Designed to be set in big, large and huge sizes in classic TNT (tight-not-touching) style, Benguiat Caslon is dynamite for a wide range of display demands. We also included outline and drop-shadow versions as well as numerous swash caps, ligatures, contextual alternates and automatically-shifting punctuation. Ed Benguiat originally designed this alphabet for the Photo-Lettering library during his tenure as the legendary type house’s art director. When we purchased Photo-Lettering in 2003, one of the first things we did was start picking some of our favorite films to digitize as fonts. Photo-Lettering partner Christian Schwartz chose this expressive serif specimen for its high contrast strokes that stand up to the most vigorous display typography demands without withering against pesky design limitations like screen resolution, ink spread and dot gain. FEATURES: Alternate characters, ligatures and contextual substitutions add an unexpected flair to words and phrases. We also provided a drop shadow to add depth and dimension. Shifting punctuation marks take care of those optical tricks so you don't have to. A delicately expressive outline version adds color even in black and white. BENGUIAT CASLON CREDITS: Typeface Design: Ed Benguiat Typeface Digitization: Christian Schwartz, Bas Smidt Typeface Production: Ben Kiel, Jason Campbell Like all good subversives, House Industries hides in plain sight while amplifying the look, feel and style of the world’s most interesting brands, products and people. Based in Delaware, visually influencing the world.

A tessellation is a pattern in which a shape or tile fits together with copies of itself to fill the plane with no gaps or overlaps. One type of tessellation is formed with sides of center-point rotation, that is, one half of an edge is rotated 180 degrees to form the other half. If a square template is made with sides of identical center-point rotation, there are exactly four shapes that are possible. If these shapes or tiles are fit together not edge to edge but vertex to vertex, the result is a checkerboard-like pattern of tiles and voids. However, the voids have four edges formed by the four possible shapes that the tiles can have, so the voids are limited to the same four shapes that that make up the tiles. The FabFours have 22 tile families that allow a wide variety of fascinating patterns. They form one, two, three, and four tile tessellation. Eleven of the seventeen symmetry groups can be formed with these patterns. In each tile family two of the shapes have two possible orientations, one shape has four possible orientations, and one has eight, for a total of 16 tiles. Each font has two families, one on letters A-P the other on a-p. For some of the families there are also other tiles using the same edge but using triangular and hexagonal templates. To get proper results, the leading must be set equal to the point size of the font. I discovered these fabulous families and their decorative possibilities as I was working on a book about tessellations. I have not been able to find anyone else who has written about these families of four and their decorative possibilities when arranged vertex to vertex.

ITC Christoph's Quill is just about everything you could want in a typeface: it's distinctive, beautiful, and exceptionally versatile. According to designer Russell Bean, ITC Christoph's Quill is the culmination of experimentation with a graphics tablet that spanned several years. Then one day, as if by magic, it all just fell into place. The design seemed to flow from my pen." Bean was born in Australia and, except for a brief stint with a photo-lettering firm in Southern California, has spent most of his career working down under. "I can recall a deep fascination for the written word," he says. "Even before learning to spell, read or write, I think I recognized that this was a means of visual communication." Bean's first job was in a small ad agency as a trainee in the production department, where he learned art techniques and how to handle print, as well as "the value of visual impressions," he says. His career path meandered from one design job to another, but always in the general direction of fonts and typefaces. Today, his workload consists of logo design commissions, font editing, typography and print production consultation to a select group of loyal clients - still leaving time, notes Bean, "to pursue my type design ambitions." ITC Christoph's Quill began life as a simple, visually striking font of caps, lowercase, punctuation and numerals. To this Bean added a bold weight, for when a little more strength is desirable. Next came a flock of alternate characters. Finally, Bean drew a set of decorative caps, a suite of logos, and a sprinkling of beginning and ending swashes. The net result is a type family that can add a signature flourish to a vast range of projects: from invitations and menus to logos, signage, packaging and more."

The idea for Quirky was born while I was looking at a book of etchings by British artist Graham Clarke. His signature, crawling spider-like across the page, fascinated me with its casual, almost messy, inky dark and light drama. I started scribbling the alphabet as I imagined he would write it, based on his signature, then continued, adding curls, making the characters more angular, and refining the dramatic play between dark and light. Finally, Quirky appeared. Apparently casual, Quirky is, in fact, a true connected script. Quirky is characteristic of contemporary handwriting: It appears loose, angular, unstructured, and free, while maintaining good form and legibility. Its baseline is varied, creating an impression of impatient handwriting, without losing legibility. Quirky comes in five styles: condensed -- the most dramatic form, with great drama between thick and thin condensed black -- as with condensed but allows the user to provide exceptional emphasis wide -- increased readability wide black -- increased readability and emphasis splat -- messy and ink-blotted -- a hint of grunge Use Quirky for advertising, for humorous greeting cards, for a funky fashion look or tongue-in-cheek spooky media. Quirky is a fully professional font with extensive use of OpenType Ligatures. For example: most common double letter combinations such as "ee" are rendered as two, slightly different shaped "e"s. This variation in letter shapes removes the cues by which the reader identifies that he is viewing a FONT and thus conveys a strong sense of hand-lettered text. Language support includes all European character sets and has been designed to be used with the following languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Basque, Bemba, Cornish, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, Ganda, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Kinyarwanda, Luo, Malagasy, Malay, Manx, Morisyen, North Ndebele, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Nyankole, Oromo, Portuguese, Romansh, Sango, Shona, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Swiss German and Zulu.

Waba Pronounced ‘Vah-bah’, is a font family that I designed. The name comes from a historical variation on the Estonian word ‘vaba’ – meaning ‘free’, or 'at liberty'. Back in 2017 I visited the Estonian Print & Paper Museum in Tartu to see its great collection of type (well worth a visit!). While I was there I saw some big woodcut blocks of Reklameschrift Herold - a super Art Nouveau/Jugendstil style display font. The Print & Paper Museum's collection covers both Latin and Cyrillic faces and as a foreigner in these parts I'm kind of fascinated by the exoticism of Cyrillic. How it is different but the same to the Latin letters I take for granted (as a humble Englander – no excuses). Not to mention, Jugendstil with its imitation of natural form, reverse-weights and looping-delicious curves (like you've left the window open all summer and the garden plants are climbing in). This mix of Jugendstil, Cyrillic letters and the beautiful historical border town of Tartu inspired me to start drawing Waba. Trimming the serifs from Herold, simplifying those angles and expanding the category of weights, then taking look at the magical logic of Berthold Block and doing a few things that just seemed right at the time – Waba is a bit of love letter to Estonia, the Baltics and the visual history of Eastern Europe. Waba Monogram Waba also contains a monogram face, which allows you to create any monogramming latin and cyrillic. Simply type out your 2-3-4 characters in Waba Monogram, making sure Contextual Alternates is turned on them voila! Monograms can be customised manually using the OpenType select-pop-up in Adobe. Also included are a few Discretionary Ligatures for Mc, De, Von etc. Monograms work best when Contextual Alternates is turned on.

Introducing Llandru, the display typeface of the future, where mechanical shapes meet sci-fi design in a bold, bizarre creation that’s sure to leave a lasting impression. Inspired by the very components that power our digital world, Llandru brings a unique twist to contemporary graphic design. With its sleek, edgy lines and futuristic appeal, Llandru is the perfect typeface for those who want to stand out from the crowd. And with OpenType stylistic alternates, you can access a variety of fascinating filled counter alternates to truly make your message pop. Take your designs to the next level with Llandru, where technology and otherworldly splendor collide. This typeface will give your message a sense of forward-thinking style that’s sure to captivate your audience. So why settle for ordinary when you can create something extraordinary with Llandru? Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

ITC Astro is the typeface that proves you can get your work done while watching cartoons. “It all started as a series of doodles while I was watching The Jetsons,” recalls Sasa Petricic. “The show's impossibly simplistic vision of the twenty-first century cried out for a font that fit into that world -- a world where everyday objects can carry far more fun and personality than they should.” ITC Astro is the first commercial typeface design from Petricic, whose “day job” is working as a reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Petricic has filed stories from across Canada and around the world for CBC's flagship evening newscast, The National. His reports have also appeared on CNN and BBC Television. Petricic's work as a correspondent and video journalist have taken him to six continents, covering everything from famine and genocide in Africa to the war in Iraq. With such serious matters filling the hours of Petricic's day as a journalist, it's not hard to see why he conceived Astro as a welcome blast of whimsy. “As I began to draw the design,” he says, “I decided that every part of Astro should be a cartoon character unto itself.” Each character has its own baseline shadow (or coaster, or circular antigravity generator, depending on how you look at things). The angular caps dance jauntily, rocking from left to right, while a suite of companion small caps provide backup. The end result is a design quite unlike any other, with surprising charm and versatility. ITC Astro comes in a two-weight family of White and Black.

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.”

On a distant planet, there was a typeface that stood out from the rest. Hachimitsu, the kaiju-inspired top-heavy display font, was born from the depths of the Showa era. Its towering presence and unique design draw inspiration from the iconic signs of old Japan. Hachimitsu’s futuristic style brings a retro 1960s science fiction vibe to any message, transporting it to another dimension. Its bold, thick strokes make a statement, demanding attention from all who encounter it. Its angular and sleek curves are reminiscent of alien spacecraft, flying through the vast expanse of the universe. With Hachimitsu, your message will be infused with a distinct and fascinating voice. Whether you’re creating a poster for a sci-fi convention or designing a book cover for a thrilling space adventure, Hachimitsu’s Japanese-inspired design is sure to captivate your audience. Unleash the power of Hachimitsu and take your design to new frontiers. Let its otherworldly charm bring your vision to life and transport your audience on a journey through the stars. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Crox™ is a sans-serif professional typeface inspired by crude geometry, creativity, and art. In the font family, there are 19 styles, including upright and italic, It is constructed of big lowercase letters with a maximum x-height for excellent optical reading. English letters are supported as a numerator and denominator set, this feature may aid in the creation of fractions using letters and numbers, as well as for sophisticated scripting and various scientific fractions forms. All weights support over 25 professional OpenType features within each style, with extensive coverage of western languages. These features were originally planned for personal and professional use, including multi-alternative characters in Styles: 1, 2, 4, 10, 11. Operational styles 6, 7 are enhanced with some scientific forms, to write the fit derived (SI units' expressions). Otherwise, it supports a wide range of professional factory pricing styles for business and marketing, as well as retail pricing styles in Sets 5, 8, and 9, with ligatures, old-style numerals, ordinals, swashes... Crox™ is enhanced with a poster weight like the fantastical type to fulfill your creative needs in three styles: poster, poster oblique, and poster italic for ADS and web design, branding, or product design. Glyphs: More than 970 glyphs, including those accessible with OpenType features. Powerful OpenType features: Standard Ligature, Alternate access, Automatic ordinals (English, French...), Case sensitive, localized forms, Numerator set, Denominator set, Subscript, Superscript, Swash, Stylistic alternate, Styles 1,2,3,4,5(Pricing style 1), 6(Derived Units),7(Advanced Fractions for Scientific units, Derived Units Vulgar Form), Set 8 (Pricing Style 2), Set (Pricing Style 3), Proportional Old-style, Tabular Old-style, Proportional Lining, Tabular Lining, Zero with slash, Fractions (Default, Automatic). Suitable for: logo and modern branding, web design, packaging, Product packaging, Articles, scientific document, Product user guides, multiple works in the Media, Design, ADS... Specimen Crox™ is a trademark of Yassine Abdi.

Fruitygreen is Indonesian designer Andi AW. Masry's second typeface following Coomeec™. Idiosyncratic but appealing forms are the signature feature of Fruitygreen™ and provide this new typeface with its truly distinctive character that you can utilize for your projects - and not just in headlines. The unique forms of fruits are not only individually fascinating, but are just as captivating when they are brought together, for example as decoration on a dining table. For Masry, these can be compared with an alphabet whose letters spell out in combination different words and with this as his inspiration, he based his designs for Fruitygreen on the versatile forms of fruits. However, it was not the whole fruits as such but rather small sections of their curves and ends that he decided to use. It is not only because of the characteristic line terminals that the rounded characters of Fruitygreen seem at first glance reminiscent of a brush-written calligraphic typeface; these are traces of the creation process, in which Masry used a digital brush. At the same time, Fruitygreen is by no means simply a brush font. Its dynamic characters reference biological forms and there is definitely something amoeba-like about them, particularly in the bolder variants, and they exude the same serenity and harmony that is inherent to organic structures. The many unconventionally shaped characters also provide for optical contrast. There is, for example, the very scaled down g", the open "q" and the lowercase "r", which has the form of the capital letter. Other letters, such as the sinuous "k" and the rounded uppercase "F" impart an exotic touch to Fruitygreen. Similarly remarkable is the "@", that has only a semi-circle. Available to the designer are other characters that can be used to accentuate a design, such as swash capitals and numerous ligatures. And, last but not least, there are also various numeral sets with oldstyle and lining figures for setting proportional text and table columns together with a selection of symbols, such as arrows and, appropriately, fruits. "

The Englishman William Caslon punchcut many roman, italic, and non-Latin typefaces from 1720 until his death in 1766. At that time most types were being imported to England from Dutch sources, so Caslon was influenced by the characteristics of Dutch types. He did, however, achieve a level of craft that enabled his recognition as the first great English punchcutter. Caslon's roman became so popular that it was known as the script of kings, although on the other side of the political spectrum (and the ocean), the Americans used it for their Declaration of Independence in 1776. The original Caslon specimen sheets and punches have long provided a fertile source for the range of types bearing his name. Identifying characteristics of most Caslons include a cap A with a scooped-out apex; a cap C with two full serifs; and in the italic, a swashed lowercase v and w. Caslon's types have achieved legendary status among printers and typographers, and are considered safe, solid, and dependable. ITC Founder's Caslon® was created in 1998 by Justin Howes, an English designer who used the resources of the St. Bride Printing Library in London to thoroughly research William Caslon and his types. As was common in the eighteenth century, Caslon had punchcut several different sizes of his types, and each size had a slightly different design. Howes digitized every size of type that Caslon cast, keeping their peculiarities and irregularities and reproducing them as they appeared on the printed page. This family has the 12 point, 30 point, 42 point, and Poster styles, as well as a full set of bona fide ornaments. In keeping with the original Caslon types, none of the sizes have bold weights, the numerals are all old style figures, and a full set of ligatures (some with quaint forms) are included. ITC Founder's Caslon® is a remarkable revival in the true sense of the word, and works beautifully in graphic designs or texts that require an authentic English or historical flavor.

Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed. Elegant but with that distance that well-defined forms seem to impose. Her voice, however, was sweeter, closer, and when she spoke her name, like a slow whisper, one felt like what she had come to say could be read in her image. Rufina's story can only be told through a detour because her origin does not coincide with her birth. Rufina was born on a Sunday afternoon while her father was drawing black letters on a white background, and her mother was trying to join those same letters to form words that could tell a story. But her origin goes much further back, and that is why she is pierced by a story that precedes her, even though it is not her own. Maybe her origin can be traced back to that autumn night in which that tall man with that distant demeanor ran into that woman with that sweet smile and elegant aspect. He looked at her in such a way that he was trapped by that gaze, even though they found no words to say to each other, and they stayed in silence. Somehow, some words leaked into that gaze because since that moment they were never apart again. Later, after they started talking, projects started coming up and then coexistence and arguments, routines and mismatches. But in that chaos of crossed words in their life together, something was stable through the silence of the gazes. In those gazes, the silent words sustained that indescribable love that they didn't even try to understand. And in one of those silences, Rufina appeared, when that man told that woman that he needed a text to try out his new font, and she saw him look at her with that same fascination of the first time, and she started to write something with those forms that he was giving her as a gift. Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed, wrote her mother when Rufina was born.

Buffet Script is based on fantastic calligraphy by Alf Becker, arguably the greatest American sign lettering artist of all time. The Alf Becker series of nameless alphabets published by Sign of the Times magazine in 1941 has attracted letter digitizers for a few years now, so it’s really a wonder that a few of those alphabets are still in the non-digital realm. It is understandable, though, that the basis for Buffet Script was not digitally attempted until now. The page presenting this alphabet shows a jungle of letters running into each others and swashes intertwining. The massive amount of work involved in digitizing such lettering, where scanning is nowhere near being an option, is quite obvious at a mere glance. If anyone was going to commit this particular alphabet to a digital form, it would have to be redrawn stroke by stroke and curve by curve on the computer. And don't we love a challenge! But seriously, the challenge was not the main attraction. In a way, the Becker approach to lettering is so far from digital that the imagination is almost forced to work out possibilities and letter combinations to solve problems presented by the scant showings in that magazine. After a few imaginative visualizations, the digital potential becomes clear in the mind, and the eye and hand follow. The result with Whomp (another Alf Becker-inspired work) was an enormous font with a lot of alternates and ligatures. With Buffet Script the imaginative process was no different, but the result particularly shines here, because this is some of the most fascinating flowing calligraphy ever seen. Calligraphy is where the accountability of all the little extra touches, such as alternates and swashes and ligatures, is raised to a higher level than in most other type categories. Buffet Script’s OpenType programming contains discretionary ligatures, stylistic and contextual alternates, interacting with each other to allow the composition of just the right word or sentence. This font is best used where lush elegance is one of the design’s requirements.

Based on a specimen of an obscure and uncredited old face called Kitterland, Hamlet is one of those curiosities hardly ever noticed in the world of modern fonts, the kind that infuses a variety of historic Blackletter and calligraphy traits in an otherwise Roman alphabet. Such typefaces, what few of them exist, are almost always classified by typophiles as traditional decorative Roman alphabets. We beg to differ. We think such hybrids are fascinating enough to deserve a classification of their own. And we think today's aspiring letterers and type designers would benefit from paying special attention to this kind of hybrid alphabet, not only because it has much more hand than machine in it, but also because it is a prime example of how to succeed in mixing different lettering techniques into one self-contained and distinctly functional alphabet. As in any efficient mixture of lettering methods, Hamlet ended up with characters that are uniquely its own, such as the cupped A, M, V, W and Y, the very luscious and inviting curves on the arms of E, F, L and T, both single- and double-story forms of the a, and the humblest, friendliest g and y ever. A dozen alternate characters are sprinkled throughout the character set, so check out the map for a few pleasant surprises. We also made the Handtooled and Headstone styles because we thought these friendly forms were just crying out for such treatments. The Handtooled version turned out quite lovely, if we may say so ourselves, perhaps even better than the main font. The Headstone version is available as a free bonus to those who purchase the complete Hamlet package. All Hamlet styles come with lining figures as well as old style ones. Hamlet comes in all popular font formats. The OpenType fonts contain push-button swapping alternates and figures, which come in handy in software programs that support this kind of thing.

Introducing Movatif, the typeface that effortlessly combines the best of 20th Century sans-serif typefaces into one irresistible mash-up. With seven different weights to choose from, this font has the versatility to make any design stand out. But Movatif isn’t just any ordinary font—it’s packed with OpenType features that will leave your audience in awe. By simply pairing certain letters together, you can create a captivating visual effect that will absolutely freak folks out. Take the letters M and A, for example—they snap together in a way that is both cool and slightly fascinating. But what really sets Movatif apart is the way familiar pieces interact in unexpected ways. With every letter, your design takes on a personalized style that captures the dreary 1970s malaise in a fashionable way. So if you want to create something truly unique, give Movatif a try. With its versatile weights and captivating features, it’s the typeface that will take your design to the next level. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed. Elegant but with that distance that well-defined forms seem to impose. Her voice, however, was sweeter, closer, and when she spoke her name, like a slow whisper, one felt like what she had come to say could be read in her image. Rufina’s story can only be told through a detour because her origin does not coincide with her birth. Rufina was born on a Sunday afternoon while her father was drawing black letters on a white background, and her mother was trying to join those same letters to form words that could tell a story. But her origin goes much further back, and that is why she is pierced by a story that precedes her, even though it is not her own. Maybe her origin can be traced back to that autumn night in which that tall man with that distant demeanor ran into that woman with that sweet smile and elegant aspect. He looked at her in such a way that he was trapped by that gaze, even though they found no words to say to each other, and they stayed in silence. Somehow, some words leaked into that gaze because since that moment they were never apart again. Later, after they started talking, projects started coming up and then coexistence and arguments, routines and mismatches. But in that chaos of crossed words in their life together, something was stable through the silence of the gazes. In those gazes, the silent words sustained that indescribable love that they didn’t even try to understand. And in one of those silences, Rufina appeared, when that man told that woman that he needed a text to try out his new font, and she saw him look at her with that same fascination of the first time, and she started to write something with those forms that he was giving her as a gift. Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed, wrote her mother when Rufina was born. Photo (Fragilité): Karin Topolanski / Post: Raw (www.raw.com.uy) - María Pérez Gutiérrez

Elegant and round Having harboured a desire for a rounded font within the Fontsmith library for some time, Phil Garnham recognised that FS Emeric offered the perfect skeleton around which to design it. Most new rounded fonts rely on scripts or other in-app automation to form their characters. For all their warmth and approachability, they too often conjure images of jelly sweets and sausages. Not so FS Aldrin, where every curve and transition has been crafted by hand, giving a distinctive look and elegant feel. Design highlights FS Aldrin enjoys wide-open ‘lunar’ counters and soft, tube-like terminals. These improve legibility, especially on backlit signage and screens. The open proportions and circular strokes are juxtaposed against a more serious technical aspect that exists within each counter shape. The lighter weights feel precise and efficient, perfect for notes on blueprints or technical drawings. The heavy weights are equally crafted but more playful by their rotund nature, and are perfect for strong headlines or packaging projects. UI icons A suite of 268 icons complement the typeface beautifully and extend the design language in all directions. They cover a range of commonly used applications and themes ranging from ecommerce to weather, and also serve as a solid starting point for a bespoke brand icon set or UI. In addition, born of FS Aldrin’s astronomical theme and playful nature is a special collection of space-themed icons, including rockets, shuttles and lunar modules (hint: if you type the word BUZZ with ligatures enabled, an astronaut appears). Earth to Buzz Buzz Aldrin was the pilot of Apollo 11’s lunar module, the one that put man on The Moon for the very first time. Early on in the project’s life, FS Aldrin emerged as the ideal hook on which to hang the font’s space helmet (hardly surprising given Phil’s fascination with space travel and astronomy). An approach was made to Buzz’s management to see if he would sanction the association. Not only was the great man himself happy to see his name on a typeface, he also asked to use it in his upcoming keynote talks, book launches and online projects.

Cute FS Kitty is the type equivalent of Bagpuss: plump, cute, cuddly and not fond of exercise. So don’t go giving it a run-out on body copy; FS Kitty is an all-caps font made for showing off in posters and headlines, and on products, point-of sale and especially sweets. Blubber Kitty had been quietly curled up in Phil Garnham’s sketchbook for a year before he brought it out to be brushed up. “It was in the mix as a basic form when I started thinking about FS Lola. It was a twisted, bubbly beauty – quite squishable and huggable. The working file was called Blubber. “At that time it was a basic construction of strokes. I created the ‘A’ first, purely as a shape to play with, not as type. I flipped it for ‘V’, and copied that for a ‘W’. I flipped the ‘W’ for an ‘M’... I thought, ‘This looks a bit wacky, but I like it,’ and just carried on. The most tricky characters were the ‘B’ ‘P’ and ‘R’. I must have drawn about 20 kinds of B for this, just to get it to fit.” Variety “When the regular weight of Kitty had been designed,” says Jason Smith, “it just felt like a natural progression to go on and explore how far we could go with it: Light, Solid, Headline, Shadow.” Phil Garnham thinks there’s still more to come. “There are some really individual characters in this font that I think have yet to be exploited: the Greek Omega symbol, the strange face in the ampersand. Like Bagpuss, Kitty has kept a low profile so far. “We know people are using Kitty. In fact, it was the first of any of our fonts that we sold on the day it was released. But I still haven’t seen it out there in the wild. It’s going to be a exciting moment.”

Cute FS Kitty is the type equivalent of Bagpuss: plump, cute, cuddly and not fond of exercise. So don’t go giving it a run-out on body copy; FS Kitty is an all-caps font made for showing off in posters and headlines, and on products, point-of sale and especially sweets. Blubber Kitty had been quietly curled up in Phil Garnham’s sketchbook for a year before he brought it out to be brushed up. “It was in the mix as a basic form when I started thinking about FS Lola. It was a twisted, bubbly beauty – quite squishable and huggable. The working file was called Blubber. “At that time it was a basic construction of strokes. I created the ‘A’ first, purely as a shape to play with, not as type. I flipped it for ‘V’, and copied that for a ‘W’. I flipped the ‘W’ for an ‘M’... I thought, ‘This looks a bit wacky, but I like it,’ and just carried on. The most tricky characters were the ‘B’ ‘P’ and ‘R’. I must have drawn about 20 kinds of B for this, just to get it to fit.” Variety “When the regular weight of Kitty had been designed,” says Jason Smith, “it just felt like a natural progression to go on and explore how far we could go with it: Light, Solid, Headline, Shadow.” Phil Garnham thinks there’s still more to come. “There are some really individual characters in this font that I think have yet to be exploited: the Greek Omega symbol, the strange face in the ampersand. Like Bagpuss, Kitty has kept a low profile so far. “We know people are using Kitty. In fact, it was the first of any of our fonts that we sold on the day it was released. But I still haven’t seen it out there in the wild. It’s going to be a exciting moment.”

ZX Spectrum In 1982, a home computer came on the market that would launch the UK IT industry. The ZX Spectrum sold five million units and spawned thousands of software titles. It was the must-have gadget for every teen. FS Sinclair is inspired by the memory of Sir Clive Sinclair’s greatest creation: the experience of entering its clunky command codes and reading its simple, grid-placed type. Smart, switched-on, great in text and display, FS Sinclair is a modern grid-based font, drawn with the Spectrum in mind and brought to life by well thought-out design. Formula Having completed the font for Channel 4’s brand update, the Fontsmith team defined the formula for its next font: the creative essence of the C4 work but with more structural discipline, more rigid form and a little more seriousness. The new font wouldn’t look self-consciously retro but it would reference the past and, it was hoped, influence the future. Readability Like the ZX Spectrum, it took a while for the new font to do exactly what it was meant to do. Many of the early concepts by Phil Garnham and Jason Smith were too jagged – the result of an awareness of getting too close to existing fonts of the same ilk, such as Wim Crouwel’s Gridnik. Eventually, FS Sinclair evolved into a more readable, functional grid-based type design that answered Phil and Jason’s original, self-set brief. Idiosyncratic There’s a technological, systems feel to FS Sinclair but ultimately, humans are in charge. The lowercase “a”, “n”, “m” and “r” have clean-cut “ears”, and the square-ish design is softened by round joins on the inside of the letterforms. The idiosyncratic design of letters such as “g”, “j”, “k”, “v”, “w” and “y” bring the design up to date. This is a modular font with character, and a range of weights that allow varied application.

The classic modernist FS Alvar grew out of a library of pure modular shapes gathered by Fontsmith’s master of the abstract starting point, Mr Phil Garnham. “It was a collection that just had to be explored and brought to life in a typographic voice. “We debated long and hard about this. It was big decision to make a shift away from the typefaces that people knew us for. And we didn’t want to compromise our reputation of well crafted typographic quality”. Modular forms A headline font that’s both graphic and functional, in the modernist tradition, FS Alvar focused Fontsmith’s eyes on the bigger issue of what makes a font show its age. “Looking at those fonts from the 1980s that were supposed to represent the ‘future’,” says Phil, “they looked so dated now. With Alvar, we weren’t concerned with creating future-thinking typography but with exploring form for form’s sake, and how that can evolve to create letterforms. Modular forms with a typographic eye.” Stencilled The concept for Alvar first materialised back in 2001 with some sketches Phil made while still at Middlesex University. Eight years later, something made him dig them out again. “There was something really nice about the proportions of that first design. Working on it again, I thought about it properly, but it still needed something to give it that edge. “Jason stood up in the studio and supplied the missing link: ‘Why don’t we make it stencilled?’ He didn’t mean in an obvious way, but by building a kind of architectural stencil into the form. It worked and the idea of using an architect’s name (Alvar Aalto) to describe the font felt perfect.” Featured in... The three weights of FS Alvar are made for standout headlines in advertising campaigns and magazines. Alvar has had a starring role in campaigns for brands from Nike to Amnesty International, as well as on CD covers, record labels and packaging.

Step back in time with Marion, the transitional serif typeface that exudes a nineteenth-century flair. With its classic structure reminiscent of Century Roman, Marion stands out with a stroke treatment that’s closer to the timeless elegance of Baskerville. The inspiration for Marion comes from a diverse array of old metal typefaces, resulting in a design that’s uniquely historic and fascinating. One of the most distinctive features of Marion is the hammer claw shape of the serifs, adding a touch of industrial charm and a smokestack vibe. The font is available in Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic, allowing for a range of possibilities when it comes to design. With old-style numerals and standard f-ligatures, Marion offers the perfect balance between historical design and modern-day functionality. Additionally, it includes some eccentric discretionary ligatures and chirpy swash letters, adding a whimsical touch to your graphic design projects. Take your design to the next level with Marion. Its historically inspired design and unique features are sure to add a touch of elegance and sophistication to any project, making it the perfect choice for designers looking to create something truly remarkable. Most Latin-based European, Vietnamese, Greek, and most Cyrillic-based writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Buryat, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dungan, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Gikuyu, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaingang, Khalkha, Kalmyk, Kanuri, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kazakh, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Komi-Permyak, Kurdish, Kurdish (Latin), Kyrgyz, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Macedonian, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Nahuatl, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Russian, Rusyn, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tajik, Tatar, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Uzbek (Latin), Venda, Venetian, Vepsian, Vietnamese, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xavante, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec, Zarma, Zazaki, Zulu and Zuni.

Rahere Esoteric is a gothic-flavoured, quasi-Roman display font with an eccentric persona and more quirks than a Tim Burton film. A member of the extended Rahere typeface family, it’s the enigmatic cousin of Rahere Roman Display & Rahere Sans. This is a niche display font that doesn’t try to please everyone. Rahere Esoteric revels in its mystical aura, using a bewildering array of ligatures to magically transmute itself as characters loop, curl, jerk and strut, randomly connecting and disconnecting into words like a retro-futuristic steam train clattering along a disused railway track, challenging and delighting the reader at the same time. To add more sparkle, there are alternatives, inferior and superior caps plus a [Wicca] basketful of symbols, ornaments, weird faces and even a snake-infused ampersand. Whilst Rahere Esoteric has been designed primarily as an all-caps font, the lowercase slots contain small caps with corresponding numerals. However, because this is an arcane, unpredictable font, order and regularity are frowned upon, which means there are no tabular numerals – so company reports or accounts are a solid no! Unless they’re for the Golden Circle of Alchemists PLC or Gothic Blackstar Corporation. It is ideal for all things pagan, esoteric, alchemy, other-worldly or magic-related projects and particularly useful for music genres across the Gothic / Darkwave / Ethereal spectrum. What about legibility? Hey, look into my eyes: Esoteric is all about the mystique. If a secondary font is needed for the important stuff, I recommend its cousin, Rahere Sans, which pairs beautifully with this display font and is perfect for long passages or small text. The initial idea for Rahere Esoteric came about during a visit to Whitby, a small coastal town in Yorkshire, UK and famous for its inclusion in Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula. A Steampunk festival was in full swing and the narrow streets of the town centre were teeming with people adorned in a glorious fusion of clothing and accessories influenced by a love of 19th-century life, science fiction, horror, fashion and art. I was fascinated by the juxtapositions of colour, patterns, material and style – archaic mechanical Sci-fi, gothic, the American Wild West and romantic Victorian. But what intrigued me the most, somehow, all the disparate elements worked as a whole. Thus, like Frankenstein, this font jolted into existence. Supported languages include Western Europe, Vietnamese, Central/Eastern Europe, Baltic, Turkish and Romanian.

Mencap When most of us go about everyday tasks, we take for granted the reading that’s involved, on instructions, labels and so on. For people with learning disabilities, reading is made much harder by certain fonts. FS Me is designed specifically to improve legibility for people with learning disabilities. The font was researched and developed with – and endorsed by – Mencap, the UK’s leading charity and voice for those with learning disabilities. Mencap receive a donation for each font license purchased. Every letter of FS Me was tested for its appeal and readability with a range of learning disability groups across the UK. Inclusive Fontsmith were determined to design a font that was accessible to those with learning disabilities without standing out as such – one that was inclusive of all readers. It should comply with accessibility guidelines and work best at 12pt, but still have a character of its own that was warm and approachable. “So much accessible design is done separately to the main body of brand work,” says Jason Smith. “We wanted to make a typeface that covered both brand tone and neutrality, and that could be used legitimately as a brand font as well as in accessible design.” Me, you, everyone FS Me is about design that doesn’t patronise. People with learning disabilities are often treated as inferior by childlike design. FS Me is designed for adults, not children – a beautifully-designed font for everyone. Its features include very subtle distinguishing elements of each letter to aid the reading and comprehension of texts, and tails, ascenders and descenders that have been extended for extra clarity. What the people said... Here is a sample of comments from the extensive research groups that helped to shape the letterforms of FS Me: “I want something round, clear and friendly.” “We like movement in the letters but don’t want anything childish.” “The ‘b’ and ‘d’ need to be different as they can be confused.” “I prefer the handwriting-style ‘a’.” “It’s important to have an accessible ‘a’ and ‘g’. Teachers sometimes complain that learners cannot read or understand the inaccessible ‘a’ and ‘g’.”

Mencap When most of us go about everyday tasks, we take for granted the reading that’s involved, on instructions, labels and so on. For people with learning disabilities, reading is made much harder by certain fonts. FS Me is designed specifically to improve legibility for people with learning disabilities. The font was researched and developed with – and endorsed by – Mencap, the UK’s leading charity and voice for those with learning disabilities. Mencap receive a donation for each font license purchased. Every letter of FS Me was tested for its appeal and readability with a range of learning disability groups across the UK. Inclusive Fontsmith were determined to design a font that was accessible to those with learning disabilities without standing out as such – one that was inclusive of all readers. It should comply with accessibility guidelines and work best at 12pt, but still have a character of its own that was warm and approachable. “So much accessible design is done separately to the main body of brand work,” says Jason Smith. “We wanted to make a typeface that covered both brand tone and neutrality, and that could be used legitimately as a brand font as well as in accessible design.” Me, you, everyone FS Me is about design that doesn’t patronise. People with learning disabilities are often treated as inferior by childlike design. FS Me is designed for adults, not children – a beautifully-designed font for everyone. Its features include very subtle distinguishing elements of each letter to aid the reading and comprehension of texts, and tails, ascenders and descenders that have been extended for extra clarity. What the people said... Here is a sample of comments from the extensive research groups that helped to shape the letterforms of FS Me: “I want something round, clear and friendly.” “We like movement in the letters but don’t want anything childish.” “The ‘b’ and ‘d’ need to be different as they can be confused.” “I prefer the handwriting-style ‘a’.” “It’s important to have an accessible ‘a’ and ‘g’. Teachers sometimes complain that learners cannot read or understand the inaccessible ‘a’ and ‘g’.”

Tomato is the digitization and quite elaborate expansion of an early 1970s Franklin Photolettering film type called Viola Flare. This typeface is an obvious child of funk, the audio-visual revolution that swept America and put an end to the art nouveau period we now associate with the hippy era. Funk is of course little more than jazz with a chorus and an emphatic beat. Nevertheless, it became the definition of cool in the 1970s, thanks to blaxploitation movies with excellent soundtracks like Shaft and Superfly. Funk began as a commercial audio experience, then later expanded its signature to cover everything, from design to fashion to the later birth of disco, which is really a further simplification of funk. Funk had very strong and unique typographical elements, particularly a kind of titling with an essentially western, wooden core that suddenly changed and flared in unexpected areas until a very individual brand was achieved. Everything that can be tacked on to the alphabet was used towards that individuality. Things like curls, swirls, swashes, ligatures were always plentiful in funk, sometimes giving the titling a specific gender, sometimes bulging, sometimes speeding, sometimes fading in the distance, sometimes doing nothing but crazily aligning with other design elements, but the result was always a fascinating creature that seemed to invariably want to dance and have fun. Tomato was built in exactly that spirit. The original film type certainly had enough swashes and curls to be an unmistakable funk font in itself, but our further expansion of it cements it and makes it the definite font for the genre. With as many as 12 different possibilities for some letters, the designer's choices for a titling set in Tomato are virtually limitless. The Postscript and True Type versions of Tomato come in five fonts, including two fonts for alternates, one font for ligatures, and one font for swashes. These are split into two affordable packages. The entire family package is also available at an even more affordable price, and includes complimentary Cyrillic, Greek, Turkish, and Central European versions of Tomato. A Tomato Pro OpenType version is also available. It is a single font that includes over 650 characters, glued together with extensive programming for convenience of use in OpenType-friendly applications, where you can watch the letters morph and dance as you push the buttons and change the options of your OT palette. Now you know which font will come to mind when someone says the word "funky".

Inspired by the type elements of 17th century Dutch mapmaking, Boncaire Titling provides you with a historic yet adventurous look for your library. This addition from insigne found its muse in a map of Curacao by Dutch cartographer Gerard Van Keulen, a member of the prosperous Van Keulen family from Amsterdam, who were engaged in the manufacture of maps for seafaring. Much thanks on this project goes to The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, housed at the Boston Public Library. Through the centers kindness, I was able to view a number of period maps in person and to meet with curators, who explained more about the Van Keulen family and the way maps of the period were created. While I studied the maps, I narrowed in on some of the original types unique idiosyncrasies. For instance, the long, exaggerated serifs, which give the forms a sense of stability, aid in the faces legibility--largely a byproduct of the engraving method that was used to create the metal plates for manufacturing these maps. In creating Boncaire Titling, I decided to capture these unique idiosyncrasies, embracing the character of the engravings rather than removing them entirely through over-refining the forms. The result is an elegant family with far more than seafaring potential. This font has a full range of six weights, from thin to black. It also includes a wide variety of OpenType alternates. All insigne fonts are fully loaded with OpenType features. Boncaire Titling is also equipped for complex professional typography, including alternates, smaller titling caps and plenty of alts, including normalized capitals and lowercase letters. There are over 30 autoreplacing ligatures, and the face includes a number of numeral sets, including fractions, old-style and lining figures with superiors and inferiors. OpenType capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe suite can take full advantage of automatically replacing ligatures and alternates. You can find these features demonstrated in the .pdf brochure. Boncaire Titling also includes the glyphs to support a wide range of languages, including Central, Eastern and Western European languages. In all, Boncaire Titling supports over 40 languages that use the extended Latin script, making the new addition a great choice for multi-lingual publications and packaging. Maps are fascinating; they come with the promise of treasure to be uncovered. Examining the map itself, too, you can find great wealth in the details so artfully condensed to that single piece of paper--details carried over into this new insigne font. For your next project, explore the imagination potential in Boncaire Titling.