Vette Letters are thrilled to add maverick designer Dirk Uhlenbrock to the family, with the release of VLNL Bromfiets. Bromfiets (the Dutch word for moped) is a ‘holiday child’, the basic idea coming from a stop at a road junction in the Dutch coastal province of Zeeland. The Dutch signage, the black and white rings of traffic light poles, the symbols for brom- and snorfiets have always appealed to Dirk. While on vacation in Zeeland the first scribbles and digital drafts were created, always in mind that the typeface had to be striking, clear and friendly. The end result is more than that, a strong and instantly recognisable font with a matching dingbat weight full of icons and arrows. Stencil fonts have always interested Dirk, the informal character and the possible universal use as a paint- or spray-stencil on a wide variety of surfaces makes this type of font so interesting for me. The technically necessary dissolution of closed font contours always ensures a special aesthetic: What’HAT and HOW MUCH has to be removed or left, in order to make words easy to read and to avoid a fractal impression. Dirk Uhlenbrock has been working as graphic designer and illustrator in his hometown Essen, Germany for over 30 years. Always interested in typedesign he got in contact with Fontographer in 1996 and started to create and distribute loads of free fonts through his online platforms ‘Eyesaw’ and ‘Fontomas’. A bunch of these type experiments have been extented on request to complete fonts. Still located in Essen in 2009 Dirk started his second owner-based business erste liga büro für gestaltung - ersteliga.de

Looking like happy frosting on a cupcake at a twiddle bug party, this bouncy food entry from Canadian designer Haley Fiege turns the original Jellybrush type into organic happiness you can spread on pancakes, ice-cream, sorbets, sauces and condements, oh peanut butter! Yeah, all kinds of sandwich fillings. Anything really. What else? People who own rubber factories. Anybody in the food business, like green grocers or your local bakery. Thrift stores. Falling somewhere between cushions and cat food, this flexible and inviting letter mixes simplicity with organic character and humor for a wide range of uses. Soft Serve’s compact cursive forms and bouncy friendliness draw on artbrush scripts and the typo-italic model of Renaissance Vatican scribe Ludovico Arrighi. A versatile workhorse ideal for: * Dairy & beverage * Sweets & soft drink * Five minute food & sauces * Pet food & accessories * Bathroom & kitchen * Cushions, pillows, rubber & swimming pool, etc.

Full of texture and regal personality, Bell Martellus was derived from a book published in 1475 by Henricus Martellus entitled “Liber Insularum.” The writing style is based on the Carolingian Script created by the Emperor Charlemagne and his scribe, Alquin of York, in the 9th century A.D. This old world lettering comes with new world OpenType capabilities, including swash caps and small caps. The James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota commissioned Bill Moran to develop this font as a means of introducing their amazing collection of rare books, maps and manuscripts to a wider audience. Once the historic script was fontified by Bill, it was forwarded to Chank Co, where we added some snazzy baubles for the discriminating typographer. Everybody can enjoy the antique genuine nature of Bell Martellus, but advanced OpenType users also get extra features in Adobe CS applications.

This font was inspired from the so called "Insular Style" Latin script used in Celtic monasteries (Ireland, Scotland—with the well known Book of Kells—and England) from the late 6th to 9th, before the Carolingian "Caroline" (look at our 825 Karolus). It was a regular script, rounded, written slowly, used mainly for specially meticulous books, with a very few ligatures. The rarely-used capitals consisted of enlarged lowercases, but, on the other hand, there was numerous historical initials. The Titling style in this familly allows to two-color decorated letters to be created, using OTF Titling feature or copy and paste technique. We have created the font as to be adapted for contemporary users, differentiating between U and V, I and J, which has not any relevance for ancient Latin scribes, and naturally with Thorn, Oslash, Lslash, K,W... The specific Celtic "y" is added as an historical alternate.

This font was inspired by the Latin script used in European monasteries from circa the 5th to 8th centuries, before the Carolingian “Caroline” (look at our 825 Karolus). It was a regular script, rounded, written slowly, used mainly for specially meticulous books, with a few ligatures, legible, but only with lowercase. The capitals consisted of enlarged lower cases, but here, we have preferred to use two slightly different patterns. Our lower cases are a synthesis from a lot of variants (mainly from the “First Bible” of Charles The Bald), the upper cases were mainly inspired from a 700’s manuscript from the abbey of Fécamp (France). We have adapted the font for contemporary users, differentiating between U and V, I and J, which has no relevance for ancient Latin scribes, and naturally with Thorn, Oslash, Lslash, K, W... punctuation and the usual accented characters which did not exist at the time. It can be used with 799 Insular Title.

Giambattista is a long-time project of mine finally come to an end. After redesigning all of Giambattista Bodoni's work and then some additional cuts I started a long time ago with this Non-Bodoni Bodoni. The idea came to me while redesigning the original Chancellerosa (chancery). I thought Bodoni just didn't have the right approach to a chancery, this was just not his cup of tea! Maybe that is why he never used the Chancellerosa very much for his own printshop in Parma. So I thought someone has to design a script, that looks like Bodoni could have designed it but is more lively than his. Over the years I have been working on and off on the face and it turned out to become three typefaces which can be freely mixed. Here is my modern version of a script in the style of Giambattista, meant as an hommage, I called it Giambattista. Your modern scribe Gert Wiescher

The idea for Quirky was born while I was looking at a book of etchings by British artist Graham Clarke. His signature, crawling spider-like across the page, fascinated me with its casual, almost messy, inky dark and light drama. I started scribbling the alphabet as I imagined he would write it, based on his signature, then continued, adding curls, making the characters more angular, and refining the dramatic play between dark and light. Finally, Quirky appeared. Apparently casual, Quirky is, in fact, a true connected script. Quirky is characteristic of contemporary handwriting: It appears loose, angular, unstructured, and free, while maintaining good form and legibility. Its baseline is varied, creating an impression of impatient handwriting, without losing legibility. Quirky comes in five styles: condensed -- the most dramatic form, with great drama between thick and thin condensed black -- as with condensed but allows the user to provide exceptional emphasis wide -- increased readability wide black -- increased readability and emphasis splat -- messy and ink-blotted -- a hint of grunge Use Quirky for advertising, for humorous greeting cards, for a funky fashion look or tongue-in-cheek spooky media. Quirky is a fully professional font with extensive use of OpenType Ligatures. For example: most common double letter combinations such as "ee" are rendered as two, slightly different shaped "e"s. This variation in letter shapes removes the cues by which the reader identifies that he is viewing a FONT and thus conveys a strong sense of hand-lettered text. Language support includes all European character sets and has been designed to be used with the following languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Basque, Bemba, Cornish, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, Ganda, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Kinyarwanda, Luo, Malagasy, Malay, Manx, Morisyen, North Ndebele, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Nyankole, Oromo, Portuguese, Romansh, Sango, Shona, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Swiss German and Zulu.

In 1066, William, duke of Normandy, was invading England. He was demanding the crown for himself, against King Harold the Saxon. He killed Harold and reached the crown at Hastings, the well-known battlefield. A few years later, in Bayeux (Normandy, French)was displayed a large tapestry (almost 70 m long) who was telling the story of the conquest. Along the tapestry was written a comment in Latin, using Roman capitals influenced a little by English or Scandinavian style (as it is visible in the Eth character). We have created the font, inspired from this design, adapted for contemporary users, making difference between U and V, I and J, which has not any relevance for ancient Latin scribes, and naturally with Thorn, Oslash, Lslash... and usual accented characters did not exist at the time. We also have reconstructed the K, German double s and Z, always using patterns of the time. We have scrupulously respected the poetic irregular and distressed original forms with two or three alternate for each characters, including reconstructed numerals.

Hey there, looking for a typeface that screams “I’m spontaneous and creative, but also a little bit messy”? Look no further than Markerfield. This typeface is like the lovechild of a whiteboard and a permanent marker—it’s got that super-satisfying squeaky texture that you can almost feel in your fingers. But wait, there’s more! If your program supports OpenType ligatures (which, let’s be real, it totally should), Markerfield will automatically swap in custom pairings to make it look even more like you just scribbled this message on a whiteboard during a brainstorming session. And let’s not forget about the most important part—the message itself. With Markerfield, your words will have an instant aura of authenticity and urgency. It’s like, “Hey, I may not have spent hours crafting this message, but that’s because I’m a busy person with important things to do!” So if you want to inject some playfulness and spontaneity into your designs (or just make your coworkers think you spent all day brainstorming on the whiteboard), give Markerfield a try. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

The origins of Bembo go back to one of the most famous printers of the Italian Renaissance, Aldus Manutius. In 1496, he used a new roman typeface to print the book de Aetna, a travelogue by the popular writer Pietro Bembo. This type was designed by Francesco Griffo, a prolific punchcutter who was one of the first to depart from the heavier pen-drawn look of humanist calligraphy to develop the more stylized look we associate with roman types today. In 1929, Stanley Morison and the design staff at the Monotype Corporation used Griffo's roman as the model for a revival type design named Bembo. They made a number of changes to the fifteenth-century letters to make the font more adaptable to machine composition. The italic is based on letters cut by the Renaissance scribe Giovanni Tagliente. Because of their quiet presence and graceful stability, the lighter weights of Bembo are popular for book typography. The heavier weights impart a look of conservative dependability to advertising and packaging projects. With 31 weights, including small caps, Old style figures, expert characters, and an alternate cap R, Bembo makes an excellent all-purpose font family.

The origins of Bembo go back to one of the most famous printers of the Italian Renaissance, Aldus Manutius. In 1496, he used a new roman typeface to print the book de Aetna, a travelogue by the popular writer Pietro Bembo. This type was designed by Francesco Griffo, a prolific punchcutter who was one of the first to depart from the heavier pen-drawn look of humanist calligraphy to develop the more stylized look we associate with roman types today. In 1929, Stanley Morison and the design staff at the Monotype Corporation used Griffo's roman as the model for a revival type design named Bembo. They made a number of changes to the fifteenth-century letters to make the font more adaptable to machine composition. The italic is based on letters cut by the Renaissance scribe Giovanni Tagliente. Because of their quiet presence and graceful stability, the lighter weights of Bembo are popular for book typography. The heavier weights impart a look of conservative dependability to advertising and packaging projects. With 31 weights, including small caps, Old style figures, expert characters, and an alternate cap R, Bembo makes an excellent all-purpose font family.

Bon Air was one of a series of script typefaces cut into wood by the Hamilton Manufacturing Company for the Morgan Sign Machine Co. (makers of the Line-o-Scribe showcard press) in the mid 20th Century. These were some of the last new designs cut into wood by Hamilton until the museum revival in the early 2000s. Bon Air was created in 1958 and trademarked in 1961. The wood type made for Morgan was used largely in department stores to make their own signage. The script styles are reminiscent of sign painters alphabets and evoke a Mad Men era advertising aesthetic. The font was only cut in four sizes: 12, 18, 36 and 72 line. It was distributed by Morgan for use in their presses, but as type high wood type, it could be used on any press. The font was issued with several alternate letters and ligatures to simulate the effect of hand lettering. Its lively strokes and odd details give it an exotic flavor suitable for advertising display work. The digital version includes all of the original alternates plus new characters to fill out a full European character set.

“Chalkís” or “Chalkida” was the capital of the Euboea island in old Greece. The name derived from the Greek and it means copper - bronze. Colonist from this area founded several important cities in the Magna Graecia, such as Cumae (coastal area of Southern Italy), where our alphabet come from. At the beginning, first scribes draw the signs in mono-line, but later on, the influence of materials, tools and the skill of calligraphers, developed the refinement of the lettering. “Calcis” is a family of sans serif fonts, characterized by its austere, functional and clear style, emerged from straight lines and primary shapes; but enriched by the contribution of countless anonymous calligraphers who have polished and embellished their forms over the years. “Calcis” is presented in five weights and italic style. It has good legibility in small sizes, elegance and strong visual impact in headlines as well. Each font of the family contain 377 glyphs with accurate kerning pairs careful controlled, and advanced typographical support with OpenType features such as: old style numerals, ligatures, discretional ligatures and case-sensitive forms. It also contain diacritics for Central European languages.

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

Owned is a stunning embodiment of the urban aesthetic, with its authentic marker graffiti look and feel. This typeface is a perfect fusion of style and substance, as it captures the essence of streetwise design. Its pragmatic ligatures are not only visually appealing, but also accentuate the natural irregularities of an urgent scrawl. The beauty of Owned lies in its diversity, as it brings together a wide range of stroke weights and angles to create a dynamic and powerful effect. The overall effect is one of urgency, as if the words were scribbled on a wall in a hurry. This typeface commands attention and grabs the viewer’s eye, making it a perfect choice for bold and impactful designs. Owned is an exceptional typeface that is sure to make a statement in any design project. Its unique features and smart design will add an edge and grit to any design, making it a must-have for designers who want to create a bold and unforgettable impact. Whether you’re designing a logo, poster, or website, Owned is the perfect graffiti typeface to add an urban flair to your project. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

The origins of Bembo go back to one of the most famous printers of the Italian Renaissance, Aldus Manutius. In 1496, he used a new roman typeface to print the book de Aetna, a travelogue by the popular writer Pietro Bembo. This type was designed by Francesco Griffo, a prolific punchcutter who was one of the first to depart from the heavier pen-drawn look of humanist calligraphy to develop the more stylized look we associate with roman types today. In 1929, Stanley Morison and the design staff at the Monotype Corporation used Griffo's roman as the model for a revival type design named Bembo. They made a number of changes to the fifteenth-century letters to make the font more adaptable to machine composition. The italic is based on letters cut by the Renaissance scribe Giovanni Tagliente. Because of their quiet presence and graceful stability, the lighter weights of Bembo are popular for book typography. The heavier weights impart a look of conservative dependability to advertising and packaging projects. With 31 weights, including small caps, Old style figures, expert characters, and an alternate cap R, Bembo makes an excellent all-purpose font family. Bembo® Book font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

A couple of years before the second World War, Marcel Jacno, the popular French graphic designer who in the 1930s designed iconic posters for Gaumont and Paramount and famously illustrated the Gaulish helmet that first adorned the Gauloises cigarette packs in 1936, was asked by Deberny & Peignot to design a calligraphic typeface for the advertising market. Jacno's Scribe design, billed by D&P as a "virile ad writing" typeface, was released to some great fanfare in 1937, enjoyed some time of French spotlight, and was ready to make waves in the rest of Europe before the war broke out and snuffed its chances at international recognition. However, samples of it can still be found in some specialty post-war publications as an example of a trend that lasted a couple of decades, when Western European type manufacturers commissioned famous visual artists to design typefaces in order to capitalize on the artists' fame - the trend that brought us standards like Futura and the long list of Lucien Bernhard and Imre Reiner faces. This exclusive digital version of Jacno's design expands on the original concept with a large character set that includes plenty of alternates, a couple of different ways for seamless lowercase connections, three sets of figures, and extended Latin language support, adding up to over 540 characters in a one big, contextually-programmed font.

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, which can be translated in English as “Dreaming Love Fighting of Poliphilus”, is a romance about a mysterious arcane allegory in which the main protagonist, Poliphilo, pursues his love, Polia, through a dreamlike landscape. In the end, he is reconciled with her by the “Fountain of Venus”. The author of the book is anonymous, however, an acrostic formed by the first, elaborately decorated letter in each chapter in the original Italian reads “POLIAM FRATER FRANCISCVS COLVMNA PERAMAVIT”, which means “Brother Francesco Colonna has dearly loved Polia”. Despite this clue, the book has also been attributed to many other authors. The identity of the illustrator is less certain than that of the author. It was first published in Venice, in December 1499, by Aldo Manutio. This first edition presents an elegant and unique page layout, with refined woodcut illustrations in an Early Renaissance style and a refined Roman font, cut by Francesco da Bologna, which is a revised version of the type used in 1496 for the De Aetna of Pietro Bembo. The print quality is very high for the time, but nevertheless it presents many inconsistencies and imperfections due to the non-ideal inking and adherence of the matrix to the paper. For that reason numerous samples of the original have been used to create every single glyph which will result in an appropriate reconstruction and not a mere and humble reproduction. Some letters like \J, \U and \W were extrapolated, because they are not part of the original alphabet of the period. Some letters like \Q, \X, \Y, \Z and \h have been updated to more modern variants, but the original shape is accessible by Stylistic Alternates Opentype Feature, which also changes the shape of the \V and the \v. The original numerals \zero, \one, \tree, \four and \six have been accompanied by reconstructions of the missing numbers and extended by modern figures. Finally, swashed lower cases and original scribal abbreviations were also included. The font has joined by a matching Italic variant, closely inspired from Aldo Manuzio's 1501 "Vergilius", the first book printed entirely in Italic type by Francesco da Bologna.