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.

Squalo, the genesis The idea of this project called Squalo popped into my mind while I was working with excitement on some sketches. I was chasing after a strong typographical character, something that for me has to be crystallized in form which is always legible and functional. The concept The concept of Squalo arises from the observation of an athlete’s body: you notice that even if most are lean, they are also strong, cut and chiselled. The sport they play molds and modify their bodies.  Just think, for instance, on a professional swimmer: during the competition every single muscle, tendon, tissue, cell is working to swim faster. Every single part is there to give strength and speed like in a “squalo” (shark in italian). Not as an eel, nor as a mermaid, nor as a hake. Just like a shark. If you take a quick look, you will notice that the width of the typeface is slightly more condensed than that of a standard sans serif. We designed Squalo this way specifically to assist and strengthen your concepts through stylized typography. We designed the joins and terminals (tip ends) of the characters A, V, W, Z, v, w, z, to create a feeling of “tension”, reinforcing the concept of shark, danger, caution, as well explicit, intentional movement. Pure strength. We wanted to recall the exact moment of the start of the 100 meters race: when the sprinter initially spreads all of his powerful energy. The italic version, starting with the former two typographical concepts of width and tension, emphasizes them. First of all, we compressed the characters 10 percent more, and slanted it 10 degrees to the right. With this movement I intended to convey the gorgeous feeling of tension in power and rapidity. The typeface has 9 weights, from “hair” to “black”, and two versions, “regular” and “italic”.  All 18 fonts include small caps, unicase, tabular and oldstyle numbers, numerators and denominators, and much more. Squalo is an ideal typeface that I recommend for use in marketing campaigns, design of packaging, magazines, branding for tv programs, films, book texts, editorial, publications, logos, corporate projects, web texts, and graphic design in motion. Squalo supports the following 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, Hotcąk (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, Māori, 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

Zebramatic - A Lettering Safari Zebramatic is a font for editorial design use, to create headlines and titles in eye-catching stripes. Constructed to offer flexible and a variety of graphical possibilities, Zebramatic type is easy to use. The font is offered in three styles: POW, SLAM and WHAM. These styles work both as ready-made fonts and as patterns to create unique, individualized type. The font design’s full potential is unleashed by layering glyphs from two or all three styles in different colors or shades. Working with the different styles I was reminded of the late Jackson Pollock poured paintings—in particular the documentation of his painting process by Hanz Namuth and Paul Falkernburg in the film Jackson Pollock 51. In Pollock’s pictures the complex allure arises from how he layered the poured and dripped paint onto the canvas. Similar joyful experience and exciting results emerge by layering the different styles of Zebramatic type. Texture In the heart of the Design is Zebramatics unique texture. It is based on an analog distorted stripe pattern. The distortion is applied to a grade that makes the pattern complex but still consistent and legible. You can view some of the initial stripe patterns in the background of examples in the Gallery. Zebramatic POW, SLAM and WHAM each offer a distinct pallet of stripes—a unique zebra hide. POW and WHAM use different distortions of the same line width. SLAM is cut from a wider pattern with thicker stripes. The letter cut and kerning is consistent throughout styles. Design Concept Attention-grabbing textured or weathered fonts are ideal for headlines, ads, magazines and posters. In these situations rugged individuality, letter flow, and outline features are magnified and exposed. Textured fonts also immediately raise the design questions of how to create alignment across a word and deal with repeated letters. Zebramatic was conceived as an especially flexible font, one that could be used conveniently in a single style or by superimposing, interchanging and layering styles to create a unique type. The different styles are completely interchangeable (identical metrics and kerning). This architecture gives the typographer the freedom to decide which form or forms fit best to the specific project. Alignment and repetition were special concerns in the design process. The striped patterns in Zebramatic are carefully conceived to align horizontally but not to match. Matching patterns would create strong letter-pairs that would “stick out” of the word. For example, take the problematic word “stuff”. If Zebramatic aligned alphabetically, the texture of S T and U would align perfectly. The repeated F is also a problem. Imagine a headline that says »LOOK HERE«. If the letters OO and EE have copied »unique« glyphs - the headline suggests mass production, perhaps even that the designer does not care. Some OpenType features can work automatically around such disenchanting situations by accessing different glyphs from the extended glyph-table. However these automations are also repeated; the generated solutions become patterns themselves. Flip and stack To master the situation described above, Zebramatic offers a different programmatic practice. To eliminate alphabetic alignment, the letters in Zebramatic are developed individually. To avoid repetition, the designer can flip between the three styles (POW, SLAM, WHAM) providing three choices per glyph. Stacking layers in different sequences provides theoretical 27 (3*3*3) unique letterforms. A last variable to play with is color (i.e. red, blue, black). Images illustrating the layering potential of Zebramatic are provided in the Gallery. The design is robust and convenient. The font is easily operated through the main font panel (vs. the hidden sub-sub-menu for OpenType related features). The process of accessing different glyphs is also applicable in programs that do not support OpenType extensively (i.e. Word or older Versions of Illustrator). International Specs Zebramatic is ready for your international typographic safari. The font contains an international character set and additional symbols – useful in editorial and graphic design. The font comes in OpenType PostScript flavored and TrueType Format.

Amazing Slab is a typeface family designed by Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli as a development of the Amazing Grotesk family designed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini. Mixing an egyptian serif, low contrast approach with the curved endings and open shapes of humanist sans grotesques, it was developed to embody the energetic and friendly nature of the startup scene: a feeling of innovation, information and energy, with a desire for simplicity and straightforward communication. The basic design shapes for the font come from the strong personality of the extrabold letterforms drawn by Francesco Canovaro for his StartupItalia logo, that informed the display design of the four darkest weights (from medium to black). Each of these weights, has been paired with an inline version, designed by Mario De Libero, to extend the range of uses for the typefaces, from bold signage to logo design, to editorial titling. The lighter range of the family features two weights (regular and light) that are designed for text use, complemented by the thin and extralight weights that are better suited to big point size, for editorial and signage use. All the weights of Amazing Slab, as well the matching true italics forms, feature an extended charset of over 900 glyphs, covering 211 languages using latin, cyrillic and greek alphabets, and sporting a complete set of Open type features including positional numbers, annotation and case-sensitive forms, standard ligatures and a wide array of stylistic sets to customize glyph shapes for logo and display usage. With its friendly, energetic mood and its versatile range of application use, Amazing Slab is born to make every design project look simply... amazing! Suggested uses: old signage, logo design, editorial titling, display 21 styles: 8 weights, 8 italics, 4 inline styles, 1 variable font 965 glyphs in each weight Useful OpenType features: Small Capitals; Standard Ligatures; Discretionary Ligatures; Stylistic Alternates; Stylistic sets 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06; Ordinals; Fractions; Tabular Figures; Old-style Figures; Slashed Zero; Circled Numbers; Case Sensitive Forms; Numerators; Denominators; Subscript; Superscript; Scientific Inferiors; 211 languages supported: extended Latin, Cyrillic, Greek English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Javanese (Latin), Turkish, Italian, Polish, Afaan Oromo, Azeri, Tagalog, Sundanese (Latin), Filipino, Moldovan, Romanian, Indonesian, Dutch, Cebuano, 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, 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, Kashubian, Faroese, Rarotongan, Sorbian (Upper Sorbian), Karelian (Latin), Romansh, Chickasaw, Arvanitic (Latin), Nagamese Creole, Saramaccan, Ladin, Palauan, Sami (Northern Sami), Sorbian (Lower Sorbian), Drehu, Wallisian, Aragonese, Tuvaluan, Zuni, Montagnais, Hawaiian, Marquesan, Niuean, Yapese, Vepsian, Bislama, Hopi, Megleno-Romanian, Creek, Aranese, Rotokas, Tokelauan, Mohawk, 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

Quill-formed roman/gothic with an olde-worlde flavor. Some background in the designer's own words: "A series of fonts came to mind which would be rooted in the medieval era -for me, a period of intense interest. Prior to Gutenberg's development of commercial printing with type on paper in the mid-1400s, books were still being written out by hand, on vellum. At that time, a Bible cost more than a common workman could hope to earn in his entire lifetime. Men like William Tyndale devoted their energies to translating the Scriptures for the benefit of ordinary people in their own language, and were burned to death at the stake for doing so. Those in authority correctly recognized a terminal threat to the fabric of feudal society, which revolved around the church. "This religious metamorphosis was reflected in letterforms: which, like buildings, reflect the mood of the period in which they take shape. The medieval era produced the Gothic cathedrals; their strong vertical emphasis was expressive of the vertical relationship then existing between man and God. The rich tracery to be seen in the interstices and vaulted ceilings typified the complex social dynamics of feudalism. Parallels could be clearly seen in Gothic type, with its vertical strokes and decorated capitals. Taken as a whole, Gothicism represented a mystical approach to life, filled with symbolism and imagery. To the common man, letters and words were like other sacred icons: too high for his own understanding, but belonging to God, and worthy of respect. "Roman type, soon adopted in preference to Gothic by contemporary printer-publishers (whose primary market was the scholarly class) represented a more democratic, urbane approach to life, where the words were merely the vehicle for the idea, and letters merely a necessary convenience for making words. The common man could read, consider and debate what was printed, without having the least reverence for the image. In fact, the less the medium interfered with the message, the better. The most successful typefaces were like the Roman legions of old; machine-like in their ordered functionality and anonymity. Meanwhile, Gutenberg's Gothic letterform, in which the greatest technological revolution of history had first been clothed, soon became relegated to a Germanic anachronism, limited to a declining sphere of influence. "An interesting Bible in my possession dating from 1610 perfectly illustrates this duality of function and form. The text is set in Gothic black-letter type, while the side-notes appear in Roman. Thus the complex pattern of the text retains the mystical, sacred quality of the hand-scripted manuscript (often rendered in Latin, which a cleric would read aloud to others), while the clear, open side-notes are designed to supplement a personal Bible study. "Tyndale is one of a series of fonts in process which explore the transition between Gothic and Roman forms. The hybrid letters have more of the idiosyncrasies of the pen (and thus, the human hand) about them, rather than the anonymity imbued by the engraving machine. They are an attempt to achieve the mystery and wonder of the Gothic era while retaining the legibility and clarity best revealed in the Roman form. "Reformers such as Tyndale were consumed with a passion to make the gospel available and understood to the masses of pilgrims who, in search of a religious experience, thronged into the soaring, gilded cathedrals. Centuries later, our need for communion with God remains the same, in spite of all our technology and sophistication. How can our finite minds, our human logic, comprehend the transcendent mystery of God's great sacrifice, his love beyond understanding? Tyndale suffered martyrdom that the Bible, through the medium of printing, might be brought to our hands, our hearts and our minds. It is a privilege for me to dedicate my typeface in his memory."

TT Tsars useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options The TT Tsars font family is a collection of serif display titling fonts that are stylized to resemble the fonts of the beginning, the middle and the end of the XVIII century. The project is based on title fonts, that is, the fonts that were used to design book title pages. The idea for the project TT Tsars was born after a small study of the historical development of the Cyrillic type and is also based on Abram Shchitsgal’s book "Russian Civil Type". At the very beginning of the project, we had developed a basic universal skeleton for the forms of all characters in all subfamilies of the family, and later on, we added styles, visual features, artifacts and other nuances typical of the given period onto the skeleton. Yes, from the historical accuracy point of view it might be that such an approach is not always justified, but we have achieved our goal and as a result, we have created perfectly combinable serifs that can be used to style an inscription for a certain time period. The TT Tsars font family consists of 20 fonts: 5 separate subfamilies, each of which consists of 4 fonts. Each font contains 580 glyphs, except for the TT Tsars E subfamily, in which each font consists of 464 characters. Instead of lowercase characters in the typeface, small capitals are used, which also suggests that the typeface is rather a display than text one. In TT Tsars you can find a large number of ligatures (for Latin and Cyrillic alphabets), arrows and many useful OpenType features, such as: frac, ordn, sinf, sups, numr, dnom, case, onum, tnum, pnum, lnum, salt (ss01), dlig. Time-related characteristics of the subfamilies are distributed as follows: • TT Tsars A—the beginning of the 18th century (Latin and Cyrillic) • TT Tsars B—the beginning of the 18th century (Latin and Cyrillic) • TT Tsars C—the middle of the 18th century (Latin and Cyrillic) • TT Tsars D—the end of the 18th century (Latin and Cyrillic) • TT Tsars E—conditionally the beginning of the 18th century (only Latin) TT Tsars A and TT Tsars B families (both the beginning of the 18th century) have different starting points: for TT Tsars A it is Latin, for TT Tsars B it is Cyrillic. The development of the TT Tsars A family began in Latin, the font is based on the royal serif Romain du Roi. The Cyrillic alphabet is harmoniously matched to the Latin. The development of the TT Tsars B family began in Cyrillic, which is based on a Russian civil type. Characteristic elements are the curved one-sided serifs of triangular characters (A, X, Y), drops appear in the letter ?, the middle strokes ? and P are adjacent to the main stroke. Latin was drawn to pair with Cyrillic. It is still based on the royal serif, but somewhat changed: the letters B and P are closed and the upper bar of the letter A rose. This was done for the visual combination of Cyrillic and Latin and at the same time to make a distinction between TT Tsars A and TT Tsars B. TT Tsars C is now the middle of the 18th century. Cyrillic alphabet itself did not stand still and evolved, and by the middle of the 18th century, its forms have changed and become to look the way they are shown in this font family. Latin forms are following the Cyrillic. The figures are also slightly modified and adapted to the type design. In TT Tsars C, Cyrillic and Latin characters are created in parallel. A distinctive feature of the Cyrillic alphabet in TT Tsars C is the residual influence of the flat pen. This is noticeable in such signs as ?, ?, K. The shape of the letters ?, ?, ?, ? is very characteristic of the period. In the Latin alphabet, a characteristic leg appears at the letter R. For both languages, there is a typical C characterized by an upper serif and the appearance of large, even somewhat bolding serifs on horizontals (T, E, ?, L). TT Tsars D is already the end of the 18th century when with the development of printing, the forms of some Cyrillic characters had changed and turned into new skeletons of letters that we transposed into Latin. The figures were also stylized. In this font, both Cyrillic and Latin are stylistically executed with different serifs and are thus logically separated. The end of the century is characterized by the reduction of decorative elements. Straight, blueprint-like legs of the letters ?, R, K, ?. Serifs are very pronounced and triangular. E and ? are one-sided on the middle horizontal line. A very characteristic C with two serifs appears in the Latin alphabet. TT Tsars E is a steampunk fantasy typeface, its theme is a Latinized Russian ?ivil type (also referred to as Grazhdansky type which emerged after Peter the Great’s language reform), which includes only the Latin alphabet. There is no historical analog to this typeface, it is exclusively our reflections on the topic of what would have happened if the civil font had developed further and received a Latin counterpart. We imagined such a situation in which the civil type was exported to Europe and began to live its own life.