I’m happy to announce the complete version of Ancora, a typeface I designed back in 2013. Ancora is a sans serif typeface with a distinctive style, inspired by the imagery in the production of the famous Port wine, such as boats, barrels, grapes, and bottle labels. Use Ancora for magazines, packaging, posters, stamps, brands and logos a new taste.

This family started as a graduation project back in 2009, coming from calligraphic studies and sketches with a broad nib pen, based on humanist proportions and inclination. From its ink and paper origins it has come a long way until the current form, being digitalized and made into fonts through the course of the last 8 years.

Why not take a giant leap back to the 1970s? Rakia is a science-fiction inspired font, with classic overtones of the 70s. Alternatively, it is a 1970s font with scoff overtones. Take your pick! It’s an all capitals face, with a strong suggestion of speed and motion about it. A wonderful display font and fun to use!

Evanston Alehouse is the first font in a larger collection of typefaces inspired by years leading up to the American prohibition. For the past two years I was living in Evanston, IL, a suburb of Chicago. After learning it was one of the birthplaces of the prohibition movement, I set out to learn more about it, and decided to develop a type collection that captures the dynamic era in our nation’s history. In the century that prefaced the ratification of the 18th amendment, saloons, taverns and alehouses boomed as the American working class enjoyed beer and discovered whiskey and gin. At the same time, the Temperance League was forming and gaining strength. By the turn of the century, these temperance societies were common in the culture of the country, with individual towns and states already on the move to abolish alcohol consumption. However, it was undeniable that by this time in history, America loved to drink. This font is inspired by the signage seen outside such drinking establishments. Back to the modern era, Evanston Alehouse is a 25 font family that includes 3 weights, 4 widths and 3 heights. It has special features that add depth to the font, with discretionary ligatures and stylistic alternatives. It also includes a complementary set of ornaments, including line breaks, frames, borders, and laurels. Here’s a snapshot of what you get with Evanston Alehouse: 2 Styles/Postions: Sharp (regular) and Round 3 Weights: Light, Medium and Black 4 Widths: 1826 (condensed), 1858 (narrow), 1893 (wide) and 1919 (expanded) 3 Heights: Capitals, lowercase and small caps 2 Alternatives: Discretionary Ligatures and Stylistic Alternatives 1 Ornament font with over 100 graphic extras

At VetteLetters we like food but we also appreciate our drinks. Yes, of the non-alcoholic kind as well. Like milk. Contrary to what Arnold Schwartzenegger once said, Milk is not just for babies. It contains a whole lot of stuff that is genuinely good for you. Like proteins, carbohydrates, minerals (calcium a.o.) and many vitamins. One time visiting The Hague, Donald DBXL spotted a tile tableau on a brick wall, advertising a dairy factory called ‘De Sierkan’. Yellow sans serif letters on a bright blue background, dating back to the late 19th century, immediately grabbed DBXL’s attention. Especially because the tableau showed both regular and bold letters with some lovely peculiarities here and there. De Sierkan appeared to have been a milk factory solely operating in The Hague from 1879 until 1961. A number of these wall adverts are still to be seen in The Hague streets today. Photos were taken for later reference. Later is now, the lettering has been digitized, missing characters added, and VLNL Melk sees the light of day. VLNL Melk is an all-caps geometric display sans serif family of three weights, Regular, Bold and Black. The basic shape of the letters is a rectangle with rounded corners, leaving a sturdy no-nonsense look and feel. It has a distinct historic aura, but with both feet in this digital day and age. It can equally well be used for the logo of a hipster coffee place, as the cover of a historic novel. Actually, VLNL Melk kan be applied in a wide range of designs like logos, posters, flyers, book covers and magazine headlines.

Mystical Woods is a script and caps font duo. I went back to the basics for this one -- ink and a brush on paper. I cleaned up the letters enough so that there are no jagged edges, but left enough of the character to keep that inky look -- those are the Rough fonts. Then I went back through again and cleaned the heck out of them, making every line and curve smooth for our cut-crafting friends -- those are the Smooth fonts. Since these two fonts were written together with the same tools and style, you can also mix the script letters in with the caps letters! Each font comes with a full set of standard characters and punctuation, as well as over 300 extended Latin characters for language support. And the script fonts also have 45 double-letter ligatures!

Here's a big shout out to all our Loud and Proud font homies -- If you've got a good set of lungs on you -- fill 'em up and get ready to Shout, SHOUT! Yes, let it all out because this is a font you can't do without -- It will make you wanna SHOUT! Throw your hands up, SHOUT! Kick your heels back, SHOUT! Throw your head back, SHOUT! Come on now, SHOUT! And don't forget to say you will... Don't forget to SHOUT! Yeah yeah yeah yeah, SHOUT! A little bit softer now, (Shout) A little bit softer now, (Shout) A little bit softer now, (Shout) A little bit louder now, SHOUT! A little bit louder now, SHOUT! A LITTLE BIT LOUDER NOW! SHOUT! SHOUT! SHOUT! SHOUT! PHEW -- Who says Comicraft doesn't know how to Pump it Up AND Get Down?!

Phoenician/Canaanite The Phoenician alphabet developed from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, during the 15th century BC. Before then the Phoenicians wrote with a cuneiform script. The earliest known inscriptions in the Phoenician alphabet come from Byblos and date back to 1000 BC. The Phoenician alphabet was perhaps the first alphabetic script to be widely-used - the Phoenicians traded around the Mediterraean and beyond, and set up cities and colonies in parts of southern Europe and North Africa - and the origins of most alphabetic writing systems can be traced back to the Phoenician alphabet, including Greek, Etruscan, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew, as well as the scripts of India and East Asia. Notable features Type of writing system: abjad / consonant alphabet with no vowel indication Writing direction: right to left in hortizontal lines. Sometimes boustrophedon. Script family: Proto-Sinaitic, Phoenician Number of letters: 22 - there was considerable variation in their forms in different regions and at different times. The names of the letters are acrophonic, and their names and shapes can be ultimately traced back to Egyptian Hieroglyphs. For example, the name of the first letter, 'aleph, means ox and developed from a picture of an ox's head. Some of the letter names were changed by the Phoenicians, including gimel, which meant camel in Phoenician, but was originally a picture of a throwing stick (giml).

Iconic Conjuring memories of chunky typefaces from the late-60s and early-70s, and named after the world’s greatest footballer of that and probably any other era, FS Pele is one of a set of Fontsmith fonts designed specifically for headlines and other prominent applications. “We wanted to create fonts that could be integral to the design of posters, album covers and magazines,” says Jason Smith. Welcome to FS Pele, iconic, like its namesake (though, perhaps, a little less nimble). Big Pele, little Pele There was only one Pele. But there are two sizes of FS Pele. FS Pele One, with the finer counters and details, adds considerable weight and style at large sizes, especially in big block headlines on posters. FS Pele Two’s thicker “slots” make it a better choice for smaller-sized text. A load of blocks FS Pele began as an exercise by Phil Garnham in turning squares into legible letters, via the least means necessary. The idea extended his ideas about logo-making, and the search for a stamp-like brand mark that lends authority, stability and instant identification. “The thought that the type was a 2D/3D jigsaw of slotted, architectural pieces was almost an after-thought. I wanted to create a strong, stacking, block aesthetic for the most contemporary poster design. “At the time there were a lot of designers creating their own versions of the same thing but I wanted to take the blocker forms to the next step, and infer a more legible text without sacrificing the idea.”

Iconic Conjuring memories of chunky typefaces from the late-60s and early-70s, and named after the world’s greatest footballer of that and probably any other era, FS Pele is one of a set of Fontsmith fonts designed specifically for headlines and other prominent applications. “We wanted to create fonts that could be integral to the design of posters, album covers and magazines,” says Jason Smith. Welcome to FS Pele, iconic, like its namesake (though, perhaps, a little less nimble). Big Pele, little Pele There was only one Pele. But there are two sizes of FS Pele. FS Pele One, with the finer counters and details, adds considerable weight and style at large sizes, especially in big block headlines on posters. FS Pele Two’s thicker “slots” make it a better choice for smaller-sized text. A load of blocks FS Pele began as an exercise by Phil Garnham in turning squares into legible letters, via the least means necessary. The idea extended his ideas about logo-making, and the search for a stamp-like brand mark that lends authority, stability and instant identification. “The thought that the type was a 2D/3D jigsaw of slotted, architectural pieces was almost an after-thought. I wanted to create a strong, stacking, block aesthetic for the most contemporary poster design. “At the time there were a lot of designers creating their own versions of the same thing but I wanted to take the blocker forms to the next step, and infer a more legible text without sacrificing the idea.”

Schism is a modulated sans-serif, originally developed from our Alias Didot typeface, as a serif-less version of the same design. It was expanded to three sub-families, with the thin stroke getting progressively heavier from Schism One to Schism Three. The different versions explore how this change in contrast between thick and thin strokes changes the character of the letterforms. The shape is maintained, but the emphasis shifts from rounded to angular, elegant to incised. Schism One has high contrast, and the same weight of thin stroke from Light to Black. Letter endings are at horizontal or vertical, giving a pinched, constricted shape for characters such as a, c, e and s. The h, m, n and u have a sharp connection between curve and vertical, and are high shouldered, giving a slightly square shape. The r and y have a thick stress at their horizontal endings, which makes them impactful and striking at bolder weights. Though derived from an elegant, classic form, Schism feels austere rather than flowery. It doesn’t have the flourishes of other modulated sans typefaces, its aesthetic more a kind of graphic-tinged utility. While in Schism Two and Three the thin stroke gets progressively heavier, the connections between vertical and curves — in a, b, n etc — remain cut to an incised point throughout. The effect is that Schism looks chiselled and textural across all weights. Forms maintain a clear, defined shape even in Bold and Black, and don’t have the bloated, wide and heavy appearance heavy weights can have. The change in the thickness of the thin stroke in different versions of the same weight of a typeface is called grading. This is often used when the types are to used in problematic print surfaces such as newsprint, or at small sizes — where thin strokes might bleed, and counters fill in and lose clarity, or detail might be lost or be too thin to register. The different gradings are incremental and can be quite subtle. In Schism it is extreme, and used as a design device, giving three connected but separate styles, from Sans-Didot to almost-Grotesk. The name Schism suggests the differences in shape and style in Schism One, Two and Three. Three styles with distinct differences, from the same start point.

Schism is a modulated sans-serif, originally developed from our Alias Didot typeface, as a serif-less version of the same design. It was expanded to three sub-families, with the thin stroke getting progressively heavier from Schism One to Schism Three. The different versions explore how this change in contrast between thick and thin strokes changes the character of the letterforms. The shape is maintained, but the emphasis shifts from rounded to angular, elegant to incised. Schism One has high contrast, and the same weight of thin stroke from Light to Black. Letter endings are at horizontal or vertical, giving a pinched, constricted shape for characters such as a, c, e and s. The h, m, n and u have a sharp connection between curve and vertical, and are high shouldered, giving a slightly square shape. The r and y have a thick stress at their horizontal endings, which makes them impactful and striking at bolder weights. Though derived from an elegant, classic form, Schism feels austere rather than flowery. It doesn’t have the flourishes of other modulated sans typefaces, its aesthetic more a kind of graphic-tinged utility. While in Schism Two and Three the thin stroke gets progressively heavier, the connections between vertical and curves — in a, b, n etc — remain cut to an incised point throughout. The effect is that Schism looks chiselled and textural across all weights. Forms maintain a clear, defined shape even in Bold and Black, and don’t have the bloated, wide and heavy appearance heavy weights can have. The change in the thickness of the thin stroke in different versions of the same weight of a typeface is called grading. This is often used when the types are to used in problematic print surfaces such as newsprint, or at small sizes — where thin strokes might bleed, and counters fill in and lose clarity, or detail might be lost or be too thin to register. The different gradings are incremental and can be quite subtle. In Schism it is extreme, and used as a design device, giving three connected but separate styles, from Sans-Didot to almost-Grotesk. The name Schism suggests the differences in shape and style in Schism One, Two and Three. Three styles with distinct differences, from the same start point.