RAN Reformed Typeface for Beginners by Georg Salden - 
a headstrong and courageous approach to an improved handling of handwriting. Diverse and sometimes irreconcilable theories exist about how beginners are supposed to learn writing and reading. This has led to fierce discussions among experts already. We don’t want to pour more oil on the fire, but hope to create a new awareness for this topic, which is important to everyone of us. For beginners the combination of single characters (sounds) to whole words is essential during the acquirement of reading and writing. In this process they develop the skill to recall entire terms from memory. Therefore, after current practice, every word shall be written in a single stroke without lifting the pen in between. Georg Salden contradicts this postulate and warns, that coercively holding the pen down within a word can easily lead to exaggerated loop formations and a general meandering of the written text. The intellectual process in connecting single sounds to words while writing would happen anyway and the prohibition to lift the pen would often lead to tensions. 
To still support the necessary connections in general and to simplify the connecting, he teaches to write all round letters like a, e, g, o with inclusion of the connecting stroke, so that the spacing and combining with the next character arise by themselves. By settling the stroke at certain points and with a clear and logical writing method, a conscious and careful contact with the various strokes arises. All this automatically leads, together with a certain deceleration, to an increase of beauty and readability in the handwriting. 
The repeatedly discussed topic »connected or unconnected« appears to be solved in the most comfortable way as, depending on the particular character combination, both solutions are possible.

First Ladies is a unique collection of signatures of almost all of the First Ladies of the United States plus the First Lady of the Confederacy in a high-quality font. A must-have for autograph collectors, desktop publishers, lovers of history, or anyone who has ever dreamed of sending a letter, card, or e-mail “signed” as if by one of these famous women. This font includes 45 signatures for the following First Ladies: Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, Abigail Smith Adams, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, Dolley Payne Todd Madison, Elizabeth Kortright Monroe, Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, Rachel Donelson Jackson, Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison, Julia Gardiner Tyler, Sarah Childress Polk, Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor, Abigail Powers Fillmore, Jane Means Appleton Pierce, Harriet Lane, Mary Todd Lincoln, Eliza McCardle Johnson, Julia Dent Grant, Lucy Ware Webb Hayes, Lucretia Rudolph Garfield, Ellen Lewis Herndon Arthur, Frances Folsom Cleveland, Caroline Lavinia Scott Harrison, Frances Folsom Cleveland, Ida Saxton McKinley, Edith Kermit Cardow Roosevelt, Helen Herron Taft, Ellen Axson Wilson, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, Florence Kling Harding, Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge, Lou Henry Hoover, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, Elizabeth Virginia Wallace Truman, Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy, Claudia Taylor (Lady Bird) Johnson, Patricia Ryan Nixon, Elizabeth Bloomer Ford, Rosalynn Smith Carter, Nancy Davis Reagan, Barbara Pierce Bush, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Laura Welch Bush, Michelle Obama, and Varina Howell Davis (First Lady of the Confederacy). 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.

Conrad X. 'Cobb' Shinn (Sept. 4, 1887- Jan. 28, 1951) was a Fillmore, Indiana-born post card illustrator who sold a series of successful novelty postcard lines which included (among others) Charlie Chaplin, automobiles and the Dutch culture in the beginning years of the 20th Century. After serving in World War I, Shinn found the market for novelty postcards dwindling, and he also lent his artistic skills to cartoon features and illustrating many children's books [including his own, under the nickname 'Uncle Cobb'] which taught easy step-by-step drawing methods. Some time in the 1920s, he eventually migrated into the field of supplying electrotypes and stereotypes of 'stock cuts' of photos and line art to the printing trade. In the days of letterpress printing, this was the forerunner of paper clip art and its successor, electronic clip art. Purchasing many of his designs from 'journeyman' artists of the time, the diversity of Cobb Shinn's stock cuts library grew with the passing years, reflecting changing times, styles and topics. Some of the illustrators whose signed works were presented in Shinn's 'CUTalogs' [as he called his stock cuts catalogs] include Mary Clemmitt, Louis H. Hippe, E.C. Klinge, Nelson White, Harvey Fuller, Bess Livings, Lois Head, Harvey Peake and Van Tuyl. Upon his passing in 1951, it's not known how long the Indianapolis-based company existed before finally closing its doors. One of the more popular series of cartoons were the line illustrations of men and women affectionately called 'little big head guys' by many modern fans of these cuts because the heads of the characters were drawn somewhat larger than the rest of their bodies. Shinn Kickers JNL is a collection twenty-six of these illustrations, and just like a kick in the shin (as the pun in the name implies), these charming cartoons get your attention.

The Cholla typeface family was designed by Sibylle Hagmann in 1998-99 and named after a species of cactus she encountered in the Mojave Desert. Cholla was originally developed for the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. There, art director Denise Gonzales Crisp and associate designer, Carla Figueroa, collaborated with Hagmann to create a series of fonts that would offer a great deal of variation. The variety was needed to echo the school's nine different departments, yet together the fonts had to exude a unified feel. It was first used in the radically designed 1999/2000 Art Center catalog which won a honorable mention in I.D. magazine and was featured in Eye No. 31. Originally Hagmann set out to design a typeface that, as she recalls, "I could feel comfortable making, first of all, and one that would serve a purpose and had a clear idea behind it, and something that I would want to use myself." Stylistically Hagmann set out to create "12 cuts with slightly different personalities, with different ideas applied. For example the bold weight isn't simply the Regular with weight gain, but has bold letterforms with their own peculiar details. What all weights share and what is the necessary unifying detail is the tapered curve - marked out, for example, in the lowercase b's left top and bottom of the bowl." Gonzales adds: "The forms seemed classical as well. This combination could have a long life, and be timely. I also saw - at least in the beginnings of Cholla - forms that connoted hybrid, of inter-connection, of human and machine growing together. These notions seem appropriate for a school that teaches design and art." Greek version by Panos Haratzopoulos.

Zeitung is a sans serif family which works equally well on print and web. First of all: Zeitung is a sans serif made according to contemporary standards: 8 weights, romans and italics, all equipped with small caps. Lots of OpenType features, like uppercase punctuation or 5 figure styles to make sure any of your mathematical or financial charts, tables and diagrams look cool. Zeitung’s typographic palette focuses on utility and legibility, but in the farthest corners you’ll discover a rich array of flavours: punchy black weights, fashionable thin styles, carefully hand crafted true italics, distinct small caps. But Zeitung has more to offer. Its optical sizes offer the best style for each size of your text. Zeitung fonts are devided to two optical families: Zeitung Standard and Zeitung Micro. Zeitung Standard works great in most sizes, while Zeitung Micro fonts are specially made for very small sizes in print and web. Zeitung Micro fonts are perfectly legible in web, where the same technical font styles have to survive in many environments, from older browsers to most up to date mobile screens. Next to that: the lightest weights also function as grades, because they share the same metrics. This can be very handy for selecting the optimal weight for your specific situation, especially on screens or when type is printed by a newspaper press. Letters are rendered in many various ways on different screens. Maybe the interface of your next app requires a different grade than your latest website? Zeitung allows you to change the weight of your text without any further consequence for the design. That is a welcome relief during the design process. Zeitung will help to bring your message across in many different circumstances, from large text in print to small type on screens.

Waba Pronounced ‘Vah-bah’, is a font family that I designed. The name comes from a historical variation on the Estonian word ‘vaba’ – meaning ‘free’, or 'at liberty'. Back in 2017 I visited the Estonian Print & Paper Museum in Tartu to see its great collection of type (well worth a visit!). While I was there I saw some big woodcut blocks of Reklameschrift Herold - a super Art Nouveau/Jugendstil style display font. The Print & Paper Museum's collection covers both Latin and Cyrillic faces and as a foreigner in these parts I'm kind of fascinated by the exoticism of Cyrillic. How it is different but the same to the Latin letters I take for granted (as a humble Englander – no excuses). Not to mention, Jugendstil with its imitation of natural form, reverse-weights and looping-delicious curves (like you've left the window open all summer and the garden plants are climbing in). This mix of Jugendstil, Cyrillic letters and the beautiful historical border town of Tartu inspired me to start drawing Waba. Trimming the serifs from Herold, simplifying those angles and expanding the category of weights, then taking look at the magical logic of Berthold Block and doing a few things that just seemed right at the time – Waba is a bit of love letter to Estonia, the Baltics and the visual history of Eastern Europe. Waba Monogram Waba also contains a monogram face, which allows you to create any monogramming latin and cyrillic. Simply type out your 2-3-4 characters in Waba Monogram, making sure Contextual Alternates is turned on them voila! Monograms can be customised manually using the OpenType select-pop-up in Adobe. Also included are a few Discretionary Ligatures for Mc, De, Von etc. Monograms work best when Contextual Alternates is turned on.

Baldufa is a charming typeface with strong personality, which looks very comfortable in text. There is a search to obtain complicated curves and detailed features, which give the typeface a touch of beauty and elegance. However, this is also a self-conscious design that claims appreciation for quirkiness and human imperfection through the rounded serifs and irregular vertical stems. The typeface family is also a multi script project, containing Latin and Arabic scripts. The Latin consists of Regular, Bold and Italic styles, including Small Caps and many other typographic features. Whereas Arabic Naskh includes Regular and Bold weights. The whole family has been designed to work harmoniously together to help to produce catalogues and small publications of cultural content. We believe that Baldufa is a tiny but nice contribution to build bridges between cultures and this make us very happy. The letterforms in the Latin are inspired by the slight distortions and idiosyncrasies that came with old printing methods. It has distinct, features such as rounded serifs, irregular vertical streams, ink traps and extremely thin junctions. In the Italic, serifs have been removed to enhance movement and expressivity. These experiments in form have not come at the cost of legibility: The typeface remains suitable for both small and display text. To certain extent, the design of the Arabic gathers the same interest for experimentation than its Latin companion. Baldufa Arabic respects the basic features of Arabic script such as thick stokes in the baseline, multiple vertical axis, genuine stem modulation and good linking between words. However, it steps away from traditional Calligraphic Style. It has rounded top terminals and the traditional contrast between curves and straight stokes has been softened. Letter shapes sometimes slightly differs from tradition in order to obtain more expressivity. Overall, Arabic has been designed to acquire the same elegant and quirky aspect of the Latin.

Minimal, modular, modern—at first glance, Materia shows a contemporary flair, combining pure, strong geometrical form with a subtle, distinct appearance. Actually, the design was inspired by lettering from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century that still can be found in the East of France. While its formal origins date back as far as this, revived e. g. by the constructivists into the nineteen twenties and later on by Dutch information designer Wim Crouwel in the nineteen-sixties, the visual language of Materia still speaks of the »future«. Following a minimalistic concept the font is formally built on a grid. Wherever optical curves are needed for a smoother, more comfortable shape of letters than a simple rectangular block, diagonals cut off the egdes – like a diamond is cut to achieve more beauty. Thus headlines and texts set in Materia are given a certain »egdy« feeling, whereas their tonality is still kept well-balanced, keeping concentation all on information in a nonconfomist way. Materia comes in eight styles, from elegant Thin to attention-forcing Ultra. Even a regular Italic is available, following the classic type-set-principle. Two of the styles are explicitly designed for display use, Shadow and Code. Both are ready for combinations with Bold or each other respectively, the layering of Shadow and Code e. g. allows astonishing effects or highlighting within the letters. For OpenType-users Materia is a real Pro, containing accented Latin letters for over 70 languages, small caps, old style, tabular and lining figures and special condensed titling all caps for cases in which space is all that counts. How useful all of the above mentioned is may be seen in the book David Lynch – Lithos, designed by Koma Amok, published in 2010 by item éditions, Paris, and Hatje Cantz, Germany, which was typeset completely in Materia.

Magola is a creamy flavor font family whose purpose is to season with emotions the reading of words and phrases formed by puffy glyphs coated with a caramel of empty spaces external and internal. Independently or in groups, members of the family serve to decorate and organize packaging or advertising material in letters apparently crafted for food or entertainment contexts. Its starting point was to draw letters like a ballon fish evolved into a black version with empty areas and microscopic contrasted with colorful inflated and filled areas. Then the challenge was based on the sum transferred between full and empty into a lighter caliber. In that vein, its overall design adapted skeletons of italics and Roman calligraphy. Therefore, its regular, bold and black files have great height "x" with upwards and downwards extremely short and large internal counterblocks to facilitate reading. In this regard, to strengthen its objective and capture the reader's attention, its kind of contrast and simulated auctions flat tip brush strokes, and amount of contrast between thick and thin in the black version is slightly inverted. Its sizes, smooth strokes and irregular lines reinforce its traditional spirit, so it is favorable to shine the information on posters or large-format media. In short, its optical conformation based on a non-literal way, in metrics similar in all family members to be easily exchanged without changing the ìxî height. It is therefore a striking and versatile tool, that besides being useful in large sizes, can be used in small sizes as well. And more importantly, its general concept is more profitable when its members are mixed to nest headings, subheadings and short paragraphs, designed according to size, position, color and location in logos, covers, posters, ads and flyers.

The Getty-Dubay® family of fonts has been 500 years in the making — so that you can make your handwriting worksheets in seconds. These fonts are modern descendants of the chancery handwriting style (now called “Italic”) from the Italian Renaissance, when master scribes designed a fluid and graceful hand, inspired by the proportions of the golden rectangle and Roman capitals. The Italic style has been in constant use since then. In modern times, it has been celebrated by Alfred Fairbank, Lloyd Reynolds and many others including authors Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay in their Getty-Dubay® Italic method. The Getty-Dubay® monoline handwriting fonts provide a replete resource to effectively model the highly-legible and beautiful Italic handwriting style. These are the official fonts of Getty-Dubay® Italic. Download the Getty-Dubay® Font Guide for everything you need to know about the Getty-Dubay® fonts. The Getty-Dubay® Joined fonts produce a clean cursive handwriting with join-as-you-type ease. Four join options are included: Standard, Pointed (altered joins into m, n and r), e k (utilizing the two-stroke e and one-stroke k), and Beginning (easiest joins only). The Getty-Dubay® Basic fonts provide sans-sarif clarity suitable for young writers. The Getty-Dubay® Precursive fonts add serifs to the lowercase letters, while retaining the pure Roman capitals of Basic Italic. The Getty-Dubay® Smallcaps fonts make mixed capitals easy to use. All Getty-Dubay® fonts come with scaffolds such as dashed contours, ruled lines, directional arrow and starting dots (for Basic and Smallcaps). They support multiple Latin-based languages from around the world. Getty-Dubay® is a registered trademark in the United States.

MMC Insignia, is an Iconic & Emblematic Neogothic Geometric Capitals Display… Assembled by Trivial Squares and Diagonals Symbols Pattern from a puzzled grid Aftermath!! Includes 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 is a Small Caps Typeface, which default lowercases character set is included in the Pro family, its cursive version, apart from it, has also Exclusive Stylistic Alternates… 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.

Compendium is a sequel to my Burgues font from 2007. Actually it is more like a prequel to Burgues. Before Louis Madarasz awed the American Southeast with his disciplined corners and wild hairlines, Platt Rogers Spencer, up in Ohio, had laid down a style all his own, a style that would eventually become the groundwork for the veering calligraphic method that was later defined and developed by Madarasz. After I wrote the above paragraph, I was so surprised by it, particularly by the first two sentences, that I stopped and had to think about it for a week. Why a sequel/prequel? Am I subconsciously joining the ranks of typeface-as-brand designers? Are the tools I build finally taking control of me? Am I having to resort to “milking it” now? Not exactly. Even though the current trend of extending older popular typefaces can play tricks with a type designer’s mind, and maybe even send him into strange directions of planning, my purpose is not the extension of something popular. My purpose is presenting a more comprehensive picture as I keep coming to terms with my obsession with 19th century American penmanship. Those who already know my work probably have an idea about how obsessive I can be about presenting a complete and detailed image of the past through today’s eyes. So it is not hard to understand my need to expand on the Burgues concept in order to reach a fuller picture of how American calligraphy evolved in the 19th century. Burgues was really all about Madarasz, so much so that it bypasses the genius of those who came before him. Compendium seeks to put Madarasz’s work in a better chronological perspective, to show the rounds that led to the sharps, so to speak. And it is nearly criminal to ignore Spencer’s work, simply because it had a much wider influence on the scope of calligraphy in general. While Madarasz’s work managed to survive only through a handful of his students, Spencer’s work was disseminated throughout America by his children after he died in 1867. The Spencer sons were taught by their father and were great calligraphers themselves. They would pass the elegant Spencerian method on to thousands of American penmen and sign painters. Though Compendium has a naturally more normalized, Spencerian flow, its elegance, expressiveness, movement and precision are no less adventurous than Burgues. Nearing 700 glyphs, its character set contains plenty of variation in each letter, and many ornaments for letter beginnings, endings, and some that can even serve to envelope entire words with swashy calligraphic wonder. Those who love to explore typefaces in detail will be rewarded, thanks to OpenType. I am so in love with the technology now that it’s becoming harder for me to let go of a typeface and call it finished. You probably have noticed by now that my fascination with old calligraphy has not excluded my being influenced by modern design trends. This booklet is an example of this fusion of influences. I am living 150 years after the Spencers, so different contextualization and usage perspectives are inevitable. Here the photography of Gonzalo Aguilar join the digital branchings of Compendium to form visuals that dance and wave like the arms of humanity have been doing since time eternal. I hope you like Compendium and find it useful. I'm all Spencered out for now, but at one point, for history’s sake, I will make this a trilogy. When the hairline-and-swash bug visits me again, you will be the first to know. The PDF specimen was designed with the wonderful photography of Gonzalo Aguilar from Mexico. Please download it here http://new.myfonts.com/artwork?id=47049&subdir=original

‘Thwaites’ typeface is fully dedicated to one of my best Canadian friends who I do cherish and value highly. This great and industrious Canadian friend is ‘James Douglas Thwaites’ who lives along with his good-natured family in British Columbia, Canada. For me, James is like a source of inspiration and I do consider him as an ideal in my life. Our strong friendship has started since 1999 and I hope that it will endure just to the last moment of my life. Sometimes I see him as the writer and poet that I learn a lot from, sometimes I see him as a devoted religious minister that I try to understand more about his teachings, and other times I see him as the educator that I strive to imitate verbatim in my life. When I want to talk more about this Canadian friend, I will not be able to give him his due in full. Thus, I will instead mention some excerpts of his biography that he wrote himself saying that: “James D. Thwaites is a self-accomplished man. Having worked in various fields including restaurant management and cleaning, he has achieved his goals of being a full-time teacher, past-time writer, and volunteer religious minister for the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. His personal and academic pursuits have led him to be published in various magazines, newspapers, self-published books, and websites, including his now defunct ‘poetryofthemonth.com’ website. He continues to learn and augment the craft of writing while working primarily in early literacy and delayed literacy learners, teaching reading and literature to a wide age range of students. He views his religious endeavors as an extension of his academic ones. He teaches others both as a public speaker and in one-on-one situations, teaching about the benefits of submission to God and to His teachings. His future goals include expanding his ministry and continuing his writing.” The name ‘Thwaites’ itself comes from Great Britain and originated from the last Viking raids upon England, being an Anglicized version of a Scandinavian term meaning—depending on the source material—either "a place that is difficult to approach" or "a small thicket of trees." Another recitation mentions that ‘Thwaites’ can be described also as an English surname but one of pre 7th century Norse-Viking origins. It may be either topographical or locational, and is derived from the word "thveit", meaning a clearing or farm. As a locational surname it originates from any one of the various places called "Thwaite", found in several parts of Northern England and East Anglia to the south. The various modern spelling forms include Thwaite, Thwaites, Thwaytes, Thoytes, Twaite, Twatt, Twaites, Tweats and Twite. The name, although often appearing unique to outsiders, can often be found within other famous names like Braithwaite, Goldthwaites, or Misslethwaites. With various spellings, some families not including the ‘e’ or the ‘s’ at the end, Thwaites and its derivations—although not exceedingly common—is a name found worldwide. ‘Thwaites’ typeface is simply a sans-serif streamlined, stylish, and versatile font. It is designed using a combination of thick and thin strokes for its +585 characters. Its character set supports nearly most of the Central, Eastern, and Western European languages using Latin scripts including the Irish language. The typeface is appropriate for any type of typographic and graphic designs in web, print, and other media. It is also absolutely preferable to be used in the wide fields related to publication, press, services, and production industries. It can create a very impressive impact when used in headlines, posters, titles, products’ surfaces, logos, medical packages, product and corporate branding, and also signage. It has also both of lining and old-style numerals which makes it more suitable for any printing or designing purposes. ‘Thwaites’ typeface is really the cannot-miss choice for anyone who wants to possess unique artistic and modern designs produced using this streamlined typeface.