The concept of the Baroque Roman type face is something which is remote from us. Ungrateful theorists gave Baroque type faces the ill-sounding attribute "Transitional", as if the Baroque Roman type face wilfully diverted from the tradition and at the same time did not manage to mature. This "transition" was originally meant as an intermediate stage between the Aldine/Garamond Roman face of the Renaissance, and its modern counterpart, as represented by Bodoni or Didot. Otherwise there was also a "transition" from a slanted axis of the shadow to a perpendicular one. What a petty detail led to the pejorative designation of Baroque type faces! If a bookseller were to tell his customers that they are about to choose a book which is set in some sort of transitional type face, he would probably go bust. After all, a reader, for his money, would not put up with some typographical experimentation. He wants to read a book without losing his eyesight while doing so. Nevertheless, it was Baroque typography which gave the world the most legible type faces. In those days the craft of punch-cutting was gradually separating itself from that of book-printing, but also from publishing and bookselling. Previously all these activities could be performed by a single person. The punch-cutter, who at that time was already fully occupied with the production of letters, achieved better results than he would have achieved if his creative talents were to be diffused in a printing office or a bookseller's shop. Thus it was possible that for example the printer John Baskerville did not cut a single letter in his entire lifetime, for he used the services of the accomplished punch-cutter John Handy. It became the custom that one type founder supplied type to multiple printing offices, so that the same type faces appeared in various parts of the world. The type face was losing its national character. In the Renaissance period it is still quite easy to distinguish for example a French Roman type face from a Venetian one; in the Baroque period this could be achieved only with great difficulties. Imagination and variety of shapes, which so far have been reserved only to the fine arts, now come into play. Thanks to technological progress, book printers are now able to reproduce hairstrokes and imitate calligraphic type faces. Scripts and elaborate ornaments are no longer the privilege of copper-engravers. Also the appearance of the basic, body design is slowly undergoing a change. The Renaissance canonical stiffness is now replaced with colour and contrast. The page of the book is suddenly darker, its lay-out more varied and its lines more compact. For Baroque type designers made a simple, yet ingenious discovery - they enlarged the x-height and reduced the ascenders to the cap-height. The type face thus became seemingly larger, and hence more legible, but at the same time more economical in composition; the type area was increasing to the detriment of the margins. Paper was expensive, and the aim of all the publishers was, therefore, to sell as many ideas in as small a book block as possible. A narrowed, bold majuscule, designed for use on the title page, appeared for the first time in the Late Baroque period. Also the title page was laid out with the highest possible economy. It comprised as a rule the brief contents of the book and the address of the bookseller, i.e. roughly that which is now placed on the flaps and in the imprint lines. Bold upper-case letters in the first line dramatically give way to the more subtle italics, the third line is highlighted with vermilion; a few words set in lower-case letters are scattered in-between, and then vermilion appears again. Somewhere in the middle there is an ornament, a monogram or an engraving as a kind of climax of the drama, while at the foot of the title-page all this din is quietened by a line with the name of the printer and the year expressed in Roman numerals, set in 8-point body size. Every Baroque title-page could well pass muster as a striking poster. The pride of every book printer was the publication of a type specimen book - a typographical manual. Among these manuals the one published by Fournier stands out - also as regards the selection of the texts for the specimen type matter. It reveals the scope of knowledge and education of the master typographers of that period. The same Fournier established a system of typographical measurement which, revised by Didot, is still used today. Baskerville introduced the smoothing of paper by a hot steel roller, in order that he could print astonishingly sharp letters, etc. ... In other words - Baroque typography deserves anything else but the attribute "transitional". In the first half of the 18th century, besides persons whose names are prominent and well-known up to the present, as was Caslon, there were many type founders who did not manage to publish their manuals or forgot to become famous in some other way. They often imitated the type faces of their more experienced contemporaries, but many of them arrived at a quite strange, even weird originality, which ran completely outside the mainstream of typographical art. The prints from which we have drawn inspiration for these six digital designs come from Paris, Vienna and Prague, from the period around 1750. The transcription of letters in their intact form is our firm principle. Does it mean, therefore, that the task of the digital restorer is to copy meticulously the outline of the letter with all inadequacies of the particular imprint? No. The type face should not to evoke the rustic atmosphere of letterpress after printing, but to analyze the appearance of the punches before they are imprinted. It is also necessary to take account of the size of the type face and to avoid excessive enlargement or reduction. Let us keep in mind that every size requires its own design. The longer we work on the computer where a change in size is child's play, the more we are convinced that the appearance of a letter is tied to its proportions, and therefore, to a fixed size. We are also aware of the fact that the computer is a straightjacket of the type face and that the dictate of mathematical vectors effectively kills any hint of naturalness. That is why we strive to preserve in these six alphabets the numerous anomalies to which later no type designer ever returned due to their obvious eccentricity. Please accept this PostScript study as an attempt (possibly futile, possibly inspirational) to brush up the warm magic of Baroque prints. Hopefully it will give pleasure in today's modern type designer's nihilism.

Centennial Script was designed and cut by Hermann Ihlenburg in 1876 (the centennial of American independence, hence the typeface's name) for the MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan foundry in Philadelphia. Ihlenburg was then only 33 years old, and these beautiful forms put him on his way to become the most prolific and innovative deco, ornamental and script typeface designer and punch cutter of the nineteenth century. In trying to be a true homage to the history of the new world, Centennial Script transcends its then-contemporary deco fashion to embrace script elements historically similar to lettering found on maps or political documents of the 18th century. Letters like the p and s extend themselves high and mighty to accentuate words and lines of text in a fancy hand-drawn manner. The dots on the i and j are those of a careful scribe who acknowledges the importance of the document being lettered. The lowercase letters connect with two slight angular motions of the hand, also very carefully and elegantly. Even the ligatures and ending swashes Ihlenburg made for this face were reminiscent of a mapmaker's patient hand, though Ihlenburg's elegant touch in them cannot be mistaken. Although Centennial Script was one of the few Ihlenburg faces to make it to film type technology, the transition was neither credited nor faultless. The film type version was a bit sloppy in the way the connectors were made, so the lowercase needed a lot of manual work to typeset properly. To alleviate such waste of time for the user of this digital version, the connectors were redrawn according to the original metal ones made by Ihlenburg himself, and tested thoroughly in print to ensure the quality of the typeface's flowing cursive nature. This wasn't an easy task, and very time-consuming, since the changing angles on both ends of the connection made it impossible to escape from having to build every lowercase letter with both left and right connectors that would fit with the rest of the letters. This is one typeface that couldn't be revived in any other manner than the way it was originally made, regardless of more than 130 years of technological advances since the face was designed. Centennial Script comes in all popular font formats, and supports most Latin-based languages. Also included is an Alts fonts that contains alternates, ligatures, snap-on swash endings, some ornaments, as well as a complete set of the lowercase without left side connectors, for a more natural combination when following a majuscule, or just in case the user finds it fit to set the copy in a non-connecting script instead of the face's original connected flow. Centennial Script Pro, the OpenType version, combines the main font with the Alts font in a feature-packed single font. Use the ligature feature to set wordmarks like Mr, Ms, Mrs, Dr, and &Co, the stylistic alternates feature to replace some letters with their alternative forms, the contextual alternates feature for better uppercase-lowercase sequences, and the titling feature to set your text in a disconnected script. Centennial Script is the only script we currently know of that can be set connected or disconnected simultaneously, either using the titling feature in the OpenType Pro version, or manually in the other formats.

Domotika was first designed for Zetafonts by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini in 2018, trying to translate the modernist and humanist ideals into typographic form, looking for a conversation between the classical and the contemporary, the hand-made and the technological. Following the motto of Mies Van Der Roe and Gustave Flaubert ("God is in the details"), Domotika takes inspiration from architectural practice, with a pragmatic attention to functionality that doesn't forget aesthetics. Its design juxtaposes the open humanist letterforms to slight calligraphic curve endings that marries perfect readability to expressive design. The name itself of the typeface is an homage to the science of living comfortably, with its reference to "domotics", robotic technology for use in the home. In 2021 Andrea Tartarelli, who originally designed Domotika italics, completely reworked the original type family adding over five hundred glyphs to the original set and extending the language coverage to include over two hundred languages using latin, Cyrillic and greek alphabets. Open type features have been also expanded, including positional numbers, small caps, ligatures, contextual alternates and stylistic sets, as well as tabular, lining and old-style numerals. • Suggested uses: conceived as a great tool for editorial use, great for display usage too, where readability and personality must match design space needs; • 18 styles: 8 weights + 8 italics + 2 variable fonts; • 1075 glyphs in each weight; • Useful OpenType features: Access All Alternates, Small Capitals From Capitals, Contextual Alternates, Case-Sensitive Forms, Glyph Composition / Decomposition, Denominators, Fractions, Kerning, Lining Figures, Localized Forms, Mark Positioning, Mark to Mark Positioning, Alternate Annotation Forms, Numerators, Oldstyle Figures, Ordinals, Proportional Figures, Stylistic Alternates, Scientific Inferiors, Small Capitals, Stylistic Set 1, Subscript, Superscript, Tabular Figures, Slashed Zero; • 219 languages supported (extended Latin, Cyrillic, Greek alphabets): English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Javanese (Latin), Vietnamese, Turkish, Italian, Polish, Afaan Oromo, Azeri, Tagalog, Sundanese (Latin), Filipino, Moldovan, Romanian, Indonesian, Dutch, Cebuano, Igbo, Malay, Uzbek (Latin), Kurdish (Latin), Swahili, Greek, Hungarian, Czech, Haitian Creole, Hiligaynon, Afrikaans, Somali, Zulu, Serbian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Shona, Quechua, Albanian, Catalan, Chichewa, Ilocano, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Neapolitan, Xhosa, Tshiluba, Slovak, Danish, Gikuyu, Finnish, Norwegian, Sicilian, Sotho (Southern), Kirundi, Tswana, Sotho (Northern), Belarusian (Latin), Turkmen (Latin), Bemba, Lombard, Lithuanian, Tsonga, Wolof, Jamaican, Dholuo, Galician, Ganda, Low Saxon, Waray-Waray, Makhuwa, Bikol, Kapampangan (Latin), Aymara, Zarma, Ndebele, Slovenian, Tumbuka, Venetian, Genoese, Piedmontese, Swazi, Zazaki, Latvian, Nahuatl, Silesian, Bashkir (Latin), Sardinian, Estonian, Afar, Cape Verdean Creole, Maasai, Occitan, Tetum, Oshiwambo, Basque, Welsh, Chavacano, Dawan, Montenegrin, Walloon, Asturian, Kaqchikel, Ossetian (Latin), Zapotec, Frisian, Guadeloupean Creole, Q’eqchi’, Karakalpak (Latin), Crimean Tatar (Latin), Sango, Luxembourgish, Samoan, Maltese, Tzotzil, Fijian, Friulian, Icelandic, Sranan, Wayuu, Papiamento, Aromanian, Corsican, Breton, Amis, Gagauz (Latin), Māori, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Alsatian, Atayal, Kiribati, Seychellois Creole, Võro, Tahitian, Scottish Gaelic, Chamorro, Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), Kashubian, Faroese, Rarotongan, Sorbian (Upper Sorbian), Karelian (Latin), Romansh, Chickasaw, Arvanitic (Latin), Nagamese Creole, Saramaccan, Ladin, Kaingang, Palauan, Sami (Northern Sami), Sorbian (Lower Sorbian), Drehu, Wallisian, Aragonese, Mirandese, Tuvaluan, Xavante, Zuni, Montagnais, Hawaiian, Marquesan, Niuean, Yapese, Vepsian, Bislama, Hopi, Megleno-Romanian, Creek, Aranese, Rotokas, Tokelauan, Mohawk, Onĕipŏt, Warlpiri, Cimbrian, Sami (Lule Sami), Jèrriais, Arrernte, Murrinh-Patha, Kala Lagaw Ya, Cofán, Gwich’in, Seri, Sami (Southern Sami), Istro-Romanian, Wik-Mungkan, Anuta, Cornish, Sami (Inari Sami), Yindjibarndi, Noongar, Hotcąk (Latin), Meriam Mir, Manx, Shawnee, Gooniyandi, Ido, Wiradjuri, Hän, Ngiyambaa, Delaware, Potawatomi, Abenaki, Esperanto, Folkspraak, Interglossa, Interlingua, Latin, Latino sine Flexione, Lojban, Novial, Occidental, Old Icelandic, Old Norse, Slovio (Latin), Volapük

Pure and not-so-simple Maybe it’s the air of purity, openness and transparency that they transmit, but geometric typefaces are more popular than ever among leading brands. Based on near-perfect circles, triangles and squares, geometric letterforms look uncomplicated, even though making them readable is anything but – something the designers of the first wave of geometric fonts discovered nearly a century ago. Many of the world’s most recognisable brands in technology, retail, travel, food, manufacturing and other industries continue to be drawn to the straightforward, honest character that geometric fonts convey. Fontsmith set out in 2015 to develop a typeface in the same tradition, but optimised for the demands of modern brands – online and offline usage, readability and accessibility. And, of course, with the all-important Fontsmith x-factor built in. FS Lucas is the bold and deceptively simple result. Handle with care The letterforms of FS Lucas are round and generous, along the lines of Trajan Column lettering stripped of its serifs. But beware their thorns. Their designer, Stuart de Rozario, who also crafted the award-winning FS Millbank, wanted a contrast between spiky and soft, giving sharp apexes to the more angular letterforms, such as A, M, N, v, w and z. Among his inspirations were the colourful, geometric compositions of Frank Stella, the 1920s art deco poster designs of AM Cassandre, and the triangular cosmic element symbol, which led him to tackle the capital A first, instead of the usual H. The proportions and angles of the triangular form would set the template for many of the other characters. It was this form, and the light-scattering effects of triangular prisms, that lit the path to a name for the typeface: Lucas is derived from lux, the Latin word for light. Recommended reading Early geometric typefaces were accused of putting mathematical integrity before readability. FS Lucas achieves the trick of appearing geometric, while taking the edge off elements that make reading difficult. Perfectly circlular shapes don’t read well. The way around that is to slightly thicken the vertical strokes, and pull out the curves at the corners to compensate; the O and o of FS Lucas are optical illusions. Pointed apexes aren’t as sharp as they look; the flattened tips are an essential design feature. And distinctive details such as the open terminals of the c, e, f, g, j, r and s, and the x-height bar on the i and j, aid legibility, especially on-screen. These and many other features, the product of sketching the letterforms in the first instance by hand rather than mapping them out mechanically by computer, give FS Lucas the built-in humanity and character that make it a better, easier read all-round. Marks of distinction Unlike some of its more buttoned-up geometric bedfellows, FS Lucas can’t contain its natural personality and quirks: the flick of the foot of the l, for example, and the flattish tail on the g and j. The unusual bar on the J improves character recognition, and the G is circular, without a straight stem. There’s a touch of Fontsmith about the t, too, with the curve across the left cross section in the lighter weights, and the ampersand is one of a kind. There’s a lot to like about Lucas. With its 9 weights, perfect proportions and soft but spiky take on the classic geometric font, it’s a typeface that could light up any brand.

If you are into the vintage feel, you will love this one. This is as vintage as it probably gets. There are probably only a handful of places in the world where schools still use blackboards and chalk – they’ve given way to their white board and marker counterparts for decades now. White boards are definitely more practical and less messy when compared to chalk, but then if you are creatively inclined you will agree that a little bit of mess is worth it if you are going to get the effects that you desired! Well, we can give you the effects minus the mess with our chalk hand lettering fonts! As the name suggests, this font gives you that distinctly unique chalk on slate feel, and if you are wondering what’s distinct about it; writing on slate or blackboard was a slow process which required deliberated and concentrated efforts resulting in a handwriting which was usually quite different to a person’s handwriting on paper. Typography of chalk on slate was an everyday event in the classrooms of yesterday, and today we hardly ever get to see one of these if it all. Writing on a black board with chalk was quite an interesting achievement in its own right, if you ended up with anything legible and if your writing remained focused and ‘in-line’! But of course like everything else, his took time to master and when you did get it right, chalk hand lettering was quite an enjoyable experience! For semi-permanent designs, say for example an eventful day at school; students of the day would create beautiful typography on the boards, and add a solidarity to it sometimes by shading one side of the lettering – usual y the right side towards which the lettering leaned. This is the effect our chalk hands lettering shaded variation gives you. You could get this font individually, but we strongly advise you check out the “chalk hand lettering pack” font. It includes the simple “chalk hand lettering” (minus the shading effect) and also a “chalk hand elements” bag of tricks. The elements is a collection of graphic art which resemble shapes and designs that used to be added to chalk art, to beautify the typography. If you enjoyed seeing the effects of our Chalk Hands font, and the shaded variant – you are simply going to go gaga over Chalk Hand Elements! The chalk hand font of course enables you to make typographic art similar to the effect of chalks on slates and black boards. This was quite the art form in the days gone by! The shaded variation added a bit of solidarity and the technique was commonly used to make semi-permanent designs say for example a welcome note when somebody important was to visit. Classic chalk hand designs, especially the semi permanent ones often had little pieces of art to help beautify the creation as a whole. It could simply be symmetrical graphics appearing before and after the title and headings, maybe just an interesting shape to fill in an empty area on the board, and such…our Chalk Hand Elements offers you a ton of such graphics. The two chalk hand variations and the elements are all included in the Chalk Hand Family, and this is strongly recommended if you want to make designs that are truly reminiscent of the days of chalk on slate.

Chucara next is the newest font designed by Juan Pablo De Gregorio, a typeface aimed at high readability when set in paragraphs or large chunks of text. Its predecessor "Chúcara", born in 2003, sought after increasing readability by achieving big and simple counterforms. This time around Juan Pablo went further by increasing the X-height and trimming both ascenders and descenders, thus the font appears to be much larger than it is and can be readable at smaller sizes. The DNA of the whole font is marked by the terminal of the "a" character. Juan Pablo used a specially crafted cut to design this counterform, and this shape together with the graceful and winding forms of the letter resembles the form of a horse, hence the name Chúcara, or untamed. The italic version has a 10-degree angle and a 10% condensation, making it way more streamlined than a regular italic font. The Philosophy of a larger counterform is maintained through and through in the italic variant. This version looks different not only due to its inclination, but the sheer effort put into carefully taking care of the condensation and the gestures allow the italic to enrich the texts gracefully, for the highlighting of the words stands out without affecting the grey of the paragraph. Chucara next is a typeface optimal for being used in books, newspapers, magazines, texts, printing, headlines, editorial, quotes, corporate identity, and lo res printing. The typeface has 8 weights, ranging from “thin” to “black”, and two versions: "regular" and "italic". Its 16 files contain 635 characters with small caps, stylistic sets and different kind of numbers. It supports 219 Latin-based languages, spanning through 212 different countries. Chucara next supports this languages: Abenaki, Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Amis, Anuta, Aragonese, Aranese, Aromanian, Arrernte, Arvanitic (Latin), Asturian, Atayal, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Bemba, Bikol, Bislama, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Chickasaw, Cimbrian, Cofán, Corsican Creek,Crimean Tatar (Latin),Croatian, Czech, Dawan, Delaware, Dholuo, Drehu, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian Filipino, Finnish, Folkspraak, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Gikuyu, Gooniyandi, Greenlandic (Kalaallisut)Guadeloupean, Creole, Gwich’in, Haitian, Creole, Hän, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hopi, Hotc?k (Latin), Hungarian, Icelandic, Ido, IgboI, locano, Indonesian, Interglossa, Interlingua, Irish, Istro-Romanian, Italian, Jamaican, Javanese (Latin), Jèrriais, Kala Lagaw Ya, Kapampangan (Latin), Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Karelian (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kiribati, Kirundi, Klingon, Ladin, Latin, Latino sine Flexione, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lojban, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Manx, M?ori, Marquesan, Megleno-Romanian, Meriam Mir, Mirandese, Mohawk, Moldovan, Montagnais, Montenegrin, Murrinh-Patha, Nagamese Creole, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Ngiyambaa, Niuean, Noongar, Norwegian, Novial, Occidental, Occitan, Old Icelandic, Old Norse, Oshiwambo, Ossetian (Latin), Palauan, Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Potawatomi, Q’eqchi’, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Rotokas, Sami (Inari Sami), Sami (Lule Sami), Sami (Northern Sami), Sami (Southern Sami), Samoan, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Seri, Seychellois Creole, Shawnee, Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Slovio (Latin), Somali, Sorbian (Lower Sorbian), Sorbian (Upper Sorbian), Sotho (Northern), Sotho (Southern), Spanish, Sranan, Sundanese (Latin), Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tokelauan, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Tzotzil, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Wallisian, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Warlpiri, Wayuu, Welsh, Wik-Mungkan, Wiradjuri, Wolof, Xavante, Xhosa, Yapese, Yindjibarndi, Zapotec, Zulu, Zuni.

TT Ricordi Greto useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options TT Ricordi Greto is the 5th project from the TT Ricordi collection of fonts, the main task of which is to find gems in old tablets and on stones and bring these inscriptions back to life in the form of contemporary fonts under the general name TT Ricordi. TT Ricordi Greto is Kseniya Karataeva’s original experimental project, inspired by a floor plaque dating from 1423 found in the Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence. When working on the typeface, we wanted to do something new and modern, but at the same time find details or artifacts in the source that could be exaggerated to the maximum. TT Ricordi Greto is a non-contrasting Florentine sans-serif with dynamic proportions and a hint on what would be serifs. The main features of the typeface are the closed aperture, dynamic proportions, and the combination of historical forms with modern visual solutions, flowing terminals with curling dash ends and flared ends, and subtle serifs that hint at the historical material. Another feature of the typeface is a large set of graphic icons (characters and objects), margin markers (flowers, stars and drops) and thirteen catchwords. All icons and spacing have been carefully selected and rendered in order to best match the visual plasticity of the font and interact well with it. The TT Ricordi Greto font family consists of 4 styles: Regular, Medium, Demibold + the Variable font. Each style includes 678 glyphs and 14 OpenType features. In addition to wide language support (extended Latin and basic Cyrillic), each style has two sets of figures and currencies (proportional and tabular), a set of arrows alternative versions of the letter M (flared and straight versions) and the letter Ф (round and oval) and the same a set of icons, margin markers and catchwords. TT Ricordi Greto OpenType features list: aalt, ccmp, locl, numr, ordn, tnum, pnum, case, ss01, ss02, ss03, ss04, ss05, calt. TT Ricordi Greto language support: Acehnese, Afar, Albanian+, Aleut (lat), Alsatian, Aragonese, Arumanian+, Asu, Aymara, Azerbaijani +, Banjar, Basque +, Belarusian (lat), Bemba, Bena, Betawi, Bislama+, Boholano+, Bosnian (lat), Breton +, Catalan+, Cebuano+, Chamorro+, Chichewa, Chiga, Colognian+, Cornish, Corsican +, Cree, Croatian, Czech+, Danish, Dutch+, Embu, English+, Esperanto, Estonian+, Faroese+, Fijian, Filipino+, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian+, Gaelic, Gagauz (lat), Galician+, Ganda, German+, Gikuyu, Guarani, Gusii, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiri Motu, Hungarian+, Icelandic+, Ilocano, Indonesian+, Innu-aimun, Interlingua, Irish, Italian+, Javanese, Jola-Fonyi, Judaeo-Spanish, Kabuverdianu, Kalenjin, Kamba, Karachay-Balkar (lat), Karaim (lat), Karakalpak (lat), Karelian, Kashubian, Kazakh (lat), Khasi, Kikuyu, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kongo, Kurdish (lat), Ladin, Latvian, Leonese, Lithuanian+, Livvi-Karelian, Luba-Kasai, Ludic, Luganda+, Luo, Luxembourgish+, Luyia, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malagasy, Malay+, Maltese, Manx, Maori, Marshallese, Mauritian Creole, Meru, Minangkabau+, Moldavian (lat), Montenegrin (lat), Morisyen, Nahuatl, Nauruan, Ndebele, Nias, Norwegian, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Palauan, Polish+, Portuguese+, Quechua+, Rheto-Romance, Rohingya, Romanian +, Romansh+, Rombo, Rundi, Rwa, Salar, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Sasak, Scots, Sena, Serbian (lat)+, Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Shona, Silesian, Slovak+, Slovenian+, Soga, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho+, Spanish+, Sundanese, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish+, Swiss, German +, Tagalog+, Tahitian, Taita, Talysh (lat), Tatar+, Teso, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tongan+, Tsakhur (Azerbaijan), Tsonga, Tswana +, Turkish+, Turkmen (lat), Uyghur, Valencian+, Vastese, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Walloon, Walser+, Welsh+, Wolof, Xhosa, Zaza, Zulu+, Belarusian (cyr), Bosnian (cyr), Bulgarian (cyr), Erzya, Karachay-Balkar (cyr), Khvarshi, Kumyk, Macedonian+, Montenegrin (cyr), Mordvin-moksha, Nogai, Russian+, Rusyn, Serbian (cyr)+, Ukrainian.

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.

Pure and not-so-simple Maybe it’s the air of purity, openness and transparency that they transmit, but geometric typefaces are more popular than ever among leading brands. Based on near-perfect circles, triangles and squares, geometric letterforms look uncomplicated, even though making them readable is anything but – something the designers of the first wave of geometric fonts discovered nearly a century ago. Many of the world’s most recognisable brands in technology, retail, travel, food, manufacturing and other industries continue to be drawn to the straightforward, honest character that geometric fonts convey. Fontsmith set out in 2015 to develop a typeface in the same tradition, but optimised for the demands of modern brands – online and offline usage, readability and accessibility. And, of course, with the all-important Fontsmith x-factor built in. FS Lucas is the bold and deceptively simple result. Handle with care The letterforms of FS Lucas are round and generous, along the lines of Trajan Column lettering stripped of its serifs. But beware their thorns. Their designer, Stuart de Rozario, who also crafted the award-winning FS Millbank, wanted a contrast between spiky and soft, giving sharp apexes to the more angular letterforms, such as A, M, N, v, w and z. Among his inspirations were the colourful, geometric compositions of Frank Stella, the 1920s art deco poster designs of AM Cassandre, and the triangular cosmic element symbol, which led him to tackle the capital A first, instead of the usual H. The proportions and angles of the triangular form would set the template for many of the other characters. It was this form, and the light-scattering effects of triangular prisms, that lit the path to a name for the typeface: Lucas is derived from lux, the Latin word for light. Recommended reading Early geometric typefaces were accused of putting mathematical integrity before readability. FS Lucas achieves the trick of appearing geometric, while taking the edge off elements that make reading difficult. Perfectly circlular shapes don’t read well. The way around that is to slightly thicken the vertical strokes, and pull out the curves at the corners to compensate; the O and o of FS Lucas are optical illusions. Pointed apexes aren’t as sharp as they look; the flattened tips are an essential design feature. And distinctive details such as the open terminals of the c, e, f, g, j, r and s, and the x-height bar on the i and j, aid legibility, especially on-screen. These and many other features, the product of sketching the letterforms in the first instance by hand rather than mapping them out mechanically by computer, give FS Lucas the built-in humanity and character that make it a better, easier read all-round. Marks of distinction Unlike some of its more buttoned-up geometric bedfellows, FS Lucas can’t contain its natural personality and quirks: the flick of the foot of the l, for example, and the flattish tail on the g and j. The unusual bar on the J improves character recognition, and the G is circular, without a straight stem. There’s a touch of Fontsmith about the t, too, with the curve across the left cross section in the lighter weights, and the ampersand is one of a kind. There’s a lot to like about Lucas. With its 9 weights, perfect proportions and soft but spiky take on the classic geometric font, it’s a typeface that could light up any brand.

The story of Freigeist is a journey into the past, back to the early grotesk fonts and long before Helvetica and Co were standard fonts in operating systems. For what we take for granted today is the result of innovation and pioneering spirit of type foundries such as Caslon or Stephenson Blake in the 19th century, whose expressive designs are mostly forgotten today. The Freigeist family captures this untamed spirit — hence the name (German for “free spirit”) — and puts it into a contemporary context, resulting in a multi-faceted family with a wide range of applications, font styles and features for modern typesetting. Design Details Unlike other modern grotesk typefaces like Helvetica or Univers, Freigeist is characterized by a warm and dynamic appearance. It draws inspiration from various historical models such as Caslon’s Doric or the Grotesque variants of Stephenson Blake. Particularly noticeable are the narrow terminals, the serpentine S or the dynamic g in combination with ascenders that reach to the cap-height only. Italics Many italic grotesk fonts are strongly oriented towards their upright counterparts. Unfortunately, this often means that they cannot do justice to their actual task, which is to highlight words or sections of a text. The italic cuts of Freigeist try to remedy this situation by using the greatest possible formal distance while reinforcing the untamed spirit. What adds to this, is a reminiscent of handwritten forms, which can be found in a, n, y or g, as well as the German sharp s or the ampersand. Alternate Characters Alternative letterforms are ideal for customizing the overall appearance of a text, for usage in logos or they can even work as custom fonts for companies. Freigeist comes with ten stylistic alternatives that are easy to insert via the Opentype window, such as the single-storey a, a tail-less version of the a for compact text, when uses in condensed widths or a dialed down version of the r. Languages Freigeist has a built-in support for Latin and Cyrillic based languages and covers more than 210 languages. Opentype Features and Symbols The family comes with many opentype features to support modern typesetting. This includes ligatures, different number sets or alternative shapes for texts set in all caps. Styles Freigeist is available in five widths (XCon, Con, Normal, Wide, XWide) and six weights (Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Black). Including the accompanying italics, the family comes in 60 cuts that are suitable for any application. Testfonts If you like to test the fonts before buying the full version, please follow the link below: https://www.renebieder.com/test-fonts Update 1 A lot has changed in this first update. It is more than just a 1.01 or 1.02. It is actually the 2.0! I’ve gone through all! single glyphs of the 18 master files, making the family more sharp and even a bit more modern. I’ve added some new opentype features and redesigned the italics, because I wasn’t happy enough with the result. I’ve added new kerning pairs, new metrics, and even new glyphs. Please check my website for more details on the new design and overview about the opentype features and alternate shapes. If you purchased the Freigeist family already, thanks a lot!! It is the most advanced family that I published so far. I hope that you’re happy with this new version. Thanks!

Comenia Sans was designed in the framework of a unique typographic project for all types of schools. It is a complementary face for Comenia Serif, released by our friends at Storm Type Foundry. Comenia Sans has a lot in common with its serif sister: the height of both upper and lower case, the length of ascenders and descenders, and the general weight. This makes the two perfect partners which work well even when set side by side in a single line of text. Comenia Sans does, however, lack all serifs, ornamental elements and stroke stress variation. All these elements freshen up the feel of long texts, but for shorter texts use, they are not necessary. Despite that, Comenia Sans retains the soft, friendly character of its big sister, as well as a few tiny details which lend it its unique character without compromising legibility or utility. Open counters give all letters an airy feel and permit enough variation in construction. This is why the face works well even in multiple-page texts. All its letters are easily distinguished from each other, so the reader's eyes are not strained. Diacritics and punctuation harmonize with both upper and lower case. As usually, all diacritical marks fully respect conventional shapes of accents and they are perfectly suitable for Czech, Slovak, Polish and other Central European languages, where a lot of diacritics abounds. Similarly to the renaissance italics which refers to the cursive forms, Comenia Sans introduces novel shapes of some characters drawing from the hand-written heritage. This is most apparent in the single-bellied a, the simplified g, and the stem of f which crosses the baseline and ends with a distinct terminal. In the text, emphasized words are thus distinguished not only by the slant of letters, but also by the shapes of the letters themselves. All twelve styles contain set of small caps, suitable for the names, in the indexes or the headlines in longer texts. Legibility in small sizes under 10 points was at the center of designers' attention, too. This is why the counters of a, e and g are large enough to prevent ink spread in small sizes, both on-screen and in print. After all, the font was specifically optimized for screen use: its sober, simple forms are perfectly fit to be displayed on the computer screen and in other low-resolution devices. When used in the context of architecture, the smoothness of all contours stands out, permitting to enlarge the letters almost without limit. A standard at the Suitcase Type Foundry, each style of Comenia Sans boasts a number of ligatures, an automatic replacement of small caps and caps punctuation, a collection of mathematical symbols, and several types of numerals which make it easy to set academic and other texts in an organised, well-arranged way. For the same purpose, fractions may come in handy, too. Apart from the standard emphasis styles, the family also contains six condensed cuts (each set has the same number of characters), designated for situations where space is limited or the need for striking, poster-like effect arises. Comenia Sans is the ideal choice for the setting of magazines, picture books, and navigation systems alike. Its excellent legibility and soft, fine details will be appreciated both in micro-typography and in poster sizes. Although it was designed as a member of a compact system, it will work equally well on its own or in combination with other high-quality typefaces.