Linotype Belle is a casual script face. Created in 1999 by the Swiss designer Isabelle Stutz, the letters in this design have a light, informal nature, and appear as if they were written out quickly, using a writing instrument similar to a ballpoint pen. Linotype Belle has two fonts to offer: Linotype Belle Plain and Linotype Belle Bonus. Linotype Belle Bonus contains more extravagant, swash-like capitals than Linotype Belle Plain's characters; when used together, these two fonts can create a varied, lively impression. Linotype Belle was a prizewinner in Linotype's Third International Type Design Contest. Additionally, the design is part of the innovative Take Type Library, and can be purchased as part of the Take Type 3.1 CD collection. The typeface works excellently when used to set magazine or newsletter headlines, and as text for greeting cards."

The Baksheesh family comes in three weights with accompanying italics and small caps. The catalyst for the development of the typeface came from the desire to create a contemporary family of constructed letterforms built upon a flexible system. The aesthetic of the font is influenced by the characters drawn by Wim Crouwel in 1976 for Olivetti’s typewriter font that could support varying character widths, hence Baksheesh’s faux-monospace appearance. Each of the characters has been designed according to an intricate grid, helping to rationalise the letterforms into a system that can be translated across the various styles. The flexibility of the grid also allows for optical adjustments to be made, for example stroke thinning at junctions and baseline/x-height overshoot for enhanced definition throughout. Baksheesh is suitable for setting small amounts of text as a distinguishable and legible headline font.

Opinion varies regarding the role of Claude Garamond (ca. 1480–1561) in the development of the Old Face font Garamond. What is accepted is the influence this font had on other typeface developments from the time of its creation to the present. Garamond, or Garamont, is related to the alphabet of Claude Garamond (1480-1561) as well as to the work of Jean Jannon (1580–1635 or 1658), much of which was attributed to Garamond. In comparison to the earlier Italian font forms, Garamond has finer serifs and a generally more elegant image. The Garamond of Jean Jannon was introduced at the Paris World’s Fair in 1900 as Original Garamond, whereafter many font foundries began to cast similar types. Morris F. Benton’s Garamond appeared in 1936 and is based on the forms of Jean Jannon, which already displayed characteristics of the Transitional style.

ITC Lubalin Graph® was initially designed by Herb Lubalin and drawn to fit the requirements of typographic reproduction by Tony DiSpigna and Joe Sundwall in 1974. Its underlying forms are those of Lubalin's previously released ITC Avant Garde Gothic, but its shapes were modified to accommodate large slab serifs. Its condensed weights, which include small caps and oldstyle figures, were later additions by Helga Jörgenson and Sigrid Engelmann in 1992. The family, with its generous x-height and overall tight fit has come to represent the typographic style of American graphic design in the 1970s. The typeface is at home when paired with mid-century modern design and spare sanses or more traditional text faces from the period. ITC Lubalin Graph covers four weights in its condensed width from Book to Bold, and five weights in its normal width.

Ovink is a rounded type family designed for great distance legibility. Named after the legibility researcher Gerrit Willem Ovink, in its early stages was subjected to experimental legibilty investigations of distance and time threshold methods. The results of this heavily influence the design. The high regularity of the letters also makes the typeface suitable for running text and the wide span of weights motivates a broad usage for the setting of both display and text. Ovink is also loosely inspired by Knud V. Engelhardt’s work for the street signage, designed around the years 1926-27 for Gentofte in Denmark. Being rooted in the Danish typography tradition, Ovink has a sturdy unpretentious look to it, yet compared to its predecessor the curves are tighter, and characters have a higher level of differentiation. Details include 9 weights with matching italics.

Goudy Forum is a revival and dramatic expansion by Tom Rickner, type designer at Ascender Corporation, of Frederic W. Goudy’s 20th typeface design, "Forum Title". The Pro font began twenty years ago while Tom Rickner was a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Tom printed a type specimen using the Forum Title foundry hot metal types. Then in 1993 Tom began to digitize the font from that specimen while working as an independent type designer. Fifteen years passed before Tom dusted off the digital data and began working in earnest on font with a full Latin 1 character set. Steve Matteson, type director at Ascender, encouraged Tom to take this font further still, and soon the glyph repertoire and feature set blossomed to a robust Pro font with a myriad of advanced typographic OpenType features.

The 1990s was a time of creativity, experimentation and exploration into the world of digital typography by amateur and professional alike. Ray Larabie [through his Larabie Fonts] offered dozens upon dozens of wide-ranging (and often most unusual) freeware fonts. Ray was the driving force of encouragement and a behind-the-scenes “mentor” who helped Jeff Levine Fonts get underway in January of 2006. As his focus changed to high-quality commercial type with the launch of Typodermic, Inc., many of Ray’s “less than perfect” font experiments were withdrawn. He eventually turned those typefaces into a bundled zip archive released into the public domain through Creative Commons. “Webster World” resembles a fusion of Techno and Western styles. With Ray's permission, the original characters have been cleaned up and re-made as Space Traveler JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A font face with cyber, spatial, and virtual connotations that offers a decisive futuristic and techno spirit. Inspired by geometric forms from visual tendencies in the early 2000s, it was used once in corporate identity. Originally created in 1998, it remained unpublished by its author until today. It is now offered with many improvements. With one alternate for H and more diacritics and ligatures and extended range glyphs, Conectiva can be used in titles and display text that require a futuristic and dynamic style. Conectiva 2.0 has been arranged and improved with more glyphs and new OpenType features (Fractions, discretional and standard ligatures, slashed zero and more new stylish alternates). This upgrade includes 4 new weight variables (Light, book, bold and extrabold). Recommended for games, presentations, or any graphic pieces that reveal and need futuristic, techno, and/or Sci-fi style.

German designer Rosemarie Kloos-Rau created Wiesbaden Swing in 1992 for Linotype. This light, informal typeface is based on her own handwriting, and the strokes have a feeling of spontaneity and energetic flair. Characters like the D, O, W, g, n and y really do swing with unbridled confidence and joy. Kloos-Rau says about her typeface: “From the experience with my design company I recognized the need for fonts with personality. Wiesbaden Swing is my contemporary contribution to the field of calligraphy, a headline font which offers a fresh and unconventional approach to typography.” This family has both regular and bold weights, and a set of Dingbats. The Dingbats are light-hearted and zippy symbols for holidays, children’s products, menus, and more. Wiesbaden Swing will add zest to packaging, catalogs, menus, websites, greeting cards, and magazine layouts.

Rian Hughes’ 15th collection of fonts, “112 Hours”, is entirely dedicated to numbers. Culled from a myriad of sources – clock faces, tickets, watches house numbers – it is an eclectic and wide-ranging set. Each font contains only numerals and related punctuation – no letters. A new book has been designed by Hughes to show the collection, and includes sample settings, complete character sets, source material and an introduction. This is available print-to-order on Blurb in paperback and hardback: http://www.blurb.com/b/5539073-112-hours-hardback http://www.blurb.com/b/5539045-112-hours-paperback From the introduction: The idea for this, the fifteenth Device Fonts collection, began when I came across an online auction site dedicated to antique clocks. I was mesmerized by the inventive and bizarre numerals on their faces. Shorn of the need to extend the internal logic of a typeface through the entire alphabet, the designers of these treasures were free to explore interesting forms and shapes that would otherwise be denied them. Given this horological starting point, I decided to produce 12 fonts, each featuring just the numbers from 1 to 12 and, where appropriate, a small set of supporting characters — in most cases, the international currency symbols, a colon, full stop, hyphen, slash and the number sign. 10, 11 and 12 I opted to place in the capital A, B and C slots. Each font is shown in its entirety here. I soon passed 12, so the next logical finish line was 24. Like a typographic Jack Bauer, I soon passed that too -— the more I researched, the more I came across interesting and unique examples that insisted on digitization, or that inspired me to explore some new design direction. The sources broadened to include tickets, numbering machines, ecclesiastical brass plates and more. Though not derived from clock faces, I opted to keep the 1-12 conceit for consistency, which allowed me to design what are effectively numerical ligatures. I finally concluded one hundred fonts over my original estimate at 112. Even though it’s not strictly divisible by 12, the number has a certain symmetry, I reasoned, and was as good a place as any to round off the project. An overview reveals a broad range that nonetheless fall into several loose categories. There are fairly faithful revivals, only diverging from their source material to even out inconsistencies and regularize weighting or shape to make them more functional in a modern context; designs taken directly from the source material, preserving all the inky grit and character of the original; designs that are loosely based on a couple of numbers from the source material but diverge dramatically for reasons of improved aesthetics or mere whim; and entirely new designs with no historical precedent. As projects like this evolve (and, to be frank, get out of hand), they can take you in directions and to places you didn’t envisage when you first set out. Along the way, I corresponded with experts in railway livery, and now know about the history of cab side and smokebox plates; I travelled to the Musée de l’imprimerie in Nantes, France, to examine their numbering machines; I photographed house numbers in Paris, Florence, Venice, Amsterdam and here in the UK; I delved into my collection of tickets, passes and printed ephemera; I visited the Science Museum in London, the Royal Signals Museum in Dorset, and the Museum of London to source early adding machines, war-time telegraphs and post-war ration books. I photographed watches at Worthing Museum, weighing scales large enough to stand on in a Brick Lane pub, and digital station clocks at Baker Street tube station. I went to the London Under-ground archive at Acton Depot, where you can see all manner of vintage enamel signs and woodblock type; I photographed grocer’s stalls in East End street markets; I dug out old clocks I recalled from childhood at my parents’ place, examined old manual typewriters and cash tills, and crouched down with a torch to look at my electricity meter. I found out that Jane Fonda kicked a policeman, and unusually for someone with a lifelong aversion to sport, picked up some horse-racing jargon. I share some of that research here. In many cases I have not been slavish about staying close to the source material if I didn’t think it warranted it, so a close comparison will reveal differences. These changes could be made for aesthetic reasons, functional reasons (the originals didn’t need to be set in any combination, for example), or just reasons of personal taste. Where reference for the additional characters were not available — which was always the case with fonts derived from clock faces — I have endeavored to design them in a sympathetic style. I may even extend some of these to the full alphabet in the future. If I do, these number-only fonts could be considered as experimental design exercises: forays into form to probe interesting new graphic possibilities.

The font superfamily Vianova contains each 12 weights of Sans and Slab and 8 weights of the Serif style. The design from Jürgen Adolph dates back into the 90th, when he studied Communication Design with Werner Schneider as a professor at the Fachhochschule Stuttgart. Adolph started his carrier 1995 at Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett. He was responsible for trade marks as Adidas, BMW, Germanwings and Merz. He has been honoured as a member of the Art Director Club (ADC) with more than 100 awards. On February 26, 2014, Jürgen Adolph wrote the following: “I was already interested in typography, even when I could not yet read. Letterforms, for instance, above storefronts downtown, had an irresistible appeal for me. Therefore, it is probably not a coincidence that, after finishing high school, I began an apprenticeship with a provider of signage and neon-advertising in Saarbrücken, and – in the late 1980s – I placed highest in my field in my state. When I continued my studies in communications design in Wiesbaden, I was introduced to the highest standards in calligraphy and type design. “Typography begins with writing” my revered teacher, Professor Werner Schneider, taught me. Indefatigably, he supported me during the development of my typeface “Vianova” – which began as part of a studies program – and accompanied me on my journey even when its more austere letterforms did not necessarily conform to his own aesthetic ideals. The completely analogue development of the types – designed entirely with ink and opaque white on cardboard – covered several academic semesters. In order to find its appropriate form, writing with a flat nib was used. Once, when I showed some intermediate designs to Günter Gerhard Lange, who occasionally honored our school with a visit, he commented in his own inimitable manner: “Not bad what you are doing there. But if you want to make a living with this, you might as well order your coffin now.” At that time, I was concentrating mainly on the serif version. But things reached a different level of complexity when, during a meeting with Günther Flake which had been arranged by Professor Schneider, he suggested that I enlarge the offering with a sans and slab version of the typeface. So – a few more months went by, but at the same time, Elsner+Flake already began with the digitilization process. In order to avoid the fate predicted by Günter Gerhard Lange, I went into “servitude” in the advertising industry (Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett) and design field (Rempen& Partner, SchömanCorporate, Claus Koch) and worked for several years as the Creative Director at KW43 in Düsseldorf concerned with corporate design development and expansion (among others for A. Lange & Söhne, Deichmann, Germanwings, Langenscheidt, Montblanc.”

Hey there, font fanatics. Feeling like your messages are falling flat and lacking some serious funk? Well, we’ve got just the typeface to turn that frown upside down! Introducing Strenuous, the unicase headline typeface with a fashion groove that’s sure to transport you straight back to the ‘1970s. But wait, there’s more! Strenuous isn’t just any old boring typeface—oh no. This baby is unique, distinctive, and funky. And with alternative uppercase and lowercase versions for some letters, you can mix things up and keep things interesting. And don’t even get us started on the eight weights and italics—this typeface is truly versatile and can handle anything you throw its way. So go ahead and give your message the voice it deserves with Strenuous. Your audience will thank you for the groovy vibes. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Jana Nikolic was finishing her degree program at the Faculty of Applied Arts, in Belgrade, with a final project that would combine her two majors: type and book design. Three stories from William Saroyan's My Name Is Aram would provide the text for the book, to be set in a typeface that Nikolic would design. Nikolic knew something special was happening the moment she put pen to paper. The letters just emerged," she recalls. "I started to explore a few new pens and found one I loved. I was able to make its tip bend with pressure." Like the family Saroyan writes about, the design flowing from Nikolic's pen would be simple but a little quirky. "When there were a whole bunch of little black letters around me," continues Nikolic, "I saw that this was going to be a very interesting typeface family." Nikolic drew Latin and Cyrillic letters, lowercase and capital letters, wide letters and narrow letters. She was surprised at how quickly and easily the design came. "There were no badly written letters," she says. "I hardly had to rework them and they fit together remarkably well." ITC Aram's standard character complement consists of one set of lowercase letters and two sets of capitals: one narrow and the other wide. The wide caps can be used with the standard lowercase, or mixed with the narrow caps for a variation on "cap and small cap" copy. The ITC Aram create the opportunity to mix and combine the letters into playful typographic expressions. Words and sentences that twinkle; text that seems light and alive - one runs the risk of creating work that is both delightful and charming when setting copy in ITC Aram."