John Seddon (1644-1700), was a famous English writing master, the leading calligrapher of his time, and master of Sir John Johnson’s Free Writing School in Priest’s Court, Foster Lane. His portrait was drawn by William Faithorne and was engraved by John Sturt as the frontispiece for his copy-books, such as ‘The Ingenious youth’s companion’ of c.1690 and 'The pen-man’s paradise' of c.1695. These were engraved after his work by others. Your extra-rare book - "The Pen-mans Paradise Both pleasent & Profitable OR Examples of all ye usuall hands of this Kingdome. Adorn'd with variety of ffigures an Flourishes done by Command of hand. Each ffigure being one continued & entire Track of the pen most where of may be struck as well Reverse (or to answer bothwayes) as Forward", London (1965). - (YES, that is the title of the book!) was the starting point to these new extra accurated works of Iza W, a series of revivals of the penmanship Seddon’s artworks, like this highly ornamented animal kingdom inspired capitals and alphabets: the Seddon Penmans Paradise Capitals typeface. And, on the other hand, you can get the animal and human kingdon inspired penmanship forms in the Bestiario font. The “SeddonsFleurons” will complete the collection. Fantastic choice to elaborated barocque/renaissance inspired and historical accurated layouts.

This old classic font has an interesting history, it was originally cut with lowercase by the Bruce Type Foundry in 1865 and listed as Ornamented No. 1514. Around 1903 the Bruce foundry was bought by ATF, in 1933 this font was revived by ATF as Caps only and was given the Gold Rush name but was sometimes called Klondike. A similar version of this font with lowercase and radiused serifs was produced by the James Conner's Sons Type Foundry around 1888. In the past other foundries such as the Carroll foundry, Type Founders of Phoenix and the Los Angeles Type Foundry have produced an all caps version of this font. After examining several printed sources of this font from more recent books I found that the original from Bruce's 1882 book was by far the best in design quality, it was also the only printed source that included the lowercase. New open faced, ornamented and distressed versions have been added to this old classic font, there are also many extended characters for Western, Central and Eastern European countries. The Gold Rush Trail OpenType version has alternate double letter pairs included in the font and will automatically be substituted when used in Adobe CS products or other software that takes advantage of OpenType features. Also available is a spurred version of this font listed under the name Gold Spur.

The design of Sabon® Next by Jean François Porchez, a revival of a revival, was a double challenge: to try to discern Jan Tschichold´s own schema for the original Sabon, and to interpret the complexity of a design originally made in two versions for different typecasting systems. The first was designed for use on Linotype and Monotype machines, and the second for Stempel hand composition. Because the Stempel version does not have the constraints necessary for types intended for machine composition, it seems closer to a pure interpretation of its Garamond ancestor. Naturally Porchez based Sabon Next on this second version and also referred to original Garamond models, carefully improving the proportions of the existing digital Sabon while matching its alignments. The new family is large and versatile - with Roman and italic in 6 weights from regular to black. Most weights also have small caps, Old style Figures, alternates (swashes, ligatures, etc); and there is one ornament font with many lovely fleurons. The standard versions include revised lining figures that are intentionally designed to be a little smaller than capitals. Featured in: Best Fonts for Resumes, Best Fonts for Websites, Best Fonts for PowerPoints

This script font was inspired by the type used in Leyden by Jan Seversz to print Breviores elegantioresque epistolae [...], author Francesco Filfelo, circa 1509. The original font contains all lower case characters, except w, eth, thorn, lslash, oslash and so... and almost upper case. In addition, one set of small lombardic initials were also nearly complete. It take place instead of the Bold style (in only one package)offering a real and rare complete historical printing set... The original small "a" hight was 2,8 mm !, the upper case hight no more than nearly 5 mm, the initials hight almost 15 mm, covering nearly two lines. This font includes "long s", naturally, as typically medieval and also a few ligatures, but not any variants. We have entirely recreated some characters, upper, lower and initials, to fill gaps. It is used as variously as web-site titles, posters and fliers design, publishing texts looking like ancient ones, or greeting cards, all various sorts of presentations, menus, certificates, as a very decorative, elegant and unusual font, besides its historical scrupulous reality... This font supports enlargement as well as small size.

‘Krul’ is a typographic interpretation of the lettering style created by Dutch letter painter Jan Willem Joseph Visser at the end of the 1940s, which decorated the traditional brown bars of Amsterdam. In the beginning, these letters were strongly associated with the pubs connected to the Amstel brewery, given that Visser was the company’s official painter. As the years passed, the style became increasingly popular, and various business owners in Amsterdam and other Dutch and Belgian cities also commissioned its use. In the 1970s and 1980s, Leo Beukeboom, another talented letter painter, continued and expanded this lettering tradition while employed under the Heineken brand. Much of his work can still be found in the Jordaan and De Pijp neighborhoods in Amsterdam. The Amsterdamse Krulletter, or Amsterdam’s curly letter, is strongly inspired by the calligraphic works of the 17th century Dutch writing masters, of which Jan van den Velde was a central figure. However, distinct characteristics of this style, for example, its unusual and beautiful ‘g’, originate from a model that was published by Johannes Heuvelman in 1659, which J. W. J. Visser referenced. Typographic circles have somehow overlooked the Amsterdamse Krulletter and its heritage. The Dutch calligraphic hands preceded and influenced the formal English penmanship which has inspired numerous typefaces in the Copperplate style. In contrast, the models from van den Velde, Heuvelman, and Jean de la Chambre, among others, are a missing chapter in Dutch typographic history, and had never been turned into typefaces until now. Conscious of the cultural and identity issues that arise in reviving a unique style, and concerned about the speed with which the lettering style was disappearing, Ramiro Espinoza focused the project of designing ‘Krul’ on digitally recreating the calligraphic complexity of these beautiful letters. Created through several years of research, ‘Krul’ is not a direct digitization of the Amsterdamse Krulletter, but instead, an interpretation that incorporates numerous alternative characters absent in the original model, and improves upon details where necessary, resulting in an optimal performance on the printed page. The typeface is presented in Open Type format, with an abundance of intricate ligatures, fleurons, and swashes, which permit the creation of numerous calligraphic effects. The very high contrast and rhythm of the strokes in this typeface make it especially suited for media applications conveying a sense of elegance and sophistication. Designers of feminine magazines, advertisements, and corporate identities within the fragrance and fashion industries will find in this typeface to be an extremely useful and appropriate resource.The great Amsterdamse Krulletter is finally back, and we are proud to make it available to you.

Van den Velde Script Pro is the definitive edition of the original Van den Velde Script, by Intellecta Design, a free interpretation of the work of the famous master penman Jan van den Velde, to be found in the “Spieghel der schrijfkonste, in den welcken ghesien worden veelderhande gheschrifften met hare fondementen ende onderrichtinghe. ” (Haarlen, 1605). This font has evocative ancient ligature forms from the XVII Century Dutch master penman Jan van den Velde. Your indescritible writing-book was important not only with regard to the specific period it represents, but also in relationship to the entire history of calligraphy as an art: Van den Velde is rightly credited with having introduced and perfected a new trend in Dutch calligraphy. Our font, Van den Velde Script, merges modern necessities or better legibility without loosing the taste of his archaic origins. This enhanced OpenType version is a complete solution for producing documents and artworks whith an evocative and voluptuous style of calligraphic script: Van den Velde Script PRO has - more glyphs than the original Van den Velde Script. We created hundred of new glyphs, deactivated old non-representative glyphs and redesign the remaining library of original glyphs. Van den Velde Pro is more functional, soft and beauty than the original. - to keep the powerful of this unusual kind of script we make a tour-de-force kerning work: 771 glyphs in this font was adjusted in 5400 kerning pairs handly. - hundreds of contextual alternates combinations, some of them with three or more letters, - historical ornaments and fleurons in the typical style (and motifs) from the XVII century at the Lower Countryes accessed with the glyph palette using the Ornaments feature); - an extensive set of ligatures (100s of contextual alternates plus discretionary ligatures) providing letterform variations that make your designs really special, resembling real handwriting on the page; .... and, much better, Van den Velde Scriopt PRO is plus cheap than the original font !!! 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 (over 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. Van den Velde Script PRO has original letters designed by Iza W and overall creative direction plus core programming by Paulo W.

Iza and Paulo W (Intellecta Design) are proud to announce Van den Velde Script. A free interpretation of the work of the famous master penman Jan van den Velde, to be found in the “Spieghel der schrijfkonste, in den welcken ghesien worden veelderhande gheschrifften met hare fondementen ende onderrichtinghe. ” (Haarlen, 1605). Van den Velde Script has evocative ancient ligature forms from the XVII Century Dutch master penman Jan van den Velde. Your indescritible writing-book was important not only with regard to the specific period it represents, but also in relationship to the entire history of calligraphy as an art: Van den Velde is rightly credited with having introduced and perfected a new trend in Dutch calligraphy. Our font, Van den Velde Script merges modern necessities o better legibility without loose the taste of his archaic origins. This enhanced OpenType version is a complete solution for producing documents and artworks whith a evocative and voluptuous style of calligraphic script: - dozens of stylistic alternates for each letter (upper- and lowercase), accessed with the glyph palette; - historical ornaments and fleurons in the typical style (and motifs) from the XVII century at the Lower Countryes accessed with the glyph palette using the Ornaments feature); - an extensive set of ligatures (100s of contextual alternates plus discretionary ligatures) providing letterform variations that make your designs really special, resembling real handwriting on the page; - a tour-de-force kerning work: over 700 gliphs in this font was adjusted to your kern pairs 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 (over 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 has an idea of the power of this font looking at the “Van den Velde User Guide”, a pdf brochure in the Galçlery section. Two last things: take a special look at the Van den Velde Words (ready words) font and another super script font, Penabico. Van den Velde Script has original letters designed by Iza W and overall creative direction plus core programming by Paulo W.

Get ready to unwrap a typographic delight with Frosty Xmas, the holiday-themed serif font designed to infuse your projects with festive charm and timeless elegance. With its soft round corners, delicate serifs, and all-uppercase characters, Frosty Xmas exudes a timeless charm that complements a wide range of holiday designs. Its classic serif letters, adorned with swirls, swashes, and star elements, add a touch of whimsy and magic to your creations. Whether you're crafting holiday cards, designing festive branding, or creating typographic posters that echo the joy of the season, Frosty Xmas is your go-to companion. Its versatility knows no bounds, making it equally suited for standard branding, logo design, and a wide array of creative ventures. But that's not all – Frosty Xmas comes bundled with 40 hand-drawn holiday doodles, adding an extra layer of whimsy to your projects. From snowflakes to stockings, candy canes to Christmas trees, these doodles are the perfect embellishments for all your holiday-themed endeavors. Crafted with over 450 carefully designed glyphs, Frosty Xmas supports over 90 languages, making it a versatile tool for designers and crafters worldwide. Whether you're creating holiday greeting cards, packaging labels, or typography posters, Frosty Xmas will infuse your designs with festive cheer. Elevate your designs, captivate your audience, and make this holiday season truly memorable with Frosty Xmas. The magic begins with each letter – are you ready to unwrap the joy? Happy designing and Merry Frosty Xmas! 🎄✨

Milton Glaser on designing Babyfat: “This is the first alphabet I ever designed. For some inexplicable reason I called it Babyfat. Because I’m not a type designer, most of my alphabets are actually novelties or graphic ideas expressed typographically. Here the idea was to take a gothic letter and view it simultaneously from two sides. It started out as a rather esoteric letterform; it ended up being used in supermarkets for ‘Sale’ signs.” This forced perspective 3-D font has appeared on many LP covers and posters from the mid 1960s onward. This revival includes the original lowercase for the first time in digital form. Besides the three original styles (Outline, Shaded, and Black) made for photo typesetting, the new P22 Glaser Babyfat introduces six additional variations to allow the user to easily colorize the type as Glaser envisioned. The Keyline, Fill, Glyph, Left, Right, and Down font styles give the user nearly infinite options to create dynamic chromatic effects. P22 Glaser Babyfat was based on original drawings and phototype proofs from the Milton Glaser Studios archives. Typographic punctuation and sorts were imagined by James Grieshaber to work with Glaser’s design, as well as diacritics to accommodate most European languages. Over the years there have been many typefaces that borrowed heavily from the Glaser designs, but these are the only official fonts approved by Milton Glaser Studio and the Estate of Milton Glaser.

FF DIN: the famous, faithful and first revival of DIN 1451. FF DIN originates in the lettering models from the German standard DIN 1451, and is considered the perfect standard typeface due to methodical and engineered design. FF DIN Slab is a robust compliment to the FF DIN family. Designed by Antonia Cornelius and Albert-Jan Pool, it offer designers tools to create greater rhythm and design depth. FF DIN Slab’s proportions have been meticulously aligned with its Sans origins, offering the perfect balance between positive and negative space. The serifs are assertive, sturdy and balanced, they are engineered to emphasis a strong horizontal flow through text, a grounded utility and assurance in headlines. The result of this attention to detail is a typeface that harmonizes beautifully with other FF DIN styles. Pushing font technology to its limits, FF DIN Slab is also available as a Variable font. Allowing creatives to design hyper specific variations which thrive in any design space, and even seamlessly animate movement from one state to the next. FF DIN Slab distinctively carries on its parent’s DNA, speaks the same native language — but with a strong peculiar dialect. It expands the DIN family worthily — independent but integrated — and opens totally new possibilities of uses with the whole DIN family.

FF DIN: the famous, faithful and first revival of DIN 1451. FF DIN originates in the lettering models from the German standard DIN 1451, and is considered the perfect standard typeface due to methodical and engineered design. FF DIN Slab is a robust compliment to the FF DIN family. Designed by Antonia Cornelius and Albert-Jan Pool, it offer designers tools to create greater rhythm and design depth. FF DIN Slab’s proportions have been meticulously aligned with its Sans origins, offering the perfect balance between positive and negative space. The serifs are assertive, sturdy and balanced, they are engineered to emphasis a strong horizontal flow through text, a grounded utility and assurance in headlines. The result of this attention to detail is a typeface that harmonizes beautifully with other FF DIN styles. Pushing font technology to its limits, FF DIN Slab is also available as a Variable font. Allowing creatives to design hyper specific variations which thrive in any design space, and even seamlessly animate movement from one state to the next. FF DIN Slab distinctively carries on its parent’s DNA, speaks the same native language — but with a strong peculiar dialect. It expands the DIN family worthily — independent but integrated — and opens totally new possibilities of uses with the whole DIN family.

"I digitized and to revitalize NurnbergSchwabacher by the extinct Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei, a German/Swiss foundry established in 1790 and based in Basel/Münchenstein. Many of its shares were acquired by D. Stempel in 1927. On the Luc Devroye site this foundry is listed on the Extinct Foundries of the 18th century page. This design is very similar to another Intellecta best seller: Hostetler Fette Ultfraktur Ornamental, both drawn from the classical type specimen book from Hostetler. The ornamental frame that completes the font is a fantastic baroque ornament that I found in another old book, unfortunately lost now. Luc Devroye, whose book is the source for all of my fonts, writes this about Rudolf Hostettler: He was a Swiss type designer, author of “The Printer’s Terms” designed by Jan Tschichold, of "Technical Terms of the Printing Industry" (5th edition was printed in 1995), and of "Type: eine Auswahl guter Drucktypen; 80 Alphabete klassischer und moderner Schriften" (Teufen, Ausser-Rhoden: Niggli, 1958). He also wrote "Type: A Selection of Types" (1949, fgm books, R. Hostettler, E. Kopley, H. Strehler Publ., St. Gallen and London) in which he highlights type made by European houses such as Haas, Enschedé, Deberny and Nebiolo. Jost Hochuli wrote his biography.

The great enigma There are hidden depths to FS Silas Sans. First impressions are of a functional, multi-purpose typeface with a cool, edgy, angular character. Gaze into its eyes a little longer, though, and you'll detect a more nuanced, colourful personality, with full, open, satisfyingly squarish forms balancing the abruptness of the sharply-angled terminals and ascenders. Authoritative, official and stern on the outside; amiable and welcoming on the inside. You’re so Dane The designers, led by Phil Garnham, were trying to capture something straight-talking, authentic, and a little... Scandinavian. ‘We were thinking about some of the characters in Danish dramas that were on in the early stages of the font’s development, like The Killing and The Bridge,’ says Phil. ‘The police officers, that is, not the psychopathic killers. Smart and a bit cool, but with a warm heart.’ For a good Danish name, we settled on Silas. It was that or Hans-Christian. The finer points Silas Sans rewards close inspection. Study, if you will, its amply squarish forms, the roomy ‘o’ and ‘e’, in particular. Observe the angular ascenders and terminals of, for example, the ‘L’, ‘I’, ‘d’ and ‘i’, inferring the movement and lift of a pen. Consider the cuts to the ‘A’ and ‘v’ that create harmony with adjacent letters. And scrutinise the subtle ink traps set within the ‘A’ and ‘Y’ for reproduction at small sizes. A fine subject, we think you’ll agree, and available in a versatile range of weights to make (with FS Silas Slab) a typographic system with a comprehensive hierarchy.

This is Floral Decay, your seasonal autumn font with jaded, weathered, and earthy contours of rustic lettering. As they blend into words, the characters evoke floral arrangements of a decaying beauty. It is versatile, playful, and perfect for Graphic Design decorations! This font is unique because, in order to create it, I had to answer some tricky questions: What makes autumn… autumn? Capturing the essence of the other seasons into your letters comes easier. For instance, in order to suggest summer, you only need to draw a few flowers. How about autumn? You could garnish your letters with a few grapes, you might think, but it would only result in a grape-themed font. The notion that is more directly associated with autumn is the image of falling and withering leaves, which brought me to the second question. How exactly are you going to create something beautiful out of a somewhat morbid premise, like wilted leaves? Well, I soon realized that by creating a handwritten font and preserving the right imperfections, you can actually portray collateral beauty. In this context, asymmetry is important because it suggests decay. Further on, the design concept required the letters to come very close together, so that every typed word can be regarded as a floral arrangement. How close together, though? As much as possible without confusing one with the other, risking a lack of legibility. Therefore, in contrast with the demo version of this font, this actual version provides the ideal kerning.

While I was in Boston in 2014, I visited the Museum of Fine Arts and to my good fortune there was an exhibit of etchings by Rembrandt, one of my favorite artists. As to be expected, many were simply gorgeous, but one especially caught my eye. It was an etching of a priest (Jan Cornelis Sylvius, Preacher) with an extensive amount of writing in Latin. While I'm not certain that it was Rembrandt's own hand, the script was beautiful and I was fascinated by it because it had to be written on the etching plate in reverse. I snapped a few photos using my phone and later found other editions on line. I was so taken by the script that it begged me to create a modern typeface from it. The result is Saskya, named after Rembrandt's wife Saskia. There were many ligatures and glyph variants in the print, of which I captured many of them and made them accessible via OpenType features. The complete alphabet was not present in the sample, however, I discovered some other source material to sensitively fill in those gaps, with a remaining last few that I created myself. A truly romantic hand, Saskya will work well for invitations of many sorts, and when you're looking for that 'old thyme' scripty feeling in your graphics.

The P22 Underground Pro font family started in 1997 as the first and only officially licensed revival of Edward Johnston’s London Underground railway lettering. The original design by Richard Kegler sought to be as true to the original as possible. In 2007 P22 revised and expanded the fonts into a massive character set with additional weights, language support, and stylistic alternates. Endeavoring to make this font family a more versatile and useful tool for a designer, P22 sought to add true italics to this stalwart type design. The only other existing italic interpretation of Johnston’s Underground type was executed by the inimitable Dave Farey and Richard Dawson at Housestyle Graphics. We asked Dave Farey to imagine an Underground italic that would pair well with the P22 Underground, done as if Edward Johnston himself might approach the design challenge. This new italic version was then expanded for all six of the existing P22 Underground weights and characters sets by James Todd of JTD Type. Final mastering of the P22 Underground Pro roman and italic with a streamlined yet still expansive language coverage by P22 partner Patrick Griffin of Canada Type. These refinements remain true to the original Johnston design while employing contemporary typographic finesse to create six weights with optional alternates to increase legibility. The new P22 Underground Pro family is now a rock-solid and very versatile humanist sans serif font family that should be a cornerstone of any designer’s typographic toolkit. After five years in development, the new P22 Underground Pro is the most iconic and useful font family ever presented by P22 Type Foundry.

Jana Nikolic was finishing her degree program at the Faculty of Applied Arts, in Belgrade, with a final project that would combine her two majors: type and book design. Three stories from William Saroyan's My Name Is Aram would provide the text for the book, to be set in a typeface that Nikolic would design. Nikolic knew something special was happening the moment she put pen to paper. The letters just emerged," she recalls. "I started to explore a few new pens and found one I loved. I was able to make its tip bend with pressure." Like the family Saroyan writes about, the design flowing from Nikolic's pen would be simple but a little quirky. "When there were a whole bunch of little black letters around me," continues Nikolic, "I saw that this was going to be a very interesting typeface family." Nikolic drew Latin and Cyrillic letters, lowercase and capital letters, wide letters and narrow letters. She was surprised at how quickly and easily the design came. "There were no badly written letters," she says. "I hardly had to rework them and they fit together remarkably well." ITC Aram's standard character complement consists of one set of lowercase letters and two sets of capitals: one narrow and the other wide. The wide caps can be used with the standard lowercase, or mixed with the narrow caps for a variation on "cap and small cap" copy. The ITC Aram create the opportunity to mix and combine the letters into playful typographic expressions. Words and sentences that twinkle; text that seems light and alive - one runs the risk of creating work that is both delightful and charming when setting copy in ITC Aram."

Rian Hughes’ 15th collection of fonts, “112 Hours”, is entirely dedicated to numbers. Culled from a myriad of sources – clock faces, tickets, watches house numbers – it is an eclectic and wide-ranging set. Each font contains only numerals and related punctuation – no letters. A new book has been designed by Hughes to show the collection, and includes sample settings, complete character sets, source material and an introduction. This is available print-to-order on Blurb in paperback and hardback: http://www.blurb.com/b/5539073-112-hours-hardback http://www.blurb.com/b/5539045-112-hours-paperback From the introduction: The idea for this, the fifteenth Device Fonts collection, began when I came across an online auction site dedicated to antique clocks. I was mesmerized by the inventive and bizarre numerals on their faces. Shorn of the need to extend the internal logic of a typeface through the entire alphabet, the designers of these treasures were free to explore interesting forms and shapes that would otherwise be denied them. Given this horological starting point, I decided to produce 12 fonts, each featuring just the numbers from 1 to 12 and, where appropriate, a small set of supporting characters — in most cases, the international currency symbols, a colon, full stop, hyphen, slash and the number sign. 10, 11 and 12 I opted to place in the capital A, B and C slots. Each font is shown in its entirety here. I soon passed 12, so the next logical finish line was 24. Like a typographic Jack Bauer, I soon passed that too -— the more I researched, the more I came across interesting and unique examples that insisted on digitization, or that inspired me to explore some new design direction. The sources broadened to include tickets, numbering machines, ecclesiastical brass plates and more. Though not derived from clock faces, I opted to keep the 1-12 conceit for consistency, which allowed me to design what are effectively numerical ligatures. I finally concluded one hundred fonts over my original estimate at 112. Even though it’s not strictly divisible by 12, the number has a certain symmetry, I reasoned, and was as good a place as any to round off the project. An overview reveals a broad range that nonetheless fall into several loose categories. There are fairly faithful revivals, only diverging from their source material to even out inconsistencies and regularize weighting or shape to make them more functional in a modern context; designs taken directly from the source material, preserving all the inky grit and character of the original; designs that are loosely based on a couple of numbers from the source material but diverge dramatically for reasons of improved aesthetics or mere whim; and entirely new designs with no historical precedent. As projects like this evolve (and, to be frank, get out of hand), they can take you in directions and to places you didn’t envisage when you first set out. Along the way, I corresponded with experts in railway livery, and now know about the history of cab side and smokebox plates; I travelled to the Musée de l’imprimerie in Nantes, France, to examine their numbering machines; I photographed house numbers in Paris, Florence, Venice, Amsterdam and here in the UK; I delved into my collection of tickets, passes and printed ephemera; I visited the Science Museum in London, the Royal Signals Museum in Dorset, and the Museum of London to source early adding machines, war-time telegraphs and post-war ration books. I photographed watches at Worthing Museum, weighing scales large enough to stand on in a Brick Lane pub, and digital station clocks at Baker Street tube station. I went to the London Under-ground archive at Acton Depot, where you can see all manner of vintage enamel signs and woodblock type; I photographed grocer’s stalls in East End street markets; I dug out old clocks I recalled from childhood at my parents’ place, examined old manual typewriters and cash tills, and crouched down with a torch to look at my electricity meter. I found out that Jane Fonda kicked a policeman, and unusually for someone with a lifelong aversion to sport, picked up some horse-racing jargon. I share some of that research here. In many cases I have not been slavish about staying close to the source material if I didn’t think it warranted it, so a close comparison will reveal differences. These changes could be made for aesthetic reasons, functional reasons (the originals didn’t need to be set in any combination, for example), or just reasons of personal taste. Where reference for the additional characters were not available — which was always the case with fonts derived from clock faces — I have endeavored to design them in a sympathetic style. I may even extend some of these to the full alphabet in the future. If I do, these number-only fonts could be considered as experimental design exercises: forays into form to probe interesting new graphic possibilities.

Johann Neudörffer the Elder's 1538 writing manual fascinated the German designer Helmut Bomm for years. Together with Albrecht Dürer and Hieronymus Andreä, Neudörffer helped create Fraktur, perhaps the most Germanic of all the blackletter styles. As a tribute to this master, and bringing its letterforms to a 21st century public, Boom released the Neudoerffer Fraktur family through Linotype in 2009. Neudoerffer Fraktur's appearance is based very much in handwriting, and Bomm had already begun using letters from prototype versions of this typeface as early as the 1990s. For years, Neudoerffer Fraktur'sletters would appear secretly and seductively in design projects like historical sign restorations or heraldry pieces. The sources that Bomm used while drawing the typeface were images from Jan Tschichold's Treasures of Calligraphy" and Albert Kapr's "Schriftkunst." The Neudoerffer Fraktur family has four separate fonts. Any user of Adobe CS applications should consider licensing Neudoerffer Fraktur Regular (the font without any numeral suffixes). This font contains three different OpenType stylistic sets. Users can pick and choose which versions of the letters that they would like to set. Anyone using Quark XPress, Microsoft Word, or other applications without support for Stylistic Sets should license Neudoeffer Fraktur Regular 1, Neudoeffer Fraktur Regular 2, and Neudoeffer Fraktur Regular 3. Each of these three fonts has letters with slightly different style of flourish, and all three may be combined with each other. Neudoerffer Fraktur Regular 1 is optimal for longer texts; Neudoerffer Fraktur Regular 2 contains alternate letters, and well as more ornamented capitals; Neudoerffer Fraktur Regular 3's letters have a stronger calligraphic accent."

FF DIN: the famous, faithful and first revival of DIN 1451. FF DIN originates in the lettering models from the German standard DIN 1451, and is considered the perfect standard typeface due to the methodical and engineered nature of its design. The FF DIN family breathes an atmosphere of versatility and authority, FF DIN Stencil follows the same design principles with extra flair. The bridges are arranged vertically, which usually replaces the thinnest parts of the strokes — offering depth in your headlines. Go loud and scale up, as the weights get heavier, the width of the bridges skillfully expand and contract, enabling FF DIN Stencil to provide confidence in volume, and in any chosen style. Also made available as a Variable font, creatives can design hyper specific variations to thrive in any design space, and even to animate movement from one state to the next. Get innovative with the entire FF DIN family, FF DIN Stencil’s spacing and kerning is identical to FF DIN, this enables swapping between any FF DIN font without changes in word length or line breaks. For true FF DIN fans, FF DIN Slab and FF DIN Stencil designed by Albert-Jan Pool, Antonia Cornelius and Achaz Reuss, can be seen as harmonious companions to the FF DIN family, rather than alternatives. Bestowed with its parents distinctive DNA, all the FF DIN extensions open up new possibility with their own unique qualities, but stay true to the FF DIN design philosophy of engineered precision.

Haarlemmer is a recreation of a never-produced Jan Van Krimpen typeface that goes one step beyond authentic: it shows how he wanted it to be designed in the first place. The original, drawn in the late 1930s, was created for the Dutch Society for the Art of Printing and Books and was to be used to set a new edition of the Bible, using Monotype typesetting. Hence the problem: fonts for metal typesetting machines like the Linotype and Monotype had to be created within a crude system of predetermined character width values. Every letter had to fit within and have its spacing determined by a grid of only 18 units. Often, the italic characters had to share the same widths as those in the roman design. Van Krimpen believed this severely impaired the design process. The invasion of Holland in World War II halted all work on the Bible project, and the original Haarlemmer never went into production. Flash forward about sixty years. Frank E. Blokland, of The Dutch Type Library, wanted to revive the original Haarlemmer, but this time as Van Krimpen would have intended. Blokland reinterpreted the original drawings and created a typeface that matched, as much as possible, Van Krimpen's initial concept. While Van Krimpen's hand could no longer be on the tiller, a thorough study of his work made up for his absence. The result is an exceptional text family of three weights, with complementary italic designs and a full suite of small caps and old style figures. Van Krimpen would be proud.

FF DIN: the famous, faithful and first revival of DIN 1451. FF DIN originates in the lettering models from the German standard DIN 1451, and is considered the perfect standard typeface due to the methodical and engineered nature of its design. The FF DIN family breathes an atmosphere of versatility and authority, FF DIN Stencil follows the same design principles with extra flair. The bridges are arranged vertically, which usually replaces the thinnest parts of the strokes — offering depth in your headlines. Go loud and scale up, as the weights get heavier, the width of the bridges skillfully expand and contract, enabling FF DIN Stencil to provide confidence in volume, and in any chosen style. Also made available as a Variable font, creatives can design hyper specific variations to thrive in any design space, and even to animate movement from one state to the next. Get innovative with the entire FF DIN family, FF DIN Stencil’s spacing and kerning is identical to FF DIN, this enables swapping between any FF DIN font without changes in word length or line breaks. For true FF DIN fans, FF DIN Slab and FF DIN Stencil designed by Albert-Jan Pool, Antonia Cornelius and Achaz Reuss, can be seen as harmonious companions to the FF DIN family, rather than alternatives. Bestowed with its parents distinctive DNA, all the FF DIN extensions open up new possibility with their own unique qualities, but stay true to the FF DIN design philosophy of engineered precision.

Quinoa is display typeface by Catharsis Fonts that unites the seemingly opposed concepts of clean geometric architecture and organic humanist warmth. While it is designed for display and editorial purposes, its accessible forms make for comfortable reading even at small text sizes. Its exuberant adaptive "f", "j", "Q" and refreshing titling alternates bring display text to life. Quinoa covers multilingual Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Armenian. The Quinoa family spans four stylistic cuts (Quinoa, Quinoa Titling, Quinoa Round, and Quinoa Text) with matching hand-slanted obliques, each of which comes in nine weights. The Titling cut offers a number of alternate capital letter designs with lowercase-inspired forms for a refreshing unicase look, and the Round cut additionally removes the spurs from arched letters like n. The text cut introduces true diagonals and a two-storey "a" for a more sober, reading-friendly look. A host of other OpenType features including ligatures, contextual alternates, small caps, figure sets, and character variants are built into all cuts. Furthermore, the small caps of Quinoa, Quinoa Titling, and Quinoa Text are available as dedicated font files under the names "Quinoa SC", "Quinoa Unicase" and "Quinoa Text SC" for ease of use. Acknowledgements: I am thankful to the TypeDrawers and the Typografie.info communities for great feedback and support. In particular, Thorsten Daum has been tremendously helpful with suggestions and quality control. Thanks to Craig Eliason and Jan Willem Wennekes for their help with the Latin, Alexander L. Stetsiuk for Cyrillic, Ofir Shavit and Jonathan N. Washington for Hebrew, Khaled Hosny for Arabic, and Hrant H. Papazian for Armenian.

PF Champion Script Pro is perhaps the most advanced and powerful calligraphic family ever made. It received an award for Excellence in Type Design from the International Type Design Competition ‘Modern Cyrillic 2009’ which was held in Moscow. Most recently, it received another award from the 3rd International Eastern Type Design Competition - Granshan Awards 2010. This typeface was first presented in June 2007 at the 3rd International Conference on Typography and Visual Communication (ICTVC) and was met with rave reviews. It is based mainly on the manuscripts of the 18th century English calligrapher Joseph Champion. Developed over a period of two and a half years, each one of the 2 weights is loaded with 4300 glyphs(!), offering simultaneous support for all European languages based on the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic scripts. Furthermore, a wide selection of alternate forms and ligatures is included for all languages, in order to accommodate diverse design aesthetics. These alternates are either applied automatically through an advanced programming scheme, or manually through several OpenType features. An attempt was made to design a contemporary script typeface with classic roots, by following certain guidelines, i.e. lowercase characters were designed so they are less inclined, have a higher x-height and are less condensed than the original. Several characters were stripped-off their connecting lines in order to enhance legibility. Four sets of alternate swashed capitals as well as a plethora of ornaments and frames (117) was included. Small caps and their alternate forms were designed to replace the capitals which disrupt the flow of text within a sentence with their extravagant swashes. All characters were carefully designed with the proper weight in order to sustain harsh printing conditions (on special papers), a situation which affects mainly the light connecting parts of calligraphic typefaces. Finally, it was programmed in such a way as to preserve handwriting qualities, by designing an extensive array of ligatures and alternate glyphs in all languages, never before released or incorporated within the same font.

Petrarka may be described as a Condensed, Sans-Serif, Semi-Fatface Roman. Huh? Bear with me on this. The Fatface is a name given to the popular nineteenth-century romans that where characterized by an extremity of contrast between the thick and thin stroke. The earliest example that is generally familiar is Thorowgood, believed to have been designed by Robert Thorne and released by Thorowgood Foundry in 1820 as "Five-line Pica No. 5." Copied by many foundries, it became one of the more popular advertising types of the day. Later, in the period from about 1890 to 1950, you find a number of typeface designs with the thin stroke beefed up a bit, not quite so extreme. What you might call Semi-Fatfaced Romans begin to replace the extreme Fatfaces. Serifed designs like Bauer’s Bernard Roman Extra Bold and ATF’s Bold Antique appear. In addition, we see the development of semi-fatface lineals or Sans-Serif Semi-Fatfaces. Examples include Britannic (Stephenson Blake), Chambord Bold (Olive), Koloss (Ludwig & Mayer), Matthews (ATF) and Radiant Heavy (Ludlow). Petrarka has much in common with this latter group, but is distinguished by two salient features: it is condensed and it shows a strong blackletter influence, as seen in the ‘H’ particularly. Petrark was released about 1900 by the German foundry of Schelter & Giesecke of Leipzig and is one of the designs of the period that attempts to reconcile roman and blackletter traditions. Making a cameo appearance in this Multi-Lingual font is the Anglo-Saxon letter yogh (#729), which, along with the thorn and the eth, is always useful for preparing flyers in Old English. There are still pockets of resistance to the Norman French influence that washed up on England’s shores in 1066. This font stands with King Canute, seeking to hold back the tide (ignoring the fact that Canute was a Dane). Support the fight to preserve Anglo-Saxon culture. Buy Petrarka ML today. Petrarka Initials brings together the Petrarka upper case letters with a very sympatico Art Nouveau rendering of a female face.

Tiresias was designed for subtitling by Dr. John Gill from the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), in the United Kingdom. The Tiresias font is designed to have characters that are easy to distinguish from each other, especially important for the visually impaired. The following key factors were considered during the design process: character shapes, relative weight of character stokes, intercharacter spacing, and aspect ratios that affect the maximum size at which the type could be used. The benefits of the Tiresias font are greatest on lower resolution displays, such as televisions, train and airline information terminals, and low resolution displays on wireless communication and handheld devices. InfoFont is for printed instructions on public terminals where legibility is the primary consideration; these instructions are often read at a distance of 30 to 70 cm. Infofont is not designed for large quantities of text. The Tiresias LPfont is a large print typeface specifically designed for people with low vision. Large print publications should be designed to specifically help with reading problems, and should not just be an enlarged version of the ordinary print. The Tiresias LPfont family, made up of roman, italic, and bold weights, was designed to address and solve these issues. The RNIB developed PCfont for people with low vision to use on computer screens. It is designed for use at larger sizes only. PCfont includes delta hinting technology in the font to ensure pixel-perfect display at key sizes. Signfont is for fixed (not internally illuminated) signage. The recommended usage is white or yellow characters on a matt dark background. Note that the “Z” versions have slashed zeroes, and are identical in all other respects. These faces were developed together with Dr. John Gill of the National Institute of the Blind, Dr. Janet Silver; optometrist of Moorfields Eye Hospital, Chris Sharville of Laker Sharville Design Associates, and Peter O'Donnell; type consultant. Tiresias himself is a figure from Greek mythology, a blind prophet from Thebes.

Breaking the cycle of homelessness We are partnered with The House of St. Barnabas, a private members club in Soho Square, whose work as a not for profit charity aims to break the cycle of homelessness in London. Each purchase (of the family pack) comes with a one month membership to The House and 100% of the proceeds from sales of fonts go directly to the charity to help their essential work. This unique collection of 7 typefaces is based on the disappearing signs of Soho, at risk of being lost forever due to the ever changing landscape of the area. By re-imaging the signage as complete fonts, we have rescued this rich visual history from the streets and present the typefaces into a contemporary context for a bright optimistic future. FS Berwick Thanks to its humble tiled origins, this Egyptian serif type maintains a uniform character width, creating the irregular letter proportions found in the final alphabet. Broad-shouldered, the bracketed serifs firmly ground the font, whilst its extreme hairlines become a necessity due to the uniform width. Of note is the upside down ‘S’, to be found on the original sign on Berwick Street. Perhaps due to its ceramic origins, there is a surprising ‘slippiness’ to its final appearance. FS Cattle Cattle & Son is best described as a wide, but not overly extended, grotesque-style sans serif, showing a uniform width and carrying a robust strength to its form. Whilst lightly functional overall, the purposeful diagonal legs of the ‘K’, ‘R’ and the tail of the ‘Q’ add an urgency to its appearance. The reduced size of the ampersand gives away Cattle & Son’s hand-painted origins, and the oblique compacted ‘LTD’ found on the original sign is also included in the final set. This beautiful sign is tucked away under an arch in Portland Mews, sheltering from the weather. Perhaps this is why it has lasted so long. FS Century This somewhat elongated set of Roman capitals was originally rendered in paint circa 1940, but its roots trace back to the Trajan Column in Rome. Witness the slightly unbalanced ‘W’ and the painter’s hand is revealed. Century’s flared serif style is extremely short, sharp and bracketed. The ‘M’ is splayed and has no top serifs. Century has a uniform appearance of width, probably due to its sign-written origins. Yet is elegant, classic and exudes sophistication. FS Charity A true Tuscan letterform, the original is located on The House of St. Barnabas in ceramic tiles and was revealed in all its broken glory in 2014. FS Charity retains the option of using these incorrect characters (try typing lowercase in the test drive above and compare with the more uniform uppercase characters). FS Charity features fishtailed terminals on its strokes, a curious branched ‘T’ and the ‘S’ displays tear-drop ends to its serifs. Almost uniform in width, the ‘A’, ‘M’ and ‘W’ are the widest characters in this set. FS Marlborough The elongated Marlborough features diagonal terminals to some characters and numerals. Also retained is the space-saving contracted ‘T’ glyph from the original sign, while the ‘R’ features a distinctive wedge-shaped leg. Highly individual in this form, similar signage appears around Soho, but featuring a variety of widths in their design. FS Portland The sister type to Cattle & Son, Portland is oblique rather than italic. The serifs are not overly long, yet still enhance its rather rigid cap height and baseline appearance. Its ‘A’ has a top serif, the ‘M’ is square and the ‘G’ foregoes any spur. Particularly delightful is the open ampersand. Numerals align to encourage the horizontal flavour of the oblique style. Overall, Portland is both confident and graceful. FS St James A lineal Continental style, St James also displays a true sense of ‘Londoness’ in its titling form, perhaps influenced by early Underground signage. Irregular letterforms display a continental flavour, particularly evident in its Deco style ‘W’, ampersand and numerals. The rather high cross bar in the ‘A’ is also reflected in the raised middle strokes of the ‘M’. Noteworthy are the distinctive unions found on all of the characters and the additional small caps. The original lettering is still located on Greek St.

Conrad X. 'Cobb' Shinn (Sept. 4, 1887- Jan. 28, 1951) was a Fillmore, Indiana-born post card illustrator who sold a series of successful novelty postcard lines which included (among others) Charlie Chaplin, automobiles and the Dutch culture in the beginning years of the 20th Century. After serving in World War I, Shinn found the market for novelty postcards dwindling, and he also lent his artistic skills to cartoon features and illustrating many children's books [including his own, under the nickname 'Uncle Cobb'] which taught easy step-by-step drawing methods. Some time in the 1920s, he eventually migrated into the field of supplying electrotypes and stereotypes of 'stock cuts' of photos and line art to the printing trade. In the days of letterpress printing, this was the forerunner of paper clip art and its successor, electronic clip art. Purchasing many of his designs from 'journeyman' artists of the time, the diversity of Cobb Shinn's stock cuts library grew with the passing years, reflecting changing times, styles and topics. Some of the illustrators whose signed works were presented in Shinn's 'CUTalogs' [as he called his stock cuts catalogs] include Mary Clemmitt, Louis H. Hippe, E.C. Klinge, Nelson White, Harvey Fuller, Bess Livings, Lois Head, Harvey Peake and Van Tuyl. Upon his passing in 1951, it's not known how long the Indianapolis-based company existed before finally closing its doors. One of the more popular series of cartoons were the line illustrations of men and women affectionately called 'little big head guys' by many modern fans of these cuts because the heads of the characters were drawn somewhat larger than the rest of their bodies. Shinn Kickers JNL is a collection twenty-six of these illustrations, and just like a kick in the shin (as the pun in the name implies), these charming cartoons get your attention.