Since their first appearance as Italians on the pages of the 1821 William Caslon type specimens, reverse contrast typefaces have been typography's best loved quirky outcasts. Subverting the traditional relationship between thick verticals and thin horizontals made them perfect for eye-catching advertisements. The unexpected contrasts and the thick slabs produced by reverse-contrast serifs became ubiquitous in period posters, and synonymous with wild west and circus iconography. In designing Stinger, the Zetafonts design team composed by Maria Chiara Fantini, Andrea Tartarelli and Francesco Canovaro and orchestrated by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini decided to marry this subversive tradition with the workhorse approach of modernist sans serif typefaces like Univers, developing a super-family with four widths, each in five different weights, from thin to heavy. This gives the designer a full range of options for type setting, with the Normal and Fit widths providing two different text-sized alternatives, the wide width adding display and titling options and the Slim ready to deal with the space-saving necessities of extremely long texts. True italics have been added developed for all weights and variants, bringing the Stinger family to a total of 40 fonts, with a latin extended + Russian Cyrillic character set covering over 200 languages, and open type features including positional numbers, stylistic sets and alternate forms. In the crowded panorama of contemporary grotesque typefaces, all aiming to stark geometric perfection, Stinger stands out with its bold choices and strong personality. From the calligraphy-inspired terminals in the thin weights to the logo-ready sculptural approach in the heavy weights, each variant manages to look striking without forgetting the readability and flexibility lessons of modern reverse-contrast classics like those designed by Excoffon or Novarese. A variable version is included with the full family, allowing maximum flexibility and control for the designer over the wide range of expression capabilities of the Stinger super family.

In 1459, while visiting his dying mother, Italian painter Piero della Francesca spent seven days creating a fresco of a pregnant madonna in a small country church in the hilltown of Monterchi (Italy). Hailed today as one of the masterpieces of Italian Renaissance, the fresco was given a new branding in 2019 by Art Director Riccardo Falcinelli who asked the Zetafonts team to develop a custom font for the project. The resulting typeface system, designed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini together with Andrea Tartarelli and Maria Chiara Fantini as a rework of Francesco Canovaro original Beatrix Antiqua, is a 50-weights ode to the beauty of classical roman letterforms, that pairs elegant alternates and quirky ligatures with an array of design options for clear and effective editorial, signage, logo and wayfinding design. The base display family, Monterchi, allows endless design expressions with a range of six weights from the slender thin to the strong extrabold, all with matching italics and an array of over one hundred discretionary ligatures. A fine-tuned companion Monterchi Text has been developed to excel in body use, with a larger x-height and wider spacing - clear and legible even at small sizes. The use range of the family is enriched by Monterchi Serif and Monterchi Sans that feature different contemporary interpretations of the same classical geometric skeleton, allowing for layered editorial design and variation. All the fifty fonts in the Monterchi Type System feature an extended character set of over 1100 glyphs covering over 200 languages using the Latin alphabet, as well as Greek and Russian Cyrillic. Open Type features include small caps, positional figures, alternate letterforms, stylistic sets and discretionary ligatures. With his elegant, historical aesthetic, Monterchi embodies the spirit of early Renaissance and the humanist obsession with constructed and geometric beauty - still managing to function as a workhorse family, ready to help any designer in need of a timeless classic look, or looking for the right ligature to transform a simple word into a striking wordmark.

Deva Ideal was inspired by women’s beauty. It didn’t come only from the desire to create a new typeface. It also seeks to materialize beauty in a visual form. Instead of imitating the shapes of the female body or other formal attributes, Deva Ideal is an abstract expression of the women’s beauty. The unique character of the typeface is achieved by the use of soft, almost invisibly bent strokes, since one of the priorities of the typeface is not to disturb the eye of the reader with odd design details. Deva Ideal excels in her cold beauty and shows her sex appeal. The soft curves present in Deva Ideal differ from the masculine and technical shapes used in most contemporary typefaces. Deva Ideal has ideal proportions (90 / 60 / 90) and its shapes are essential and simple. Because of this, it is ideal for setting text in all kinds of printed matter: catalogues, books and magazines. The letter forms are wide and open, so text can be set in small sizes and thus space can be saved, while keeping the same degree of readability. The author wishes to acknowledge František Štorm for his invaluable opinions. Also to Palo Bálik and Peter Bilak for their contributions. I am specially grateful to all the devas (archaic expression for beautiful young girl), who inspired me to design this typeface. This is dedicated to Janka Ráczová, Jarka Krajčiová, Mariana Felgueiras and obviously to Martinka Filípková! Every use of Deva Ideal is a little homage to these interesting women.

Geodeco font family brings to you the recovery of the typographic forms from the beginning of the 20th century, with a strong ArtDecó flavour but from a new point of view: modernity and geometry. Modernity in the visual contrast between lowercase and capital letters, where rounded shapes are opposed to the breaks and graphic tensions of the strokes of the capital letters. which gives it an enormous originality. Generous doses of internal whites, assure a powerful legibility even with the spite of its short ascending and descending strokes. What we get is a coherent and martial look where fluidity and homogeneity is the main note. Soft and rounded minuscule, with large internal whites for super legibility, bombproof, especially on screens, where Geodeco lives with an astonishing naturalness. The capital letters, used alone as display, or as companions of the minuscule characters, give the family a touch of originality and exotic flavor. Like the spices in the food; a brief but intense note. Breaking the rectangular shapes so that the appearance of the letter comes out benefits from enlarging the internal whites and making them consistent with the white of the lower case. GeoDeco works very well in plain text with the obvious limitation that it is not a type for small bodies, but exceptionality weldon for plain text and signage. Maximum visibility, total beauty on screens. A family of this new century with the flavour of that epoch of experimentation that were the years 20. Extensive multilanguage support and almost all Opentype functionalities. Try it and it will convince you - for sure!

Xaver Grotesk Variable, a font that emerged in the creative landscape of 2023, stands as a testament to contemporary typographic innovation. This font is not just a mere collection of characters but a meticulously crafted expression of modernity and sophistication. Its genesis was driven by a desire to infuse the typographic realm with a fresh take on the classic grotesque style while embodying a technical allure that whispers of a slightly futuristic essence. At its core, Xaver Grotesk is a testament to the marriage of form and function. The deliberate choice of monospacing adds a unique rhythm and structure to the font, instilling it with a sense of order and balance. The low capital height introduces a distinctive visual characteristic, creating an unconventional yet captivating silhouette that stands out in various design contexts. One of the font's most striking features lies in its letter design. Each character is meticulously sculpted, bearing angular and horizontal traits that not only convey a sense of modernity but also evoke a hint of technological precision. These angular and horizontal elements work in tandem, shaping the font's overall personality and lending it a forward-thinking edge. The fusion of these elements—monospacing, low capital height, and angular/horizontal letter design—creates a harmonious interplay that sets Xaver Grotesk apart. It's not merely a collection of letters; it's an experience, a visual journey that captivates and engages the viewer. Whether used in digital interfaces, printed materials, or other design mediums, this font transcends its utilitarian purpose to become an artistic statement in itself.

One design sparks another. As Alejandro Paul experimented with the strokes and curves of the monoline script Business Penmanship, he discovered interesting new forms and shapes that didn't fit the Spencerian theme of that typeface. These forms simmered in Ale’s subconscious over the next three years, during which time he visited New York City, pored over rare type specimen books in the New York Public Library, and explored Brooklyn’s neighborhoods. Brownstone, the face born from these explorations, is an original 21st-century design, yet one subtly infused with historical and cultural references -- keen observers might spot influences from decorative typefaces of 19th-century foundries. And just as faces from that era were influenced by contemporary architecture, the frames included with Brownstone echo the ornate iron railings of Park Slope’s row houses. (There’s also a slight 1960s vibe to Brownstone, of novelty swash-sans photocompositing faces, that can be played up at your discretion.) Influences aside, Brownstone has broad appeal to modern audiences. A soft, monoline sans-serif, with elements of Swiss geometry (see the ‘k’ and ‘x’), its marriage of highly legible, draftsman-like letterforms with decorative swashes and ornaments reflects the old-meets-new aesthetic of the DIY craft culture seen in Brooklyn and other urban centers. It’s ornamental but unfussy, romantic but understated. Brownstone includes character sets for Latin-based languages, including Western and Eastern European, Baltic, Turkish, Maltese, Celtic and Welsh. Over 1500 glyphs, including small capitals, swash characters, alternates, and ligatures, in both Light and Thin weights. Ornamental frames are also included in both weights. The Brownstone Frames fonts are available as separate fonts in the new Brownstone Slab family.

Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed. Elegant but with that distance that well-defined forms seem to impose. Her voice, however, was sweeter, closer, and when she spoke her name, like a slow whisper, one felt like what she had come to say could be read in her image. Rufina’s story can only be told through a detour because her origin does not coincide with her birth. Rufina was born on a Sunday afternoon while her father was drawing black letters on a white background, and her mother was trying to join those same letters to form words that could tell a story. But her origin goes much further back, and that is why she is pierced by a story that precedes her, even though it is not her own. Maybe her origin can be traced back to that autumn night in which that tall man with that distant demeanor ran into that woman with that sweet smile and elegant aspect. He looked at her in such a way that he was trapped by that gaze, even though they found no words to say to each other, and they stayed in silence. Somehow, some words leaked into that gaze because since that moment they were never apart again. Later, after they started talking, projects started coming up and then coexistence and arguments, routines and mismatches. But in that chaos of crossed words in their life together, something was stable through the silence of the gazes. In those gazes, the silent words sustained that indescribable love that they didn’t even try to understand. And in one of those silences, Rufina appeared, when that man told that woman that he needed a text to try out his new font, and she saw him look at her with that same fascination of the first time, and she started to write something with those forms that he was giving her as a gift. Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed, wrote her mother when Rufina was born. Photo (Fragilité): Karin Topolanski / Post: Raw (www.raw.com.uy) - María Pérez Gutiérrez

AB One is a captivating sans-serif font family that effortlessly blends modern aesthetics with a dynamic, fluid formality inspired by the world of architecture. This versatile typeface offers three distinct weights, each carefully crafted to cater to a range of design needs. Key Features: Dynamic Fluidity: AB One embodies the dynamic essence of architectural forms, showcasing a graceful flow and a sense of movement. The font's letterforms possess an inherent flexibility that adds a touch of vibrancy to your designs, making it an excellent choice for contemporary projects that demand energy and liveliness. Sleek and Modern: The light weight of AB One radiates a modern, minimalist charm, perfect for creating a sleek and refined impression in your design projects. Its clean lines and well-balanced proportions ensure readability while evoking a sense of cutting-edge sophistication. Three Distinct Weights: The AB One font family offers three carefully crafted weights to provide versatility in your design work. Sans-Serif Elegance: As a sans-serif typeface, AB One represents a harmonious marriage of legibility and style. Its straightforward, elegant letterforms make it suitable for a wide range of applications, including branding, advertising, editorial design, and web interfaces. Inspired by Architecture: Drawing inspiration from the world of architecture, AB One captures the essence of structural elegance and sophistication. This font is an ideal choice for projects that require a touch of architectural finesse. Versatile Application: AB One's adaptability allows it to excel in a variety of design contexts. It seamlessly integrates with other design elements, providing a harmonious and engaging visual experience. AB One is a typeface that thrives on the principles of sleek modernity and architectural inspiration, making it a go-to choice for designers who seek to infuse their projects with a touch of dynamic fluid formality.

Here is another design by jewelry designer Max Joseph Gradl. Zier is a verb, meaning to decorate, adorn or ornament; zierlich means decorative, elegant, fine, neat. Schrift means type. Zierschrift, therefore, means decorative type. Gradl Zierschriften is a decorative type in the Art Nouveau style, rather than the more ornate Victorian style. Very modern, very young, with an elegant simplicity of form. Maria Makela, in her book The Munich Secession (Princeton 1990) suggests that the frequent use of simple, flowing, organic forms that was so characteristic of Art Nouveau was a reaction against the growing complexity and rapid urbanization that resulted from 19th century industrialization. In keeping with that reaction is the hand-drawn quality that intentionally rejects a mechanistic mathematic precision of line rendering. Gradl Zierschriften preserves that hand-drawn quality. Designed with upper case only, this face was obviously intended for short headlines only and is best set at 18 points or larger. However, I don't think you really get to experience the grace of this design until you get to 36 points or more. In the larger sizes, it is simply stunning. Please note that while most of the uppercase letterforms are repeated in the lower case for convenience, the ‘F’,‘L’ and ‘T’ are rendered a little narrower than in the uppercase to provide for visual variety. The font also includes a generous supply of ligatures for just the right fit ... and just for the fun of using them. Three common ways of inserting a ligature, accented letter or other special character are: 1) Key in “ALT”+“0”+[ascii #]; for example ALT+0233 for the e-acute, 2) From within your application program, go to the INSERT menu and look for something like “Insert Symbol,” (this function is NOT available in all application programs) & 3) Cut & Paste from the CHARACTER MAP display that has been supplied by every generation of Windows Operating System that I can recall (All Programs>Accessories>System Tools). Isn't it amazing what you can do? Don't be afraid to experiment. If you back up your work, you have very little to lose and a lot to gain. Not only do you acquire a new tool, but by the very process you have learned how to continually expand your knowledge and skill base.

Hollywood Stars (Volume 1) is a unique collection of signatures of 92 famous Hollywood stars in a high-quality font. A must-have for autograph collectors, desktop publishers, lovers of the arts, history, movie buffs, fans, or anyone who has ever dreamed of sending a letter, card, or e-mail "signed" as if by one of these famous Hollywood celebrities. This font includes signatures from the following Hollywood personalities: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Ben Stiller, Kate Beckinsale, Steve Buscemi, Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt, Paul Reiser, Angelina Jolie, George Kennedy, Larry King, Edward Norton, Mira Sorvino, Steven Spielberg, Kate Winslet, Daniel Day Lewis, Laura San Giacomo, Holly Hunter, Jane Fonda, Alan Alda, Robbin, Williams, Alan Rickman, Al Pacino, Drew Barrymore, Bob Newhart, Brooke Shields, Burt Reynolds, Keira Knightley, Cheryl Ladd, Basil Rathbone, Minnie Driver, Debra Messing, David Schwimmer, Clint Eastwood, David Hyde Pierce, Burgess Meredith, Donald Trump, Linda Evans, Tony Danza, Gene Wilder, Cameron Diaz, Judi Dench, George Clooney, Nicolas Cage, Timothy Hutton, Jennifer Garner, Jay Leno, Tony Curtis, Suzanne Somers, Connie Selleca, Donald Sutherland, Jack Klugman, Tony Randall, Matthew Perry, Jenna Elfman, Morgan Fairchild, Jack Nicholson, Chazz Palminteri, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Hopkins, Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman, Lisa Kudrow, Bill Cosby, John Mahoney, Ray Liotta, Jon Voight, Christian Slater, Chris Cooper, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Drew Carey, Eli Wallach, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Amanda Seyfried, Danny DeVito, Gary Sinise, Mary Tyler Moore, Edward Asner, Will Rogers, Cuba Gooding Jr., Bela Lugosi, Charles Grodin, Victoria Principal, Winona Ryder, Tea Leoni, Matt Damon, Loni Anderson, Emma Thompson, Ed O'Neill, Karl Malden. This font behaves exactly like any other font. Each signature is mapped to a regular character on your keyboard. Open any Windows application, select the installed font, and type a letter, and the signature will appear at that point on the page. Painstaking craftsmanship and an incredible collection of hard-to-find signatures go into this one-of-a-kind font. Comes with a character map.

Joachim Müller-Lancé's Uppercut is a rather sporting fellow, originally developed for the Krav Maga training center of San Francisco (Krav Maga is a simple and efficient self-defense system that has become equally popular in Hollywood and with law enforcement). Joachim has spent several years training, hitting things and people whenever he needs a break from kerning. Uppercut can be seen on the school's t-shirts and other articles. Despite bearing the same moniker as an upwards punch to the chin, the name actually fell together quite naturally as Uppercut is an all uppercase typeface, and the word "cut" is also historically used to describe a type style in hot metal type. For this slanted look, "Angle" felt just right (with thanks to Mia McHatton). The design idea sprang from pencil sketches for the center's new identity. Uppercut's shapes are not calligraphic or handwritten, more like lettering seen in comics or sports logos. Its brush movements are imaginary, not too literally brushy. During development, details were simplified and reduced until a bit of a cut-paper feel emerged, but more fluid like writing. The shapes are economical and efficient; simplicity makes the font versatile, holding up in small as well as big sizes. Uppercut is decidedly analog, muscular but not bulky, with the fluid but determined movements of a boxer or martial artist - not theatrical but powerful, fast, confident and dynamic. Well... it has punch. In the proportions, there is emphasis on a strong upper edge "keeping its guard up", while several stems protrude downward, giving the impression of leaping or being "light on the feet". Use Uppercut to pick up the pace, add snap, verve and drive - on movie posters for action and adventure, to advertise your dojo, rumble or prizefight, racing team or tuning shop, or invite friends to your barbecue with old time rock'n'roll and homemade hot pepper sauce.

American Revolution is a unique collection of signatures of 84 key personalities from both sides of the American Revolutionary War, one of the supreme dramas in history. A must-have for autograph collectors, desktop publishers, history buffs, or anyone who has ever dreamed of sending a letter, card, or e-mail “signed” as if by one of these famous Revolionary War figures. This font includes signatures from the following American Revolutionary War personalities, from both sides: Ethan Allen, Charles T. Armand, John Armstrong, Benedict Arnold, Pudhomme de Borre, John Cadwalader, George Rogers Clark, George Clinton, James Clinton, Thomas Conway, William Davidson, Philippe du Coudray, The Chevalier Louis Lebegue dePresle Duportail, Chistopher Gadsden, Horatio Gates, Moses Hazen, John Glover, Mordecai Gist, Nathaniel Greene, William Heath, Edward Hand, John E. Howard, Robert Howe, Isaac Huger, William Irvine, Henry Knox, Baron Johann de Kalb, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, Marquis de Lafayette, Charles Lee, Henry Lee, Andrew Lewis, William Maxwell, Benjamin Lincoln, Francis Marion, James Moore, Daniel Morgan, William Moultrie, Peter Muhlenberg, Alexander McDougall, Lewis Nicola, Lachlan McIntosh, John Nixon, Hugh Mercer, Samuel H. Parsons, Thomas Mifflin, John Paterson, Richard Montgomery, Andrew Pickens, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Enoch Poor, Count Casimir Pulaski, Israel Putnam, Joseph Reed, Elisha Sheldon, Arthur St. Clair, William Smallwood, Philip Schuyler, John Stark, Charles Scott, Adam Stephen, John Sullivan, Jethro Sumner, Thomas Sumter, James Varnum, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben, Lord Stirling, Artemas Ward, Joseph Warren, George Washington, Anthony Wayne, James Wilkinson, Otho H. Williams, John Paul Jones, William Woodford, David Wooster, John Burgoyne, Sir Guy Carleton, Charles Cornwallis, Sir Henry Clinton, Sir Thomas Gage, Richard, Earl Howe, Sir William Howe, Sir Banastre Tarleton. This font behaves exactly like any other font. Each signature is mapped to a regular character on your keyboard. Open any Windows application, select the installed font, and type a letter, and the signature will appear at that point on the page. Painstaking craftsmanship and an incredible collection of hard-to-find signatures go into this one-of-a-kind font. Comes with a character map.

“Hello My Love” is a font love story. Inspired by my own long and happy marriage of 35 years, it was created to celebrate love! A classic hand-lettered script with a modern and fresh feel, it fits beautifully with current designs and yet is sure to stand the test of time. Made with invitation designers in mind, the Hello My Love Pro script font includes a total of 1985 glyphs plus a BONUS FONT, Hello My Love Ornaments! It has 91 hand illustrations including frames, florals and design elements. As a result, you will be able to create a variety of designs to highlight your special project. It’s especially well-suited for invitations for branding weddings and other special occasions! And it supports 129 languages! The font is loaded with features: Stylistic and Contextual Alternates, Swash Caps, Standard and Discretionary Ligatures, Beginning Swashes for lower case letters, Cross-less t and f that can be combined with a flourished letter to avoid clashing plus 3 ampersands, small word art "and" & "No.", Roman Numerals, Ordinals and Fractions. This font was created to make designing easy. Need to convert upper case letters into Roman numerals throughout a guest list? Just turn on contextual alternates in Open Type capable programs and presto, the caps become Roman! Want a variety of letter choices? There are 215 stylistic alternate upper cases and 259 stylistic alternate lower cases as well as 69 ligatures to give you plenty of options. You can choose from swashes in 4 different styles and 3 different lengths resulting in unique beginning lower case letters. Works for Cutting Machines! No special software is required to use Hello My Love. All of my fonts have been specially coded for PUA (Private Use Area) so you can access all of the swashes and alternates using Character Map (PC) or Character Viewer (Mac) or with any number of apps including PopChar. If you would like to purchase PopChar at a special discount email me and I will send you the link. For Microsoft Word users, you can easily access the Stylistic and Contextual Alternates and the Roman Numerals through the Typography feature. (Microsoft Word 2010 and later) For more details about how to use my fonts, check out my video tutorials on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Letteringartstudio/videos

Phinney Jenson ML is a font with deep historical roots firmly planted in the fertile soil of the Italian Renaissance. Twenty years after Lorenzo Ghiberti finished his famous East Doors, the Gates of Paradise, of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and about fifteen years before Sandro Botticelli painted his “Birth of Venus,” a French printer by the name of Nicolas Jenson set up a small print shop in the powerful city-state of Venice. The fifteenth century marked the end of the plague and the rise of Venetian power, as the merchants of Venice controlled the lucrative trade of the eastern Mediterranean and sent their ships as far as London and even the Baltic. In 1470, Jenson introduced his Roman type with the printing of De Praeparatio Evangelica by Eusebuis. He continued to use his type for over 150 editions until he died in 1480. In 1890 a leader of the Arts & Crafts movement in England named William Morris founded Kelmscott Press. He was an admirer of Jenson’s Roman and drew his own somewhat darker version called GOLDEN, which he used for the hand-printing of limited editions on homemade paper, initiating the revival of fine printing in England. Morris' efforts came to the attention of Joseph Warren Phinney, manager of the Dickinson Type Foundry of Boston. Phinney requested permission to issue a commercial version, but Morris was philosophically opposed and flatly refused. So Phinney designed a commercial variation of Golden type and released it in 1893 as Jenson Oldstyle. Phinney Jenson is our version of Phinney’s version of Morris' version of Nicolas Jenson’s Roman. We selected a view of the Piazza San Marco in Venice for our gallery illustration of Phinney Jenson ML because most of the principal buildings on the Piazza were already standing when Jenson arrived in Vienna in 1470. The original Campanile was completed in 1173 (the 1912 replacement is partially visible on the left). The Basilica di San Marco was substantially complete by 1300. The Doge’s Palace (not in the photo, but next to the Basilica) was substantially complete by 1450. Even the Torre dell'Orologio (Clock Tower) may have been completed by 1470—certainly by 1500. Phinney Jenson ML has a "rough-and-ready" strength, suitable for headlines and short blocks of text. We have sought to preserve some of the crudeness of the nineteenth-century original. For comparison, see the more refined Centaur, Bruce Rogers's interpretation of Jenson Roman. Phinney Jenson ML has a strong presence that will help your documents stand out from the Times New Roman blizzard that threatens to cover us all. Phinney Jenson ML Features: 1. Glyphs for the 1252 Western Europe, 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Accented glyphs for Cornish and Old Gaelic. Total of 393 glyphs. 400 kerning pairs. 2. OpenType GSUB layout features: onum, pnum, salt, liga, dlig, hisy and ornm. 3. Tabular (std), proportional (opt) & old-style numbers (opt). 5. CcNnOoSsZz-kreska available (salt).

Auchentaller was inspired by a travel poster by Josef Maria Auchentaller in 1906. To our knowledge, it was never cast in type. Grado lies on the northern Adriatic, between Venice and Trieste. At one time the port for the important Roman town of Aquileia. With the decline of the Roman Empire, the upper Adriatic region came under the rule of the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Lombards, the Franks, the Germans, the Venetians and finally, in 1796, the Austrian Hapsburgs. So it remained until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1919, following World War I, when the seaport of Trieste was awarded to Italy. With Trieste came Montefalcone, Aquileia and Grado. The area was marked by years of political tension between Italy and Yugoslavia, exemplified by the d'Annunzio expedition to capture Fiume (Rijeka) in September, 1919. Some basic discussion of the period from 1919 to 1939 may be found in Seton-Watson’s Eastern Europe Between The Wars (Cambridge 1945) and Rothschild’s East Central Europe Between The Two World Wars (Seattle 1974). In 1965 I was traveling by train from Venice to Vienna. Crossing the Alps, the train stopped for customs inspection at the rural Italian-Austrian border, just above Slovenia. We were warned not to get off the train because there were still shooting skirmishes in the area. Through all this, Grado remained literally an island of tranquility, connected to the mainland by a only causeway and lines on a map. Auchentaller not only painted the beach scene at Grado, he moved there, living out the rest of his life in this comfortable little island town. His travel illustration contains the text from which the design of our font Auchentaller is drawn. The text translates: "Seaside resort : Grado / Austrian coastal land". Please see our gallery images to see a map locating Grado, as well as Auchentaller’s painting of the resort. Auchentaller is a monoline all-cap font, light and open in design , with a lot of typically art nouveau letter forms. Included in our font are a number of ligatures. As is frequently seen in designs by German speakers, the umlaut is embedded in the O & U below the tops of the letters. This approach led to two whimsies: a happy umlauted O and a sad umlauted U. This font has a clean, crisp look that is very appealing and very distinctive. Auchentaller ML represents a major extension of the original release, with the following changes: 1. Added glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Add glyphs to complete standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page. Special glyphs relocated and assigned Unicode codepoints, some in Private Use area. Total of 336 glyphs. 2. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: pnum, liga, salt & ornm. 3. Added 116 kerning pairs. 4. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. 5. Revised ‘J’. 6. Minor refinements to various glyph outlines. 7. Inclusion of both tabular & proportional numbers. 8. Inclusion of both standard acute and Polish kreska with choice of alternate accented glyphs for c,n,r,s & z. Please note that some older applications may only be able to access the Western Europe character set (approximately 221 glyphs). The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS (Post Script Type 1) format and a TTF version which is in Open TT (True Type)format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

Gundrada ML was inspired by the lettering on the tomb of Gundrada de Warenne. She was buried at Southover Church at Lewes, Sussex, in the south of England in 1085. The Latin inscription on her tomb, STIRPS GUNDRADA DUCUM, meaning “Gundrada, descendant of the Duke” may have led to the speculation that she was the daughter of William, Duke of Normandy and bastard son of Robert the Devil of Normandy and Arletta, daughter of a tanner in Falaise. In 1066 William defeated Harold at the Battle of Hastings and was crowned William I of England. More commonly known as William the Conquerer, he commissioned a string of forts around the kingdom and charged trusted Norman Barons to control the contentious Anglo-Saxon population. William de Warenne, husband of Gundrada, was one of these Barons. There has also been the suggestion that Gundrada may have been the daughter of William’s wife, Matilda of Flanders, by a previous marriage. According to the Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, Oxford, England 1921-22), both of these contentions are in dispute. Searching the past of a thousand years ago is like wandering in a heavy fog: facts are only dimly in view. Regardless, I know that I found these letterforms immediately engaging in their simplicity. Unadorned and unsophisticated, they have a direct honesty that rests well in the company of humanistic sans serifs like Franklin Gothic or Gill Sans, appealing to a contemporary sensibility. The lettering on the tomb is in upper case only. Although Gundrada does not sound Norman French to me, her husband certainly and her father probably were Norman French. Nonetheless, the man that carved her tombstone was probably Anglo-Saxon, like most of the people. For that reason, we are quite comfortable with a fairly generic lower case from an Anglo-Saxon document of the time. The time was a time of transition, of contending language influences. This font reflects some of that tension. Features 1. Multi-Lingual Font with 389 glyphs and 698 Kerning Pairs. 2. OpenType GSUB layout features: onum, dlig, liga, salt & hist. 3. Tabular Figures and Alternate Old-Style Figures. 4. Alternate Ruled Caps (line above and below, matching to brackets). 5. Central Europe, Western Europe, Turkish and Baltic Code Pages. 6. Additional accents for Cornish and Old Gaelic. 7. Stylistic alternates A, E, y and #. 8. Ligatures ST, Th, fi and fl. 9. Historic alternate longs. The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS (Post Script Type 1) format and a TTF version which is in Open TT (True Type)format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

One menorah that I have long found particularly appealing was named The Tree of Life Menorah, a replica of which I gave as a gift one holiday to a kindly old couple who were neighbors and became friends. It had a simple, organic elegance that I see in the best of Art Nouveau sculpture. To me personally, Judeism is a celebration of life, like the triumph of the flower that blossoms in the crack of the city sidewalk. Just as Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the temple and the miracle of the oil, it celebrates the victorious quest for freedom of the Hebrew people led by Judah Maccabee. Hanukkah represents determination and courage and faith — and it represents the presence of God in the lives of His people. It is interesting to note that the founding of the Albanian nation in the early twentieth century grew out of the resistance of the Albanian people to the imposition of Greek language and culture in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The typeface, HADASSAH, designed by Henri Friedlander (1904-1996), is my favorite Hebrew typeface. Thirty years in the crafting, I believe it is unsurpassed for its shear beauty, combining a subtle modulation of stroke with a simplicity and clarity of form. No doubt, that is why it has become so popular. For me, the Sîyn/Shîyn characters are especially satisfying. For a Hanukkah message in Hebrew, I would choose HADASSAH LIGHT for a headline and print it as large as I could. If, however, you are looking for a friendly, warm face for a seasonal message in a roman-letter based language, may I suggest BETHLEHEM EPHRATH. It will be as comfortable as a bulky, hand-knit sweater on a frosty afternoon and reflects the solid, encompassing, family orientation of this holiday. It was on the way to Ephrath that Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel gave birth to Benjamin and then died from her labor. It was to Ephrath that Naomi and Ruth returned and in Ephrath that we have the wonderful, heart-warming story of the marriage between Ruth and her Redeemer-Kinsman, Boaz. And it was to Ephrath that prophet, Samuel, went to find a new king and there in Ephrath that the prophet annointed a small shepherd boy named David. The Proverbs tell us to seek wisdom. Never underestimate the impact you have on others. Words of kindness can change people’s lives. The Talmud says that the highest form of wisdom is kindness. Be wise this holiday season. The font BETHLEHEM EPHRATH is based on the typeface Accent with the permission of URW++ of Hamburg, Germany. Like most display fonts, it is most effective at 18 points and larger. Like most script fonts, it is most effective when set with both upper and lower case. Although this font is readable in all caps (many scripts are not), that does not make it a good idea. Do so only with caution.

Fioritura is a floral display typeface inspired by Sandro Botticelli's "Primavera" ("Spring") and Guiseppe Arcimboldo's "The Four Seasons" paintings. Fioritura means flowering in Italian, and the character composition consists of stems, leaves, flowers, and flying pollen. Scripts: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic. Language count: 480+. Glyph count: 1103. Kerning: 936 class pairs. Hinting: Not applied. Contextual Alternates: AA BB CC DD EE FF GG LL MM NN OO PP RR SS TT ZZ aa bb cc dd ee ff gg ll mm nn oo pp rr ss tt zz. To keep the writing natural, every second of two frequently repeated letters is automatically replaced by its alternative version. Turned on by default. Contextual Alternates: ΆΈΉΊΌΎΏ. Greek uppercase accented characters lose their tonos accent and retain only dieresis in All Caps mode. Turned on by default. If you need tonos accents in All Caps then turn off Contextual Alternates (calt) feature. Stylistic Alternates: ABCDEFGLMNOPRSTZ abcdefglmnoprstz. Supported languages: Abenaki, Abron, Acheron, Achinese, Achuar-Shiwiar, Adamawa Fulfulde, Adangme, Afar, Afrikaans (Latin), Aghem, Aguaruna, Aja, Akan, Albanian, Alsatian, Amahuaca, Amarakaeri, Amis, Andaandi (Dongolawi), Anuta, Ao Naga, Apinayé, Arabela, Aragonese, Aranese, Aromanian, Arrernte, Arvanitic (Latin), Asháninka, Asturian, Asu, Atayal, Awa-Cuaiquer, Awetí, Aymara, Azerbaijani (Latin, Cyrillic), Baatonum, Bafia, Bagirmi Fulfulde, Balinese, Balkan Romani, Bambara (Latin), Baoulé, Bari, Basaa, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Batak (Latin), Belarusian (Latin, Cyrillic), Bemba, Bena, Biali, Bikol, Bini, Bislama, Boko, Bora, Borgu Fulfulde, Bouna Kulango, Bosnian, Breton, Buginese (Latin), Bulgarian, Buryat, Bushi, Candoshi-Shapra, Cape Verdean Creole, Caquinte, Caribbean Hindustani, Cashibo-Cacataibo, Cashinahua, Catalan, Cebuano, Chachi, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chayahuita, Chechen, Chewa (Latin), Chickasaw, Chiga, Chiltepec Chinantec, Chokwe, Chuukese, Cimbrian, Cofán, Colognian, Cornish, Corsican, Creek (Muscogee), Croatian, Czech, Dagaare, Dagbani, Danish, Dawan, Dehu, Delaware, Dendi, Dholuo, Dimli, Dinka, Ditammari, Drehu, Duala, Dutch, Dungan, Dyula, Embu, English, Erzya, Ese Ejja, Esperanto, Estonian, Ewe, Ewondo, Falam Chin, Fanti, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, Folkspraak, Fon, French, Friulian, Frisian, Fula, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ga’anda, Garifuna, Gen, Genoese, German, Gikuyu, Gilbertese, Gonja, Gooniyandi, Greek, Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), Guadeloupean Creole, Guarani, Gusii (Latin), Gwich’in, Haitian, Hakha Chin (Latin), Hän, Hani, Hausa (Latin), Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Ho-Chunk, Hopi, Hotcąk (Latin), Huastec, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ido, Igbo (Latin), Ilocano, Indonesian, Interglossa, Interlingua, Irish, Istro-Romanian, Italian, Ixcatlán Mazatec, Jamaican, Javanese (Latin), Jèrriais, Jola, Kabuverdianu, Kabiyè, Kabuverdianu, Kabyle (Latin), Kaingang, Kako, Kala Lagaw Ya, Kalaallisut, Kalenjin, Kalmyk (Cyrillic), Kamba, Kanuri, Kaonde, Kapampangan (Latin), Kaqchikel, Karachay (Cyrillic), Karakalpak (Latin), Karelian, Kashubian, Kazakh, Kekchí, Kenzi, Khalkha (Cyrillic), Khasi, Khoekhoe, K’iche’, Kikuyu, Kimbundu, Kinyarwanda (Ruanda), Kiribati, Kirmanjki, Kirundi (Rundi), Kissi, Kituba, Klingon, Kölsch, Kongo, Konzo, Koyra Chiini, Koyraboro Senni, Kpelle, Krio, Kuanyama, Kumyk, Kurdish, Kven Finnish, Kwasio, Kyrgyz (Cyrillic), Ladin, Ladino, Lakota, Lamnso’, Langi, Latgalian, Latin, Latino sine Flexione, Latvian, Ligurian, Limba, Lingala, Lithuanian, Lobi, Lojban, Lombard, Low German, Lozi, Luba-Katanga, Luba-Lulua, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Maasai, Maasina Fulfulde, Macedonian, Machame, Madurese (Latin), Makhuwa, Makonde, Makwe, Malagasy (Latin), Malaysian Malay (Latin), Maltese, Mam, Maninkakan, Manx, Maore Comorian, Māori, Mapudungun, Marquesan, Marshallese, Masai, Matsés, Mauritian Creole, Mbelime, Megleno-Romanian, Mende, Meriam Mir, Meru, Meta’ (Latin), Metlatónoc Mixtec, Mezquital Otomi, Mi’kmaq, Minangkabau, Mirandese, Mískito, Miyobe, Mizo, Mohawk, Moksha, Moldovan, Mongolian (Cyrillic), Montagnais, Montenegrin (Latin, Cyrillic), Mossi, Mundang, Munsee, Murrinh-Patha, Murui Huitoto, Mwani, Naga Pidgin, Nagamese Creole, Nahuatl, Nama, Nateni, Navajo, Ndebele, Ndonga, Neapolitan, Ngazidja Comorian, Ngiemboon, Ngiyambaa, Ngomba, Nigerian Fulfulde, Niuean, Nobiin, Nomatsiguenga, Noongar, Norwegian (Bokmål, Nynorsk), Novial, Nuer, Nyamwezi, Nyanja, Nyankole, Nyemba, Nzima, Occidental (Interlingue), Occitan, Ojitlán Chinantec, Old Icelandic, Old Norse, Onĕipŏt, Oromo, Oroqen, Oshiwambo (Ovambo), Ossetian (Latin, Cyrillic), Otuho, Páez, Palauan, Paluan, Pampanga, Papantla Totonac, Papiamentu, Pedi, Picard, Pichis Ashéninka, Piedmontese, Pijin, Pintupi-Luritja, Pipil, Pohnpeian, Polish, Portuguese, Potawatomi, Prussian, Pulaar, Pular, Purepecha, Qiandong Miao, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romani, Romanian, Romansh, Rombo, Rotokas, Russian, Rusyn, Rwa, Sakha, Samburu, Sami (Inari, Lule, Northern, Southern, Pite, Skolt, Ume), Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Secoya, Sena, Serbian, Seri, Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Sharanahua, Shawnee, Shilluk, Shipibo-Conibo, Shona, Shuar, Sicilian, Silesian, Siona, Slovak, Slovene (Slovenian), Slovio (Latin), Soga, Somali, Soninke, Sorbian (Lower, Upper), Sotho (Nothern, Southern), Spanish, Sranan, Sukuma, Sundanese (Latin), Susu, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Swiss German, Tachelhit (Latin), Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Tajik (Cyrillic), Talysh, Tasawaq, Tatar (Cyrillic, Latin), Tedim Chin, Teso, Tetum, Ticuna, Timne, Tiv, Toba, Tojolabal, Tok Pisin, Tokelauan, Tonga, Tongan, Tosk, Totontepec Mixe, Tsafiki, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin, Cyrillic), Tuvaluan, Tuvan, Twi, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Uab Meto, Ukrainian, Ulithian, Umbundu, Urarina, Uyghur (Cyrillic), Uzbek (Latin, Cyrillic), Vai, Venda, Venetian, Veps, Vietnamese, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Waama, Waci Gbe, Wallisian, Walloon, Walser, Wangaaybuwan-Ngiyambaa, Waorani, Waray, Warlpiri, Wasa, Wayuu, Welsh, Wik-Mungkan, Wiradjuri, Wolof (Latin), Xavante, Xhosa, Xwela Gbe, Yagua, Yanesha’, Yangben, Yanomamö, Yao, Yapese, Yindjibarndi, Yoruba (Latin), Yucateco, Záparo, Zapotec, Zarma, Zazaki, Zulu, Zuni. The promo images used photos of Cottonbro, Maria Lindsey from Pexels, and Andreea Popa, Wyron A from Unsplash.