Aquawax FX was developed by Francesco Canovaro as a new variant of the Aquawax family, one of the most beloved Zetafonts classics. This new typefamily is characterised by a contemporary and elegant design, that revisits the original design of 2008 with new geometric inventions, twisted with the current fluid zeitgeist. Aquawax FX builds on the original Aquawax family by adding counter-inktraps to the letterforms and emphasizing the inner contrast of curves and corners creating a smoother, flowing and dynamic look. While inktraps are a design feature that prevents ink from bleeding or filling small spaces in letterforms to achieve a cleaner, more readable look, anti-inktraps characterize the design with a distinctive watery appearance, suitable for logo design and titles. This watery effect is possible through a slight rounding of the inner and outer corners, keeping the original cuts at the letter terminals. A Space variant pushes FX experimentation furthermore, providing an alternate stencil-like style that takes legibility to the extreme, ready for logos and sci-fi headings. This does not limit the usability of Aquawax FX to mere display intent. The Aquawax FX font family includes two versions (Roman and Space), each with nine weights, ranging from Thin to Heavy, and matching italics. With a total of 36 variants plus one variable version, Aquawax FX is a versatile type family that can be used for a variety of design projects, from branding and packaging to editorial design and advertising. Aquawax FX offers a fresh re-interpretation of the original Aquawax letterforms and proportions, with a dynamic and flowing look that is sure to make your projects stand out.

Cairoli was originally cast by Italian foundry Nebiolo in 1928, as a license of a design by Wagner & Schmidt, known as Neue moderne Grotesk. Its solid grotesque design (later developed as Aurora by Weber and Akzidenz-Grotesk by Haas) was extremely successful: it anticipated the versatility of sans serif superfamilies thanks to its range of weights and widths, while still retaining some eccentricities from end-of the century lead and wood type. In 2020 the Italiantype team directed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Mario De Libero decided to produce a revival of Cairoli, extending the original weight and width range and developing both a faithful Classic version and a Now variant. The Cairoli Classic family keeps the original low x-height range, very display-oriented, and normalizes the design while emphasizing the original peculiarities like the hook cuts in curved letters, the high-waisted uppercase R and the squared ovals of the letterforms. Cairoli Now is developed with an higher x-height, more suited for text and digital use, and adds to the original design deeper ink-traps and round punctuation, while slightly correcting the curves for a more contemporary look. Born as an exercise in subtlety and love for lost letterforms, Cairoli stands, like its lead ancestor from a century ago, at the crossroads between artsy craftsmanship and industrial needs. Its deviations from the norm are small enough to give it personality without affecting readability, and the expanded weight and width range make it into a workhorse superfamily with open type features (alternates, stylistic sets, positional numbers) and coverage of over two hundred languages using the latin extended alphabet.

From 2019 back to the 90s … The typeface “Czykago Rough” by Alexander Branczyk and Manuel Viergutz is a re-issue of the font “Czykago” published in 1995 by the font label “Face2Face”. Designed as a re-release for the Font Foundry “Typo Graphic Design” in 2019. The rough sans serif display font is inspired by the 80s and 90s. Glyhph-Set: Latin Extended (Adobe Latin 3). 907 glyphs with 3× A–Z & a–z and 350+ decorative extras like icons, arrows, dingbats, emojis, symbols, sign of the zodiac, geometric shapes, catchwords, decorative ligatures (type the word #LOVE for ❤ or #SMILE for ☺ as OpenType-Feature dlig) and stylistic alternates (4× stylistic sets). For use in logos, magazines, posters, advertisement plus as webfont for decorative headlines. The font works best for display size. Have fun with this font & use the DEMO-FONT (with reduced glyph-set) FOR FREE! ■ Font Name: Czykago Rough ■ Font Weights: Cond + Stretch + Mix + CondBG + Icons + DEMO (with reduced glyph-set) ■ Font Cate­gory: Dis­play for head­line size ■ Font For­mat: .otf (Open­Type Font for Mac + Win) + .ttf (True­Type Font) ■ Glyph Set: 907 glyphs with 350+ decorative extras like icons ■ Lan­guage Sup­port: 80+ for Latin Exten­ded (Adobe Latin 3). Afrikaans, Albanisch, Baskisch, Bemba, Bena, Bosnisch, Dänisch, Deutsch, Englisch, Estnisch, Färöisch, Filipino, Finnisch, Französisch, Friulisch, Galizisch, Gusii, Indonesisch, Irisch, Isländisch, Italienisch, Kabuverdianu, Kalenjin, Katalanisch, Kinyarwanda, Kölsch, Kornisch, Kroatisch, Lettisch, Litauisch, Luhya, Luo-Sprache, Luxemburgisch, Machame, Madagassisch, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malaiisch, Manx, Morisyen, Niederländisch, Niedersorbisch, Nord-Ndebele, Norwegisch Bokmål, Norwegisch Nynorsk, Nyankole, Obersorbisch, Oromo, Pare, Polnisch, Portugiesisch, Rätoromanisch, Rombo, Rukiga, Rumänisch, Rundi, Rwa, Samburu, Sango, Sangu, Schottisches Gälisch, Schwedisch, Schweizerdeutsch, Sena, Shambala, Shona, Slowakisch, Slowenisch, Soga, Somali, Spanisch, Suaheli, Taita, Teso, Tschechisch, Türkisch, Turkmenisch, Ungarisch, Vunjo, Zulu ■ Spe­cials: Alter­na­tive let­ters, sty­listic sets, automatic con­text­ual alter­nates via Open­Type Fea­ture (3× different versions of A–Z & 0–9 + a–z), Euro, kerning pairs, stan­dard & deco­ra­tive liga­tures, Ver­sal Eszett (German Capital Sharp S), 350+ extras like Dingbats & Symbols, arrows, hearts, emojis/smileys, stars, further numbers, lines & geometric shapes ■ Design Date: 1995–2019 ■ Type Desi­gner: Alexander Branczyk and Manuel Viergutz

Ultra legible forceful sanserif in 32 fonts Parisine was born as official parisian métro signage typeface. This family of typefaces has become over years one of the symbols of Paris the Johnston for the London Underground or the Helvetica for the New York Subway. The Parisine was created to accompany travelers in their daily use: ultra-readable, friendly, human while the context is a priori hostile. Meanwhile, Parisine is now a workhorse and economical sanserif font family, highly legible, who can be considered as a more human alternative to the industrial-mechanical Din typeface family. More human, but not fancy: No strange “swashy” f, or cursive v, w etc. on the italics, to keep certain expected regularity, important for information design, signages, and any subjects where legibility, sobriety came first. Born as signage typeface family, the various widths and weights permit a wider range of applications. In editorial projects, the Compress version will enhances your headlines, banners, allowing ultra large settings on pages. The Narrow version will be useful as direct compagnon mixed to standard width version when the space is limited. The various Parisine typeface subfamilies Parisine is organised in various widths and subsets, from the original family Parisine, Parisine Gris featuring lighter versions of the usual weights and italics, Parisine Clair featuring extra light styles, to Parisine Sombre with his darker and extremly black weights as we can seen in Frutiger Black or Antique Olive Nord. Many years of adjustments were necessary to refine this complex family. Initially, Parisine was designed by Jean François Porchez in 1996 for Ratp to solely fulfil the unique needs of signage legibility. Parisine remain the official corporate typeface of the public transport in Paris, the worldwide capital for tourism, and now integral part of the French touch. Directly related, Parisine Office was initially created for Ratp’s internal and external communication, Parisine Office is available at Typofonderie too. Not connected with Ratp and public transports, Parisine Plus was created as an informal version of Parisine. Parisine: Introducing narrow and compressed families About Parisine Parisine helps Parisians catch the right bus Observateur du design star of 2007

Introducing Sarasori, a typeface that effortlessly blends modern architecture and high-tech industrial design to bring you a unique and unconventional style. With its rectilinear display and technical serifs, this typeface is perfect for anyone looking to add a touch of precision and surrealism to their message. The machinelike feel of Sarasori is a testament to its precise and clean design. The unconventional letterforms and obscure vector logic come together to create a unique and mesmerizing effect that is sure to captivate your audience. Whether you’re designing a logo, a poster, or any other form of visual communication, Sarasori will help you deliver your message with a voice that is both modern and industrial. Sarasori is available in three different weights and italics, making it a versatile typeface that can be used for a variety of projects. Its sleek and polished appearance is sure to make a lasting impression, and its technical serifs add an extra layer of sophistication to your designs. So why wait? Embrace the boxy mechanical feel of Sarasori and take your designs to the next level with this unique and modern typeface. Order now and discover the surreal and precise voice that Sarasori can bring to your work. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Nyxali exudes an industrial ruggedness, a typeface that is not content to be relegated to the background. No, Nyxali demands attention, with its rusted metal stamping style that creates an impression of hard work and gritty determination. This typeface’s design is inspired by a misaligned mechanism that is not afraid to show its imperfections. The result speaks to the rough-and-tumble nature of life and the willingness to get one’s hands dirty to get the job done. Nyxali’s alphabet is not content to be perfect; instead, it embraces the irregularity that comes with the cryptic stamping process. But make no mistake, while Nyxali may be rough around the edges, it is not without refinement. The letter pair ligatures are a testament to this, breaking up the monotony of plain, repeating characters and adding a touch of sophistication to an otherwise brutal design. With Nyxali, you can infuse your message with an element of cryptic allure, drawing in your audience with its mysterious and edgy charm. So, if you’re looking for a font that is bold, rugged, and industrial, look no further than Nyxali. It’s the perfect choice for designers who want to inject some personality into their designs and give their message an authentic, industrial edge. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

English description Karela is a humanist slab serif family. Karela is also the Basque word for gunwale, this is, the widened edge at the top of the side of a boat, where the edge is reinforced with wood or other material and to which the thwarts are attached. Gunwales resemble the way slab serifs reinforce vertical stems giving a more robust appearance to the letters. The sturdy, solid and often mechanical structure that is customary in slab serif or mechanistic typefaces is softened in Karela applying subtle tweaks as: humanist proportions, slightly curved endings in ascenders, and curved edges in serifs. The influence of calligraphy is noticeable all over the character set, especially in counters and letters with instrokes like “m”, “n” and “r”, and it becomes explicit in the italics. On the other hand, its low contrast, generous x-height and the constant width of characters across weights makes it very convenient for editorial uses when low resolution is a concern. Karela pursues to give a human touch to a strong and highly functional structure. It seeks for the ideal combination of strength, precision and warmth of the wooden parts painstackingly handcrafted by ancient boat builders. Besides its 12 standard styles, Karela offers also four additional fonts called "grades". Grades are subtle changes in stroke weight in order to compensate for differences in printing media or display conditions of text layouts. To minimize these subtle changes without a reflow of the text they have to be designed with the same character width of the base style. Karela offers 4 grades for its Regular weight: Grade Minus 5, Grade Minus 5 Italic, Grade Plus 5 and Grade Plus 5 Italic. This makes possible to counteract the effect of changes in paper, temperature, paper, background color… In addition, Karela takes this no‑reflowing idea from grades and extends it to the whole range of styles, allowing to play with any of its weights without undesirable text reflows. Enjoy the layout stability while you experiment and play with variations! Karela presents also a wide range of Opentype features for a professional text layout.

Mizwinki Display is an all caps sans serif font family that seamlessly blends organic elegance with ornate industrial precission reminiscent of the Art Deco period. The typeface has organic forms that give it a clean decorative and somewhat oriental appeal. This trendsetting trio consists of three font styles, all denoted as MD (Mizwinki Display): MD-Base: This style forms the foundation of the font family, featuring smooth stems and geometric terminals. It blends organic and industrial designs, with letterforms like E, F, W, N, and M crafted from continuous flowing geometry. MD-Ink: Building upon MD-Base, this style introduces spurs and slits, evoking the ornate look synonymous with classic tattoo art letterforms. MD-InkLine: A unique offshoot of MD-Ink, this style features an inline aesthetic that enhances the ornate appeal. Tighter spacing between letterforms allows the glyphs to blend into each other while maintaining legibility within the inline letter silhouettes. Ideal for logos, headlines, packaging, digital ephemera, and apparel, Mizwinki Display is versatile. Despite being a display font, it works well at smaller sizes and is suitable for low-count body copy. Technical Specs: _____________________________________________________ 3 Font Styles / 12 Open Type Features / Extended Latin Character set (Basic Latin; Western, Central and South Eastern European Latin) / Currency Symbols / Punctuation and Parenthesis / Arrows / Basic Mathematical Symbols / Special Symbols / Basic Numerals / Circled Numerals / Numerators and Denominators / Table Figures / Inferiors and Superiors & Fractions Support for 112 Languages: _____________________________________________________ Afrikaans / Akan / Albanian / Asturian / Asu / Bafia / Basque / Bemba / Bena / Breton / Catalan / Chiga / Colognian / Cornish / Croatian / Czech / Danish / Duala / Dutch / Embu / English / Estonian / Ewe / Faroese / Filipino / Finnish / French / Friulian / Fulah / Galician / Ganda / German / Gusii / Hungarian / Icelandic / Igbo / Inari Sami / Indonesian / Irish / Italian / Jola-Fonyi / Kabuverdianu / Kalenjin / Kamba / Kikuyu / Kinyarwanda / Koyraboro Senni / Koyra Chiini / Langi / Latvian / Lingala / Lithuanian / Lower Sorbian / Luba-Katanga / Luo / Luxembourgish / Luyia / Machame / Makhuwa-Meetto / Makonde / Malagasy / Maltese / Manx / Masai / Meru / Metaʼ / Morisyen / Northern Sami / North Ndebele / Norwegian Bokmål / Norwegian Nynorsk / Nuer / Nyankole / Oromo / Polish / Portuguese / Quechua / Romanian / Romansh / Rombo / Rundi / Rwa / Samburu / Sango / Scottish Gaelic / Sena / Serbian / Shambala / Shona / Slovak / Soga / Somali / Spanish / Swahili / Swedish / Swiss German / Taita / Tasawaq / Teso / Turkish / Upper Sorbian / Uzbek (Latin) / Vai / Volapük / Vunjo / Walser / Welsh / Western Frisian / Yoruba / Zarma / Zulu

Legible, technical, clear—with a hint of retro: Compiler is a no-frills font family straight from the heart of a microprocessor. Inspired by console typefaces, the humanist sans serif typeface combines a large x-height with striking serifs on certain letters such as i and l. Those serifs evoke the aesthetics of monospace typefaces for programming. Even though Compiler is a proportional typeface, this detail improves glyph recognition and helps differentiate between individual letters. Combined with vertical stroke ends, which allow for particularly even spacing, the serifs make for an extremely legible typeface. (Even in small sizes.) Brand recognition guaranteed: Compiler is ideal for applications that require a mechanical flavor without appearing offish. You can use it for websites, apps, branding, corporate design, annual reports, signage, and many other areas with perfect results. Compiler consists of two font families; the second one is Compiler Plain. In Compiler Plain, the signature letters lose their serifs and the forms of "a" and "g" are simplified. This way, the shapes are neutralized. The technical impression recedes into the background. Both families can be combined smoothly: you might use the standard Compiler fonts for display sizes and Compiler Plain styles for body copy. For total design control, you can toggle each of the defining design elements individually from Compiler to Compiler Plain and vice versa. Just use Stylistic Sets to fine-tune your Compiler fonts. Compiler provides you with 8 weights in 4 variations: Upright, Italics, Plain Upright and Plain Italics. That's a total of 32 fonts. Each style contains more than 860 glyphs, including advanced typographic tools such as proportional and tabular figures (both lining and old-style) or small caps—something you'll rarely find in this genre. Other glyphs are optimized for display sizes, such as circled figures and various arrows. There's also a set of glyphs designed for web use: with symbols for shopping carts, hamburger menus or checkboxes, you can implement your web projects elegantly and consistently without relying on third-party tools (like an external icon font). Powered by highly productive OpenType functions, Compiler is an intermedia workhorse straight from cyberspace.

Introducing Telidon—the typeface that brings the nostalgic charm of old dot matrix printers to life. It’s a typeface that’s full of character, inspired by the clunky, mechanical printers of the 1980s that used to hum, buzz and chug away, as they churned out reams of perforated pages. Telidon’s unique dot-matrix appearance isn’t just a throwback to a bygone era, it’s a design element that can help your words stand out from the crowd. With its quick and simple flavor, Telidon will add a jolt of energy to your text, making it perfect for headlines, titles, and logos. This versatile typeface comes in three widths, three weights, and italics, giving you the freedom to create dynamic layouts and add emphasis where needed. Whether you’re designing a retro-inspired poster, a tech-forward website, or anything in between, Telidon is the font that can take your project to the next level. But wait, there’s more! Telidon also has a grungy companion—Telidon Ink—that can give your design a rough-and-tumble edge. So why not add a little dot-matrix magic to your designs and give Telidon a try? You won’t be disappointed! Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Laima is the brush-formed stencil from Bogidar Mascareñas that will create an ovation for branding, album art, upscale venues, and packaging. If wide appeal, attention to detail, or international reach is necessary for your brand, consider Laima’s high-calibre design as your personal ambassador. The general font user is accustomed to stencil typefaces that have a brute look to them — industrial, mechanical, restrictive, or even militarised. Stencils are commonly used because they serve a function, like spray-painting over template letters, giving the reader a warning that must be heeded for safety, or a command to follow immediately. Wooden crates and grunge art are the medium and black or red paint are the norm. Laima, instead, creates a stencil from the world of calligraphy to turn all this on its head. Laima’s 12 stencil styles (six roman and six italic) use the junctures of calligraphic strokes as an opportunity to achieve an uncommon stencil effect, shifting to create unexpected shapes and the illusion of twisted, disconnected overlaps. Inspired by “Arte Nueva de Escribir”, an engravings book published by Francisco Palomares in 1776, Laima progressed well beyond its beginning as a Type and Media Master’s project at KABK, The Hague (NL). It sometimes required completely new character shapes to accommodate the space needed for clear diacritic marks, and was further enhanced with flourishes and alternates for liveliness and variety in individual or branded work. Laima’s italic begins with swashes and uses OpenType features to automatically turn them off with more than two successive capital letters. Use one swashed character for a drop cap, two for ligatured fun, turn them on or off at your discretion, or change the ascender length and swash shape to suit your creative need. With two styles of numerals and stylistic sets for final forms, Laima’s 12 styles and hundreds of Latin-based languages can turn simple words into an occasion that would immediately benefit high-class brands and special uses. Set that article title, release that new product, code your best-looking UI yet, letterpress that business card, and print that gourmet label. Whatever is next, Laima is the unexpected stencil partner to introduce it to an expectant world.

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