This family was inspired from a lot of 1848-1850 French engraved documents reproducing handwritten texts talking about the Paris' insurrection days in June 1848 (described by Victor Hugo in Les misérables) . It seems that all were first written using quill pens, as the strokes are too much heavy and bold for metal pens and even though the engraver work is very fine. We have added only a few characters, most of them were present in the originals. The TTF and OTF versions are enriched with more than 50 ligatures or alternate characters.

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."

Originally released in 2008, Stern is the only typeface to be produced and marketed simultaneously in digital and metal. In the twenty-first century, no less. It is also the last typeface Jim Rimmer ever completed. The process he used for its design and manufacture is the stuff of legend, and can be seen in the Richard Kegler documentary, Making Faces: Metal Type in the 21st Century. The design is a delicate upright italic named in memory of Chris Stern, the late artist and printer from Washington State. In 2013, Canada Type remastered and expanded the design's offerings to a glyphset of over 1200 characters, updated programming. Now Stern Pro includes the following features: - Small caps. - Caps-to-small-caps functionality, useful for setting mid-height caps alongside lowercase. - Tall caps. - Historical forms. - A wide variety of alternates for both uppercase and lowercase letters. - Plenty of ligatures. - Seven types of numerals, enclosers, cojoiners and currency symbols. - Automatic fractions. - A complete set of lowercase ordinals, from a to z. - Case-sensitive forms. - Language support for Greek and over 50 Latin languages. 20% of this font's revenues will be donated to the Canada Type Scholarship Fund, supporting higher typography education in Canada.

Neacademia is a Latin and Cyrillic type family inspired by the types cut by 15th century punchcutter Francesco Griffo for Venetian printer Aldus Manutius. Beyond the letterforms themselves, however, the digital fonts themselves are based on the techniques and methods Griffo employed. The family comprises four distinct variants optimised for specific point sizes, as was traditional in metal type. While the display sizes maintain a visual link to calligraphic roots, text sizes exhibit more typographic qualities, following the hand of the carver. Likewise, Neacademia maintains its even colour on the page by carefully employing alternative letterforms, rather than leaning on a multitude of kerning pairs. A geeky little detail you’ll likely need to point out with a magnifying glass to your type friends, but creating a neat texture that works in readers favour nonetheless. Neacademia’s historically sensitive eye is put to work for modern typographers’ needs. It incorporates Griffo’s italic capitals and harmonizes them with the lowercase and the romans — where the original Aldine italics had no capitals of their own and simply re-used the uprights. It was designed with specific allowances for letterpress photopolymer printing. Printed digitally, it can tolerate – and even benefit from – low resolution, rough paper, and low-grade presswork. In many ways, it feels like using metal type again!

Just two capital letters from a sign inspired Box Lunch JNL from Jeff Levine. The restaurant - an early 1950s favorite in Miami Beach, Florida specialized in fried chicken meals and other delights of the day - long before the big corporate chains took over the local landscape.

This addition to the Whiz-Bang Woodtype series in based on a 100+ year-old typeface originally named Medallic. Due to the highly ornate nature of this font, it has a limited character set (no math operators or footnote accessories). The Opentype version of this font supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages, as well as Unicode 1252 (Latin) languages.

Inspired by both turn of the century neoclassical forms and Dutch Fleischmann Type, Garvis is designed to bring the character of those typefaces into more modern times by increasing the sturdiness of the forms without losing their character. At display sizes, this typeface displays the subtle inconsistencies commonly found in traditional metal type printing. This detail is designed to virtually disappear at text size so as not to become distracting while still giving the text a warm, human quality. Garvis includes support for all contemporary (and many historic) Latin orthographies as well as complete IPA support.

Yellow Tamarin is a blackletter font, also a yellow font with decorative elements and a metal or tattoo-inspired look. This makes it a highly unique and versatile font, with many potential uses in design. There's some connected letters and some alternates that suitable for any graphic designs such as branding materials, t-shirt, print, business cards, logo, poster, t-shirt, photography, quotes .etc This font support for some multilingual. Also contains uppercase A-Z and lowercase a-z, alternate character, numbers 0-9, and some punctuation. If you need help, just write me! Thanks so much for checking out my shop!

A nixie tube is a technology from the 50’s used to display numerals that are composed by metal filaments that light up much like a lamp bulb. Due to their beauty these little numerals (0-9) are a love case for any designer, and formally it’s where the inspiration for the Nixin typeface came from. All the other typeface characters and weights are an interpretation from the original 10 numerals, always keeping the same minimalistic spirit and formal elegance. Nixin is a geometric and regular typeface, with a vintage touch and a bit of modernism.

Valfieris Aged looks as though it just came off an antique printing press. Ink has pooled in the serifs and on the corners, and the metal did not make full contact with the paper in center of the letters. Valfieris Aged includes a full set of OpenType alternates for every character in the English alphabet, swash alternates, ending swashes, titling alternates, oldstyle figures, historical forms, small caps and 64 discretionary ligatures. These ligatures are used to alter the appearance of the type so that the printing appears realistic and without any duplicate letters to detract from the antique appearance.

Unlike previous dingbat fonts released from Lanston Type Co., Archive Ornaments derives from a unique collection of brass ornament plates that were originally used in creating the matrices for casting metal type. Using the plates as a reference point allowed for a more precise rendering of the ornaments. Letterpress prints were made directly from the brass plates, which were then re-drawn and digitized. Each character has been optimized for the combination of decorative borders and patterns as well as individual accentuation. The completed digitized font contains over 100 glyphs, ranging in style from geometric to organic designs.

John Baskerville spared no effort to create the ultimate typographic book. He prepared deep black inks and smoothed paper to show to full effect the letters that he had John Handy cut from his own brilliant designs, based on a lifetime of calligraphy and stonecutting. Punches and matrices survive at the Cambridge University Press. The present design is an accurate recutting, with particular attention to George W. Jones’ revision from the metal of Baskerville’s English (14pt) roman and italic in 1929 for Linotype & Machinery Ltd; Mergenthaler Linotype imported this design to the USA two years later.

Korolev Rough is an inky, distressed version of Korolev , designed to mimic vintage letterpress, photocopies or hot metal on rough paper. A 20-weight sans serif family based on lettering by an anonymous Soviet graphic designer from the propaganda displays at the Communist Red Square parade in 1937, it has been named in honor of Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov, or Korolev, considered by many to be the father of practical astronomics. Every weight and style comes with an alternate double-story “a”. The complete Korolev family includes standard, italic, condensed, and compressed versions, each in five weights.

Voltage is an unexpected and energetic standout in the world of script fonts. Evocative of the metal lettering on automobiles of the past, Voltage references the late days of the Industrial Age; its structured lettering emphasizes practicality and uniformity that is assertive, yet down-to-earth. Voltage provides 154 unique swash designs (a total of 348 swash variations), 39 alternates, and 15 ligatures. See what’s included! http://bit.ly/1wsNonR These fonts have been specially coded for access of all the swashes, alternates and ornaments without the need for professional design software! Info and instructions here: http://lauraworthingtontype.com/faqs/

Stencils have played a number of roles over the years, from decorative patterns to military markings; from labeling shipping containers to a student’s school project. One unusual application of a stencil alphabet was some metal letters spotted for sale at an online auction site. These antique letters were used for promoting the current show on a theater marquee just as plastic ones are used nowadays. Following the auction images as a guide, the Roman stencil font from those marquee letters is now preserved digitally as Talent Stencil JNL; which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Ritz Slab Serif JNL is a bold display face which shares a lot of similar design traits to Stymie and other similar metal type of the 1930s and 1940s, but in actuality was modeled from only four letters. On the sheet music for the 1937 song "Sweet Varsity Sue" [from the 20th Century Fox Film "Life Begins in College"], there is a picture of the Ritz Brothers - a popular comedy team from 1925 through the late 1960s. The hand lettered name "Ritz" became the basis for Ritz Slab Serif JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Willow is an Adobe Originals typeface designed in 1990 by Joy Redick for the Adobe Wood Type series. Willow is a condensed typeface modeled on nineteenth-century wood types known as Clarendons (wood type Clarendons do not resemble the English metal types of that name). Clarendon condensed faces were originally so well-designed that words or a line of display type have an even color that is remarkable for wood types. Taken from proofs of type in the Rob Roy Kelly Collection housed at the University of Texas at Austin, Willow can be used for display work such packaging, advertising, and posters.

The hand lettered word ‘puzzles’ from the box cover of a 1940s set of metal “connected” puzzle pieces manufactured by the A.C. Gilbert Company was the initial typographic model, but some additions and changes were made. Instead of the right side of the ‘P’ being a semi-circle, it was changed to a more conservative ‘’squared’ look. After drawing out all of the necessary glyphs, the overall height of the characters was extended to make the letters and numbers appear taller and narrower. The end result is Narrow Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Meet the Letterpress! Jakob Erbar’s Phosphor was released by the Ludwig & Mayer Foundry before 1923. The origins of Aurora date back to 1912 (Johannes Wagner Foundry). Permanent Headline was designed by Karlgeorg Hoefer, also known simply as Headline. It was fun making a mix out of the three classics – with Letterpress Bastard you will quickly get astounding results. To complete the family we added a font containing random symbols we also found in the metal type boxes. Please note that we provided loads of ligatures for double-letters to make your design look as authentic as possible.

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.

Designed over three years after the second World War, and published in 1949 by the Nebiolo foundry, Normandia was Alessandro Butti’s take on the fat face. As it usually was with Butti’s designs, this face effectively injected a catchy yet expertly calculated calligraphic spin into its source of inspiration — which was the essentially geometric/deco, thicker model of Bodoni’s very popular aesthetic. The metal Normandia saw some widespread use for a handful of years after its publication, not least because of the multitude of sizes in which it was available. It stepped out of the limelight by the mid-1950s, due to a combination of the popularity of cold type and Nebiolo’s refusal to retool its faces for new technologies. It was copied by a few small film typesetting outfits on both sides of the Atlantic, but never really found its way back to the mainstream. By the time computer type became the norm, Normandia was pretty much relegated to a type historian’s collection of anecdotes. This digital update of the classic series revives and refines the three original metal designs (Tonda/Regular, Corsiva/Italic, and Contornata/Outline) and expands the character set to more than 600 glyphs per font, including small caps, six types of figures, fractions and nut fractions, a full set of f-ligatures, some stylistic alternates, and other fine typography niceties.

The Garamond family tree has many branches. There are probably more different typefaces bearing the name Garamond than the name of any other type designer. Not only did the punchcutter Claude Garamond set a standard for elegance and excellence in type founding in 16th-century Paris, but a successor, Jean Jannon, some eighty years later, cut typefaces inspired by Garamond that later came to bear Garamond’s name. Revivals of both designs have been popular and various over the course of the last 100 years. When ATF Garamond was designed in 1917, it was one of the first revivals of a truly classic typeface. Based on Jannon’s types, which had been preserved in the French Imprimerie Nationale as the “caractères de l’Université,” ATF Garamond brought distinctive elegance and liveliness to text type for books and display type for advertising. It was both the inspiration and the model for many of the later “Garamond” revivals, notably Linotype’s very popular Garamond No. 3. ATF Garamond was released ca. 1918, first in Roman and Italic, drawn by Morris Fuller Benton, the head of the American Type Founders design department. In 1922, Thomas M. Cleland designed a set of swash italics and ornaments for the typeface. The Bold and Bold Italic were released in 1920 and 1923, respectively. The new digital ATF Garamond expands upon this legacy, while bringing back some of the robustness of metal type and letterpress printing that is sometimes lost in digital adaptations. The graceful, almost lacy form of some of the letters is complemented by a solid, sturdy outline that holds up in text even at small sizes. The 18 fonts comprise three optical sizes (Subhead, Text, Micro) and three weights, including a new Medium weight that did not exist in metal. ATF Garamond also includes unusual alternates and swash characters from the original metal typeface. The character of ATF Garamond is lively, reflecting the spirit of the French Renaissance as interpreted in the 1920s. Its Roman has more verve than later old-style faces like Caslon, and its Italic is outright sprightly, yet remarkably readable.

That’s what people call ‘an experimental typeface’. Yes it is! It consists in letterforms designed in very strict geometrical parameters. I was not thinking about ‘reading’ when I’ve drawn this typeface — rather on different way of projecting our mental image of the words. Do not try to set a book with this type, please! One single version, one single font designed in 2000.

The letters and numbers of a home movie titling kit from circa the 1950s or 1960s called the Magna Tech Titler Number 312 were die-cut from cardboard with a magnetic backing and were styled after Futura Bold. The user of this set composed the desired title or phrase onto a metalized board and the result was photographed with their 8 or 16mm camera. Because the dies of the characters were handmade, very slight variations in the shape and stroke width of the lettering would occasionally occur. These variations were incorporated into the design of the digital type face. Intermediate JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Homenko was the only Ukrainian typeface for metal type casting developed in the last century. It has already become a 'classic'. Vasyl Homenko worked on it from 1964 to 1967. The typeface successfully combines the qualities of lineal humanist typefaces with the Ukrainian tradition of asymmetrical slab serif. The works on its digitization and further development has been in progress since 2000. The present version contains Latin Extended characters, Cyrillic with stressed alternates and several ornaments based on Vasyl Homenko's works. It works perfectly for books for children and is ideal for publications related to culture, history, literature and traditional art of Ukraine and other nations of Eastern Europe.

Banco was the first typeface work of French designer Roger Excoffon and was released in 1952. The strong forms look as though they were rolled out of sheet metal and feature upright, tapering strokes. The slight slant, the varying heights of stroke ends, and the relationships between line and curve give Banco font its sense of liveliness and dynamism. Excoffon did not design a matching lower case alphabet for his capitals, but this was accomplished later by Phill Grimshaw, who also designed the light weight. He deliberately 'underdesigned' the lower case forms, producing a more reserved alphabet based on the design ideas of the original.

Inversion is a display typeface that is based on a rare bit of lettering from a 1910 German lettering book. What was the inspiration for designing the font? I found the base lettering years ago in a specimen and scanned it. I've used it perennially for assorted metal bands' logos, and finally decided to digitize it. What are its main characteristics and features? It is a spidery bit of lettering that would work well in Harry Potter movies or on album covers. Usage recommendations: Display type for use in materials that are meant to have a hand-wrought look circa the turn of the century.

Rough and ready, bold and urgent. Or playful and fun in bright colours. The original letters were cut from actual potatoes, then scanned in and converted to vector outlines. Lighter and more heavily inked versions were used for the three variants. Using Opentype character-substitution technology, Salvation rotates through three versions of each letter to create a naturally uneven printed effect. Unlike hot metal type, the potatoes were cut the right way around. This produced reversed prints, which were then flipped back in Photoshop. Originally produced for Hughes' Get Lettering activity book, the font was then extended to cover numbers, punctuation and full European language support.

Dez Yinznat Stencil is a condensed stencil sans serif inspired by the industrial city of Pittsburgh, PA USA. Stencil type was often used in the steel mills, scrap metal yards, railroads, warehouses, and other industrial institutions of Pittsburgh and is almost a signature for the City. The name comes from combining two colloquial expressions common to Pittsburgh. “Yinz” is used there like "Y'all" is used in Southern States. "n'at" or sometimes "N@" is used to replace “and that” when ending a phrase. This font is dedicated to the hard-working people who made Pittsburgh what it is, N@. High-tech subjects can also find a friend in Dez Yinz'nat.

Up until the advent of modern packing and shipping methods, the common way to mark merchandise or other items to be transported was through the use of a brass stencil. These marking devices were hand stamped (or punched) using metal dies that were struck against sheets of brass to create the letters, numbers and other symbols [unlike the steel rule die cutting method used for manufacturing paper stencils]. One such example of an antique marking stencil had letters and numbers approximately one quarter of an inch in height, and Stamped Brass Stencil JNL recreates the design complete with the unusual variations of character shapes and widths.

A really, really long time ago, I watched a movie called ‘The China Syndrome’ (starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemon and Michael Douglas). It was one of those disaster movies that were quite popular at the time (I also recall airports, alien viruses and skyscraper fires). Anyway, when I finished this font, I suddenly (and quite inexplicably) remembered that movie, so I named this font after it. China Syndrome is a legible brush font - ideal for your product packaging and halloween posters. Maybe use it for a metal album cover, a book about nuclear disasters or, dunno, the logo of your really strong coffee brand. Whatever. Just enjoy!

Camelot was the first of over 100 typefaces designed by Frederic Goudy. The upper case characters were drawn in 1896 for the Dickinson Type Foundry. Goudy was so encouraged by his check for $10 (double what he asked for the drawings), that he spent the next 50 years designing type. The lower case was added by the Dickinson foundry. This Lanston digital release includes a Text version based on the smaller point sizes of the metal type and a Display version based on the larger sizes. The two appear different in size but share the exact same line weight when at the same point size.

Cruller is a display typeface that is based on a rare bit of lettering from a 1910 German lettering book. What was the inspiration for designing the font? I found the base lettering years ago in a specimen and scanned it. I've used it perennially for assorted metal bands' logos, and finally decided to digitize it. What are its main characteristics and features? It is a spidery bit of lettering that would work well in Harry Potter movies or on album covers. Usage recommendations: Display type for use in materials that are meant to have a hand-wrought look circa the turn of the century.

Goudy Trajan Pro is based on the drawings by F.W. Goudy of his rendition of the capital letters inscribed on the Trajan column in Rome, rather than on his subsequent metal type, Trajan (Title), released in 1930. Goudy Trajan Pro includes almost 1500 glyphs in each of three weights, including: uppercase, alternates, swash caps, small caps, vertically centered small(er) caps, dozens of fleurons, and much more. Supports Latin, Cyrillic and modern Greek scripts. Many thanks to Krassen Krestev, Sergiy Tkachenko, and Adam Twardoch for their suggestions for improving the Cyrillic glyphs; and to Alex Sheldon for his suggestions for swash caps and improved OpenType features.

The origin of AM Floriana is already several decades ago. At a time when there was no photo set and the choice of metal type fonts was still very manageable, Alois Menacher received an order to design a custom business logo from a flower shop. He then created a hand-drawn lettering based on the form of leaves and plants. Now Alois Menacher professionally designed and developed AM Floriana on the basis of this lettering. AM Floriana is ideally suited for packaging design, as well as for display design and logo design. AM Floriana is available as a Bold version and will soon be complemented by further cuts.

I used to live in the English Lake District, where I worked in an outdoor gear store. I bought a bright red mountain bike and each day, after work, I cycled up the mountain and hurtled down - heavy metal blasting from my MP3 player. Of course, the bike was a regular MTB, so it got some serious damage after a while, but the adrenaline rush was great! Downhill Dive is a great brush font (made with actual brushes and ink on paper - no tablets involved here!). It is an ode to that wonderful time spent in England. Downhill Dive comes with some really nice ligatures.

Arthur Baker's display script Sassafras, designed in 1995, is based on the natural inline effect created when writing with a split-metal nibbed pen. Black and white are nicely balanced, giving this calligraphic face a remarkably smooth appearance. The regular and italic versions of Sassafras include two alternate faces: one with long, tall ascenders and regular-length descenders, and one with shortened ascenders and descenders that allow it to fit where its companion might not. In both, the ascenders increase in width as they move upward, while the descenders taper to a fine point. This variety of form makes Sassafras a very flexible choice for display work.

When type historians look back on Jim Rimmer, they will consider him the last type designer who just couldn't let go of metal type, even though he was just as proficient in digital type. Lancelot is one definite case in point: A face designed and produced in digital as late in the game as 1999, only to spring onto the new millenium a couple of years later as a metal type cast in three sizes. That was Jim, a time traveler constantly reminding the craft of its origins. This particular time machine was originally designed as a simple set of attractive caps that emphasize the beauty of the variable conventional dialogue between the drawing tool and the intended final form, and the one exchanged within the totality of the forms themselves. Jim designed two weights, with contrast and counterspace being the main difference between them. In 2013, the Lancelot family was remastered and greatly expanded. Lancelot Pro is now a wonder of over 840 glyphs per font, including smaller versions of the caps in the minuscule slots, and alternates and ligatures that can transform the historic spirit of the original design into anything from half-uncial to outright gothic. Language support goes beyond the extended Latin stuff, to cover Cyrillic and Greek as well. 20% of the Lancelot Pro family's revenues will be donated to the Canada Type Scholarship Fund, supporting higher typography education in Canada.