An original design. A memorial typeface by Pat for her mother, Alys, who was tragically killed.

Typographer and graphic designer Pavel Teimer (1935-1970) designed a modern serif roman with italics in 1967. For the drawing of Teimer he found inspiration in the types of Walbaum and Didot, rather than Bodoni. He re-evaluated these archetypes in an individual way, adjusting both height and width proportions and modifying details in the strokes, thus effectively breaking away from the historical models he used as a starting point. Teimer's antiqua has less contrast; the overall construction of the characters is softer and more lively. The proportions of the italics are rather wide, making them stand out by their calm and measured rhythm. This was defined by the purpose of the typeface, as it was to be utilised for two-character matrices. The long serifs are a typical feature noticeable throughout the complete family of fonts. In 1967, a full set of basic glyphs, numerals and diacritics of Teimer's antiqua was submitted to the Czechoslovak Grafotechna type foundry. However, the face was never cast. At the beginning of 2005 we decided to rehabilitate this hidden gem of Czech typography. We used the booklet "Teimer's antiqua - a design of modern type roman and italics", written by Jan Solpera and Kl‡ra Kv’zov‡ in 1992, as a template for digitisation. The specimen contains an elementary set of roman and italics, including numerals and ampersands. After studying the specimen, we decided to make certain adjustments to the construction of the character shapes. We slightly corrected the proportions of the typeface, cut and broadened the serifs, and slightly strengthened the hair strokes. In the upper case we made some significant changes in the end serifs of round strokes in C, G and S, and the J was redrawn from the scratch. The top diagonal arm of the K was made to connect with the vertical stem, while the tail of Q has received a more expressive tail. The stronger hairlines are yet more apparent in the lower case, which is why we needed to further intervene in the construction of the actual character shapes. The drawing of the f is new, with more tension at the top of the character, and the overall shape of the g is better balanced. We also added an ear to the j, and curves in the r have become more fluent. To emphasise the compact character of the family, the lining numerals were thoroughly redrawn, with the finials being replaced by vertical serifs. The original character of the numerals was preserved in the new set of old-style figures. To make the uppercase italics as compact as possible, they were based on the roman cut rather than on the original design. The slope of lowercase italics needed to be harmonised. The actual letter forms are still broader than the characters in the original design, and the changes in construction are more noticeable. The lower case b gained a bottom serif, the f has a more traditional shape as it is no longer constricted by the demands of two-matrice casting, the g was redrawn and is a single storey design now. The serifs on one side of the descenders of the p and q were removed, the r is broader and more open. The construction of s, v, w, x, y, and z is now more compact and better balanced. Because Teimer was designed to make optimal use of the OpenType format, it was deemed necessary to add a significant amount of new glyphs. The present character set of one font comprisess over 780 glyphs, including accented characters for typesetting of common Latin script languages, small caps and a set of ligatures, tabular, proportional, old style and lining, superscript and fraction numerals. It also contains a number of special characters, such as arrows, circles, squares, boxed numerals, and ornaments. Because of its fine and light construction, the original digitised design remained the lightest of the family. Several heavier weights were added, with the family now comprising Light, Light Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Semibold, Semibold Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic.

The famous roman type cut in Venice by Nicolas Jenson, and used in 1470 for his printing of the tract, De Evangelica Praeparatione, Eusebius, has usually been declared the seminal and definitive representative of a class of types known as Venetian Old Style. The Jenson type is thought to have been the primary model for types that immediately followed. Subsequent 15th-century Venetian Old Style types, cut by other punchcutters in Venice and elsewhere in Italy, are also worthy of study, but have been largely neglected by 20th-century type designers. There were many versions of Venetian Old Style types produced in the final quarter of the quattrocento. The exact number is unknown, but numerous printed examples survive, though the actual types, matrices, and punches are long gone. All these types are not, however, conspicuously Jensonian in character. Each shows a liberal amount of individuality, inconsistency, and eccentricity. My fascination with these historical types began in the 1970s and eventually led to the production of my first text typeface, Iowan Old Style (Bitstream, 1991). Sometime in the early 1990s, I started doodling letters for another Venetian typeface. The letters were pieced together from sections of circles and squares. The n, a standard lowercase control character in a text typeface, came first. Its most unusual feature was its head serif, a bisected quadrant of a circle. My aim was to see if its sharp beak would work with blunt, rectangular, foot serifs. Next, I wanted to see if I could construct a set of capital letters by following a similar design system. Rectangular serifs, or what we today call "slab serifs," were common in early roman printing types, particularly text types cut in Italy before 1500. Slab serifs are evident on both lowercase and uppercase characters in roman types of the Incunabula period, but they are seen mainly at the feet of the lowercase letters. The head serifs on lowercase letters of early roman types were usually angled. They were not arched, like mine. Oddly, there seems to be no actual historical precedent for my approach. Another characteristic of my arched serif is that the side opposite the arch is flat, not concave. Arched, concave serifs were used extensively in early italic types, a genre which first appeared more than a quarter century after roman types. Their forms followed humanistic cursive writing, common in Italy since before movable type was used there. Initially, italic characters were all lowercase, set with upright capitals (a practice I much admire and would like to see revived). Sloped italic capitals were not introduced until the middle of the sixteenth century, and they have very little to do with the evolution of humanist scripts. In contrast to the cursive writing on which italic types were based, formal book hands used by humanist scholars to transcribe classical texts served as a source of inspiration for the lowercase letters of the first roman types cut in Italy. While book hands were not as informal as cursive scripts, they still had features which could be said to be more calligraphic than geometric in detail. Over time, though, the copied vestiges of calligraphy virtually disappeared from roman fonts, and type became more rational. This profound change in the way type developed was also due in part to popular interest in the classical inscriptions of Roman antiquity. Imperial Roman letters, or majuscules, became models for the capital letters in nearly all early roman printing types. So it was, that the first letters in my typeface arose from pondering how shapes of lowercase letters and capital letters relate to one another in terms of classical ideals and geometric proportions, two pinnacles in a range of artistic notions which emerged during the Italian Renaissance. Indeed, such ideas are interesting to explore, but in the field of type design they often lead to dead ends. It is generally acknowledged, for instance, that pure geometry, as a strict approach to type design, has limitations. No roman alphabet, based solely on the circle and square, has ever been ideal for continuous reading. This much, I knew from the start. In the course of developing my typeface for text, innumerable compromises were made. Even though the finished letterforms retain a measure of geometric structure, they were modified again and again to improve their performance en masse. Each modification caused further deviation from my original scheme, and gave every font a slightly different direction. In the lower case letters especially, I made countless variations, and diverged significantly from my original plan. For example, not all the arcs remained radial, and they were designed to vary from font to font. Such variety added to the individuality of each style. The counters of many letters are described by intersecting arcs or angled facets, and the bowls are not round. In the capitals, angular bracketing was used practically everywhere stems and serifs meet, accentuating the terseness of the characters. As a result of all my tinkering, the entire family took on a kind of rich, familiar, coarseness - akin to roman types of the late 1400s. In his book, Printing Types D. B. Updike wrote: "Almost all Italian roman fonts in the last half of the fifteenth century had an air of "security" and generous ease extremely agreeable to the eye. Indeed, there is nothing better than fine Italian roman type in the whole history of typography." It does seem a shame that only in the 20th century have revivals of these beautiful types found acceptance in the English language. For four centuries (circa 1500 - circa 1900) Venetian Old Style faces were definitely not in favor in any living language. Recently, though, reinterpretations of early Italian printing types have been returning with a vengeance. The name Vendetta, which as an Italian sound I like, struck me as being a word that could be taken to signifiy a comeback of types designed in the Venetian style. In closing, I should add that a large measure of Vendetta's overall character comes from a synthesis of ideas, old and new. Hallmarks of roman type design from the Incunabula period are blended with contemporary concerns for the optimal display of letterforms on computer screens. Vendetta is thus not a historical revival. It is instead an indirect but personal digital homage to the roman types of punchcutters whose work was influenced by the example Jenson set in 1470. John Downer.

The Rosetta Stone, or Rashid Stone, was accidentally found by a French soldier during an excavation in the fortification of Egypt. The stone was inscribed in three languages, intended to be sent to three major Egyptian temples. These languages are: Demotic (the language used by the people in Egypt), Hieroglyphic and Ancient Greek. This font contains ancient greek.

Eshajori is an elegant and soft serif font. The primary challenge in designing this font was finding a balance between complexity and simplicity, while ensuring it could be used on both computer screens and in print. Another challenge was achieving harmony between the characters, punctuation, and numerals, creating a visually appealing and playful visual vocabulary overall.

The hand lettered title on the 1911 sheet music for “That Railroad Rag” was designed in a block style letter with spurred serifs. This simple typographic layout evokes the imagery of early rail transportation although the song itself is was a ‘modern’ composition of then-popular ragtime music. Railway Station JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

LTC Spire with alternate caps was designed by Lanston’s type director Sol Hess in 1937. Spire Roman was designed without lowercase. But it includes alternate rounded caps which transform this extra condensed “fat face” into more of an art deco titling face. Spire Roman has been used within department store logos, luxury hotel signage, perfumes, etc, etc.

The London Signature is an amazing Ellegant Signature font. It was made with perfect precision for every single curve that was build with a horizontal, vertical path & smooth. London signature script font which stylish natural handwritten font with beautiful curve in every single corner. This font is so fashionable & elegant and perfect for photography, branding, signature and logo .

In the 1930s the WPA (Works Progress Administration) was involved with getting a number of Americans back to work during the Great Depression. One faction of the WPA's efforts was the Federal Art Project. Thin, condensed hand lettering on a poster for an Art Exhibition at the New Bedford Free Public Library is the inspiration for Art Exhibit JNL.

Tulip Algarve font family showcases elegant and trendy glamour through a bold contrast between horizontal and vertical stems. The basic glyph design was inspired by the beautiful silhouette of a tulip flower, and a classical beauty was added to the typeface system. With a modern display sans serif personality, this type system will interact well with any layout design.

The first flower that was created was for a the cover of a cultural magazine in Montréal (Québec). Then we couldn't stop and we've created a whole font with interesting forms of flowers. Please note that this font is unusually detailed and its complexity may exceed the memory limitations of drawing programs such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw.

Rock Face was inspired by a crude but effective home made sign I came across advertising a garage sale. The lettering was created using sticky black insulation tape which, like a child's drawing, had a certain naive charm. The type design presented here is obviously more considered, but I like to think it has the same raw dynamism.

The orthography was invented in 1952 by a Sufi Sheikh, named Hussein Sheikh Ahmed Kaddare. A phonetically robust writing system, the technical commissions that appraised the Kaddare alphabet concurred that it was the most accurate indigenous script and orthography for transcribing the Somali language. Kaddare uses both upper and lower case letters, with the lower case represented in cursive.

Theater Tickets JNL was inspired by a photo of the marquee signage for Detroit’s Majestic Theater (built in1934), and is available in both regular and oblique versions. The theater was renovated and restored in 1987 and its marquee replicated the original one. What’s interesting is that the signage actually resembles squared pen lettering with rounded corners.

This engaging headline face is based on a rather pudgy typeface named “Bullion Shadow”, which was originally released somewhere on the cusp between the hippie and disco eras, and was equally at home in both. Now available in shaded and plain. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

In 1913, Leipzig-based foundry C. F. Ruehl released a hot-metal font called Caesar-Schrift which was cut by the engraver and medalist Georg Schiller (1858-1937). This humanist sans combines successfully traditional classic forms with the flowing lines of the Art Nouveau period. Now revived as Caesar Pro, this font was carefully extended and made multilingual.

Since I live in a hamlet without any facilities whatsoever, I order a lot online. Most deliveries are done during daytime, but some companies prefer to deliver my stuff at night. When I was drawing out the glyphs for this font (using my Chinese ink and a broken paint stirrer), the door bell rang. It was a Night Delivery…

ITC Nora was designed by James Montalbano when he was on a 1930s sign-lettering kick, poring over showcard manuals to find inspiration for new typeface designs. A few letters led him to create this informal, goofy" script, which falls between the many formal scripts and the completely extravagant. ITC Nora displays a free-flowing openness and elegance."

Quixley was designed by Vince Whitlock, who was inspired by an old Zoltan Nagy typeface. The capitals can be used alone or combined with the lowercase and should be set with close letter and word spacing. Quixley is an eye-catching, condensed display typeface whose unusual angles and marked stroke contrast lend it marvelous visual appeal.

MGN Ismawan. This font was created in 2022 and was inspired by the Helvetica font. With a standard shape and being a bit wide, this font is suitable for writing, but for headlines, we think it's still OK. There are several forms of this font that have a distinctive character, which makes this font suitable for logo writing.

Vincent Pacella designed the inspiration for this typeface, which was called Carousel and was issued by Photolettering in the 70s. Fresh and bouncy, its retro charm will perk up any project it graces. The PC PostScript, TrueType and OpenType versions contain the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Hofstad is a font which was modeled on a poster designed by Dutch graphic artist Jan Lavies (1902 - 2005). Lavies became famous for the posters he designed for the Holland America Line of cruise ships. Hofstad font was named after the theatre group "Vereenigd Rotterdamsch - Hofstad Tooneel" for which Jan Lavies designed a poster. Hofstad comes with all diacritics.

A revival from the past this animated letter will fit right into todays market. With its subtle flair and Latin feeling it will surely give a feeling of pure fun. This style was very popular in the 40s and 50s then it was reborn in the 60s and 70s once again it is coming back and becoming popular again.

This typeface was developed for the Different Ground exhibition identity (and that explains the name of the font). The aim was to make an absolutely geometric, constructed font. Sometimes even too geometric and too much into it's own rules. But at the same time to make it look very humane, sometimes imperfect and weird, but alive and not soulless.

Intended mainly for invitations, Galana is available in 4 styles: Uno, Dos, Tres, and Alt. The first three styles use the Open-Type ligature function for a better legibility. Alt style was thought for those who love swashes and flourishes. Galana was designed to look elegant and sentimental, each glyph being unique and hard to forget.

Our font (circa 1895) of this old wood type was made by Hamilton of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, but we have been told that another identical font was made earlier by W. H. Page, Greeneville, Connecticut. Hamilton became the final home of many of the old wood type patterns as the early companies went out of business.

Hiroshige was designed in 1986 by Cynthia Hollandsworth (now Batty) of AlphaOmega Typography, Inc. The typeface was originally commissioned for a book of woodblock prints by the great nineteenth-century Japanese artist Ando Hiroshige, whose work influenced many Impressionist artists. The typeface has a gentle calligraphic flair that creates an interesting page of text as well as elegant headlines.

Celluloid JNL was modeled from a few samples shown in a 1947 sales catalog for changeable letter directory boards and the various styles available for these signs. Prior to modern plastics, celluloid was the material used for these molded letters. Aside from the Regular and Oblique versions, there is also Celluloid Highlight JNL and Celluloid Highlight Oblique JNL.

Amerio is a rough font that was made by Subectype Studio. It features a brush made feel and looks so fun. Every single letter has been naturally hand written, making this typeface unique. It was scanned and put together as a font. The font suits best for big headlines, logos, posters, book cover, quotes and much more.

AdieuTwo is a radical revision of Adieu which was a revision of my original font, Chivalry, that was traced from Chevalier back in the mid-1990s. Its roots are obvious, but this one has small caps, small cap figures, oldstyle figures, ligatures, and more. This is a thoroughly up-to-date font ready to be used for stylish heads.

In designing Minion font, Robert Slimbach was inspired by the timeless beauty of the fonts of the late Renaissance. Minion was created primarily as a traditional text font but adapts well to today's digital technology, presenting the richness of the late baroque forms within modern text formats. This clear, balanced font is suitable for almost any use.

This font was inspired by the embossed lettering on cigar boxes. The letters, or entire words, are often surrounded by raised dots, and that was our idea here. We drew this about 1997, and have been refining it ever since. All letters are on the lowercase keyboard; the end pieces and spaces are on the caps.

The October 5, 1935 issue of “Universal Weekly” (a publication detailing current film releases from Universal) was promoting the film “Remember Last Night”. Hand lettering used for this advertisement was an ultra-bold sans serif design with chamfered corners and some stylized characters. This is now available digitally as Road Work JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

I often experiment with different shadow techniques. One day I accidentally scaled, instead of repositioning, some black text behind the white copy on top and noticed something very different and interesting happen. It was an intriguing effect. It took some clever handiwork to make it work properly across the entire alphabet. And behold, Eclipse was born.

Plastic Display JNL was sketched from photo examples in an old sales promotion sheet for the Movitex Do-It-Yourself Plastic Sign Kit. The set was manufactured by Pryor Marking Products of Chicago, and featured a board with pre-spaced holes in a grid to which the letters and numbers would be inserted to form the sign.

The original name for Ambigue was “Confidence”. This font family received the first prize at the German Kurt Christians-Foerderpreis in 1997/98. Its interpolated weights offer a subtle differentiation in the grey levels. A special “Small” weight is available that offers better readability in very small sizes. The work was supported by Professor Jovica Veljovic.

The interesting hand lettered sans design of Music Nouveau JNL was found as the title of a vintage piece of early 20th Century sheet music for a song written by famed composer Irving Berlin and called "They Were All Out of Step but Jim". Judging by the cover art, it was a novelty song about a soldier.

Cataneo was designed at Bitstream by Richard Lipton and Jacqueline Sakwa and was initially released in 1993. Cataneo is an elegant chancery cursive typeface, inspired by the work of Bernardino Cataneo, a 16th-century Italian writing master. Cataneo offers as companions, typographer sets of swash characters and extensions to round out the family of three weights.

Hans Bohn’s Orplid, a shadowed sans serif font strongly influenced by the then prevailing Bauhaus style, and released by Klingspor in 1929, was revived and vastly extended for multilingual use. In addition, a filling style was made to easily accomplish colorful headlines, ads and posters. Both styles come with alternatives for A, M, N and W.

Breathless was inspired by movie posters of the Nouvelle Vague era when Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo were young and films where in black and white. So I named this very spiky affair after that phantastic movie of my youth A bout des souffle or like it was called in English, Breathless. -Your breathless type designer, Gert Wiescher