Minnak, as a whole geometric display type is our take on Square Kufic (Makili) style Latin script fonts, comes in eleven weights with linear progression. It is an Uniwidth typeface at the core. From Hairline to Black, all multiplexed weights take up the same space in width and can be used interchangeably. Supports wide range of Open Type features, with many stylistic alternates in 12 context. Minnak is also have a close relation with pixel fonts, because in spite of its based on Makili forms, it all started as a pixel font in the drawing stage before further steps came into play. The key difference between Minnak and Makili style is that the latter must have the exact square counters with no diagonal strokes, and any other components of a letterform must conform to be proportional. Such style-specific requirements determine the overall dimensions of the glyphs and therefore, there can be only minor differences between the typefaces. In Minnak, counters are rectangular because of its narrow and condensed proportions, but the Makili form influence is still manifest. This impression is best confirmed with Medium weight where negative spaces and stem thickness are equal. Contrast and virtually no optical correction were presented, as characteristic of its genre had to have equal horizontal and vertical line thicknesses. As per the minimal and authentic look of the type, all glyphs are drawn as straight or only as 45-degree diagonal strokes. The representation of the ‘diagonalless’ approach is preserved by stylistic alternatives, making its similarity in visual aesthetics clearly visible. Marks and punctuation is another feature that doesn’t follow the strict rules of the origin style. Although not a pixel font, all building parts of the glyphs in Minnak share the same unit precision as they are designed with pixel equivalents in mind. Even space characters are designed to match glyph widths, meeting the demands of certain typesetting or multi-line lettering compositions. With its Pseudo Ancient and Runic alternates, extention parts and ornaments included in all weights, Minnak is suitable for branding, logo and monogram designs, the screen titles and headlines, packaging, posters, book covers and more, where it shines at big sizes. Its pixel font-like appearance makes it a significant choice for the modern compositions. Thanks to mostly uniform width design, it is possible to use Minnak also as a system for lettering. This feature can be used as vertical fitting of the letters between the lines. As a casual expression in Turkish, “Minnak” is one of the seven typeface designs in Esintype's ancient scripts of Anatolia project, Tituli Anatolian series — representing Seljuk period in the medieval Anatolia and their tradition of architectural stone ornamentation.

Although Andi AW. Masry designed his Coomeec typeface with one eye on comic books, this is more than just another cartoon font. Even in our short profile of the font below, we're sure you'll find enough to be surprised by the calligraphic aesthetic and the wide range of potential uses of Coomeec. Typography had been one of Andy AW. Masry's hobbies before he turned professional in 2008 and formed his own agency in Jakarta in Indonesia. The former construction engineer had already spent many hours of his leisure time in following his pastimes of designing, photography and Latin typography. Fascinated by the close interaction between text and image in comic books, one of his first projects was the development of his font Coomeec™. The condensed letters of Coomeec seem to have more in common with a calligraphic brush typeface than a more conventional cartoon font. With the characteristic line forms of a brush font, the not unextensive variations in line thickness and numerous small embellishments to the glyphs, Coomeec can be used to enhance your projects with animated effects. You can achieve this not just in the larger font sizes; the font is also very legible in small sizes thanks to its large x-height. There are certain unusual letter forms, such as that of lowercase 'g', 's' and uppercase 'Y', that provide Coomeec with a touch of the exotic. As Coomeec has numerous character alternatives, you can use it not only to create diverse designs but also to ring the changes with the character of the text itself. There are variants for most lowercase letters, some of which exhibit only minor differences, such as the lack of a curlicue on the 'b', a modified downstroke on the 'h' and an elongated base for the 'k'. In the case of other letters, such as the 'q' and the 'r', there are significant disparities between variants. The uppercase characters are also available in a lively swash style with significantly extended terminals. Among the range of characters of Coomeec are oldstyle and lining figures designed for proportional and tabular setting. All alternatives are available in the form of the corresponding OpenType versions. Coomeec comes in two weights; Regular and Bold, each with its Italic version. The form of the slightly inclined Italic characters is identical to that of their upright counterparts with the exception of the lowercase 'f', which has an ascender in its Italic version. As an OpenType Pro font, the glyphs available for Coomeec ensure that it can be used to set not only western European but also central European texts. Coomeec is not just at home when used to set headlines. The excellent legibility of this individual and vibrant typeface means that it's also ideal for setting shorter texts. The various alternative letters provide the designer with the opportunity to vary the textual appearance, and to choose between creating a more formal or more light-hearted effect. Coomeec is not only available in an OpenType version but is also obtainable as a web font, so that you can employ its exotic features to good effect when creating internet pages.

Neue Haas Unica by Toshi Omagari: The original purpose behind the creation of the typeface Haas Unica was to provide a sympathetic update of Helvetica. But now the font designer Toshi Omagari has decided to make this typeface his own and has thus significantly supplemented and extended it. In the late 1970s, at the same time at which hot metal typesetting was being replaced by phototypesetting, the Haas Type Foundry commissioned a group of specialists known as "Team '77" consists of Andre Gurtler, Christian Mengelt and Erich Gschwind to adapt Max Miedinger's font The characters of Haas Unica are somewhat narrower than those of Helvetica so that the larger bowls, such as those of the "b" and "d", appear more delicate and have a slightly more pleasing effect. In general, the spacing of Haas Unica was increased to provide for improved kerning and thus enhance the legibility of the typeface in smaller point sizes. Major changes were made to the lowercase "a", in that the curve of the upper bowl became rounder and its spur was eliminated. The form of the "k" was additionally modified to remove the offset leg so that both diagonals originate from the main stem. The outstroke of the uppercase "J" was also significantly curtailed. In addition to many minor alterations, such as to the length of the horizontal bars of the "E", "F" and "G" and to the angle of the tail of the "Q", the leg of the "R" was extended and made more diagonal. In the case of the numerals, the upper curve of the "2" was reduced and the lower loops of the "5" and "6" were correspondingly adapted. The sweep of the diagonal of the "7" was also reduced. Several decades later, Toshi Omagari returned to the original sketches with the objective of reinvigorating this almost totally forgotten typeface. First, however, he needed to revise the drafts prepared by Team '77 to adapt them for digital typesetting. So Omagari carefully adjusted the proportions of the glyphs, achieving a more uniform overall effect across all line weights and removed details that had become redundant for contemporary typefaces. It was also apparent from the old drafts that it had been the case that the original plan was to create more than the four weights that were published. Omagari has added five additional styles, giving his Neue Haas Unica? a total of nine weights, from Ultra Light to Extra Black. He has also greatly extended the range of glyphs. Providing as it does typographic support for Central and European languages, Greek and Cyrillic texts, Neue Haas Unica is now ready to be used for major international projects. In addition, it has been supplied with small caps and various sets of numerals. With its resolute clarity and excellent typographic support, Neue Haas Unica is suitable for use in a wide range of new contexts. The light and elegant characters can be employed in the large point sizes to create, for example, titling and logos while the very bold styles come into their own where the typography needs to be powerful and expressive. The medium weights can be used anywhere, for setting block text and headlines.

Classic Grotesque by Rod McDonald: a traditional font with a modern face. The growing popularity of grotesque typefaces meant that many new sans serif analogues were published in the early 20th century. Setting machines were not compatible with each other but all foundries wanted to offer up-to-date fonts, and as a result numerous different typeface families appeared that seem almost identical at first glance and yet go their separate ways with regard to details. One of the first fonts created with automatic typesetting in mind was Monotype Grotesque®. Although this typeface that was designed and published by Frank Hinman Pierpont in 1926 has since been digitalised, it has never achieved the status of other grotesque fonts of this period. But Monotype Grotesque was always one of designer Rod McDonald’s favourites, and he was overjoyed when he finally got the go-ahead from Monotype in 2008 to update this “hidden treasure”. The design process lasted four years, with regular interruptions due to the need to complete projects for other clients. In retrospect, McDonald admits that he had no idea at the beginning of just how challenging and complex a task it would be to create Classic Grotesque™. It took him considerable time before he found the right approach. In his initial drafts, he tried to develop Monotype Grotesque only to find that the result was almost identical with Arial®, a typeface that is also derived in many respects from Monotype Grotesque. It was only when he went back a stage, and incorporated elements of Bauer Font’s Venus™ and Ideal Grotesk by the Julius Klinkhardt foundry into the design process, that he found the way forward. Both these typefaces had served as the original inspiration for Monotype Grotesque. The name says it all: Classic Grotesque has all the attributes of the early grotesque fonts of the 20th century: The slightly artificial nature gives the characters a formal appearance. There are very few and only minor variations in line width. The tittles of the ‘i’ and ‘j’, the umlaut diacritic and other diacritic marks are rectangular. Interestingly, it is among the uppercase letters that certain variations from the standard pattern can be found, and it is these that enliven the typeface. Hence the horizontal bars of the “E”, “F” and “L” have bevelled terminals. The chamfered terminal of the bow of the “J” has a particular flamboyance, while the slightly curved descender of the “Q” provides for additional dynamism. The character alternatives available through the OpenType option provide the designer with a wealth of opportunities. These include a closed “a”, a double-counter “g” and an “e” in which the transverse bar deviates slightly from the horizontal. The seven different weights also extend the scope of uses of Classic Grotesque. These range from the delicate Light to the super thick Extrabold. There are genuine italic versions of each weight; these are not only slightly narrower than their counterparts, but also have variant shapes. The “a” is closed, the “f” has a semi-descender while the “e” is rounded. Its neutral appearance and excellent features mean that Classic Grotesque is suitable for use in nearly all imaginable applications. Even during the design phase, McDonald used his new font to set books and in promotional projects. However, he would be pleased to learn of possible applications that he himself has not yet considered. Classic Grotesque, which has its own individual character despite its neutral and restrained appearance, is the ideal partner for your print and web project.

Auchentaller was inspired by a travel poster by Josef Maria Auchentaller in 1906. To our knowledge, it was never cast in type. Grado lies on the northern Adriatic, between Venice and Trieste. At one time the port for the important Roman town of Aquileia. With the decline of the Roman Empire, the upper Adriatic region came under the rule of the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Lombards, the Franks, the Germans, the Venetians and finally, in 1796, the Austrian Hapsburgs. So it remained until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1919, following World War I, when the seaport of Trieste was awarded to Italy. With Trieste came Montefalcone, Aquileia and Grado. The area was marked by years of political tension between Italy and Yugoslavia, exemplified by the d'Annunzio expedition to capture Fiume (Rijeka) in September, 1919. Some basic discussion of the period from 1919 to 1939 may be found in Seton-Watson’s Eastern Europe Between The Wars (Cambridge 1945) and Rothschild’s East Central Europe Between The Two World Wars (Seattle 1974). In 1965 I was traveling by train from Venice to Vienna. Crossing the Alps, the train stopped for customs inspection at the rural Italian-Austrian border, just above Slovenia. We were warned not to get off the train because there were still shooting skirmishes in the area. Through all this, Grado remained literally an island of tranquility, connected to the mainland by a only causeway and lines on a map. Auchentaller not only painted the beach scene at Grado, he moved there, living out the rest of his life in this comfortable little island town. His travel illustration contains the text from which the design of our font Auchentaller is drawn. The text translates: "Seaside resort : Grado / Austrian coastal land". Please see our gallery images to see a map locating Grado, as well as Auchentaller’s painting of the resort. Auchentaller is a monoline all-cap font, light and open in design , with a lot of typically art nouveau letter forms. Included in our font are a number of ligatures. As is frequently seen in designs by German speakers, the umlaut is embedded in the O & U below the tops of the letters. This approach led to two whimsies: a happy umlauted O and a sad umlauted U. This font has a clean, crisp look that is very appealing and very distinctive. Auchentaller ML represents a major extension of the original release, with the following changes: 1. Added glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Add glyphs to complete standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page. Special glyphs relocated and assigned Unicode codepoints, some in Private Use area. Total of 336 glyphs. 2. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: pnum, liga, salt & ornm. 3. Added 116 kerning pairs. 4. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. 5. Revised ‘J’. 6. Minor refinements to various glyph outlines. 7. Inclusion of both tabular & proportional numbers. 8. Inclusion of both standard acute and Polish kreska with choice of alternate accented glyphs for c,n,r,s & z. Please note that some older applications may only be able to access the Western Europe character set (approximately 221 glyphs). The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS (Post Script Type 1) format and a TTF version which is in Open TT (True Type)format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

Sterling Script was initially meant to a be digitization/reinterpretation of a copperplate script widely used during what effectively became the last decade of metal type: Stephenson Blake's Youthline, from 1952. The years from 1945 to 1960 saw a heightened demand for copperplate faces, due to post-war market optimism, as well as the banking and insurance industries booming like never before, which triggered the need for design elements that express formal elegance and luxury. The name Sterling Script is a tip of our hat to England, the Stephenson Blake foundry's country of origin. It is also a historical hint about copperplate scripts having been used mainly for banking and bonds in the 19th century. Originally we just wanted to resurrect a gorgeous metal type from the ashes of forgotten history. But after the main font was done we saw that the original s really needed an alternate. We made one. But we felt sorry for the original s and didn't want to see it dropped from use altogether, so we saved it by building a set of ligatures that solve the minor connection problem with the s at large sizes. Before the completion of the ligatures, a few different alternates were also drawn, and we were faced by the fact that the single font we set out to do was now a much larger set than we anticipated. While thinking about how to split up our unexpected bundle of large characters, we drew a few more alternates and some swashes. This abundance "problem" reached a certain point where there was no looking back, so we just decided to go all the way with this font. We added many more alternates, swashes, ligatures, and two full sets of each beginning and ending lowercase letter. The result is over 750 characters of sheer elegance. Sterling Script has many features that set it above and beyond other copperplate scripts: - It has 2 beginning and 2 ending alternates for every single lowercase character. The beginning and ending variants on the vowels are also available in accented form in the appropriate cells of the character map. - Sterling Script is the ultimate elegant font choice for luxury design. Very elegant, but not too soft. Its strong and confident shapes convey a message that is real, comforting and assuring. - One of the eventual purposes of expanding Sterling Script this extensively was to create a script that finds the middle ground between formal and informal without compromising either trait, a script where the degree of formality can be gauged, tweaked, cranked up or toned down depending on the layout's needs. Aside from beginnings and endings, there are multiple variations for the majority of the basic characters. This is a formal script on steroids, where twirls and swashes can be set to come out unexpectedly from any place in the word, which is great for reducing the inherent rigidity of words set in copperplate scripts and "humanizing" them whenever needed. This is especially useful for wedding, postcard and invitation design, where not every viewer of the collateral material has something to do with banking or insurance. - With such an extensive character set, a designer can easily set a word or a sentence in 10 or more different ways, and choose the perfect one for the task at hand. This is particularly useful for work where details are of utmost importance, like logos, slogans, or elegant engravings that consist of one to three words. Let those swashes and twirls intertwine for maximum elegance. The Sterling Script complete package consists of 7 fonts: Sterling Script, Alternates, Beginnings, Endings, Swashes, Swash Alternates, and Ligatures. Sterling Script is available in five different purchase options and price ranges. But with such a massive offering of variation, the Sterling Script complete package is definitely the most value-laden set in its class. Once you use Sterling Script, you will never want to go back to other copperplates.

I spend a lot of time following two obsessions: packaging and hand lettering. Alongside a few other minor obsessions, those two have been my major ones for so many years now, I've finally reached the point where I can actually claim them as “obsessions” without getting a dramatic reaction from the little voice in the back of my head. When you spend so much time researching and studying a subject, you become very focused, directionally and objectively. But of course some of the research material you run into turns out to be tangential to whatever your focus happens to be at the time, so you absorb what you can from it, then shelf it — like the celebrity bobblehead that amused you for a while, but is now an almost invisible ornament eating dust and feathers somewhere in your environment. And just like the bobblehead may fall off the shelf one day to remind you of its existence, some of my lettering research material unveiled itself in my head one day for no particular reason. Hand lettering is now mostly perceived as an American art. Someone with my historical knowledge about lettering may be snooty enough to go as far as pointing out the British origins of almost everything American, including lettering — but for the most part, the contemporary perspective associates great lettering with America. The same perspective also associates blackletter, gothics and sans serifs with Germany. So you can imagine my simultaneous surprise and impatience when, in my research for one of my American lettering-based fonts, I ran into a German lettering book from 1953, by an artist called Bentele. It was no use for me because it didn't propel my focus at that particular time, but a few months ago I was marveling at what we take for granted — the sky is blue, blackletter is German, lettering is American — and found myself flipping through the pages of that book again. The lettering in that book is upbeat and casual sign making stuff, but it has a slightly strange and youthful experimentation at its heart. I suppose I find it strange because it deviates a lot from the American stuff I'm used to working with for so long now. To make a long story short, what’s inside that German book served as the semilla, which is Spanish for seed, for the typeface you see all over these pages. With Semilla, my normal routine went out the window. My life for a while was all Bezier all the time. No special analog or digital brushes or pens were used in drawing these forms. They're the product of a true Bezier process, all starting with a point creating a curve to another point, which draws a curve to another point, and so on. It’s a very time-consuming process, but at the end I am satisfied that it can get to pretty much the same results easier and more traditional methods accomplish. And as usual with my fonts, the OpenType is plenty and a lot of fun. Experimenting with substitution and automation is still a great pleasure for me. It is the OpenType that always saves me from the seemingly endless work hours every type designer must inevitably have to face at one point in his career. The artful photos used in this booklet are by French photographer and designer Stéphane Giner. He is very deserving of your patronage, so please keep an eye out for his marvelous work. I hope you like Semilla and enjoy using it. I have a feeling that it marks a transition to a more curious and flexible period in my career, but only time will tell.

AwanZaman has a three-phase story, beginning with Dr Mamoun Sakkal’s two Arabic styles and culminating with Juliet Shen’s Latin extension. AwanZaman started as simply Awan, a commission for a modern, clean, monoline typeface for writing headlines and story titles in a forward-thinking Kuwaiti newspaper. Awan was based on the geometric forms of Kufic script, while in phase two, a second typeface (Zaman) was designed to add enough calligraphic Naskh details to make it easy to read in demanding newspaper settings. Together these two phases give the typeface a warm, familiar, and progressive look, as well as an explanatory two-part name — AwanZaman. Since most editorials use typical Naskh headline fonts with an exaggerated baseline, Awan’s rational forms immediately distinguish it as a modern and progressive voice in the crowded field of Arabic editorial typefaces. As the companion Arabic typeface, Zaman has the same basic proportions and forms as Awan, but with many cursive, energetic, and playful details. And since modern monoline fonts are increasingly being used to set extended texts, more features were borrowed from Naskh calligraphy to expand the typeface’s use from headlines into text setting. When using the AwanZaman Arabic family, Awan (geometric Kufic forms) is the starting point. To add the sweeping, energetic personality of Zaman (calligraphic Naskh forms), simply activate an alternate character through the option of 20 stylistic sets available in any OpenType-savvy software. The two typefaces function as one file — the AwanZaman Arabic family — allowing users to combine features from both designs to transform the appearance of text from geometric and formal to playful and informal. The third phase of AwanZaman’s development introduced a companion Latin typeface designed by Juliet Shen to fulfil the persistent need in the Arabic fonts market for modern and geometric bilingual type families. Due to the Arabic’s monolinear strokes, AwanZaman Latin was destined to be a sans serif with a tall x-height, larger counters, and corresponding stem thickness to harmonise with the Arabic’s overall text colour and page presence. But it needed much more. One of AwanZaman’s chief assets is making the two languages look on a par when typeset side by side. Arabic and English readers will have a different sense of what that entails, but this type family defers to the Arabic — graceful and artistic with a good mix of straight stems and curved forms. Latin in general doesn’t aesthetically flow the way Arabic does, yet the tone of the Latin needed to mirror both the Arabic’s more squarish curves and formal personality of Awan and the undulating and more playful shapes of Zaman without looking outlandish. That need was met by creating some novel Latin characters, which are accessed through four stylistic sets the same way as AwanZaman Arabic. The alternates are not just clever in the way they look and how they echo the Arabic aesthetic, but also in harmonising the disparate languages and serving designers well when needing a balanced, bilingual text face with a warm and lively voice. AwanZaman is a clever, seven-weight powerhouse that makes extensive use of OpenType’s stylistic sets (20 in the Arabic and four in the Latin) so writers and designers can make the most of everything from a single glyph in display sizes down to dense text in paragraphs. As AwanZaman Arabic has no italic, neither does the Latin; contextual distinction normally handled by italics is achieved by exploiting the family’s seven weights. AwanZaman’s intricate OpenType programming supports Persian and Urdu, with features such as the returning tail of Barri Yeh treated properly. From its inception in geometry to its melding of two worlds with novel forms, AwanZaman is a personal labor by designers Dr Mamoun Sakkal and Juliet Shen, and embodies the TypeTogether ideals of serving the global community with innovative and stylish typeface solutions. The complete AwanZaman Arabic and Latin families, along with our entire catalogue, have been optimised for today’s varied screen uses.

Agmena™ has no historical precursor; it was designed from scratch by Jovica Veljovi? whose aim was to create a new book typeface. Although it generally has certain similarities with the group of Renaissance Antiqua fonts, it is not clearly derived from any of these. Clear and open forms, large counters and a relatively generous x-height ensure that the characters that make up Agmena are readily legible even in small point sizes. The slightly tapering serifs with their curved attachments to letter stems soften the rigidity of the typeface, bringing Agmena to life. This non-formal quality is further enhanced by numerous tiny variations to the letter shapes. For example, there are slight differences to the terminals of the b", the "d" and the "h" and minor dissimilarities in the forms and lengths of serifs of many of the letters. The tittles over the "i" and "j" and those of the German umlauts are almost circular, while the diamond shape that is more characteristic of a calligraphic script is used for the punctuation marks. Although many of these variations are only apparent on closer inspection, they are enough to give Agmena the feeling of a hand-made typeface. It is in the larger point sizes that this feature of Agmena comes particularly into play, and individual characters gain an almost sculptural quality. The italic variants of Agmena are actually real cursives. The narrower and thus markedly dynamically formed lowercase letters have a wider range of contrast in terms of line thickness and have the appearance of having been manually produced with a quill thanks to the variations in their terminals. The lowercase "a" assumes a closed form and the "f" has a descender. The italic capitals, on the other hand, have been consciously conceived to act as a stabilising element, although the way they have been inclined does not produce a simply mechanical effect. This visual convergence with the upright characters actually means that it is possible to use letters from both styles in combination. Agmena is available in four weights: Book, Regular, Semibold and Bold, and each has its matching italic variant. Veljovi? designed Book and Regular not only to provide an optical balance between various point sizes, such as between that used for the text and that used in footnotes, but also to take account of different paper forms: Regular for lined paper and Book for publishing paper. Agmena's range of characters leaves nothing to be desired. All variants include small caps and various numeral sets with oldstyle and lining figures for setting proportional text and table columns. Thanks to its pan-European language support, Agmena can be used to set texts not only in languages that use the Latin alphabet as it also features Cyrillic and Greek characters. The set of standard ligatures has been extended to include special combinations for setting Greek and Serbian. Agmena also has some initial letters, alternative glyphs and ornaments. Agmena is a poetic text font with forms and spacing that have been optimised over years of work to provide a typeface that is ideal for setting books. But its letters also cut a good figure in the larger font sizes thanks to their individual, vibrant and, in some cases, sculptural effects. Its robust forms are not merely suited to a printed environment, but are also at home among the complex conditions on terminal screens. You can thus also use Agmena as a web font when designing your internet page."Agmena has received the Certificate of Excellence in Type Design at the Type Directors Club of New York TDC2 competition in 2013.