To design a text typeface "at the top with, at the bottom without" serifs was an idea which crossed my mind at the end of the sixties. I started from the fact that what one reads in the Latin alphabet is mainly the upper half of the letters, where good distinguishableness of the individual signs, and therefore, also good legibility, is aided by serifs. The first tests of the design, by which I checked up whether the basic principle could be used also for the then current technology of setting - for double-sign matrices -, were carried out in 1970. During the first half of the seventies I created first the basic design, then also the slanted Roman and the medium types. These drawings were not very successful. My greatest concern during this initial phase was the upper case A. I had to design it in such a way that the basic principle should be adhered to and the new alphabet, at the same time, should not look too complicated. The necessary prerequisite for a design of a new alphabet for double-sign matrices, i.e. to draw each letter of all the three fonts to the same width, did not agree with this typeface. What came to the greatest harm were the two styles used for emphasis: the italics even more than the medium type. That is why I fundamentally remodelled the basic design in 1980. In the course of this work I tried to forget about the previous technological limitations and to respect only the requirements then placed on typefaces intended for photosetting. As a matter of fact, this was not very difficult; this typeface was from the very beginning conceived in such a way as to have a large x-height of lower-case letters and upper serifs that could be joined without any problems in condensed setting. I gave much more thought to the proportional relations of the individual letters, the continuity of their outer and inner silhouettes, than to the requirements of their production. The greatest number of problems arose in the colour balancing of the individual signs, as it was necessary to achieve that the upper half of each letter should have a visual counterbalance in its lower, simpler half. Specifically, this meant to find the correct shape and degree of thickening of the lower parts of the letters. These had to counterbalance the upper parts of the letters emphasized by serifs, yet they should not look too romantic or decorative, for otherwise the typeface might lose its sober character. Also the shape, length and thickness of the upper serifs had to be resolved differently than in the previous design. In the seventies and at the beginning of the eighties a typeface conceived in this way, let alone one intended for setting of common texts in magazines and books, was to all intents and purposes an experiment with an uncertain end. At this time, before typographic postmodernism, it was not the custom to abandon in such typefaces the clear-cut formal categories, let alone to attempt to combine the serif and sans serif principles in a single design. I had already designed the basic, starting, alphabets of lower case and upper case letters with the intention to derive further styles from them, differing in colour and proportions. These fonts were not to serve merely for emphasis in the context of the basic design, but were to function, especially the bold versions, also as independent display alphabets. At this stage of my work it was, for a change, the upper case L that presented the greatest problem. Its lower left part had to counterbalance the symmetrical two-sided serif in the upper half of the letter. The ITC Company submitted this design to text tests, which, in their view, were successful. The director of this company Aaron Burns then invited me to add further styles, in order to create an entire, extensive typeface family. At that time, without the possibility to use a computer and given my other considerable workload, this was a task I could not manage. I tried to come back to this, by then already very large project, several times, but every time some other, at the moment very urgent, work diverted me from it. At the beginning of the nineties several alphabets appeared which were based on the same principle. It seemed to me that to continue working on my semi-finished designs was pointless. They were, therefore, abandoned until the spring of 2005, when František Štorm digitalized the basic design. František gave the typeface the working title Areplos and this name stuck. Then he made me add small capitals and the entire bold type, inducing me at the same time to consider what to do with the italics in order that they might be at least a little italic in character, and not merely slanted Roman alphabets, as was my original intention. In the course of the subsequent summer holidays, when the weather was bad, we met in his little cottage in South Bohemia, between two ponds, and resuscitated this more than twenty-five-years-old typeface. It was like this: We were drinking good tea, František worked on the computer, added accents and some remaining signs, inclined and interpolated, while I was looking over his shoulder. There is hardly any typeface that originated in a more harmonious setting. Solpera, summer 2005 I first encountered this typeface at the exhibition of Contemporary Czech Type Design in 1982. It was there, in the Portheim Summer Palace in Prague, that I, at the age of sixteen, decided to become a typographer. Having no knowledge about the technologies, the rules of construction of an alphabet or about cultural connections, I perceived Jan Solpera's typeface as the acme of excellence. Now, many years after, replete with experience of revitalization of typefaces of both living and deceased Czech type designers, I am able to compare their differing approaches. Jan Solpera put up a fight against the digital technology and exerted creative pressure to counteract my rather loose approach. Jan prepared dozens of fresh pencil drawings on thin sketching paper in which he elaborated in detail all the style-creating elements of the alphabet. I can say with full responsibility that I have never worked on anything as meticulous as the design of the Areplos typeface. I did not invent this name; it is the name of Jan Solpera's miniature publishing house, in which he issued for example an enchanting series of memoirs of a certain shopkeeper of Jindrichuv Hradec. The idea that the publishing house and the typeface might have the same name crossed my mind instinctively as a symbol of the original designation of Areplos - to serve for text setting. What you can see here originated in Trebon and in a cottage outside the village of Domanín - I even wanted to rename my firm to The Trebon Type Foundry. When mists enfold the pond and gloom pervades one's soul, the so-called typographic weather sets in - the time to sit, peer at the monitor and click the mouse, as also our students who were present would attest. Areplos is reminiscent of the essential inspirational period of a whole generation of Czech type designers - of the seventies and eighties, which were, however, at the same time the incubation period of my generation. I believe that this typeface will be received favourably, for it represents the better aspect of the eighties. Today, at the time when the infection by ITC typefaces has not been quite cured yet, it does absolutely no harm to remind ourselves of the high quality and timeless typefaces designed then in this country.In technical terms, this family consists of two times four OpenType designs, with five types of figures, ligatures and small capitals as well as an extensive assortment of both eastern and western diacritics. I can see as a basic text typeface of smaller periodicals and informative job-prints, a typeface usable for posters and programmes of various events, but also for corporate identity. Štorm, summer 2005

Mastadoni is a bold headliner/masthead typeface, with high vertical contrast in a Didone style. That's the starting point at least. There's much more to this font than another modern clone. It is a specialized (only one weight) typeface that comes in five optical grades. Use G1 at very large sizes and G5 at smaller sizes. The grades can be combined so that the thins of type set at different point sizes appear the same thickness - a very useful feature for magazine layouts. Optical grades could also be used in circumstances where a logo needs to be size-specific; the text on your bistro sign can afford to be more delicate than that on your coffee cups. This is a typeface with a big x-height, small cap-height and stubby ascenders and descenders, which contribute to an overall appearance somewhat different from must Didones, and make for some interesting layout possibilities in tight spaces. Mastadoni features a number of useful OpenType features. All fonts include standard ligatures and automatic fractions. In the discretionary ligature feature, you'll find the esoteric "percent off" glyph. Just type '%ff' with dlig engaged and there it is! Case-sensitive forms are available in all the fonts. The contextual alternates feature performs a subtle trick that resolves an optical illusion whereby two ascenders next to each other appear to be different heights. The Roman and Italic styles have a different group of stylistic sets as follows: Roman: SS01 substitutes a less decorative 4; SS02 is a different eszett; SS03 substitues the # with an attractive numero glyph; and SS04 gives an alternate K. Italic: SS01 and SS03 are the same as in the Romans; SS02 gives you more bulbous variants of v, w, and y letters; SS04 is a single storey g; SS05 changes C, G and S to non-ball-terminal varieties; and SS06 changes the swash versions of E, L, N and Q (when the swash feature is engaged). Speaking of the swash feature, the italic fonts feature swash capitals from A to Z, and swash variations for lower case h k m n v w and z. Lastly, the discretionary ligature feature in the italic fonts has vi, wi, KA and RA ligatures. Mastadoni is a typeface that would find itself immediately at home in glossy magazines, while offering a different aesthetic palette from the more standard choices of Didones.

ATTENTION CUSTOMERS :) There's a new Selfie available, have a look here; Selfie Neue is better done and more complete in every aspect. However, you can stay here if you still prefer the classic version. -But first, let me take a Selfie!- said that girl of the song and almost all of you at least once this year. While some terms and actions get trendy, some font styles do it too. It wouldn't be crazy to combine these worlds, in fact it happens often. Selfie is a connected sans serif based in vintage signage scripts seen in Galerías of Buenos Aires. These places are, in general, very small shopping centres which pedestrians sometimes use as shortcuts to get to other parts of the city. Their dark corridors take you back in time, and all of a sudden you are surrounded by cassettes, piercings, and old fashioned cloth. For some reason, all these shops use monolined geometric scripts. Surely, neon strings are easier to manipulate when letterforms have simple shapes. My very first aim with Selfie was to make a font that would serve as a company to those self-shot pictures that have become so popular nowadays. However, the font turned into something more interesting: I realised it had enough potential to stand-alone. Selfie proves that geometry itself can be really attractive. In this font, elegance is not achieved with the already-known contrast between thicks and thins of calligraphy, but with the purity of form. Its curves were based in perfectly shaped circles which made the font easy to be used at different angles (some posters show it at a 24.7º angle) without having problems/deformities. In addition to its nice performance when used over photographs, the font can be a good option for packaging and wedding invitations. TIPS Adding some lights/shadows between letters will for sure catch the eye of the viewer: Words will look as if they were made with tape/strings; so trendy nowadays. Try using Selfie at a 24.7º angle so that the slanted strokes become perfectly vertical. Having the decorative ligatures feature (dlig) activated is a good option to see letters dance. TECHNICAL It is absolutely recommended to use this font with the standard ligatures feature (liga) activated. It makes letters ligate perfectly and also improves the space between words.

New for 2020 Bodoni Ornamental now has two italics to choose from, one basic italic and a second which is more of a true italic with a few uppercase letters that have been stylized. Only one italic can be style linked to the regular upright version so in the second italic we've added Avanti to the name which means forward in Italian. When purchasing the regular upright and Avanti italic together they will install as two separate families. Bodoni Ornamental is a revival of a very old typeface based on the Poster Bodoni letter shape. Giambattista Bodoni passed away in 1813, this decorative version was created in the 1820’s or 1830’s which was the time period when many of these ultra bold decorated type faces began to appear, the original artist is currently unknown. The original version of this ornate classic was only available as a set of uppercase letters, today over one hundred eighty years later this font is now complete with a new lowercase, numbers and accented characters for Eastern, Central and Western European countries. Due to the ornate detail in Bodoni Ornamental when printing itís recommended to use a laser printer 600dpi or greater, a 1200dpi printer will give you the best results rendering the most detail at the smallest possible point size for this font. Small home user Ink Jet printers are not recommended for Bodoni Ornamental unless you set the font to a very large point size. With Ink Jet printers much of the detail in the letters will bleed together as the ink hits the page, commercial Ink Jet printers such as GiclÈe printers may give good results. When using Bodoni Ornamental for digital images including web site graphics it may help to add a one pixel stroke fill around the letters setting color to white or grey, this may help the web site images display better on some computer's. You will need a photo editing application such as Adobe Photoshop to create your image adding the stroke fill and save as a jpg , png or gif file. I hope you enjoy this old font as much as I did making it. Note: When previewing the Bodoni Ornamental font in the Windows font preview you may notice some letters appearing lighter and some darker, this is a problem with the preview window and some ornate fonts, Bodoni Ornamental will print normal and not with mixed light and dark letters.

In the late 1930s, old Egyptiennes (or Italiennes) returned to the collective consciousness of European printers and type houses — perhaps because political news were front a centre, especially in France where Le Figaro newspaper was seeing record circulation numbers. In 1939 both Monotype and Lettergieterij Amsterdam thought of the same idea: Make a new typeface similar to the reverse stress slab shapes that make up the titles of newspapers like Le Figaro and Le Frondeur. Both foundries intended to call their new type Figaro. Monotype finished theirs first, so they ended up with the name, and their type was already published when Stefan Schlesinger finished his take for the Amsterdam foundry. Schlesinger’s type was renamed Hidalgo (Spanish for a lower nobleman, ‘son of something’) and published in 1940 as ‘a very happy variation on an old motif’. Although it wasn’t a commercial success at the time, it was well received and considered subtler and more refined than the similar types available, Figaro and Playbill. In the Second World War, the Germans banned the use of the type, and Hidalgo never really recovered. Upon closer inspection, Schlesinger’s work on Hidalgo was much more Euro-sophisticated and ahead of its time than the too-wooden cut of Figaro and the thick tightness of Playbill. It has a modern high contrast, a squarer skeleton, contour cuts that work similarly outside and inside, and airy and minimal solutions to the more complicated shapes like G, K, M, N, Q and W. It is also much more aware of, and more accommodating to, the picket-fence effect the thick top slabs create in setting. Basilio (named after the signing teacher in Mozart’s Figaro) is the digital revival and major expansion of Hidalgo. With nearly 600 glyphs, it boasts Pan-European language support (most Latin languages, as well as Cyrillic and Greek), and a few OpenType tricks that gel it all together to make a very useful design tool. Stefan Schlesigner was born in Vienna in 1896. He moved to the Netherlands in 1925, where he worked for Van Houten’s chocolate, Metz department store, printing firm Trio and many other clients. He died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1944. Digital revivals and expansions of two of his other designs, Minuet and Serena, have also been published by Canada Type.