Another jewel of the vast treasure of historical font designs was digged out and brought to life again. Due to the courtesy of the Quay Brothers, London, who yielded to me an age-old brochure of Albert Auspurg’s ‚Miami‘, released by Schriftguss in 1934, I was able to redesign this elegant font. This font which I called ‚Elbflorenz‘, a cognomen for Dresden, contains West and Central European type faces as well as those for Romanian and Turkish. To get access to the historical number sign please use either the OT feature additional ligatures or ordinals.

This typeface was inspired by a font used by Henrie Ballard. Ballard operated on Fleet Street at the Signe of the Bear in London, England. He was active in the industry from 1597-1608. The font is meant to capture the feel of the original typeface with the capability of reproducing the many ligatures that are part of what make that era's printing interesting. The Italic version has a dramatic feel that is almost handwritten in appearance. Every Proportional Lime font comes with a complete guide to its Unicode extended character set.

The inspiration for this font (as well as the name!) comes from a London cafe I visited years ago. I was fascinated with the handwritten menu - irregular and awkward, yet refreshingly charming. I did my best to recall that particular look by adding 4 slightly different versions of each lowercase letter. The name of the font comes from the speed of the waiter...or the lack of it! But luckily he took his time, otherwise I wouldn't have had the time to really look at the handwritten menu! :)

Heinz is inspired by the poster design of Heinz Schulz-Neudamm for Fritz Lang’s famous silent movie Metropolis. Heinz Schulz-Neudamm did quite a lot of work for the German branches of big American movie companies like 20th Century Fox or MGM. His most famous work is probably the title lettering for the Metropolis movie. The original drawing for that poster sold in 2005 in London for 398.000 Pound Sterling (approx. US $ 600.000). I designed a completely new font in the feeling of Heinz’s lettering. Enjoy. Yours historically, Gert Wiescher

Hoxton North came out of the concept to create something distinctly British, drawing on modernist influences such as Edward Johnston's typeface for the London Underground and Gill Sans. A humanistic san serif typeface with a British modern quality. Open forms with subtle contrast promote good readability across a wide range of media in both print and screen. The compact letterforms give it a strong lateral dynamic that is space efficient across design layouts. Details include 620 characters, seven weights with true italics, small caps, manually edited kerning and Opentype features.

A cast iron plaque from Bristol Temple Meads Station serves as inspiration for this antique font. The plaque commemorates the design contribution of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who in March 1833 at only 27 was appointed chief engineer of the Great Western Railway, the line that links London to Bristol. This helped establish Brunel as one of the world’s leading engineers. Impressive achievements along the route include viaducts at Hanwell and Chippenham, Maidenhead Bridge, Box Tunnel and Bristol Temple Meads Station. Ironbridge evokes industrial heritage, gothic spookiness or eroded heavy metal.

William Caslon (1692-1766) laid the foundation for English typefounding, when he cut his first roman face in London in 1722. He modeled his designs on late seventeenth-century Dutch types; thus his typefaces are classified as Old Styles. The original Caslon punches have been preserved, enabling a perfect recutting of his faces. Notice the hollow in the apex of A and the two full serifs or beaks in the C. The italic capitals are irregular in their inclination. The Caslon font family is distinctive for use in subheadings or continuous text.

Henri Abraham Chatelain was a cartographer and publisher of the famous Atlas Historique, ou Nouvelle Introduction a L'Histoire, a world atlas released between 1705 and 1732 in Amsterdam. A few years ago, at an antique book shop in London, I bought a page from Chatelain's atlas—a page covering the Near East, India, the Indian Ocean—that had a particularly alluring, oblique handlettering style. The text is in French, which gave me plenty of samples of diacritics and accented characters. The overall effect is neat and legible, with a distinctly historical flair.

Impact wide was developed from the designer's original drawings for the production of 'Impact' metal type, with many detail changes because of the density of the letters. These include the restoration of the bevelled i and j dots of the original. Character maps show some useful alternative characters in both roman and italic. Included are a crossbar numeral 1, mirror quotes and some sorts which were cast in metal but never reproduced in digitized versions of the typeface. There is also a font-specific Euro symbol. (Impact is a trademark of The Type Museum, London).

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older typeface, Plantin, as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space (always important concerns for newspapers). As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman," Morison's revision became "Times New Roman." The Times of London debuted the new typeface in October 1932, and after one year the design was released for commercial sale. The Times New Roman World Version is an extension of the original Times New Roman with several other scripts like with the Helvetica World fonts. It is part of the Windows Vista system. The following code pages are supported:1250 Latin 2: Eastern European 1251 Cyrillic 1253 Greek 1254 Turkish 1255 Hebrew 1256 Arabic Note: The Roman and Bold versions include the arabic scripts but they are not part in the corresponding italic versions. 1257 Windows Baltic 1258 Windows Vietnamese

Please Note: as this is a picture-only font, there are no latin alpha/numeric glyphs. Each wood type manufacturer had their own selection of original Logotypes or Catchwords designs. These are taken right from the original source material, an extremely rare 1910 catalog of an English wood type maker called Day & Collins in London. As the name says it, these words are intended to attract attention, to spice up posters, packaging or advertisement designs. I made these available for the digital age, leaving the original texture of printed wood type at the highest detail possible.

Beeching is a family of six typefaces designed to combine extreme legibility with a hint of retrospective character. It is inspired by the lettering used in the Leslie Green designed stations of the London Underground and is as up to date today as it was the day those stations opened. The Beeching faces (Regular, Bold, Small Capitals, Small Capitals Bold, Shadowed and Small Capitals Shadowed) are ideal for use in large scale signage that needs to be seen over long distances. We feel the family provides a clear demonstration that traditional details, such as serifs and ligatures serve to enhance legibility.

Piccadilly Circus is an original design by Alex Kaczun. Piccadilly Circus takes you back to Old London and is reminiscent of billboards and neon signs which made the area famous. It's a busy spot, and it is said that a person who stays long enough at Piccadilly Circus will eventually bump into everyone they know. So, take a stroll down the historic downtown shopping district and enjoy the shops, boutiques and pubs. This whimsical font is great for display posters, banners and carnival signs and is sure to captivate your audience. A decorative and cute alternative to any advertisement.

ITC Jiggery Pokery is the work of British freelance designer Carol Kemp. ITC Jiggery Pokery evolved from lettering for a project which needed to be quirky, wacky and fun," says Kemp. "The name came to me as the letters appear to jig along - it just seemed to fit. 'Jiggery Pokery' is London Cockney slang which has a variety of meanings. It's used to describe behavior such as 'ducking and diving', trickery, juggling (especially of financial matters!), or 'hanky panky'. My grandparents were Cockneys, and my uncle would use colourful rhyming slang which I loved to hear as a child.""

Perhaps the greatest tragedy in all English history began in 1642 when, for five years, families and friends were divided by violent struggle. Respect for the monarchy was as great then as it is today; but it was squandered by Charles I and Civil War ensued. Out of Cromwell's eventual victory came a period of absolute rule just as arbitrary. In communicating the affairs of Court, Mercurius Aulicus can claim to be England's first regular newspaper, printed at Oxford and reprinted in London almost throughout the entire war. This typeface family echoes the calligraphic scripts of newspaper cartoons of the time.

Elliptical The squareness of curves. That was the elliptical – in more than one sense – notion being explored in the making of FS Hackney. The squareness of curves and vertical terminals to create a gentle, soft sans serif, with a little bit of magic. A momentary thought – “It doesn’t have to be like this” – provided the spur to explore the verticals and skeletons of letterforms beyond conventional type design limits. A 12-month gestation period gave rise to a font with a larger-than-usual character set, including non-lining figures, small caps and superior and inferior numbers. It’s a collection that speaks confidently for itself. Assertive It was the Hackney carriage – the black London cab – that gave this font its name, not the north London neighbourhood. Solid, dependable, effective and built to last, FS Hackney was honed to perform in all conditions. Cool, compelling lines and a satisfying overall simplicity lend FS Hackney its assertive air. Assured, versatile and effective; just like a black cab (but without the grumbling). Machined Over a string of meetings, Jason Smith and FS Hackney designer Nick Job worked out how to infuse Nick’s sketched letterforms with Fontsmith’s familiar geniality. “Nick is very meticulous and produces very clean design work,” says Jason. “Hackney is ideal for branding as it’s very clear and its quirks are sensible ones, not odd ones, that don’t distract from the message.”

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older typeface, Plantin, as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space (always important concerns for newspapers). As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman," Morison's revision became "Times New Roman." The Times of London debuted the new typeface in October 1932, and after one year the design was released for commercial sale. The Linotype version, called simply "Times," was optimized for line-casting technology, though the differences in the basic design are subtle. The typeface was very successful for the Times of London, which used a higher grade of newsprint than most newspapers. The better, whiter paper enhanced the new typeface's high degree of contrast and sharp serifs, and created a sparkling, modern look. In 1972, Walter Tracy designed Times Europa for The Times of London. This was a sturdier version, and it was needed to hold up to the newest demands of newspaper printing: faster presses and cheaper paper. In the United States, the Times font family has enjoyed popularity as a magazine and book type since the 1940s. Times continues to be very popular around the world because of its versatility and readability. And because it is a standard font on most computers and digital printers, it has become universally familiar as the office workhorse. Times™, Times™ Europa, and Times New Roman™ are sure bets for proposals, annual reports, office correspondence, magazines, and newspapers. Linotype offers many versions of this font: Times™ is the universal version of Times, used formerly as the matrices for the Linotype hot metal line-casting machines. The basic four weights of roman, italic, bold and bold italic are standard fonts on most printers. There are also small caps, Old style Figures, phonetic characters, and Central European characters. Times™ Ten is the version specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below); its characters are wider and the hairlines are a little stronger. Times Ten has many weights for Latin typography, as well as several weights for Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek typesetting. Times™ Eighteen is the headline version, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer. Times™ Europa is the Walter Tracy re-design of 1972, its sturdier characters and open counterspaces maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times New Roman™ is the historic font version first drawn by Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison for the Monotype hot metal caster."

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older typeface, Plantin, as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space (always important concerns for newspapers). As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman," Morison's revision became "Times New Roman." The Times of London debuted the new typeface in October 1932, and after one year the design was released for commercial sale. The Linotype version, called simply "Times," was optimized for line-casting technology, though the differences in the basic design are subtle. The typeface was very successful for the Times of London, which used a higher grade of newsprint than most newspapers. The better, whiter paper enhanced the new typeface's high degree of contrast and sharp serifs, and created a sparkling, modern look. In 1972, Walter Tracy designed Times Europa for The Times of London. This was a sturdier version, and it was needed to hold up to the newest demands of newspaper printing: faster presses and cheaper paper. In the United States, the Times font family has enjoyed popularity as a magazine and book type since the 1940s. Times continues to be very popular around the world because of its versatility and readability. And because it is a standard font on most computers and digital printers, it has become universally familiar as the office workhorse. Times™, Times™ Europa, and Times New Roman™ are sure bets for proposals, annual reports, office correspondence, magazines, and newspapers. Linotype offers many versions of this font: Times™ is the universal version of Times, used formerly as the matrices for the Linotype hot metal line-casting machines. The basic four weights of roman, italic, bold and bold italic are standard fonts on most printers. There are also small caps, Old style Figures, phonetic characters, and Central European characters. Times™ Ten is the version specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below); its characters are wider and the hairlines are a little stronger. Times Ten has many weights for Latin typography, as well as several weights for Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek typesetting. Times™ Eighteen is the headline version, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer. Times™ Europa is the Walter Tracy re-design of 1972, its sturdier characters and open counterspaces maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times New Roman™ is the historic font version first drawn by Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison for the Monotype hot metal caster."

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older typeface, Plantin, as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space (always important concerns for newspapers). As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman," Morison's revision became "Times New Roman." The Times of London debuted the new typeface in October 1932, and after one year the design was released for commercial sale. The Linotype version, called simply "Times," was optimized for line-casting technology, though the differences in the basic design are subtle. The typeface was very successful for the Times of London, which used a higher grade of newsprint than most newspapers. The better, whiter paper enhanced the new typeface's high degree of contrast and sharp serifs, and created a sparkling, modern look. In 1972, Walter Tracy designed Times Europa for The Times of London. This was a sturdier version, and it was needed to hold up to the newest demands of newspaper printing: faster presses and cheaper paper. In the United States, the Times font family has enjoyed popularity as a magazine and book type since the 1940s. Times continues to be very popular around the world because of its versatility and readability. And because it is a standard font on most computers and digital printers, it has become universally familiar as the office workhorse. Times™, Times™ Europa, and Times New Roman™ are sure bets for proposals, annual reports, office correspondence, magazines, and newspapers. Linotype offers many versions of this font: Times™ is the universal version of Times, used formerly as the matrices for the Linotype hot metal line-casting machines. The basic four weights of roman, italic, bold and bold italic are standard fonts on most printers. There are also small caps, Old style Figures, phonetic characters, and Central European characters. Times™ Ten is the version specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below); its characters are wider and the hairlines are a little stronger. Times Ten has many weights for Latin typography, as well as several weights for Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek typesetting. Times™ Eighteen is the headline version, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer. Times™ Europa is the Walter Tracy re-design of 1972, its sturdier characters and open counterspaces maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times New Roman™ is the historic font version first drawn by Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison for the Monotype hot metal caster."

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older typeface, Plantin, as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space (always important concerns for newspapers). As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman," Morison's revision became "Times New Roman." The Times of London debuted the new typeface in October 1932, and after one year the design was released for commercial sale. The Linotype version, called simply "Times," was optimized for line-casting technology, though the differences in the basic design are subtle. The typeface was very successful for the Times of London, which used a higher grade of newsprint than most newspapers. The better, whiter paper enhanced the new typeface's high degree of contrast and sharp serifs, and created a sparkling, modern look. In 1972, Walter Tracy designed Times Europa for The Times of London. This was a sturdier version, and it was needed to hold up to the newest demands of newspaper printing: faster presses and cheaper paper. In the United States, the Times font family has enjoyed popularity as a magazine and book type since the 1940s. Times continues to be very popular around the world because of its versatility and readability. And because it is a standard font on most computers and digital printers, it has become universally familiar as the office workhorse. Times™, Times™ Europa, and Times New Roman™ are sure bets for proposals, annual reports, office correspondence, magazines, and newspapers. Linotype offers many versions of this font: Times™ is the universal version of Times, used formerly as the matrices for the Linotype hot metal line-casting machines. The basic four weights of roman, italic, bold and bold italic are standard fonts on most printers. There are also small caps, Old style Figures, phonetic characters, and Central European characters. Times™ Ten is the version specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below); its characters are wider and the hairlines are a little stronger. Times Ten has many weights for Latin typography, as well as several weights for Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek typesetting. Times™ Eighteen is the headline version, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer. Times™ Europa is the Walter Tracy re-design of 1972, its sturdier characters and open counterspaces maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times New Roman™ is the historic font version first drawn by Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison for the Monotype hot metal caster."

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older typeface, Plantin, as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space (always important concerns for newspapers). As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman," Morison's revision became "Times New Roman." The Times of London debuted the new typeface in October 1932, and after one year the design was released for commercial sale. The Linotype version, called simply "Times," was optimized for line-casting technology, though the differences in the basic design are subtle. The typeface was very successful for the Times of London, which used a higher grade of newsprint than most newspapers. The better, whiter paper enhanced the new typeface's high degree of contrast and sharp serifs, and created a sparkling, modern look. In 1972, Walter Tracy designed Times Europa for The Times of London. This was a sturdier version, and it was needed to hold up to the newest demands of newspaper printing: faster presses and cheaper paper. In the United States, the Times font family has enjoyed popularity as a magazine and book type since the 1940s. Times continues to be very popular around the world because of its versatility and readability. And because it is a standard font on most computers and digital printers, it has become universally familiar as the office workhorse. Times™, Times™ Europa, and Times New Roman™ are sure bets for proposals, annual reports, office correspondence, magazines, and newspapers. Linotype offers many versions of this font: Times™ is the universal version of Times, used formerly as the matrices for the Linotype hot metal line-casting machines. The basic four weights of roman, italic, bold and bold italic are standard fonts on most printers. There are also small caps, Old style Figures, phonetic characters, and Central European characters. Times™ Ten is the version specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below); its characters are wider and the hairlines are a little stronger. Times Ten has many weights for Latin typography, as well as several weights for Central European, Cyrillic, and Greek typesetting. Times™ Eighteen is the headline version, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer. Times™ Europa is the Walter Tracy re-design of 1972, its sturdier characters and open counterspaces maintain readability in rougher printing conditions. Times New Roman™ is the historic font version first drawn by Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison for the Monotype hot metal caster."

Birmingham New Street is the latest updated development of a typeface family inspired by the hand lettered title on a 19th century railway map. The map, prepared by the London and North Western Railway was headed "Birmingham and environs". New Street, meanwhile is the great 19th century commercial road linking the city centre of Birmingham with the train station of the same name. So, in a spirit of 19th century enterprise, we present "Birmingham New Street", a fun family of three display faces, laden with open type features and late Victorian charm, ideal for posters, book covers and any other high flown design you might have in mind.

Carnaby Street is a vintage style bold font that pairs strong rectangular framing with softer rounded elements. It has a cool, funky, and groovy vibe, while still retaining a strong sense of linearity and geometry. This lettering style conjures up the retro vibes of the 1960s swinging London scene, or the psychedelic poster art of posters and handbills for the Fillmore Auditorium and Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco in the mid to late '60s. It represents a new take on a classic array of hand lettered stylings that have their roots both in the Art Nouveau Movement and the hippie counterculture movement of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Project D is the fourth typeface released by DM Founts. It was inspired by the infamous graffiti atop the former Heygate Estate in South London, which I had passed by numerous times on the overground train years ago. Heygate Estate has since been replaced by soulless luxury flats, as per the gentrification agenda. The letters don't entirely match the graffiti as they were created from memory, but I thought such a profound statement should be honoured. Project D is best used for impact at large sizes, although it should scale well. Use it for computer interfaces, retro headings and anything involving defiance, espionage, infiltration and spy games.

Nylon is an interpretation of pre-16th century letterforms, in particular those found in mediaeval portraits at the National Gallery, London. The source material contains many unusual and manic shapes—it appears as if these classical forms have, over time, become perverted, almost demonic. Draylon is the more restrained counterpart to Nylon; it is based on letterforms found on 18th century ceramics—some 200 years after the source material of Nylon. Nylon and Draylon have been designed so that they can be mixed together with ease. Both typefaces have been drawn with a kind of crude digital awkwardness—acknowledging the tool of the present moment, the computer, in the design process.

I digitized and revitalize Hostetler Fette Ultfraktur Ornamental from the classical type specimen book from Rudolf Hostetler. He was a Swiss type designer, author of “The Printer’s Terms” designed by Jan Tschichold, of “Technical Terms of the Printing Industry” (5th edition was printed in 1995), and of "Type: eine Auswahl guter Drucktypen; 80 Alphabete klassischer und moderner Schriften" (Teufen, Ausser-Rhoden: Niggli, 1958). He also wrote "Type: A Selection of Types" (1949, fgm books, R. Hostettler, E. Kopley, H. Strehler Publ., St. Gallen and London) in which he highlights type made by European houses such as Haas, Enschedé, Deberny and Nebiolo. Jost Hochuli wrote his biography.

In the year 1528 Pierre Attaignant led a revolution in music printing. His method of once-press moveable type, greatly simplifying the original 3 impression process developed by Petrucci, remained in use till near the end of the 17th century. The method could only realize one line of music per staff, and the introduction of barlines as a common means of aligning multiple staves brought this method to a close after nearly two centuries of use. This font is meant to allow the printing of music using that method with the notation of that era. It is largely based on an exemplar printed by Snodham of London.

Grand Heist is a bold and unique display typeface, fully equipped with basic and Western European Latin characters, numbers, punctuation, some symbols and special characters. Now we don't condone robbing banks here, but if you do, we can't deny that you'll have way more street credibility if you have this font in your handy fontbook. Just sayin'. Aa-Zz Numbers Multi-language support Symbols Special Characters

The name Otis arose from an incident in a shopping mall in which, realising my shoelace was undone while on an escalator, I bent down to tie it, became aware of the approaching end, panicked, fell over, and in the process happened to notice the escalator's brand name.

The Azbuka™ typeface family has its roots in a fairly pedestrian source. “The idea came in part from an old sign in London that read ‘SPRINKLER STOP VALVE’,” says Dave Farey, designer of the typeface. Like all good sign spotters, Farey took a photograph of the sign and filed it away for possible use in a lettering or typeface design project. In Prague a number of years later, the street signs reminded Farey of the London signage - and his camera came out again. Comparing the two back in his studio, he realized that the signs from London and Prague were not as similar as he initially thought. However, they were enough alike to serve as the foundation for a no-frills, 21st century sans serif typeface family. “I wanted to draw a wide range of weights, italic and condensed designs all in one go,” recalls Farey, “rather than add on to the family later.” His goal was to create a family that could be used for text and display copy, with sufficient weights to provide a broad typographic palette. Indeed, the completed design, created in collaboration with fellow type designer Richard Dawson, consists of twenty typefaces in eight weights ranging from extra light to extra black. The five mid-range designs have complementary italics. Seven condensed designs round out the family. Azbuka’s lighter weights perform remarkably well in blocks of text composition. “They’re clean and legible - and perhaps a little boring,” says Farey, “but they are perfect for copy with a down-to-earth, yet contemporary flavor.” The heavier weights are equally well suited for a variety of display uses. The designs are authoritative but not overbearing and will readily make a strong statement without calling attention to themselves. The condensed weights of Azbuka are ideal for those instances where you have a lot to say - and not much room to say it. The name Azbuka? It’s Russian for “alphabet.” And what more appropriate name could there be for this utilitarian, industrial-strength type family than alphabet? The Azbuka family is available as a suite of OpenType Pro fonts. Graphic communicators can now work with this versatile design while taking advantage of OpenType’s capabilities. The Azbuka Pro fonts also offer an extended character set that supports most Central European and many Eastern European languages

The first sans serif types were made in London in the early 19th century. They were severely modern, all caps and bold. The Figgins foundry, inventor of the term sans serif, showed a ?ne example in its specimen of 1836. The extra bold weight of Figgins Sans is a close revival of the original, with the addition of a lower case which retains its partly geometric, partly grotesque quality. The family is rounded out with other weights and an italic, and extended into Cyrillic and Greek, all executed in what is assumed to be as authentic a manner as possible, given the hypothetical nature of the exercise. Together with Scotch Modern, comprises The Modern Suite of matched fonts.

Camden is based on the types used in Camden's 'Remaines concerning Britaine' published in London in 1638. The object was to avoid the contradiction inherent in most 'distressed' typefaces made to give the effect of the imperfections in old print. This means that apparently worn characters are perfectly repeated throughout a setting. The makeup of the Camden fonts means that, with a little extra keying time, alternate characters may be brought in which overcome this. Also many characters are provided which have 'period identities' such as the long s with ligatures, tied sorts ct, sp and st, swash characters in the italic and the double vv, all of which can add a specific age identity.

The successful Gill Sans® was designed by the English artist and type designer Eric Gill and issued by Monotype in 1928 to 1930. The roots of Gill Sans can be traced to the typeface that Gill's teacher, Edward Johnston, designed for the signage of the London Underground Railway in 1918. Gill´s alphabet is more classical in proportion and contains what have become known as his signature flared capital R and eyeglass lowercase g. Gill Sans is a humanist sans serif with some geometric touches in its structures. It also has a distinctly British feel. Legible and modern though sometimes cheerfully idiosyncratic, the lighter weights work for text, and the bolder weights make for compelling display typography.

In a specimen book from Stevens, Shanks & Sons, Ltd. of London (circa1930s) “Royal Gothic” was their version of a classic grotesk sans that had been in use as far back as 1899 when the Keystone Foundry called it “Charter Oak”. The terms "gothic" and "grotesk" were equally applied to early sans serif typefaces – at first not well embraced by printers as being too ugly (grotesque) for use. One familiar characteristic of early grotesk fonts (such as this one) is the numerous variations of character widths and shapes. By combining those two terms into a font name, the digital version of this design is called Gothic Grotesk JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.