The concept of the Baroque Roman type face is something which is remote from us. Ungrateful theorists gave Baroque type faces the ill-sounding attribute "Transitional", as if the Baroque Roman type face wilfully diverted from the tradition and at the same time did not manage to mature. This "transition" was originally meant as an intermediate stage between the Aldine/Garamond Roman face of the Renaissance, and its modern counterpart, as represented by Bodoni or Didot. Otherwise there was also a "transition" from a slanted axis of the shadow to a perpendicular one. What a petty detail led to the pejorative designation of Baroque type faces! If a bookseller were to tell his customers that they are about to choose a book which is set in some sort of transitional type face, he would probably go bust. After all, a reader, for his money, would not put up with some typographical experimentation. He wants to read a book without losing his eyesight while doing so. Nevertheless, it was Baroque typography which gave the world the most legible type faces. In those days the craft of punch-cutting was gradually separating itself from that of book-printing, but also from publishing and bookselling. Previously all these activities could be performed by a single person. The punch-cutter, who at that time was already fully occupied with the production of letters, achieved better results than he would have achieved if his creative talents were to be diffused in a printing office or a bookseller's shop. Thus it was possible that for example the printer John Baskerville did not cut a single letter in his entire lifetime, for he used the services of the accomplished punch-cutter John Handy. It became the custom that one type founder supplied type to multiple printing offices, so that the same type faces appeared in various parts of the world. The type face was losing its national character. In the Renaissance period it is still quite easy to distinguish for example a French Roman type face from a Venetian one; in the Baroque period this could be achieved only with great difficulties. Imagination and variety of shapes, which so far have been reserved only to the fine arts, now come into play. Thanks to technological progress, book printers are now able to reproduce hairstrokes and imitate calligraphic type faces. Scripts and elaborate ornaments are no longer the privilege of copper-engravers. Also the appearance of the basic, body design is slowly undergoing a change. The Renaissance canonical stiffness is now replaced with colour and contrast. The page of the book is suddenly darker, its lay-out more varied and its lines more compact. For Baroque type designers made a simple, yet ingenious discovery - they enlarged the x-height and reduced the ascenders to the cap-height. The type face thus became seemingly larger, and hence more legible, but at the same time more economical in composition; the type area was increasing to the detriment of the margins. Paper was expensive, and the aim of all the publishers was, therefore, to sell as many ideas in as small a book block as possible. A narrowed, bold majuscule, designed for use on the title page, appeared for the first time in the Late Baroque period. Also the title page was laid out with the highest possible economy. It comprised as a rule the brief contents of the book and the address of the bookseller, i.e. roughly that which is now placed on the flaps and in the imprint lines. Bold upper-case letters in the first line dramatically give way to the more subtle italics, the third line is highlighted with vermilion; a few words set in lower-case letters are scattered in-between, and then vermilion appears again. Somewhere in the middle there is an ornament, a monogram or an engraving as a kind of climax of the drama, while at the foot of the title-page all this din is quietened by a line with the name of the printer and the year expressed in Roman numerals, set in 8-point body size. Every Baroque title-page could well pass muster as a striking poster. The pride of every book printer was the publication of a type specimen book - a typographical manual. Among these manuals the one published by Fournier stands out - also as regards the selection of the texts for the specimen type matter. It reveals the scope of knowledge and education of the master typographers of that period. The same Fournier established a system of typographical measurement which, revised by Didot, is still used today. Baskerville introduced the smoothing of paper by a hot steel roller, in order that he could print astonishingly sharp letters, etc. ... In other words - Baroque typography deserves anything else but the attribute "transitional". In the first half of the 18th century, besides persons whose names are prominent and well-known up to the present, as was Caslon, there were many type founders who did not manage to publish their manuals or forgot to become famous in some other way. They often imitated the type faces of their more experienced contemporaries, but many of them arrived at a quite strange, even weird originality, which ran completely outside the mainstream of typographical art. The prints from which we have drawn inspiration for these six digital designs come from Paris, Vienna and Prague, from the period around 1750. The transcription of letters in their intact form is our firm principle. Does it mean, therefore, that the task of the digital restorer is to copy meticulously the outline of the letter with all inadequacies of the particular imprint? No. The type face should not to evoke the rustic atmosphere of letterpress after printing, but to analyze the appearance of the punches before they are imprinted. It is also necessary to take account of the size of the type face and to avoid excessive enlargement or reduction. Let us keep in mind that every size requires its own design. The longer we work on the computer where a change in size is child's play, the more we are convinced that the appearance of a letter is tied to its proportions, and therefore, to a fixed size. We are also aware of the fact that the computer is a straightjacket of the type face and that the dictate of mathematical vectors effectively kills any hint of naturalness. That is why we strive to preserve in these six alphabets the numerous anomalies to which later no type designer ever returned due to their obvious eccentricity. Please accept this PostScript study as an attempt (possibly futile, possibly inspirational) to brush up the warm magic of Baroque prints. Hopefully it will give pleasure in today's modern type designer's nihilism.

The Clog font family is represented by four different outlines - Normal, Open Face, Shadowed and Engraved. Each of them could be your best choice when designing a wine label, package or magazine headline. By using Open Face and Shadowed outlines you will discover how easy it is to produce unique design of its own style.

Darling, you don’t just look GOOD, you look FANTASTIC! IRRESISTIBLE! IMMACULATE! Those soft curves, those sharp lines, those INLINES... that MAGNIFICENT symmetry. This is a face that could launch a thousand spaceships, a face that doesn’t care if you feel good, because Heavens to Betsy, you LOOK good. Just utter those magic words: Simply Marvelous.

Yefimov Serif is a contemporary serif face, with low contrast, squarish shapes of round glyphs and emphasized businesslike nature. It is one of the last original faces by Vladimir Yefimov. Yefimov Serif will suit perfectly for business texts, periodicals and corporate identity. The typeface was completed by Maria Selezeneva and released by ParaType in 2014.

Isabelle is the closest thing to a metal type revival Jim Rimmer ever did. The original metal face was designed and cut in late 1930s Germany, but its propspects were cut short by the arrival of the war. This was one of Jim's favourite faces, most likely because of the refined art deco elements that reminded him of his youthful enthusiasm about everything press-related, and the face's intricately thought balance between calligraphy and typography. Not to mention one of the most beautiful italics ever made. Jim's early 2000s digitization included mathematical corrections to the original metal cut, as well as some functional improvements for digital use. In 2013, during the remastering of the entire Rimmer collection, Isabelle underwent a considerable rethinking/expansion and was rechristened Isabelle Pro. The new revisions include small caps, ligatures, seven types of figures, automatic fractions, extended Latin language support, stylistic alternates that include lowercase serif angle options in the roman and looped ascenders/descenders in the italic, and plenty of extra OpenType features like caps-to-small-caps substitution, case-sensitive positioning, ordinals, and extended class-based kerning. Now each of the Isabelle Pro fonts includes over 680 glyphs. 20% of this font's revenues will be donated to the Canada Type Scholarship Fund, supporting higher typography education in Canada.

Firm and resolute, the sharp, triangular wedge serifs of the new Aviano Wedge stamps your copy with the confidence of late 19th century luxury, wealth, and power. Indicative of banknotes and financial strength, the large, elegant Aviano Wedge is composed in the Latin style. Aviano Wedge takes its original footing from period signage found on a building in Asheville, NC. While shaped largely by engraved faces, the elegant Aviano Wedge maintains the extra-wide comfort and ease found with the rest of the Aviano series. Aviano Wedge comes in six different weights and is packed with OpenType features. As a complement to these characters, Aviano Wedge includes 40 discretionary ligatures for artistic typographic compositions. To see these features in action, please see the informative .pdf brochure. OpenType capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe Creative suite can take full advantage of the automatically replacing ligatures and alternates. Aviano Wedge also includes support for all Western European languages. This new face has also been designed to pair well with the rest of the Aviano series, including our best-selling Aviano, Aviano Serif, Aviano Sans, Aviano Didone, Aviano Flare, Aviano Contrast, and Aviano Slab. Use it alone, or combine Aviano Wedge with any of these other fonts to build the strong presence you’re looking for.

LD Charlie Clown is an enjoyable scrapbooking font that can put a smile on anyone's face.

A face designed specifically to complement celtic decorated capitals and based on text from the book.

Ilustrations of different "moves" in Mexican wrestling; a sport popular in the late 60s and 70s.

A French form of Fat Face, derived from the British; matrices survive at Berthold in Berlin.

Regina is a calligraphic-influenced hybrid light-face Tuscan-serif roman with a companion swash italic.

Double Feature JNL reworks the classic Huxley Vertical into an elegant trilinear Art Deco display face.

Curbdog is a bold, playful display face with light horizontals and curved terminals in the italics.

Disjecta, derived from disjecta membra meaning fragmented or disjointed, was developed as a grunge script face.

A hot revival of the 60s and 70s a great headline face with that retro look.

The ideal typeface for cartography The Swiss designer/typographer Felix Arnold designed Cisalpin during the late 1990s, after he had challenged himself to create a contemporary typeface that could be used for cartographic uses. Arnold came to the subject of cartographic typefaces after analyzing many maps and atlases, and discovering that there was no standard typeface for these types of documents. Like any good cartographic type, Cisalpin is very legible at small sizes. While he was drawing this typeface on his computer, Arnold used a reduction glass to refine his design, making it work in these situations. Cisalpin is a linear sans serif face, with slight resemblance to renaissance serif types. The various weights are all clearly differentiated from one another. And because space is often a premium on maps, Cisalpin runs narrow. Words close in around themselves to help them become more identifiable. The letterforms in Cisalpin are durable, and can maintain their readability when placed over complex backgrounds. They have open interior forms, flattened curves, tall x-heights, and a capital height that almost reaches the tops of the ascenders. Cisalpin also has pronounced Italics, with a very clear angle of inclination. Each letterform in the family has been optimized so that they cannot be easily mistaken for another. This again helps minimize the misunderstandings that often occur because of illegibility. Although Cisalpin was developed for use in cartography, it may be used for countless other purposes; any font that can work well in small sizes on a map could be used almost anywhere else!

LTC Spire with alternate caps was designed by Lanston’s type director Sol Hess in 1937. Spire Roman was designed without lowercase. But it includes alternate rounded caps which transform this extra condensed “fat face” into more of an art deco titling face. Spire Roman has been used within department store logos, luxury hotel signage, perfumes, etc, etc.

Paragon is a display Roman family of nine faces, combining elements of formality and fun. It embodies a high degree of contrast between near hairline horizontal strokes and bold vertical strokes. The family is offered in three widths and in regular, small capitals and title faces. Use Paragon to lend impact to your next design project.

In designing Minion font, Robert Slimbach was inspired by the timeless beauty of the fonts of the late Renaissance. Minion was created primarily as a traditional text font but adapts well to today's digital technology, presenting the richness of the late baroque forms within modern text formats. This clear, balanced font is suitable for almost any use.

Angie Lou is a contemporary clean informal face. More formal than most handwritten faces, it surprises the eye with its clean rhythm. It gives that "marker on paper" or "dry erase board" feel. But the thin nature of Angie Lou sets it apart from most marker style fonts. Angie Lou offers two variants: regular and italic.

Broken Vows was one of two typefaces I created to go along with some fragmented poetry written as I went through a divorce, the second being WHORE. The letterforms contain fragments of familiar script faces that are attempting to hold themselves together. Some of the connecting elements of the letterforms remain and hold the face together.

Corvone is a heavy bullnosed display family, inspired by the post war era's ideas of modernity. Two faces are offered, plain—a solid black face, and regular—which employs a three-dimensional pipeline effect to add real emphasis. Use Corvone to give work a retro feel, and/or where you want to really drive your point home.

Limehouse Script is the work of British designer Alan Meeks, a display face with a wide variety of applications. It is a script face with capitals meant to be used with the lowercase letters and strokes to join many characters. Limehouse Script is a striking, informal upright script which reveals a combination of brush letter and handwriting influence.

This family of faces take their inspiration from the standard faces used by the Leroy® Automatic Lettering Machine, a mainstay for architects and draftsmen in Ye Olden Days of t-squares and triangles. Crisp, clean and retro-techno. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets.

Law Italic was designed as an imitation of a formal style of penmanship used in legal documents. It has a more pronounced angle than standard italics. It is intended to be used by itself but can be combined with other faces to suit a designer's inclination. Historically, this face was once used by Bruce Rogers strictly for headings.

A playful Art Deco face from master penman Samuel Welo is combined with design elements used in 1930s signage to create this architectural face. End caps are created with {brackets} and spaces with the design elements are _underscores. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

Service Men JNL is a collection of twenty-six service industry-related messages carried by a courier. Each image is offered facing left and facing right. A blank message panel is available on both the period and comma keys for adding special text. The classic 1940s-era artwork adds a nostalgic touch to these simple reminders.

Linotype Really, designed by Gary Munch, is a typeface family of six weights with italics and small capitals that offers a broad palette of expressions to draw from, sensibly light to brightly stentorian. The moderate-to-strong contrast of the vertical to horizontal strokes recalls the Transitional and Modern styles of Baskerville and Bodoni, and the subtly obliqued axis of the stoke weight recalls the old-style faces of Caslon. A strong belt of sturdy serifs completes the Realist sensibility of a clear, readable, no-nonsense text face whose clean details offer the designer a high-impact display face.

The official terseness and grey of Neo-Classical type faces will stand out when we narrow them. The consistently vertical shading of the letters suppresses one's desire for eccentricity, just like tea with bromine. It would, however, be wrong to consider Bodoni as the originator of this - vertically shaded - trend in type face production. In his Manual we can also find type faces with a slanted axis of shade, picturesque italics and a number of normal, more human type faces. It remains a mystery why his name is connected only with one of his many works. Genre's basic design is fairly light in colour, which is why it looks good in illustrated magazines and short texts and directly calls for graphically striking, contrasting headings. It shows off beautifully next to photographs, on diplomas and on printed materials connected with a person's death.

Lefferts JNL is a wide, light type face type with a square shape. Perfect for formal text.

Xenotype is an examination of heavy horizontal weighting and develops ideas underlying 60s and 70s headline faces.

Hermainita is a calligraphic typeface that is very legible. Yngreena is a serifed version of this face.

Typetonic is great display face for anything related to design, art or technology. Available in Crossplatform Opentype.

Rational curves and spiky rhythms punctuate this all-caps sans face, for a plastic feeling, futuristic effect.

A super-stylized retro display face for headlines, posters, drop caps and other basic-but-oversized uses.

A Bold Powerful Condensed serif face; great for book jackets, magazines, ads and just about any application.

A Blocky face with a slight hint of angularity. The Omnilots are a free addition to the set.

An unconnecting informal yet formal script. Caravan is a rambling font which gives the appearance of going places.

For headlines, text, or anything inbetween; a beautiful readable face with just a touch of the Far East.