The Bitstream version of Trump Mediaeval of Linotype, 1954-60, by Georg Trump, a prolific German type designer. It seems to be his best typeface. It has a vigorous and assumed oldstyle roman and italic that is the sloped roman, except for the letters a, e, f. With its crisp angularity and wedge-shapes serifs, Trump Mediaeval appears carved in stone. It is a strong text typeface that is highly legible and especially useful for low-resolution output. It is useful in display work too. Cyrillic version developed for ParaType by Vladimir Yefimov and Isabella Chaeva and released in 2010. Cyrillic italics maintain the main feature of Trump Mediaeval to be the sloped roman, except for the letters г, д, и, й, n, т. There are old style figures, additional ligatures and fractions available at all styles and small caps at the Roman 55. Black style was added in 2011 by Vladimir Yefimov.

Helvetica is one of the most famous and popular typefaces in the world. It lends an air of lucid efficiency to any typographic message with its clean, no-nonsense shapes. The original typeface was called Neue Haas Grotesk, and was designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger for the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) in Switzerland. In 1960 the name was changed to Helvetica (an adaptation of Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland). Over the years, the original Helvetica™ family was expanded to include many different weights, but these were not as well coordinated with each other as they might have been. At the beginning of the 21st Century, Linotype released an updated design of Helvetica, the Helvetica World typeface family. This family is much smaller in terms of its number of fonts, but each font makes up for this in terms of language support. Helvetica World supports a number of languages and writing systems from all over the globe.

The Face2Face (F2F) series was inspired by the techno sound of the mid-1990s, personal computers and new font creation software. For years, Alexander Branczyk and his friends formed a unique type design collective, which churned out a substantial amount of fresh, new fonts, none of which complied with the traditional rules of typography. Many of these typefaces were used to create layouts for the leading German techno magazine of the 1990s, Frontpage. Branczyk and his fellows would even set in type at 6 points, in order to make it nearly unreadable. It was a pleasure for the kids to read and decrypt these messages! The three fonts in the F2F Czykago family, F2F Czykago Light, F2F Czykago Semi Serif, and F2F Czykago Trans, were all inspired by the Apple system font Chicago. The F2F Czykago family, along with 38 other Face2Face fonts, is included in the TakeType 5 collection from Linotype. Branczyk designed 16 of these himself."

German designer Hans-Jürgen Ellenberger originally developed the concept behind Elementis in 1975. Wanting to create an alternative typewriter script that was more round and natural, Elementis' design was born. True to its typewriter roots, Linotype's Elementis exhibits more character than one expects from that genre. The letters display a delightfully quirky nature, which is sure to lighten up any document. Elementis may be used in a number of point sizes: although the letters function best in large display settings, short passages of text in sizes of 12 point or less may also be created. This family has received a number of awards in various contests: Elementis was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2003 International Type Design Contest, sponsored by Linotype GmbH. Additionally, Ellenberger received a Certificate of Typographic Excellence from the Type Directors Club in 2005; during their annual TDC2 type design competition, Elementis was selected as a "judge's choice."

Grace was designed by Elisabeth Megnet and appeared with Linotype in 1992. The font is a part of the package Calligraphy for Print, which also contains Ruling Script and Wiesbaden Swing. Calligraphy for Print 2 completes the set. These packages offer modern calligraphy fonts particularly well-suited to use in posters, magazines and advertisements. The basic style of Grace is based on the Gothic miniscule of the 13th century. It represents a modern philosophy held by Andre Guertler, Professor of Typography in Basel with whom Megnet once studied. With this philosophy, calligraphy is not to be seen as a decorative art, and fonts created according to this tenet have far fewer ornamental strokes. They are eccentric, drawn out and almost bulky. Like Gothic forms, one of the predecessors of this font, Grace gives vertical lines a particular emphasis. This font is not meant for long texts but makes a distinctive impression in shorter texts or headlines.

In 1948, Mergenthaler Linotype released the first weights of Trade Gothic, designed by Jackson Burke. Over the next 12 years, Burke, who was the company’s Director of Typographic Development from 1948 through 1963, continued to expand the family. Trade Gothic Next is the 2008 revision of Jackson Burke’s design. Developed over a prolonged period of time, the original Trade Gothic showed many inconsistencies. Under the direction of Linotype’s Type Director Akira Kobayashi, American type designer Tom Grace, a graduate of the MA Typeface Design in Reading, has redesigned, revised and expanded the Trade Gothic family. Many details were improved, such as the terminals and stroke endings, symbols, and the spacing and kerning. Moreover, there are newly added compressed widths and heavy weights perfect for setting even more powerful headlines. Trade Gothic Next brings more features and better quality for today’s demanding typographers. Trade Gothic Next Soft Rounded introduces a new friendliness and warmth to the family.

The Face2Face (F2F) series was inspired by the techno sound of the mid-1990s, personal computers and new font creation software. For years, Alessio Leonardi and his friends formed a unique type design collective, which churned out a substantial amount of fresh, new fonts, none of which complied with the traditional rules of typography. Many of these typefaces were used to create layouts for the leading German techno magazine of the 1990s, Frontpage. Leonardi and his fellows would even set in type at 6 points, in order to make it nearly unreadable. It was a pleasure for the kids to read and decrypt these messages! F2F Mekanik Amente appears as if it had once been a normal font whose letters were horribly attacked by a pair of scissors. This font could be a very creative choice for headlines. F2F Mekanik Amente is one of 41 Face2Face fonts included in the Take Type 5 collection from Linotype GmbH. Leonardi designed 11 of these himself."

The Bix Bats symbol family was developed in 2003 by Argentinean designer Victor Garcia to complement his display text font Bix Plain. Bix Bats contains four different symbol fonts. Most of the characters in these fonts have their lower halves reversed out. Typing a line of text in these symbol fonts, or mixing these symbol fonts with Bix Plain, will create a very interesting text effect: the bottom half of your lines of text will be reversed out, on top of a colored bar. Bix Bats Arrows contains numerous possible arrow combinations, from archery references to the American recycling symbol. Bix Bats Funny includes all of the symbols needed for a party, from beer steins to bunny rabbits! Bix Bats Shiny has enough starbursts to light up a night sky, and in Bix Bats Wired you will find all of the technological accessories needed to be in the now. All four fonts are included in the Take Type 5 collection from Linotype GmbH."

Gerard Unger developed this newspaper font between 1984 and 1987 for Dr.-Ing. Rudolf Hell GmbH, Kiel. He was mainly influenced by William A. Dwiggins (1880-1956), the typographic consultant of Mergenthaler Linotype, who started to develop more legible, alternative fonts for newspaper printing as early as 1930. Swift was named after the fast flying bird. Austere and concise, firm and original, Swift is suited for almost any purpose. Swift has been specially developed to sustain a maximum of quality and readability when used in unfavorable print and display processes, e.g. newspapers, laser printing and low resolution screens. Its robust, yet elegant serifs and its large x-height provide an undeniable distinction to the typeface, making it suitable for corporate ID and advertising purposes as well. Swift 2.0 family was designed in 1995. It's an improved version with technical and aesthetic enhancements and new family members. The Cyrillic version was developed for ParaType in 2003 by Tagir Safayev. Please note that this family includes only basic latin characters; it does not include accented characters required for western and central Europe.

The Siseriff family of types contains nine different styles, which were developed by the master Swedish typographer Bo Berndal in 2002. Siseriff is a contemporary slab serif face. Except for the Siseriff Black weight, all of the letters display a slightly condensed appearance that is coupled with a relatively uniform width throughout the alphabet. Siseriff's nine styles are distributed across five weights (Light, Regular, Semi Bold, Bold and Black). The Italic companions for these styles (Siseriff Black does not have an italic companion) are true italics. These redrawn italics add a higher degree of differentiation from the Roman weights than could be achieved with obliques alone. Many common Slab Serif families (e.g., Serifa) do not offer this degree of differentiation. This variety makes Siseriff the perfect choice for journalistic and editorial work, where a good hierarchy may be achieved solely by relying on the various weights available, and their italics. All nine styles of the Siseriff family are part of the Take Type 5 collection from Linotype GmbH."

Eurostile® is one of the most important designs from the Italian font designer Aldo Novarese. It was originally produced in 1962 by the Nebiolo foundry as a more complete version of the earlier Microgramma, a caps-only font designed by Novarese and A. Butti. Eurostile reflects the flavor and spirit of the 1950s and 1960s. It has big, squarish shapes with rounded corners that look like television sets from that era. Eurostile has sustained the ability to give text a dynamic, technological aura. It works well for headlines and small bodies of text. The Eurostile font family has 11 weights, from roman to bold and condensed to extended. In 2009 Linotype released a revised version in the Platinum Collection under the name , with three weights in all three different styles. And additionaly there are now new weights for the Eurostile family as , and ."

The Stempel family consists of two fonts; each made to look like a set of block stamps. Each letter appears inside its own roughly drawn square. Stempel One's letters are very simple form/counterform objects. Stempel Two's forms are more ornate: each square stamp has a thin border inside of it, and then the individual letterforms have been knocked-out, so that the colored area depicts the counters around the letters rather than the letters themselves. As a line of text is typed, a box appears for each letter entered, and all of the boxes slightly nudge against each other to form the line. The Stempel fonts have the appearance of a hand-made quality to them. Their forms appear too random, too delicate, and too thought out to have been made on a machine. Using these fonts will add a nice warm, linoleum-cut touch to your work. Both Stempel One and Stempel Two were designed by German designer Martina Balke in 2002, and are part of the Take Type 5 collection from Linotype GmbH."

The first cuts of Kabel appeared in 1927, released by the German foundry Gebr. Klingspor. Like many of the typefaces that Rudolf Koch designed for printing use, Kabel is a carefully constructed and drawn. The basic forms were influenced by the Ancient Roman stone-carved letters, which consisted of just a few pure and clear geometric forms, such as circles, squares, and triangles. Koch also infused Kabel with some elements of Art Deco, making it appear quite different from other geometric modernist typefaces from the 1920s, like Futura. Linotype has two versions of Kabel in its library. Kabel has a shorter x-height, with longer ascenders and descenders, making it a bit truer to Koch's original design than the second version, ITC Kabel, which was designed by Victor Caruso. This version, also known in the United States as Cable, has a larger x-height, shorter ascenders and descenders, more weights ,and a diamond shaped i-dot. Typefaces in the same oeuvre include Avenir Next, ITC Avant Garde Gothic, Metrolite, Metromedium, Metroblack, and Erbar, just to name just a few."

Brazilian designer Eduardo Omine designed his Beret family of typefaces in an attempt to create a warm counterpart to the clean, minimalist sans serif of the 20th Century. The most individual characteristics of Beret are the terminals at the ends of its vertical strokes. They are slightly bent", simulating a subtle flare. Like many classic sans-serif typefaces (e.g., the original Syntax and Univers), this family does not include true (calligraphic) italics. Instead, a masterful set of obliques has been created. As Stanley Morison articulated in the early 1920s and 30s, these slanted versions of the regular "roman" faces may even work better when one wishes to emphasize certain words or passages within a text. The Beret family of typefaces is suitable for numerous applications, in both text and display sizes. The following nine fonts make up the family's design: Beret Light, Beret Light Italic, Beret Book, Beret Book Italic, Beret Regular, Beret Medium, Beret Medium Italic, Beret Bold, and Beret Bold Italic. Beret was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2003 International Type Design Contest, sponsored by the Linotype GmbH."

Cartier was Canada’s first roman text typeface, created in 1967 to celebrate Canada’s centennial. Its designer, Carl Dair, was one of the country’s most celebrated graphic design pioneers, and a fine designer indeed — but he was not a trained type designer. He had spent a year at the Enschedé type foundry and printing works in the Netherlands, but that probably wasn’t enough to fully grasp all that was required to make an effective text face. It is also possible that Dair simply compromised his own design by not allowing any of the much needed alterations to be made to his working drawings when they were handed over to Linotype for production. Cartier, though a strikingly original oldstyle, never became the influential allround text face it might have been. A display typeface derived from it, Raleigh, was more successful. Realizing that Dair’s design was sound in concept, if not in execution, Rod McDonald began working on a new digital version in 1997. The final family is convincing proof that Cartier could have been the functional text face that Dair originally wanted.

Iridium™ was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1972 for Linotype. It is in the modern" style like Bodoni or Didot, in that it has the sparkle created by a high thick/thin contrast and a symmetrical distribution of weight. But the sometimes harsh and rigid texture of the modern style is tempered by Frutiger's graceful interpretation. Iridium itself is a very hard, brittle and strong metal; yet the Latin and Greek roots of the word mean rainbow, or iridescence. And indeed, this font is infused with a more lustrous and complex spirit than the average rather stark modern typeface - note the stems that gently taper from waist to serif, the nicely curved ovals of the round characters, and the slight bracketing of the serifs. Iridium was originally designed for phototypesetting, and Frutiger himself cut the final master photo-mask films by hand. This digital version has all the craftsmanship of that original and includes the roman, a true italic, and the bold weight. Iridium works particularly well for book and magazine text and headlines."

Argentinean designer Eduardo Manso created the Bohemia type family in 2003. Bohemia's cunning and elegant essence shows off refined letters that evoke the Transitional style typefaces like Baskerville, though most Baskerville-like designs tend not to be as curvaceous as Manso's! True to form, Bohemia shines in smaller text sizes, like 9 point and above, while still maintaining a unique character and spirit. Bohemia is a great alternative to better-known text faces. The critics have been raving. Bohemia came to Linotype via its fourth International Type Design Contest (ITDC) [Link] in 2003, where it received one of the three top awards. Under the name Argot, this typeface received a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design from the Type Directors Club of New York in 2004. Bohemia was also selected for inclusion in the 21st International Biennale of Graphic Design 2004 in Brno, Czech Republic, and was later named one of the most relevant works in the Bienal Letras Latinas 2004 exhibition, which traveled through Buenos Aires, San Paolo, Santiago, and Vera Cruz."

Gerard Unger developed this newspaper font between 1984 and 1987 for Dr.-Ing. Rudolf Hell GmbH, Kiel. He was mainly influenced by William A. Dwiggins (1880-1956), the typographic consultant of Mergenthaler Linotype, who started to develop more legible, alternative fonts for newspaper printing as early as 1930. Swift was named after the fast flying bird. Austere and concise, firm and original, Swift is suited for almost any purpose. Swift has been specially developed to sustain a maximum of quality and readability when used in unfavorable print and display processes, e.g. newspapers, laser printing and low resolution screens. Its robust, yet elegant serifs and its large x-height provide an undeniable distinction to the typeface, making it suitable for corporate ID and advertising purposes as well. Swift 2.0 family was designed in 1995. It's an improved version with technical and aesthetic enhancements and new family members. The Cyrillic version was developed for ParaType in 2003 by Tagir Safayev. Please note that this family includes only basic latin characters; it does not include accented characters required for western and central Europe.

The powerful Eknaton comes with slanted slabserifs, a new way to add some spring to the old Egyptian slabs. Eknaton echoes the tradition that started with Napoleon's Egyptian campaign 1798, and the simultaneous looting of Egyptian art. The imports led to new ladies fashion in Europe, new architecture and new typefaces like Antique (Figgins, 1815) and Egyptian (Caslon, 1816). The Egyptian faces were also the origin of the famous Clarendon (1845) and Ionic No.5 (1925) as well as the rest of "the legibility types". In the 20th century the slabserifs became popular again with Bauhaus incarnations like Memphis (Wolf, 1929) and Beton (Jost, 1931). The Bauhaus movement, otherwise anti-serif, liked the architectural influence in Egyptian slabserifs. The Bo Berndal design of Eknaton puts some speed into the old Sphinx - the cat is back, in better form than ever! Bo Berndal, born 1924, has been designing typefaces for 56 years, for Monotype, Linotype and other foundries. Eknaton comes in five different widths, from Tight to Expanded, and is an OpenType typeface for both PC and Mac. Swedish type foundry T4 premiere new fonts every month. Eknaton is our eleventh introduction.

Mofid Mahdi is a distinctive, bold Arabic display face, suitable for heading and titling work in Arabic newspaper and magazine composition. In this typeface the rounded internal counters and dots contrast with the angular and more robust outlines of the letterforms to give a decorative, harlequin-like appearance. The design was originally developed for use in dry-transfer format, and was first produced as a digital font by Linotype-Hell Ltd. in the early 1980s. Initially a simplified face, with its inherent limited range of letterforms, Mofid Mahdi was enhanced during the late 1980s by the introduction of medial letterforms to improve character spacing and balance. The recent advent of OpenType has led to the release of Mofid Mahdi. This OpenType font includes Latin glyphs from Memphis Extra Bold, allowing users to set text in both most Western European and Arabic languages without switching between fonts. Mofid Mahdi incorporates the Basic Latin character set and the Arabic character set, which supports Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. The font also includes tabular and proportional Arabic, Persian, and Urdu numerals, as well as a set of tabular European (Latin) numerals.

London-based designer David Quay designed ITC Quay Sans in 1990. One of the precursors to the long run of functionalist European sans serif faces that has been a dominating force in type design since the 1990s, ITC Quay sans is based on the proportions of 19th Century Grotesk faces. Grotesk, the German word for sans serif, defines an entire branch of the sans serif movement, which culminated in the 1950s with the design of Helvetica. ITC Quay Sans is made up of very simple, legible letters. The weights of the strokes throughout the alphabet vary very little. Microscopic flares on the ends of each terminal add a bit of dimension to the design. This helps prevent the onset of the monotony, a danger when one repeats countless near mono-weight stroked letters throughout a large body of text. ITC Quay Sans is a very readable face; it works equally well in all sizes. Six fonts of the ITC Quay Sans typeface are available: Book, Book Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Black, and Black Italic. ITC Quay Sans is similar to Hans Eduard Meier's Syntax, and Tim Ahrens' Linotype Aroma."

Yakout is an Arabic text face that was developed by Linotype & Machinery in 1956 for hot-metal typesetting. Similar to the typewriter fonts created during this period, it utilises a limited range of letterforms to represent a full Arabic characer set, thus forming a style of type design known as Simplified Arabic. The skilful reshaping of letterforms demanded by the constraints of the original restrictive technology has given Yakout a very dynamic effect, and has helped to produce a design whose overall pattern works particularly well in newspaper setting. Digital technology has enhanced the original design by permitting the introduction of wide characters and some additional letterforms, and by improving the joining of the strong, slightly curved baseline. Yakout is available in two OpenType weights: Yakout Light and Yakout Bold. Both of the fonts include Latin glyphs (from Times Europa Roman and Times Europa Bold, respectively) inside the font files, allowing a single font to set text in both most Western European and Arabic languages. Yakout incorporate the Basic Latin character set and support all languages that use the Arabic script. They include tabular and proportional Arabic, Persian, and Urdu numerals and a set of tabular European (Latin) numerals.

Nazanin, originally named Haghighi, is a modern Arabic text face first produced by Linotype in 1978. Its popular design was converted into OpenType format in 2005, taking full advantage of digital technology to allow accurate positioning of diacriticals and kerning refinements. The counters and inter-character proportions of Nazanin are characteristic of Persian display lettering and typography. This is particularly true of Nazanin bold, which gives a strong image when used for display purposes. Nazanin possesses fuller, deeper characters than is normally exhibited in Arabic typography: its angled counters contributing to fluid, well-balanced, yet vibrant, letterforms. Originally designed for Farsi typesetting, Nazanin has now become popular for Arabic typesetting as well. Nazanin is available in two OpenType weights: Nazanin Light and Nazanin Bold. Both of the fonts include Latin glyphs (from Palatino Roman and Palatino Bold, respectively) inside the font files, allowing a single font to set text in both most Western European and Arabic languages. Nazanin incorporate the Basic Latin character set and the Arabic character set, which supports Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. They include tabular and proportional Arabic, Persian, and Urdu numerals, as well as a set of tabular European (Latin) numerals.

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

The Sync font family is a layered system for chromatic typesetting. With its stylistic variety it enables a wide range of eye-catching combinations with colors and patterns. The very first sketches were inspired by some hand-painted characters on a weathered beach sign at the French Côte d’Argent and currently the font family comes with a total of 28 single fonts. The primary font »Sync Base« is a powerful, condensed Sans Serif. Sharp cut edges, narrow wedge-shaped counters and low ascenders and descenders make the compact character of the typeface. In perfect sync with the primary font, the family includes the retro styles Lines, Engravings, Stripes and Shadows and the texture styles Invisible and Jungle. Each one of them with multiple fonts. As all Sync fonts have the same metrics, they can easily be layered in different colors to create the desired effects by using graphic applications that allow utilizing layers. Sync fonts work especially well in larger sizes and were designed for large display purposes, covers, branding, packaging, headlines, editorials, advertising, posters and the like. Check the gallery for examples. By the way, the graphics in some of the visuals come from the Linotype »Picture Yourself™« collection designed by Karin Huschka and Peter Huschka. Sync & enjoy!

Ionic No5 is a refresh of a classic Linotype Clarendon-style serif, another restored classic from the Monotype library, much like the recent updates to Walbaum and Helvetica Now. The original typeface was designed to be printed and read at small sizes, popular with newspapers in the 20th Century at its birth. The restoration and refinement of this typeface has bestowed a greater sense of clarity and directness, smartly stylish, and an utterly captivating appeal. Because these styles were so popular for books and newspapers for so long we associate them with being editorial or bookish, not dull, but thoughtful. Designers today can use that association to their advantage as a visual shortcut to convey similar meaning and tone. More attention was given on modernising the typeface with precious use and the introduction of sharp edges & finishes. The thinnest weights can give a dancing typewriter aesthetic, being low stroke contrast. The heavy weights have an unquestionable presence on the page. Overall, the typeface has a richness and almost illustrative quality about it. The true depth of Ionic No.5 could enable each weight to be a poster by itself. Ionic N°5™ font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Bo Berndal, the master Swedish typographer, is the eponymous designer of Berndal, a contemporary text family with five different styles. This family represents a new achievement for Bo Berndal, who has spent many years working to optimize text legibility in the printed media. Several small tricks make the Berndal family an interesting milestone in legibility. Berndal's letterforms contain large x-heights. Large x-heights open up the counterforms of letters, making text appear lighter on a page, but their correspondingly shorter ascenders and descenders can hinder legibility. This does not occur in Berndal at all! Coupled with this experiment, Berndal's various font weights display a certain softness and roundness. The letterforms themselves are relatively wide, with an overall consistency in width. The calligraphic nature of the strokes has been minimized, yet a contrast stroke-thickness is still to be noticed within the alphabet. Berndal's five styles offer almost everything that one could want from a good text family. The Regular weight may be paired with Small Caps, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic. All styles ship in the OpenType format, and include tabular and old style figures. The two italic weights are made up of true italics, not obliques. The Berndal family is a part of the Take Type 5 collection from Linotype GmbH."

Saral, meaning simple in Hindi, is a monolinear design supporting most Devanagari based languages. Derived from the older Linotype typeface Rohini, it has been greatly expanded into three weights and a wide character set. Saral Light, Regular, and Bold are made to coordinate with the respective weights of Helvetica. This design works well in many environments, such as corporate designs, advertising, packaging, signage, and especially for bi-lingual texts. The OpenType font format accommodates hundreds of pre-composed conjuncts, accurate placement of vowel signs, and supports varying length matras. Saral's Unicode encoding guarantees your text is rendered correctly and is compatible across different software and computer platforms. Please note that due to current operating system and application limitations the OpenType features in complex scripts such as Davanagari are not universally supported. Saral is designed to be rendered correctly in Microsoft Word on Windows running the latest version of Uniscribe. If using a Mac or Adobe products such as InDesign then many features may not function as expected. This is including glyph reordering, substitutions, and mark positioning. In the case of small passages of text, alternate input methods can be employed. Apple's character palette and Adobe's glyph palettes are two readily available options that can be used to manually insert glyphs as needed."

Ahmed is a modern Arabic headline face, first produced by Linotype-Hell Ltd. in the early 1980s. Originally developed as a simplified face, its design recalls the inscriptional and decorative tile work lettering of the medieval period. The strong treatment of the tails of certain characters departs from the more traditional style of tapering these finials, introducing a modern feel to the design. The contrasting proportions of the tall vertical strokes and the rather elongated counters lend a monumental look to Ahmed, allowing its effective use in titling. During the later 1980s Ahmed was developed into a traditional typeface, with the introduction of medial forms to improve character spacing and balance. Recently, Ahmed has been converted into the OpenType font format, ensuring its continued popularity as a heading face for newspaper typesetting. The Ahmed typeface contains two weights, Ahmed and Ahmed Outline. Both of the OpenType fonts include Latin glyphs from Clearface Gothic Roman inside the font files, allowing a single font to set text in both most Western European and Arabic languages. The two Ahmed fonts include the Basic Latin character set and the Arabic character set, which supports Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. They include tabular and proportional Arabic, Persian, and Urdu numerals, as well as a set of tabular European (Latin) numerals.

With its extended complement, this comprehensive redesign of Bank Gothic by Elsner+Flake offers a wide spectrum for usage. After 80 years, the typeface Bank Gothic, designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1930, is still as desirable for all areas of graphic design as it has ever been. Its usage spans the design of headlines to exterior design. Game manufacturers adopt this spry typeface, so reminiscent of the Bauhaus and its geometric forms, as often as do architects and web designers. The creative path of the Bank Gothic from hot metal type via phototypesetting to digital variations created by desktop designers has by now taken on great breadth. The number of cuts has increased. The original Roman weight has been augmented by Oblique and Italic variants. The original versions came with just a complement of Small Caps. Now, they are, however, enlarged by often quite individualized lower case letters. In order to do justice to the form changes and in order to differentiate between the various versions, the Bank Gothic, since 2007 a US trademark of the Grosse Pointe Group (Trademark FontHaus, USA), is nowadays available under a variety of different names. Some of these variations remain close to the original concept, others strive for greater individualism in their designs. The typeface family which was cut by the American typefoundry ATF (American Type Founders) in the early 1930’s consisted of a normal and a narrow type family, each one in the weights Light, Medium and Bold. In addition to its basic ornamental structure which has its origin in square or rectangular geometric forms, there is another unique feature of the Bank Gothic: the normally round upper case letters such as B, C, G, O, P, Q, R and U are also rectangular. The one exception is the upper case letter D, which remains round, most likely for legibility reasons (there is the danger of mistaking it for the letter O.) Because of the huge success of this type design, which follows the design principles of the more square and the more contemporary adaption of the already existing Copperplate, it was soon adopted by all of the major type and typesetting manufacturers. Thus, the Bank Gothic appeared at Linotype; as Commerce Gothic it was brought out by Ludlow; and as Deluxe Gothic on Intertype typesetters. Among others, it was also available from Monotype and sold under the name Stationer’s Gothic. In 1936, Linotype introduced 6pt and 12pt weights of the condensed version as Card Gothic. Lateron, Linotype came out with Bank Gothic Medium Condensed in larger sizes and a more narrow set width and named it Poster Gothic. With the advent of photoypesetters and CRT technologies, the Bank Gothic experienced an even wider acceptance. The first digital versions, designed according to present computing technologies, was created by Bitstream whose PostScript fonts in Regular and Medium weights have been available through FontShop since 1991. These were followed by digital redesigns by FontHaus, USA, and, in 1996, by Elsner+Flake who were also the first company to add cursive cuts. In 2009, they extended the family to 16 weights in both Roman and Oblique designs. In addition, they created the long-awaited Cyrillic complement. In 2010, Elsner+Flake completed the set with lowercase letters and small caps. Since its redesign the type family has been available from Elsner+Flake under the name Bank Sans®. The character set of the Bank Sans® Caps and the Bank Sans® covers almost all latin-based languages (Europe Plus) as well as the Cyrillic character set MAC OS Cyrillic and MS Windows 1251. Both families are available in Normal, Condensed and Compressed weights in 4 stroke widths each (Light, Regular, Medium and Bold). The basic stroke widths of the different weights have been kept even which allows the mixing of, for instance, normal upper case letters and the more narrow small caps. This gives the family an even wider and more interactive range of use. There are, furthermore, extensive sets of numerals which can be accessed via OpenType-Features. The Bank Sans® type family, as opposed to the Bank Sans® Caps family, contains, instead of the optically reduced upper case letters, newly designed lower case letters and the matching small caps. Bank Sans® fonts are available in the formats OpenType and TrueType.

SHILIA – AN ARABIC FONT THAT LIVES HAND IN HAND WITH LATIN TEXT CHARACTERS A special design principle underlies the Arabic font Shilia created by Mamoun Sakkal: the form of the characters means that they harmonise happily with sans serif Latin fonts, such as Univers. Because of this, Shilia is the ideal choice for any bilingual project and for use in international corporate branding. Shilia™ had its beginnings in the 1970s. Taking one of the oldest variants of Arabic script, the minimalist Kufic, as his inspiration, Mamoun Sakkal fashioned simple stroke shapes that are combined according to a geometric grid. Shilia is at home in both worlds, that of the East and that of the West. And although Shilia has been primarily designed to be used as a display font, it is also ideal for setting shorter texts. Before being published by Linotype, Shilia underwent major adaptation and updating, and is now available in the modern OpenType format. Mamoun Sakkal increased the characters available per individual typeface variant to over 1,800, and his daughter, Aida Sakkal, worked on programming the extensive OpenType features for the font. There are numerous ligatures that can be used to provide suitable variation and avoid repetition within a given context, and many special features such as the dots under the initial and final segments of words being automatically centralised. Shilia not only supports Arabic, but also Persian and Urdu. Special character combinations for setting texts in these languages, particularly Urdu, are provided through OpenType. And there are a total of 19 stylistic sets with additional character variants available to the user. An example of Urdu text Shilia is available in eight weights, from UltraLight to Black. The corresponding condensed versions are in the course of preparation. Along with the Arabic characters, all of the typeface versions include matching Latin alphabet letters of Adrian Frutiger’s Linotype Univers® family, making Shilia intrinsically suitable for setting bilingual texts. A set of ornaments carefully designed to allow for numerous compositions of bands and decorative patterns rounds off the range of characters on offer. With its 21 weights, Shilia is one of the most extensive of Arabic typeface families that is currently on the market. Its clear and well-balanced forms emphasise the linear nature of the font without allowing it to appear sterile or artificial. Shilia not only cuts a good figure as a display font for signage or in artistic projects, thanks to its substantial range of features, the font family can also be used to set texts, such as corporate and administrative documents. In addition, but the full compatibility between the Arabic and Latin characters makes Shilia the perfect choice for international and multilingual design projects.

An entry in the Second Linotype Design Contest, Linotype Brewery, designed by Gustavs Andrejs Grinbergs, became part of the TakeType Collection in 1997. Brewery No 2 represents a significantly improved version of its precursor, and the typeface has been both extended and enhanced. When asked about prototypes, Grinbergs cites German typefaces of the early 20th century. It is thus not surprising that the characters of Brewery™ No 2 are based on geometrical forms. However, this is no mere synthetic Grotesque-derived typeface. It has significant contrasts in line thickness and triangular line terminals that are not unlike serifs, placing it in the middle ground somewhere between a Grotesque and serif font. The contrast between the features of a synthetic Grotesque and an Antiqua gives the characters of Brewery No 2 their distinctive charm and is the distinguishing attribute of this contemporary typeface. Additional vibrancy is provided by bevelled line endings (as in the case of the 'E' and the 'F'), the circular punctuation marks and the slight curve of the descending bar of the 'k'. Thanks to a generous x-height and its open counters, Brewery No 2 is also highly legible in small point sizes. Only in its bolder versions is another aspect of Brewery No 2 apparent; Grinbergs has here made the linking elements more rectangular and has emphasized the counters, so that the Bold variants of Brewery No 2 exhibit elements typical of a broken typeface. Brewery No 2 is available in seven finely graduated weights, ranging from Light to Black. Every variant has a corresponding, slightly narrower Italic version. In addition, the lowercase 'a' is given a closed form, the 'e' is more rounded and the 'f' has a descender. The character sets of Brewery No 2 leave nothing to be desired. In addition to small caps and ligatures, there are various numeral sets with old style and lining figures for setting proportional text and table columns. In its most extensive form (the Pan-European variant), Brewery No 2 can be used to set texts in many languages that employ the Latin alphabet and also texts in international languages that use Cyrillic or monotonic Greek orthography. Although some of the features of Brewery No 2, such as the tiny serifs, are only evident in the larger point sizes, this typeface is not just at home when used to set headlines. Brewery No 2 also cuts a good figure in short or medium length texts. This contemporary typeface with its formally elegant quality looks good, for example, on posters, in newspapers and promotional material. It can also be used for websites as it is also available as a web font.

An entry in the Second Linotype Design Contest, Linotype Brewery, designed by Gustavs Andrejs Grinbergs, became part of the TakeType Collection in 1997. Brewery No 2 represents a significantly improved version of its precursor, and the typeface has been both extended and enhanced. When asked about prototypes, Grinbergs cites German typefaces of the early 20th century. It is thus not surprising that the characters of Brewery™ No 2 are based on geometrical forms. However, this is no mere synthetic Grotesque-derived typeface. It has significant contrasts in line thickness and triangular line terminals that are not unlike serifs, placing it in the middle ground somewhere between a Grotesque and serif font. The contrast between the features of a synthetic Grotesque and an Antiqua gives the characters of Brewery No 2 their distinctive charm and is the distinguishing attribute of this contemporary typeface. Additional vibrancy is provided by bevelled line endings (as in the case of the 'E' and the 'F'), the circular punctuation marks and the slight curve of the descending bar of the 'k'. Thanks to a generous x-height and its open counters, Brewery No 2 is also highly legible in small point sizes. Only in its bolder versions is another aspect of Brewery No 2 apparent; Grinbergs has here made the linking elements more rectangular and has emphasized the counters, so that the Bold variants of Brewery No 2 exhibit elements typical of a broken typeface. Brewery No 2 is available in seven finely graduated weights, ranging from Light to Black. Every variant has a corresponding, slightly narrower Italic version. In addition, the lowercase 'a' is given a closed form, the 'e' is more rounded and the 'f' has a descender. The character sets of Brewery No 2 leave nothing to be desired. In addition to small caps and ligatures, there are various numeral sets with old style and lining figures for setting proportional text and table columns. In its most extensive form (the Pan-European variant), Brewery No 2 can be used to set texts in many languages that employ the Latin alphabet and also texts in international languages that use Cyrillic or monotonic Greek orthography. Although some of the features of Brewery No 2, such as the tiny serifs, are only evident in the larger point sizes, this typeface is not just at home when used to set headlines. Brewery No 2 also cuts a good figure in short or medium length texts. This contemporary typeface with its formally elegant quality looks good, for example, on posters, in newspapers and promotional material. It can also be used for websites as it is also available as a web font.

Koufiya is designed by Nadine Chahine in 2003 as part of her MA project at the University of Reading, UK and later released by Linotype in 2007. It is the first typeface to include a matching Arabic and Latin designed by the same designer at the same time with the intention of creating a harmonious balance between the two scripts. The Arabic part is based on the Early Kufi style popular in the 7th to 10th century AD. It is characterized by a strong horizontal baseline, horizontal stacking order, clear and open counters, and a general open feeling. Though based on the earliest styles on Arabic manuscript, the design paradoxically appears quite modern and fresh. The Latin part of Koufiya recalls a Dutch influence in its shallow top arches and rather squarish proportions. Both Arabic and Latin parts have been carefully designed to maintain the same optical size, weight, and rhythm. However, no sacrifices were made to make them appear closer to each other. They are designed so that they work well together on the printed page, and to make sure that the two scripts are harmonious when they are mixed together even if within the same paragraph. The font includes support for Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. It also includes proportional and tabular numerals for the supported languages.

Neo Contact is the typeface used on the packaging of Marlboro cigarettes (Marlboro “Reds,” the main line of the brand). The typeface is bold and condensed, designed in the Egyptienne style. Egyptienne types were first designed in the 1800s, as type founders - especially in the westward-expanding United States - began to dream up newer, bolder styles of letters for advertising usage. During the 1800s, it became increasingly important for businesses to set themselves, and their products, apart from competitors. This desire has remained with corporations, as well as with advertisers and designers, into the 21st century. In addition to cigarette packaging, Neo Contact (as part of Marlboro’s branding efforts) can be seen on numerous items, including Ferrari’s F1 racers, and at Formula 1 race tracks. The letters in Neo Contact are filled with personality. Their forms display two distinct weights of line, and the serifs are made up of tiny, strict slabs. Ball terminals round out the design. Neo Contact is a complete font, with a complete western character set. Typefaces in the Egyptienne style preceded the development and distribution of larger, crazier wood typefaces, but also share many similarities with these descendents. More traditional, text faces in the Egyptienne manner are also available from Linotype GmbH (e.g., Adrian Frutiger’s Egyptienne F). On the opposite end of the spectrum, we offer interesting, personality-filled wood display types, like Ponderosa as well.

The Times Europa Office family is designed after the model of the original serif family produced by Walter Tracy and the Linotype Design Studio in 1974. A redesign of the classic Times New Roman typeface, Times Europa was created as its replacement for The Times of London newspaper. In contrast to Times New Roman, Times Europa has sturdier characters and more open counter spaces, which help maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times Europa drastically improved on the legibility of the bold and italic styles of Times New Roman. Overall, text set in Times Europa is easier to read, and quicker to digest. Akira Kobayashi, Linotype’s Type Director, brought Times Europa up to speed for the new millennium in 2006. Now optimized for office communication instead of newspaper design, Times Europa Office offers a familiar yet refreshingly new appearance for serif text. Because of The Times of London’s specific printing conditions in the early 1970s, Times Europa originally had some intentional errors built into its letterform design. These inconsistencies created an even image in newspaper text in the long run. However, these design elements bear no role on modern office communication and its needs. Kobayashi redrew these problem forms, eliminating them completely. Now Times Europa’s font weights appear clearer and easier to read than ever before.

AW Conqueror Sans was born out of this desire to fuse geometric and humanistic sans. It remains a typeface fundamentally influenced by both Bauhaus spirit — with its simplified geometric forms — and Jan Tschichold’s attempts to link this modular spirit to Eric Gill’s humanist sans serif. AW Conqueror Sans is a claimed French synthesis of Germanic Modernism and English classical tradition. Spheres of influence The core set of capitals are based on the proportions of the Roman capitals like Futura, Erbar, Nobel, Johnston, Gill Sans. During the 1930s, the Futura was a true success. Since then, Monotype offered a geometric version of the Gill Sans, and Linotype added Futura-like variants to WA Dwiggins’ Metro. AW Conqueror Sans is kind of a “fusion” of this approach. The lower case “b, d, p, q” are also directly influenced by Eric Gill’s, while the “y” is influenced by some of Jan Tschichold’s alphabets. In italics, drawn narrower, AW Conqueror Sans reinterprets Gill’s idea: a rigorous italic like a roman but which sometimes reveals some aspects of a Renaissance italic. AW Conqueror Sans and its extensions AW Conqueror Sans is the initial reference point for an extended family, including AW Conqueror Inline, Slab, Carved, Didot. The potential of these mixed families is powerful. Because AW Conqueror typefaces are based on an identical structure, and compatible proportions.

Palatino Arabic is a collaboration between Lebanese designer Nadine Chahine and Prof. Hermann Zapf. The design is based on the Al-Ahram typeface designed by Zapf in 1956 but reworked and modified to fit the Palatino nova family. The design is Naskh in style but with a strong influence of the Thuluth style as well. This is evident in the swash-like finials and the wide proportions of the letterforms. It is designed for use in print in both large and small sizes. The counters are wide open to allow for better readability in small sizes as well as to maintain an open and friendly appearance. The font has 1091 glyphs and includes a large number of extra ligatures and stylistic alternates as well as the basic Latin part of Palatino nova and support for Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. It also includes proportional and tabular numerals for the supported languages. Palatino Arabic wins Type Directors Club award. Each year, the New York-based Type Directors Club judges typeface designs from all over the world in their TDC2 contest. Linotype is pleased to announce that a very new typeface of its own is among 2008’s winners: Palatino Arabic. A collaboration between Nadine Chahine and Prof. Hermann Zapf, this face is an extension of Zapf’s Al-Ahram Arabic type from 1956 recreated to join the Palatino nova family.

Cloister Open Face was designed in 1929 by Morris Fuller Benton as one weight of the Cloister Old Style family. Cloister itself appeared from 1897 with American Type Founders, and later for the typesetting machines of the Linotype, Intertype and Monotype companies. At that time, it was the truest modern industrial revival of the Jensonian Roman. Benton stayed close to the style of his model in both design and spacing. Cloister Open Face has an old-world elegance, and it works well for titling in books and magazines. In 1458, Charles VII sent the Frenchman Nicolas Jenson to learn the craft of movable type in Mainz, the city where Gutenberg was working. Jenson was supposed to return to France with his newly learned skills, but instead he traveled to Italy, as did other itinerant printers of the time. From 1468 on, he was in Venice, where he flourished as a punchcutter, printer and publisher. He was probably the first non-German printer of movable type, and he produced about 150 editions. Though his punches have vanished, his books have not, and those produced from about 1470 until his death in 1480 have served as a source of inspiration for type designers over centuries. His Roman type is often called the first true Roman." Notable in almost all Jensonian Romans is the angled crossbar on the lowercase e, which is known as the "Venetian Oldstyle e.""

The Trump Mediaeval Office family is designed after the model of the original serif family produced by Georg Trump in 1954. Trump released this typeface through the C.E. Weber type foundry in Stuttgart, and Linotype quickly cut the face for mechanical composition. Thereafter it became popular around the world. One of the most prolific German type designers of the 20th century, Trump created numerous typefaces in several different styles, but Trump Mediaeval is often regarded as his best work. Trump Mediaeval is an old style serif typeface, with new inherent quality that could only have come about after centuries of variation on this theme. It bears some resemblance to the classic Garamond typefaces, yet its characteristic letters set it apart in a positive way. Akira Kobayashi, Linotype’s Type Director, released his own revived design, Trump Mediaeval Office, in 2006. Trump Mediaeval Office has two weights, each with an italic companion. Unlike the original design, Kobayashi has harmonized the varying letterforms across the two weights, allowing Regular and Bold text to stand side by side harmoniously. Trump Mediaeval’s numbers now match across weights as well, optimizing their legibility in sizes large and small. Decades ago, Trump Mediaeval was a popular choice for setting book texts, because of its robust serifs. These are exactly what make the face a good choice for office application today; on lower-resolution printers, these serifs will still remain a strong feature on the letterform, increasing legibility along the line of text.