The concept of a bold connected script with a hand lettered feel has been on my bucket list for decades. I imagined a pretentious, ornate, swashy look, a variety of word-end embellishments, heaps of ligatures and underscores. It took a weekend workshop on Python Scripting at Type@Cooper in San Francisco reinforcing the smarts of Opentype to make it happen. Hand drawn on paper using broad pen strokes for reference, the design was the easy part. The real work was in the back-end and self-imposed rigorous testing. Download a comprehensive pdf User Guide at this link.

Pardesi font is named after a song from Raja Hindustani, a 1996 Bollywood movie directed by Dharmesh Darshan. The lead roles were played by Aamir Khan and Karisma Kapoor. Together they sing: 'Pardesi, pardesi, jaana nahi', meaning so much as: 'Foreigner, foreigner, don't go'. I remember this song very well, as I was backpacking through India and Nepal at the time and it was played over and over again on all long distance buses I took. Pardesi font is a fat, rounded, marker-pen font, ideal for books and posters. It comes with extensive language support.

Skaryna 2017 Title is a revival of the original typeface designed and cut by Francisk Skaryna in 1517–1519. Skaryna 2017 Title is designed to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the original work by Francisk Skaryna (lat. Franciscus Scorina de Poloczko) — scientist and educator from Polotsk (current Belarus). The original designs contain only Cyrillic characters. So Latin and additional characters were added to make the legacy of Francisk available for the World. The revival was designed to stay close to the original and remain a little bit inaccurate as early Renaissance printing technologies were. This project was sponsored by Anton Bryl.

Duc de Berry is a part of the 1990 program Type before Gutenberg, which included the work of twelve contemporary font designers and represented styles from across the ages. Linotype offers a package including all these fonts on its web page, www.fonts.de. The design of Duc de Berry was influenced by those of typefaces created between the 13th and 16th centuries. The font was named after Duc de Berry, whose beautiful missals inspired typefaces of the 15th century. The capital letters are especially elegant and can be used either as initials or as contrast to the much more reserved lower case letters.

ITC Juanita is the work of Argentinian-born designer Luis Siquot and was inspired by a text set only with woodcuts which he was reading during a long international flight. ITC Juanita is a series of six distinct typefaces which Siquot sees as a personal reinterpretation of designs that originated in the 1930s and 40s and were still popular during his childhood in the 1950s. For me, Juanita is like a toy, charming, expressive, and also dramatic," says Siquot. The ITC Juanita series offers designers a range of variations based on similar structures, each variation with its own look."

The “indalo” means messenger of the Gods in the Iberian language about 2500 BC. It was discovered in the Almeria, south of Spain, Indalo was a ghost that bring luck having a rainbow in his hands. Indalo font is an informal, condensed hand-drawn font with a vintage touch. Its features give it a nice appearance that refer to traditional fluent writing. This font is equipped with a large set of ligatures, as well as different alternatives on some letters, to create more authentic and varied connections between letters. Contain Central European language support to fit your design.

Karol was designed in 2011 as a project in the MA in Advanced Typography from EINA/UAB, in Barcelona. It was born as text typeface inspired by the work of East European type designers. Two years later, Karol is ready for public release, in a collection of eight styles (four weights and matching italics) with high readability, strength and character. A few days before its publication, we received the news that Karol had been awarded the Certificate of Typographic Excellence (Judges’ Choice) of the Type Directors Club. Please check the ‘Read me’ file located in the gallery for more specifications.

Malaguena Stencil JNL was derived from hand lettering found on an Art Deco-era piece of vintage sheet music for this familiar tune. According to Wikipedia: “Malagueña is the feminine form of the Spanish language adjective malagueño/ malagueña, ‘pertaining to Málaga’, a Spanish port city.” Additionally: "Malagueña", is a song by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona; written in 1928 it was originally the sixth movement of Lecuona's Suite Andalucia, to which he added lyrics in Spanish. The song has since become a popular, jazz, marching band, and drum corps standard and has been provided with lyrics in several languages.

Pinch Remix is a recreated version of a typeface I made in 2007. The form hasn’t changed at all, but I composed the family by increasing the number of weights and revising the spacing and kerning. At first it was created from randomly drawing an alphabet offhand on paper with a drawing pen. Then I figured that perhaps it had the framework for a typeface. Originally because it was just a memo, I had already thrown in the trash once. Yet something about it caught me, and when I turned to look down at it, I couldn’t throw it away.

Bacterio is a typeface I designed for this hulk of a friend of mine who is a kitchen designer. He is huge but has a very delicate feeling for form. One day he said he was trying out something new and if I couldn't make a font for him. Then he showed me the surface design, a hard-plastic covered multilayered wood. The surface design was called "Bacteria" and it looked just like that, only in multicolors. Well here is "Bacterio" the font that looks just like that surface of my hulky friend. Yours very design infected Gert Wiescher

The font Eckmann is named after its designer, Otto Eckmann, and appeared with the Klingspor font foundry in 1900. The influence of the Jugendstil is clear to see in the flowing floral contours of the letters. This font was made for larger point sizes, like on posters, and while relatively legible, it is not meant for smaller print. The font was often used in book titles and advertisements of the 19th century and today Eckmann is often used to suggest a feeling of nostalgia and is often found on the Jugendstil facades in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Mix Basic is just your basic everyday handwriting. This was written initially on a post-it using a fine tip Frixion pen. The font was then digitized, cleaned up, and converted into a font. Since this is basically your everyday handwriting, it has a multitude of creative applications. Think label design, greeting cards, social media quotes, handwritten notes replication, and more. Use as you please! Mix Basic includes the following characters: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789 !@$#%^&*()`~•· ÷×+−±≈=≠≥≤[]<>:;’”,.\|/?{}“”‘’-–—_…©®‹›«»°¹²³¡¿₱¢€£¥§† ÁÀÂÄÃÅĂĀĄÆĆĈČÇÐĐÉÈÊËĖĒĘĜĤIÍÌÎÏĪĮĴŁŃÑŇ ÓÒÔÖÕŌŐØŒŔŘŚŜŠȘŤȚÚÙÛÜŮŰŬŪŲẂẀŴÝŶŸŹẐŽŻÞ áàâäãåăāąæćĉčçðđéèêëėēęĝĥıíìîïīįĵłńñň óòôöõōőøœŕřśŝšșťțúùûüůűŭūųẃẁŵýŷÿźẑžżþ Alternates/Ligatures for: & R a e i m o u y ee mm nn oo rr tt

I designed Mirage using ink and a calligraphy brush to evoke the writing styles of ancient and exotic civilizations. After completing the project, it was filed and forgotten. About 15 years later, I was sifting through some of my old art files and found a "photostat" of the entire character set... a truly a magnificent archeological discovery. Then I thought, hey, maybe it's day has come. Why not share it with the world?... a completely digitized version for the new millennium. This unique font is a versatile, calligraphic option for travel, history, and greeting card themes. What other uses can you imagine?

Plumage is somewhat unusual in that it has elements of calligraphy as well as script in a semi-loose form that gives it a pleasing appearance for both large and small sizes, and interesting flare finish strokes add to its unique character. As I read a dictionary description of "plumage", I realized that in many ways there is a parallel between a bird's plumage and how it is utilized in the context of writing: Plumage varies in pattern and arrangement for different purposes; what it expresses can of course be even more interesting. Plumage is disposable after a season, as new ones become available... imagine, a self-sustaining quill! - I guess that's equivalent to a refill or disposable pen. Historically, quill pens were made from feathers of a variety of birds, each chosen for its special characteristics. The sturdiest and most reliable feathers, however, come from turkeys, swans and geese. Feathers used to make pens are the stiff-spined flight feathers on the leading edge of the bird's wing. Pens for right-handed writers come from the left wing, and pens for left-handers, from the right! Each bird yields 10-12 good quills, and sometimes only 2 or 3 - so small a yield that the geese reared in England could not furnish nearly enough for local demand, and quills were imported from the Continent in large quantities. At one point St Petersburg in Russia was sending 27 million quills a year to the UK. It is said that geese were specially bred by US President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) to supply his own vast need for quills - in his lifetime he wrote almost 20,000 letters. The name "Plumage" was selected to pay homage to the noble birds that supplied countless quills for centuries of literary works. Plumage is recommended for any formal or informal invitation, decorations, awards, poetry, plaques, etc. We hope you will have the pleasure of using Plumage.

MMC INSIGNIA PRO, is an Iconic & Emblematic Neogothic Geometric Display… Assembled by Trivial Squares and Diagonals Symbols Pattern from a puzzled grid Aftermath!! Includes Small Caps & Stylistic Alternates!! +Extra Monospaced Figures. In 22 styles, with Obliques, both for single display and layer Typesetting, plus OpenType Features & Bonus Blocks Fonts! MMC Insignia Pro, is the cursive version of MMC Insignia and the default or main lowercases in ‘SC’ feature plus cursive stylistic alternates and sets such as Monospaced figures… Its atmosphere stands by on both Corporative to Decorative, Modern & Fashion, Federalist, Bohemian, Romantic, Ludic, Treasured Look, Etc. This Display font-family is the result of the repeated applications of this unique infamous Icon or Symbol, of two counterpointed triangles, implicit as hourglasses, in order to compose an innovative and unprecedented typographic pattern and modulation concept through the letterforms, in an extremely Geometric style. The Graphic Sign used throughout this type, is a remarkable trend used already in Logos of different businesses, whose most famous case refers to a famous International Bank, which doesn’t need to be mentioned, as it is instantly associated! This characteristic innovation was the main motivation while creating this type. Usage Suggestions: Type Fancy Titling texts, Display Remarkable Logos, Branding Projects, Labels, Emblems, Fashion Patterns, or in everything Noble and designed for Excellence as a type of Insignia, or distinguished marks and attributes of Royalty and Power!! That’s also forwardly, the reason why it was named MMC Insignia… TIPS: 1-Combine styles into innumerous possibilities of Chromatic Typesetting, by ‘central pasting’ layers… You may dislocate layers for improvisations! 2-USE BLOCK “FREE-STYLES” 1 & 2 also to add default 3D! Change 3D directions by switching Block 1 to Block 2, that way you can Zig-Zag words and lines. *Also shift the block layer up to bottom limit, it makes the 3D direction turn upside down. Greetings! André, MMC-TypEngine.

Claude Garamond (ca. 1480-1561) cut types for the Parisian scholar-printer Robert Estienne in the first part of the sixteenth century, basing his romans on the types cut by Francesco Griffo for Venetian printer Aldus Manutius in 1495. Garamond refined his romans in later versions, adding his own concepts as he developed his skills as a punchcutter. After his death in 1561, the Garamond punches made their way to the printing office of Christoph Plantin in Antwerp, where they were used by Plantin for many decades, and still exist in the Plantin-Moretus museum. Other Garamond punches went to the Frankfurt foundry of Egenolff-Berner, who issued a specimen in 1592 that became an important source of information about the Garamond types for later scholars and designers. In 1621, sixty years after Garamond's death, the French printer Jean Jannon (1580-1635) issued a specimen of typefaces that had some characteristics similar to the Garamond designs, though his letters were more asymmetrical and irregular in slope and axis. Jannon's types disappeared from use for about two hundred years, but were re-discovered in the French national printing office in 1825, when they were wrongly attributed to Claude Garamond. Their true origin was not to be revealed until the 1927 research of Beatrice Warde. In the early 1900s, Jannon's types were used to print a history of printing in France, which brought new attention to French typography and the Garamond" types. This sparked the beginning of modern revivals; some based on the mistaken model from Jannon's types, and others on the original Garamond types. Italics for Garamond fonts have sometimes been based on those cut by Robert Granjon (1513-1589), who worked for Plantin and whose types are also on the Egenolff-Berner specimen. Linotype has several versions of the Garamond typefaces. Though they vary in design and model of origin, they are all considered to be distinctive representations of French Renaissance style; easily recognizable by their elegance and readability. Garamond Pemiere Pro was designed by Robert Slimbach, and released in 2005."

John Seddon (1644-1700), was a famous English writing master, the leading calligrapher of his time, and master of Sir John Johnson’s Free Writing School in Priest’s Court, Foster Lane. His portrait was drawn by William Faithorne and was engraved by John Sturt as the frontispiece for his copy-books, such as ‘The Ingenious youth’s companion’ of c.1690 and 'The pen-man’s paradise' of c.1695. These were engraved after his work by others. Your extra-rare book - "The Pen-mans Paradise Both pleasent & Profitable OR Examples of all ye usuall hands of this Kingdome. Adorn'd with variety of ffigures an Flourishes done by Command of hand. Each ffigure being one continued & entire Track of the pen most where of may be struck as well Reverse (or to answer bothwayes) as Forward", London (1965). - (YES, that is the title of the book!) was the starting point to these new extra accurated works of Iza W, a series of revivals of the penmanship Seddon’s artworks, like this highly ornamented animal kingdom inspired capitals and alphabets: the Seddon Penmans Paradise Capitals typeface. And, on the other hand, you can get the animal and human kingdon inspired penmanship forms in the Bestiario font. The “SeddonsFleurons” will complete the collection. Fantastic choice to elaborated barocque/renaissance inspired and historical accurated layouts.

Syntax was designed by Swiss typographer Hans Eduard Meier, and issued in 1968 by the D. Stempel AG type foundry as their last hot metal type family. Meier used an unusual rationale in the design of this sans serif typeface; it has the shapes of humanist letters or oldstyle types (such as Sabon), but with a modified monoline treatment. The original drawings were done in 1954; first by writing the letters with a brush, then redrawing their essential linear forms, and finally adding balanced amounts of weight to the skeletons to produce optically monoline letterforms. Meier wanted to subtly express the rhythmical dynamism of written letters and at the same time produce a legible sans serif typeface. This theme was supported by using a very slight slope in the roman, tall ascenders, terminals at right angles to stroke direction, caps with classical proportions, and the humanist style a and g. The original foundry metal type was digitized in 1989 to make this family of four romans and one italic. Meier completely reworked Syntax in 2000, completing an expanded and improved font family that is available exclusively from Linotype GmbH as Linotype Syntax. In 2009 the typeface family was renamed into a more logical naming of "Syntax Next" to fit better in the Platinum Collection naming." Syntax® Next font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

LisaBeth Weber's eponymous typeface ITC Weber Hand is deceptively simple-looking. It's a handwriting face in a light, monolineal style with a slightly formal, almost angular appearance. Weber, who is an accomplished singer/songwriter as well as an artist and lettering artist, says she has always had an inherent sensibility with lettering." Her favorite subject in the first grade was penmanship, and when, as an adult, she got her first checkbook, "I thought it was very unfair that the signature always had to be consistently the same." She describes Weber Hand as "a natural progression of my handwriting style, a friendly and versatile font." Its letterfit is naturally loose, and it shows its character best when set with ample leading. In 1999, when LisaBeth Weber's ITC Weber Hand™ typeface was released, it soon became one of ITC's most popular handwriting fonts. A decade later she decided that is was time to update her single-weight design. A light weight would benefit from a bold companion, in addition to condensed variations for much greater versatility. This warm, friendly, and charming design is just as at home in Restaurant menus as it is in brochures, for advertising, and on packaging. With the new weights ITC Weber Hand will surely continue to be a popular handwriting type with broad appeal."

There are a few professions in which being left-handed confers an advantage-think of the great southpaw pitchers in major league baseball, like Sandy Koufax. Now, think of all the great left-handed calligraphers. Not so easy, right? Here's a hint: Luis Siquot. Far from being an advantage, Siquot's lefty orientation proved a hurdle to overcome. When I was young, I had serious problems writing," he recalls. "If there was a lot of text, I almost always soiled the paper with wet ink as my hand followed the pen." Then, a friend told Siquot about a special store in London that catered to left-handed people. It was there that he found an Osmiroid pen specially designed for left-handed calligraphers. ITC Cali is based on Siquot's use of this pen. "Electronic scans of my calligraphy were the foundation of the design," he says. "I was careful to leave in some imperfections to avoid an excessively mechanical look, and added the little notches in the strokes to imitate the texture of writing on a rough cotton paper." ITC Cali works equally well in text and display sizes, but it is a calligraphic script, Siquot warns, "and shouldn't be set in all capitals." That said, ITC Cali is a remarkably versatile design, well-suited to a variety of communication projects."

SchmalfetteCP is the result of another collaboration between designers Jason Walcott and Rob King. King suggested that Walcott revive this wonderful and somewhat forgotten sans serif typeface from the mid 1950s. Originally designed by Walter Haettenschweiler in 1954, Schmalfette Grotesk was used for many years in the German magazine "Twen". The typeface was notoriously hard to acquire at the time and graphic designers in the USA often resorted to cutting letters from the Twen magazines and reusing them in their own designs. Later, when digital type came along several typefaces very similar were created that claimed to be digital revivals of Schmalfette Grotesk. However, they are actually only loosely based on the original. The proportions are different and in some cases a lower case was added. The original font was all caps. At Rob King's suggestion, Jason Walcott has strived to recreate the most faithful digital revival possible of the original Schmalfette Grotesk with the new version of SchmalfetteCP. In some cases small changes were made to accommodate today's digital needs (e.g. web fonts), but anyone who has ever searched for this typeface now has a version available that most closely resembles Haettenschweiler's original work. Schmalfette CP comes in OpenType format in both .ttf and .otf files and offers support for all Latin based and Eastern European languages.

Fishmonger originated from a commission of two fonts for the corporate identity of a fishmonger shop. When sketching the elementary principles for the lettering, the idea for a modern, extensive font family with a large number of styles was born. The first step consisted of defining the range of widths and weights. Then the master design Medium Regular was completed. The next step was adjusting the Extra Condensed Thin, the Extra Condensed Bold, The Extra Extended Thin and the Extra Extended Bold weights, as they are the vertices of an imaginary square map of the face. This meant that, in order to achieve a harmonious result, the x and y axis needed to be defined. From top to bottom, from the widest to the most condensed cut, the proportions are linear. However, from light to black, the line curves gently, allowing lesser difference between the light cuts, and a dramatic one between the heavier cuts. To ensure the original parameters were respected each position on the vertex was checked against the Medium Regular. After sorting out the ideal set-up, the remaining characters of each of the weights were drawn, and the remaining cuts were interpolated according to the principles above. Fishmonger is a functional, clean design, free of any buoyant, ornamental shapes, almost minimalist. Maybe this is what lends the type family its unique appearance.

Unarmed began life as a series of rectangles in Fireworks. The task was designing my own business card for the first time in years, and the perfect lettering couldn't be found in either free or commercial fonts. While there were some good choices, none of them really communicated who I was. Initially only the lowercase letters in my name were created, with each being designed around a 7 x 4 grid of squares. I liked the result so much that I wanted to use the same typeface in different projects - and to save time in future, I decided to create this font. In creating DM Unarmed, the intention was to avoid diagonal lines, and to keep all the lines horizontal, vertical and grid-like. This made creating some of the characters - particularly the rounded ones and the letters X and Z - challenging. Coming from both worlds, I wanted to achieve a blend of technicality and creativeness, without trying to pretend one was the other. For best results this font should be used for large and prominent text, although it works at smaller sizes up to 12pt. I've spent a lot of time trying to hint a few characters that wouldn't play ball, such as 2, 7 and 8. In case you're wondering: DM Unarmed got its name from my philosophy of facing challenges without reliance on tools and weapons.

In 1968, Adrian Frutiger was commissioned to develop a sign and directional system for the new Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Though everyone thought he would want to use his successful Univers font family, Frutiger decided instead to make a new sans serif typeface that would be suitable for the specific legibility requirements of airport signage: easy recognition from the distances and angles of driving and walking. The resulting font was in accord with the modern architecture of the airport. In 1976, he expanded and completed the family for D. Stempel AG in conjunction with Linotype, and it was named Frutiger. The Frutiger™ family is neither strictly geometric nor humanistic in construction; its forms are designed so that each individual character is quickly and easily recognized. Such distinctness makes it good for signage and display work. Although it was originally intended for the large scale of an airport, the full family has a warmth and subtlety that have, in recent years, made it popular for the smaller scale of body text in magazines and booklets. The family has 14 weights and 14 companion fonts with Central European characters and accents. Another 14 Cyrillic companion fonts are available as well. See also the new revised version Frutiger Next from the Linotype Platinum Collection. Featured in: Best Fonts for Logos

My motivation for designing the Lalibela family (which is based on Bodoni) was to pay homage to Ethiopic script. The script has been around for about 3 000 years, but I took artistic licence to deviate from the original model and add personal touches. I chose Bodoni as a historical model because of its display value and not its text size use because the extreme contrast made it difficult to read at small sizes. A Modern typeface characterized by consistently horizontal stress, flat and un-bracketed serifs, and a high contrast between thin and thick strokes, were the final step in typography two-hundred-year journey away from calligraphy. The austerity, simplicity and greater contrast style was perfected.Contrary to all the refinements in Bodoni, I have revisited calligraphy with the font Lalibela that mimics Ethiopic Script. It was drawn with a much larger x height and less geometric than Bodoni for its primary use as a display font. For example, a lot of italic serifs were added to the roman face as well as 16 additional ligatures to obtain more a feel of calligraphy. I made the serifs thicker and bracket one side with straight steps obtaining a reduced contrast to withstand breaking up at smaller sizes.An additional variant, "Lalibela Alternate" was designed to provide an interesting mixing possibilities with the Bold face for more expressive headlines.

Inspired by the sound of acoustic guitars, delicacy of harps and elegance of the engrossers script, String is a trendy monoline font which will for sure make unique layouts for your pieces of design. Combining String with String Hole in the same word is a good idea when a more playful rhythm is needed. The font works particularly well when standing on photographs, so be ready to use it in magazines with food, landscapes or super models. I like thinking of String as a distilled version of Erotica. A more “pure” relative of hers. When I designed Erotica, I was so in love with the spencerian style that I knew it'd be hard to just abandon it. With that in mind, this time my aim was to take the subtlety of it to the limit. So, in order to do that I had to find out what was actually the secret of its beauty. I found that the essence of Erotica, in other words, its ductus was the most responsible. The result is a font made of hairlines with a lot of emphasis on the pureness of the form and, (with a lot of inspiration in music) the sensation of continuity between its letters as if they were written with a string. Try String and its flowing melody.

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.