in web sites, blog posts, games and apps. Oscar Guerrero found inspiration for Vala in shop window lettering near his home in Bogotá, Colombia. “The capital A, R and V caught my attention and I photographed the window for future reference,” he explains. “Later I started to draw more letters inspired by the ones in the window.” Guerrero admits that he has always admired the work of Giambattista Bodoni and allowed his classic Didone designs to infuse Vala. Striking contrast in stroke weights, lively ball-terminals and a large x-height give Vala the grace and force of a Waikiki wave. Not satisfied with just a basic character set, Guerrero also took advantage of OpenType’s capabilities and drew a complete set of swash capitals, a bevy of fancy ligatures, and a suite of lowercase alternative designs. The result is that Vala easily emulates custom lettering in posters, headlines and logotypes. The “romantic” part of Vala? Guerrero dedicated the design to his girlfriend, Valentina, and named it after her.

CA Capoli is a fine script typeface with a vintage touch. Perfect for illustrative titles or logotypes. It comes in two styles, Regular and Stroke. The inspiration came during our trip to Italy, where we took a short rest in a bar during a hot day. We discovered a simple ceramic ashtray on the table. The word “Nido” was inscribed in a typeface that looked like it dated back to the 1950s. We made some investigations about the word, its meaning and origin but it still remains a big mystery. Was it the name of a hotel or a restaurant or some vintage Italian cigarettes? We don’t know. We were so amazed about the design of the logo that we decided to create a typeface out of it. A sophisticated endeavor because we just had four letters. How could the rest of the letters – if it ever existed – have looked like? Our hypothesis is CA Capoli. A typeface with a full Central European character set and some nice alternative letters to chose from. When we thought about “Nido” and its possible derivation of hotel business, we felt like creating a small side project for this typeface, a brand for a fictional hotel called Hotel Capoli with business cards, letterheads, a reception book, key fobs and embroidered patches for the service dress of the hotel service stuff. The Hotel Capoli is located at the wonderful beach of Cape Arcona on the fictional country of Arcona Islands where our type foundry is located.

We designed this Glogalex font inspired by today's rapid digital technology, where the art of typography is very much needed to support various digital needs, both for software and for other print media needs. Glogalex is a display font designed with the main focus aimed at the needs of various brands of digital products or other technology products, but not limited to the use of various kinds of printing, both mass media or for the needs of various titles of books, magazines, newspapers, and various other kinds of tabloids, the wealth of Glyph Alternate and Ligature can add to the creation of typography art, you can be creative in using various letters that we have designed by combining ordinary letters with alternative letters and also ligatures, we have combined several ligatures to make it easier for you to use, but if If you have difficulty using Alternate letters and ligatures, we recommend you to manually combine each Alternate and ligature you want to use. We highly recommend the use of this Glogalex font for the needs of displaying company brands, trademarks, logo designs, use in digital media, such as movie titles, online game names, and for various vehicle brands, if you can maximize its use it will be very interesting. for each display that has been designed, pleasing to the eye and easy to read. we are very happy if you are satisfied in using our products, and if there are problems in using our products you can tell us via email zulfikarzul80@yahoo.co.id, we will respond as soon as possible, thank you.

This is Tchig Mono, a monospaced type family that doesn't take itself too seriously. Why make a monospaced font? For coding, sure, but display? It’s my humble opinion that it’s the aesthetic choices driven by the constraints of the monospaced environment that makes them attractive. It’s a challenge for the type designer to squash and expand glyphs into a rigid bounding box, and the more unorthodox shapes that spring from this have a feel about them which lends them to postmodernist layouts and hipsterish anti-design. And the payoff for the type designer - no kerning! Yay. So what’s different about Tchig? Like I said before, it doesn't take itself too seriously. Even the name Tchig is just a stupid, fun sound (although it does show off that nice g!). There are a selection of playful alternates that give text a slightly alien feel. Stylistic set 1 chops off ascenders and descenders of lowercase letters, giving it a kind of small caps meets unicase feel (it is also accessible using the small caps feature). The other sets (or stylistic alternates if you don't have access to stylistic sets) make certain letters more twirly, more square, more “experimental”. Automatic fractions use a half-width numerator and denominator so fractions like one half and five eighths have the same width as figures (and every other glyph). There you go then - a monospaced type family not initially intended for use in the usual ways monospaced families are intended to be used. Give it a try. You could even do some coding with it if you like.

MyCRFT was designed as a custom heading typeface for Drew Maughan's IhNohMinecraft project. ABOUT THE PROJECT Beginning life in 2015 under the name Mascoteers, the project was an ensemble of small-scale characters built from LEGO elements. The challenge was in creating the different figures with the restrictions of existing LEGO elements, while being recognisable as individual characters. The project was initially well received within the LEGO community and with the general public, but was eventually ignored and even ridiculed in favour of LEGO's own BrickHeadz theme, launched in late 2016. It was rebranded IhNohMinecraft as a response to the deliberate cries of "Ih dih Minecraft?" since BrickHeadz' launch. The project has no relation to the popular game. ABOUT THE TYPEFACE The motivation to create MyCRFT was as part of establishing IhNohMinecraft as its own project, by giving it a new visual identity. The typeface could be described as a cross between the ones used for Gears Of War and Overwatch. I liked the boldness of the former, and the italicized straight edges of the latter. MyCRFT was intended to be used in its Black Italic form from the beginning, and was designed around the letters from the word MINECRAFT. Where I couldn't decide on specific characters, I've included the designs as alternative glyphs. I've also included the old "square" Mascoteers logo and the newer "head" IhNohMinecraft logo. MyCRFT is paired with Kanit on the official IhNohMinecraft web site. Let me know if you discover a better pairing! PROJECT LINKS View the IhNohMinecraft "reveal" playlist on YouTube. The official Mascoteers/IhNohMinecraft web site.

Iconic Conjuring memories of chunky typefaces from the late-60s and early-70s, and named after the world’s greatest footballer of that and probably any other era, FS Pele is one of a set of Fontsmith fonts designed specifically for headlines and other prominent applications. “We wanted to create fonts that could be integral to the design of posters, album covers and magazines,” says Jason Smith. Welcome to FS Pele, iconic, like its namesake (though, perhaps, a little less nimble). Big Pele, little Pele There was only one Pele. But there are two sizes of FS Pele. FS Pele One, with the finer counters and details, adds considerable weight and style at large sizes, especially in big block headlines on posters. FS Pele Two’s thicker “slots” make it a better choice for smaller-sized text. A load of blocks FS Pele began as an exercise by Phil Garnham in turning squares into legible letters, via the least means necessary. The idea extended his ideas about logo-making, and the search for a stamp-like brand mark that lends authority, stability and instant identification. “The thought that the type was a 2D/3D jigsaw of slotted, architectural pieces was almost an after-thought. I wanted to create a strong, stacking, block aesthetic for the most contemporary poster design. “At the time there were a lot of designers creating their own versions of the same thing but I wanted to take the blocker forms to the next step, and infer a more legible text without sacrificing the idea.”

Iconic Conjuring memories of chunky typefaces from the late-60s and early-70s, and named after the world’s greatest footballer of that and probably any other era, FS Pele is one of a set of Fontsmith fonts designed specifically for headlines and other prominent applications. “We wanted to create fonts that could be integral to the design of posters, album covers and magazines,” says Jason Smith. Welcome to FS Pele, iconic, like its namesake (though, perhaps, a little less nimble). Big Pele, little Pele There was only one Pele. But there are two sizes of FS Pele. FS Pele One, with the finer counters and details, adds considerable weight and style at large sizes, especially in big block headlines on posters. FS Pele Two’s thicker “slots” make it a better choice for smaller-sized text. A load of blocks FS Pele began as an exercise by Phil Garnham in turning squares into legible letters, via the least means necessary. The idea extended his ideas about logo-making, and the search for a stamp-like brand mark that lends authority, stability and instant identification. “The thought that the type was a 2D/3D jigsaw of slotted, architectural pieces was almost an after-thought. I wanted to create a strong, stacking, block aesthetic for the most contemporary poster design. “At the time there were a lot of designers creating their own versions of the same thing but I wanted to take the blocker forms to the next step, and infer a more legible text without sacrificing the idea.”

In the late 1930s, old Egyptiennes (or Italiennes) returned to the collective consciousness of European printers and type houses — perhaps because political news were front a centre, especially in France where Le Figaro newspaper was seeing record circulation numbers. In 1939 both Monotype and Lettergieterij Amsterdam thought of the same idea: Make a new typeface similar to the reverse stress slab shapes that make up the titles of newspapers like Le Figaro and Le Frondeur. Both foundries intended to call their new type Figaro. Monotype finished theirs first, so they ended up with the name, and their type was already published when Stefan Schlesinger finished his take for the Amsterdam foundry. Schlesinger’s type was renamed Hidalgo (Spanish for a lower nobleman, ‘son of something’) and published in 1940 as ‘a very happy variation on an old motif’. Although it wasn’t a commercial success at the time, it was well received and considered subtler and more refined than the similar types available, Figaro and Playbill. In the Second World War, the Germans banned the use of the type, and Hidalgo never really recovered. Upon closer inspection, Schlesinger’s work on Hidalgo was much more Euro-sophisticated and ahead of its time than the too-wooden cut of Figaro and the thick tightness of Playbill. It has a modern high contrast, a squarer skeleton, contour cuts that work similarly outside and inside, and airy and minimal solutions to the more complicated shapes like G, K, M, N, Q and W. It is also much more aware of, and more accommodating to, the picket-fence effect the thick top slabs create in setting. Basilio (named after the signing teacher in Mozart’s Figaro) is the digital revival and major expansion of Hidalgo. With nearly 600 glyphs, it boasts Pan-European language support (most Latin languages, as well as Cyrillic and Greek), and a few OpenType tricks that gel it all together to make a very useful design tool. Stefan Schlesigner was born in Vienna in 1896. He moved to the Netherlands in 1925, where he worked for Van Houten’s chocolate, Metz department store, printing firm Trio and many other clients. He died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1944. Digital revivals and expansions of two of his other designs, Minuet and Serena, have also been published by Canada Type.