Right now! FS Emeric reconciles a pair of seemingly opposing approaches: the systematic but chilly functionalism of early modernist typography, trapped in time, and a warmer, more emotional, more optimistic spirit. What Fontsmith created was something that marries precision with expression, geometry with movement, functionality with humanity. FS Emeric has a sharp, kinetic edge that cuts across design disciplines – graphic, fashion, product, automotive. It’s about what’s happening right now. Contemporary, optimistic, distinctive – a classic working sans serif. Appetite Discussions with some of Fontsmith’s design studio clients had revealed an appetite for a new kind of typeface that could express mid-century modernist principles in a fresh, contemporary voice. As he crafted the letterforms that would form FS Emeric, Phil Garnham was guided by two central ideas. First, there was Jan Tschichold’s contention that a good letter is “one that expresses itself, speaking with the utmost distinctiveness and clarity”. Second was a belief that a font can be personally expressive without compromising its functionality. These provided the fuel that drove the project to its conclusion. Posters To mark the launch of FS Emeric, Fontsmith asked 11 eminent design studios from around the world – the likes of Pentagram, Studio Dumbar, Bibliotheque, Non-Format and Build – to create a limited edition A1 poster. Each poster celebrated a different weight of FS Emeric, and just 50 of each were screen-printed by Dan Mather onto 175gsm Colorplan stock. “We gave away a randomly selected poster every time two or more weights of the FS Emeric were purchased,” says Phil Garnham. “They’ve now become somewhat of a collector’s item in their own right.” Superfamily In the spirit of Univers, the original font superfamily, FS Emeric now comprises 22 Roman and italic typefaces overall, making it one of the most versatile and functional modern fonts across all kinds of media, as well as one of the most distinctive.

Welcome Amica Pro, a workhorse sans designed to give your branding a friendly, approachable look. What is it that makes a typeface friendly? Eclectotype undertook extensive research* in this and the results are in! To cut a long story short, friendliness in sans serif fonts can be summed up in two words – short and fat. Basically, think Danny DeVito in letter form. The shortness in Amica Pro is achieved (somewhat counterintuitively) by pushing up the x-height. This, coupled with short ascenders and descenders, gives the text a squat appearance. For the fatness, that's easy in the bolder weights, but how to carry this through to the lights? Here, the fatness equates to roundness, so the letterforms, even if the stroke weight is light, have a rotund appearance from the wideness and roundness of the circular glyphs. When thinking about friendliness, we think about inclusiveness. To this end, Amica Pro supports a super wide range of latin-based languages, as it uses Underware's Latin Plus character set, as well as extra support for Vietnamese. Amica Pro is best used for branding, logos, infographics etc. It will give your UI a friendlier feel, but that doesn't mean it's not serious. There are many useful typographic features, including alternates, numerous figure styles, automatic fractions and case-sensitive forms. The italics are carefully optically corrected "sloped romans" and as such they are the same width as their upright equivalent, so changing your copy to italics will not mess around with the spacing. *I looked at a few fonts and drew some lazy conclusions.

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!

Louisa Fröhlich’s Lisbeth is the charming all-italic trailblazer that handles branding and text with internal vividness. With no roman style, it’s an italic-only family whose creation was guided by imagination instead of restrictive writing tools. Some type families aren’t sure what they want. Lisbeth proceeds with the utmost confidence on its own terms — it’s a feisty three-dimensional thespian amidst the cast of strait-laced characters you’re used to. With branding and magazine usage in mind, Lisbeth addresses the distinct challenges of text and display in a characterful way. The curves of the text weights show a soft angularity, emphasising the handwritten quality and the subtle twist inside the letters. The stroke’s carefully balanced contrast is more pronounced in the vibrant heavier weights but almost absent in the graceful structure of the thin weight. The angle of the letters is almost upright and the x-height is relatively large, so longer texts can be read comfortably and without effort. Lisbeth is slightly condensed and so uses a smaller area to efficiently impart much information. So if a type design can be thought of as the clothing letters wear, then Lisbeth is an energetic, freely flowing stroke wrapped around practical and efficient letter proportions. Another highlight of the family is the quirky high-contrast display style, easily catching every eye. The design concept of the twisted stroke shows at the extreme here and makes the letters dance a little on the page. Even though the shapes behave wildly, every letter is carefully balanced in itself so that the rhythmic repetition of the lettershapes results in an even and harmonic total picture. Lisbeth’s five text weights (from thin to bold) perform excellently in text settings, and its funky display style amps up the internal shimmer within each glyph. It supports numerous languages (Latin-A extended) and comes with ligatures and contextual alternates to produce beautiful typography. The character set contains proportional lining and oldstyle figures, tabular figures, subscripts, superscripts, and fractions. The complete Lisbeth family, along with our entire catalogue, has been optimised for today’s varied screen uses.

Jumpin’ Jack Extended is a fun, cartoon-like display font capable of taking any product out of the ordinary! Use it on bold and bright creations such as banners, posters, covers, titles, magazines, etc. This bouncy fun font is a perfect addition to your collection!