Developer-friendly The studio has developed a wide array of weights for FS Untitled – 12 in all, in roman and italic – with the intention of meeting every on-screen need. All recognisably part of a family, each weight brings a different edge or personality to headline or body copy. There’s more. Type on screen has a tendency to fill in or blow so for each weight, there’s the choice of two marginally different versions, allowing designers and developers to go up or down a touch in weight. They’re free to use the font at any size on any background colour without fear of causing optical obstacles. And to make life even easier for developers, the 12 weight pairs have each been designated with a number from 100 (Thin) to 750 (Bold), corresponding to the system used to denote font weight in CSS code. Selecting a weight is always light work. Easy on the pixels ‘It’s a digital-first world,’ says Jason Smith, ‘and I wanted to make something that was really functional for digital brands’. FS Untitled was made for modern screens. Its shapes and proportions, x-height and cap height were modelled around the pixel grids of even low-resolution displays. So there are no angles in the A, V and W, just gently curving strokes that fit, not fight, with the pixels, and reduce the dependency on font hinting. Forms are simplified and modular – there are no spurs on the r or d, for example – and the space between the dot of the i and its stem is larger than usual. The result is a clearer, more legible typeface – functional but with bags of character. Screen beginnings FS Untitled got its start on the box. Its roots lie in Fontsmith’s creation of the typeface for Channel 4’s rebrand in 2005: the classic, quirky, edgy C4 headline font, with its rounded square shapes (inspired by the classic cartoon TV shape of a squidgy rectangle), and a toned-down version for use in text, captions and content graphics. The studio has built on the characteristics that made the original face so pixel-friendly: its blend of almost-flat horizontals and verticals with just enough openness and curve at the corners to keep the font looking friendly. The curves of the o, c and e are classic Fontsmith – typical of the dedication its designers puts into sculpting letterforms. Look out for… FS Untitled wouldn’t be a Fontsmith typeface if it didn’t have its quirks, some warranted, some wanton. There’s the rounded junction at the base of the E, for example, and the strong, solid contours of the punctuation marks and numerals. Notice, too, the distinctive, open shape of the A, V, W, X and Y, created by strokes that start off straight before curving into their diagonal path. Some would call the look bow-legged; we’d call it big-hearted.

Aphrodite Slim Pro is not just a lighter version of its sister Aphrodite Pro. Aphrodite Slim Pro has duplicated the quantity of characters of its partner, and that means more than 500 new glyphs, reaching a total of more than 1000. More delicate and meticulous, Aphrodite Slim Pro is once more a new typography with deep calligraphic ideals: We immersed ourselves into the world of each calligraphy ductus and each calligraphy masters by studying from decoration to lettering books. This was the key for the logic of Aphrodite Slim’s behavior. The new concept of Aphrodite Slim Pro was to join diverse styles of calligraphy in one in order to achieve an autonomous expressiveness, in fact, this is what calligraphy aims to, and we agreed to bring those ideals to the world of typography: It is justifiable to be inspired in hundred-year-old calligraphies, but it is even better if the results you obtain have a plus. A personal plus. During the creation process we were wondering whether it was possible to mix certain strokes of such rigid styles as uncial, (Li·n’s favourite style), with strokes of the copperplate, (Sav’s favourite style), and also to take and mix cualities of cancelleresca cursiva, formata and moderna; finally giving our creation a roman-transition italic look. So Aphrodite Slim takes ideals and aspects from those formal styles, following its own logic though, and emphasizing the fact of being a decorative typography. Calligraphy masters of our past are who we are in debt with. They are the cause we have lovely letters now. They have been spontaneous at the moment of creation, what differs from the type-designers of nowadays, whose spontaneity is more limited. Digital faces that we are used to see these days are a result of long hours of optical adjustments, grids, macros and inspirations of other existing typography, but without personal contributions. Aphrodite Slim wants to refute this. Its mission is to rescue de spontaneity of the artesanal lettering in order to obtain unique words; those which only calligraphy masters of our past or lettering artists of our present could give us. We have worked hard to achieve this, making Aphrodite the most universal font we could: It was necessary to study the most common words, focalizing more in the ones referring to “sensitivity”, of four of the most spoken languages in the world. Aphrodite Slim has an enormous quantity of decorative characters and special ligatures for phrases and words in English, French, Spanish and German. (See English, Français, Español, Deutsch PDF in the gallery section). We promise there is no existing type that decorates/ligates glyphs and words like Aphrodite Slim does: It is the first time a font like this really considers its purpose. -The way glyphs are ligated is insane- : Aphrodite Slim rescues some ideals of persons like Jan van den Velde (Italian cancilleresca writing of XVI Century) who understands ascenders and descenders as possibilities to beautify the lines of writing with curved strokes that seem to be dancing above and below of the words. This master also creates ascenders and descenders even where they are not necessary, on letters that do not actually need them: Aphrodite Slim takes this ideal. The font counts with a wide range of glyphs that seem not to be satisfied with its more primitive form and prefer to extreme their parts to be decorative. It also existed masters of calligraphy like José de Casanova of XVII Century, who, with a magnificant skill and a really personal mark, had the particularity of ligating words that were actually separated with spaces. This is another innovative feature in Aphrodite Slim. An investigation of the most common beginnings and endings words of the English language was done. Having that feature activated (discretionary ligatures), common words will start to ligate or to be decorated even when they are separated by spaces. Impossible to forget Francesco Periccioli of XVII Century and our experience us designers to face with works of him: His letters, that today are included in the group of cancellerescas modernas, have been a direct inspiration to the oldstyle figures and historical forms variables in Aphrodite Slim. Giovanni Antonio Tagliente (XVI Century) and his particular way of making tails and diagonals longer than usual, qualities that our creation reflects too. Finally, our adventures in Biblioteca Nacional and Barrio San Telmo, Buenos Aires, were essential for us to make Aphrodite Slim more complete and interesting: Sav did an excellent work when studying how the decorative miscellanea and swirls of early XX century were. She also investigated what particularities made those roman titling characters look antique so she could rescue some ideals for the oldstyle figures and historical forms variables. This also leaded her to create the ornaments variable in Aphrodite Slim. We are really proud of presenting Aphrodite Slim Pro, a typography that was the result of days and nights of working hard, because we do love what we do; and we are glad we are living in a present that gives us the possibility to spread this kind of art, because that is the way we consider our job: Aphrodite Slim Pro is Art. Hope you can appreciate the enormous work this type has. Features. Aphrodite Slim Pro is the most complete variable. It includes more than 1000 glyphs. Thanks to the Open-Type programming, it counts with a easy way to change/alternate glyphs if the application in which the font is used supports this. The variables contained in Aphrodite Slim Pro are also offered separately. Aphrodite Slim Text: It is the variable for lines and paragraphs. Thus it is the least ornamental and the most accurate to achieve a satisfying legibility. It has the Standard Ligatures feature in order to improve the possible conflicts some glyphs could have by others. Aphrodite Slim Contextual: It is the one that makes emphasis in decorating. It has the particularity of ligating/decorating words of common use in English, French, Spanish and German. It also has the quality of ligating common beginnings and endings of the common words in English. Aphrodite Slim Stylistic: With similar features of Slim Contextual. It includes a set of decorative numbers for a display use. Aphrodite Slim Swash: This one has special beginnings and endings to decorate words. Aphrodite Slim Endings: It makes words look as a signature. Aphrodite Slim Historical: It adds an antique look to the written word. It also has the special historical ligature function. Aphrodite Slim Titling: This one is the most decorative. Its copperplate inspired ornaments give words a special color, in order to handle the quantity of decoration, it comes with the standard ligature feature, which has the most common ligatures plus others that make decorative swirls not to be conflictive. Aphrodite Slim Ornaments: A set of 52 ornaments. Aphrodite Slim Pro includes all this features plus the Stylistic Set 1; Stylistic Set 2 and the possibility of Slashed Zero. We recommend you to check out the gallery in order to see all these features in action.

Burgues Script is an ode to the late 19th century American calligrapher Louis Madarasz, whose legendary pen has inspired schools of penmanship for over 100 years. His talent has caused some people to call him “the most skillful penman the world has ever known.” I use the word ‘ode’ in a colloquially ambitious manner. If I was an actual poet, my words would be about things I desire but cannot attain, objects of utter beauty that make me wallow in humility, or people of enormous talent who look down at me from the clouds of genius. But I don’t write poems. My work consists of letters drawn to fit together, that become an element of someone’s visual poetry. I am the poet’s assistant, so to speak. Once in a while, the assistant persists on what the subject of the poem will be. And occasionally, the poet gives in to the persistence. I hope you, visual poet, find my persistence justified in this case. The two main sources for Burgues were the calligraphy examples shown in Zaner Bloser’s The Secret of the Skill of Madarasz: His Philosophy and Penmanship Masterpieces, and C. W. Jones’s Lessons in Advanced Engraver’s Script Penmanship by L. Madarasz. These two references were the cornerstone for the concept I was trying to work with. I did have to change many of the letters in order to be able to produce digital calligraphy that can flow flexibly and offered the user a variety of options, while maintaining its attractive appearance. To this end, many ligatures and swashes were made, as well as full flourished sets of letters for use at the beginnings or endings of words and sentences. All of this has been tied together with OpenType and tested thoroughly within today’s standard design and desktop publishing software. After working with digital scripts for so long, at one point I thought that Burgues Script would become a bit of a chore to complete. I also thought that, like with most other scripts, the process would regularize itself after a while and be reduced to a mechanical habit. Surprisingly, and fortunately for me, this did not happen. The past holds as many surprises as the future. Madarasz’s method of penmanship was fascinating and challenging to translate into the strict, mathematically oriented language of the computer. It seems that the extremely high contrast of the forms, coupled with the required flow and connectivity of such lettering, will always be hard work for any visual artist to produce, even with the aide of a powerful machine. I can only imagine what steady nerves and discipline Madarasz must have had to be able to produce fully flourished and sublimely connected words and sentences on a whim. When I think of Madarasz producing a flourished calligraphic logotype in a few seconds, and try to reconcile that with the timelines of my or my colleagues’ work in identity and packaging design, the mind reels. Such blinding talent from over a hundred years ago. Burgues is the Spanish word for Bourgeois. In the end, I hope Burgues Script will serve you well when a flourished word or sentence is required for a design project. One of the wonders of the computer age is the ability to visually conjure up the past, serving both the present and the future. With Burgues, you have a piece of “the most skillful penman the world has ever known,” at your service. Burgues received important awards such as a Certificate of Excellence TDC2 2008 and a Certificate of Excellence at the Bienal Tipos Latinos 2008.

Helvetica’s 50-year anniversary celebrations in 2007 were overwhelming and contagious. We saw the movie. Twice. We bought the shirts and the buttons. We dug out the homage books and re-read the hate articles. We mourned the fading non-color of an old black shirt proudly exclaiming that “HELVETICA IS NOT AN ADOBE FONT”. We took part in long conversations discussing the merits of the Swiss classic, that most sacred of typographic dreamboats, outlasting its builder and tenants to go on alone and saturate the world with the fundamental truth of its perfect logarithm. We swooned again over its subtleties (“Ah, that mermaid of an R!”). We rehashed decades-old debates about “Hakzidenz,” “improvement in mind” and “less is more.” We dutifully cursed every single one of Helvetica’s knockoffs. We breathed deeply and closed our eyes on perfect Shakti Gawain-style visualizations of David Carson hack'n'slashing Arial — using a Swiss Army knife, no less — with all the infernal post-brutality of his creative disturbance and disturbed creativity. We then sailed without hesitation into the absurdities of analyzing Helvetica’s role in globalization and upcoming world blandness (China beware! Helvetica will invade you as silently and transparently as a sheet of rice paper!). And at the end of a perfect celebratory day, we positively affirmed à la Shakti, and solemnly whispered the energy of our affirmation unto the universal mind: “We appreciate Helvetica for getting us this far. We are now ready for release and await the arrival of the next head snatcher.” The great hype of Swisspalooza '07 prompted a look at Max Miedinger, the designer of Neue Haas Grotesk (later renamed to Helvetica). Surprisingly, what little biographical information available about Miedinger indicates that he was a typography consultant and type sales rep for the Haas foundry until 1956, after which time he was a freelance graphic designer — rather than the full-time type designer most Helvetica enthusiasts presume him to have been. It was under that freelance capacity that he was commissioned to design the regular and bold weights of Neue Haas Grotesk typeface. His role in designing Helvetica was never really trumpeted until long after the typeface attained global popularity. And, again surprisingly, Miedinger designed two more typefaces that seem to have been lost to the dust of film type history. One is called Pro Arte (1954), a very condensed Playbill-like slab serif that is similar to many of its genre. The other, made in 1964, is much more interesting. Its original name was Horizontal. Here it is, lest it becomes a Haas-been, presented to you in digital form by Canada Type under the name of its original designer, Miedinger, the Helvetica King. The original film face was a simple set of bold, panoramically wide caps and figures that give off a first impression of being an ultra wide Gothic incarnation of Microgramma. Upon a second look, they are clearly more than that. This face is a quirky, very non-Akzidental take on the vernacular, mostly an exercise in geometric modularity, but also includes some unconventional solutions to typical problems (like thinning the midline strokes across the board to minimize clogging in three-storey forms). This digital version introduces four new weights, ranging from Thin to Medium, alongside the bold original. The Miedinger package comes in all popular font formats, and supports Western, Central and Eastern European languages, as well as Esperanto, Maltese, Turkish and Celtic/Welsh. A few counter-less alternates are included in the fonts.