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

The Neue Haas Unica™ family is an extended, reimagined version of the Haas Unica® design, a Helvetica® alternative that achieved near mythical status in the type community before it virtually disappeared. Originally released in 1980 by the Haas Type Foundry and designed by Team ’77 — André Gürtler, Erich Gschwind and Christian Mengelt— for phototypesetting technology of the day, the design was never successfully updated for today’s digital environments – until now. Toshi Omagari of Monotype Studio has given this classic a fresh, digital facelift with more weights, more languages and more letters to meet today’s digital and print needs. Available in 18 styles, the Neue Haas Unica family is remarkably appropriate for a wide range of applications, possessing a delicate gradation of weights and clear character shapes. The family's lighter weights are perfect for headlines and other large settings, as well as small blocks of copy at typical text sizes. The regular, medium and bold weights know no boundaries and the heavy and black designs are ideal for when typography needs to be powerful and commanding. Like the Neue Helvetica and Univers Next typefaces, the Neue Haas Unica family can be used just about anywhere – or for any project. In addition to its 9 tailored weights and complementary italics, the Neue Haas Unica family also possesses additional characters for Eastern and Central European, Greek and Cyrillic language support, which did not exist in the original design. A cosmopolitan typeface for today's modern, discerning design needs, the Neue Haas Unica collection is a new classic in the making—one that every designer should surely have at their disposal.

Linotype Univers is a completely reworked version of the original Univers typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1957. After a long process of painstakingly detailed revision, Frutiger and the design staff at Linotype completed this large joint project in 1997. The result: a brilliant and cohesive font family of 63 weights and styles including the 4 monospaced typewriter weights. All the existing weights were completely redrawn, with careful attention paid to making the proportions more consistent with each other and improving fine details such as curves and thick-to-thin stroke ratios. The family was expanded from 27 to 63 weights, providing a much larger framework to graphic designers for choosing just the right style. The bold and condensed weights were reworked for improved legibility and on-screen application. The stroke weights were revised for consistency within each face as well as in relationship to the other weights. By following Frutiger's original designs, the humanist character of the sans serif Univers now comes through more distinctly. The systemized numbering system has also been updated. With its sturdy, clean forms Univers can facilitate an expression of cool elegance and rational competence. In fact, the strong familial relationships between all the styles and weights make it a serviceable choice for large graphic design projects that require versatility with consistency. Frutiger was successful in staying true to his initial aims; the new Linotype Univers does indeed work in longer texts as well as for display settings. In 2010 the typeface family was extended and renamed into a more logical naming of "Univers Next" to fit better in the Platinum Collection naming.

Released on the occasion of the 2012 London Olympics, Olympukes 2012 was a new set of pictograms telling the ‘real’ story of the Olympics and extending the unofficial project that began in 2004. The occasion of the London games provided an opportunity to revisit the complex contradictions of the modern Olympics and to acknowledge the geopolitical shifts of the intervening eight years. The 2012 games arrived at a time of great economic and political uncertainty for the nation and Europe. Greece – the host of the 2004 games – was now located at Ground Zero of a disintegrating Eurozone and the United Kingdom was two years into a programme of austerity enacted by the coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Given that the previous London Olympics had been held in 1948, in a climate of recovery and austerity after a devastating World War (1948’s Olympiad was dubbed the ‘Austerity Games’) there was a sick irony to the 2012 games' arrival. The suppression of human rights in order to deliver the perfect games for PRoC’s Beijing games shocked no-one and yet, in London, the security measures seemed grossly excessive. Then again, in a country with an estimated 1.8 million cctv cameras, perhaps we shouldn’t have been so surprised. Another aspect of the Olympics that returned for 2012 was the unfettered commercialism – if you think the Games are about pure sport, about noble human endeavour, think again. Please note that Barnbrook Fonts is in no way affiliated with, or has received any endorsement from, the International Olympic Committee, the organising committees of the Olympic Games, or any national Olympic committee.

Linotype Univers is a completely reworked version of the original Univers Univers typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1957. After a long process of painstakingly detailed revision, Frutiger and the design staff at Linotype completed this large joint project in 1997. The result: a brilliant and cohesive font family of 63 weights and styles including the 4 monospaced typewriter weights. All the existing weights were completely redrawn, with careful attention paid to making the proportions more consistent with each other and improving fine details such as curves and thick-to-thin stroke ratios. The family was expanded from 27 to 63 weights, providing a much larger framework to graphic designers for choosing just the right style. The bold and condensed weights were reworked for improved legibility and on-screen application. The stroke weights were revised for consistency within each face as well as in relationship to the other weights. By following Frutiger's original designs, the humanist character of the sans serif Univers now comes through more distinctly. T he systemized numbering system has also been updated. With its sturdy, clean forms Univers can facilitate an expression of cool elegance and rational competence. In fact, the strong familial relationships between all the styles and weights make it a serviceable choice for large graphic design projects that require versatility with consistency. Frutiger was successful in staying true to his initial aims; the new Linotype Univers does indeed work in longer texts as well as for display settings. In 2010 the typeface family was extended and renamed into a more logical naming of "Univers Next" to fit better in the Platinum Collection naming.

Few projects are outside the range of PMN Caecilia® Sans. Drawn specifically for on-screen imaging, the family benefits from a large suite of weights, each with several stylistic variations. This is a design ideally suited to building digital interfaces, complex websites, apps, games, kiosks, HTML ads and large-scale brand identities. “My goal was to create a, friendly, versatile, ageless, yet discerning typeface family that will serve the needs of many users,” says Peter Matthias Noordzij. the typeface’s designer. “It is not intended to be eye-catching, but generous: enabling numerous visual and typographical expressions.” The use of Noordzij’s earlier design, PMN Caecilia, in Amazon’s Kindle® wireless reading devices, gave him the opportunity to study the behavior of the slab serif typeface in an on-screen environment. Although based on his earlier design, Noordzij incorporated fundamental changes to optimize PMN Caecilia® Sans’ digital performance. While PMN Caecilia has proven to be a steadfast serif typeface in print and on screen, the addition of a sans serif counterpart gives designers more flexibility when creating complex hierarchies. The combination of serif and sans serif makes the PMN Caecilia family a good choice for everything from print editorial projects to complicated web sites. A broad range of typefaces pair well with PMN Caecilia Sans. Humanist serif typefaces, such as Agmena™, Dante®, and Frutiger® Serif, set up dynamic typographic harmony, while designs like ITC New Veljovic™ Masqualero™ and Perpetua®, will create a striking counterpoint. And, of course, PMN Caecilia is a natural design partner – as are other slab serif typefaces, like the Aptifer™ Slab, Joanna® Nova and Soho® families.

A graceful kid if ever you’ve seen one, Cabrito Didone joins the Cabrito family of fonts--a family designed to provide young infants with clear recognition of letter forms. The original letters were released as part of the children’s book about fonts, The Clothes Letters Wear. Now, this latest addition brings a new Didone flavor to the table. But don’t judge the book by its cover. While Didones can be stodgy in the way they deliver a sense of luxury, this stubborn goat of a Didone bucks the stodgy stereotypes with its high-contrast, carefree, flowing fun, taking a more calligraphic direction than most. Cabrito Didone joins structure and handwriting to create a flowing balance of both characteristics. It’s a unique combination of functional and friendly. Its 42 well-designed fonts give you plenty of easy-going, highly readable options to work with as you craft your design. The typeface has unique serifs that give the sense of ink pooling slightly at the points, drawn with a sharp nib. Cabrito Didone supports OpenType features and is packaged with upright obliques, alternates, ligatures, old-fashioned figures, and compact caps. Preview any and all of these features in the interactive PDF manual. The family member font also includes glyphs for 72 languages; over 600 glyphs per font await. Cabrito Didone is an excellent choice for websites as well as flyers and packaging. Like Cabrito, which is currently used by a number of visible brands, Cabrito Didone is also a great option for defining your brand. Grab a taste of the Cabrito Didone flavor--and those of the other Cabrito members: Sans, Semi and Inverto.

Unlike the modest fonts in your menu content with discreetly imparting information, Carnival is conspicuous by design. Deliberately engineered to attract eyeballs, the typeface’s unmistakable silhouette produces a dramatic visual texture that stands out in print, on screen, or in any environment where your message demands to be noticed. The steady yet vibrant rhythm created by its letterforms also makes Carnival ideal for fashioning alphabet patterns and graphic devices. Flaunting a lean slender body anchored by stout stroke endings, Carnival turns conventional typographic thinking on its head by inverting the relative thickness of its stems and serifs. This reverse-contrast approach stretches all the way back to the roots of modern advertising, when similar types became the favorite for posters, packaging, and loads of consumer products during the 1800s. The striking style prevailed well into the next century, as Harold Horman, co-founder of New York City-based Photo-Lettering. Inc., modernized a version for the company’s popular film-typesetting service in the early 1940s. Digitized and expanded by Dan Reynolds in 2013, Carnival had previously been used exclusively for House Industries projects. Now you can get in on the action, and use this stunning slice of type history anytime you want your work to turn heads. SUGGESTED USES Carnival’s unique character commands attention, making it the perfect voice for promotional pieces, editorial design, labels, packaging, posters, and any other application that needs to strike the right tone. Like all good subversives, House Industries hides in plain sight while amplifying the look, feel and style of the world’s most interesting brands, products and people. Based in Delaware, visually influencing the world.

Homelessfonts is an initiative by the Arrels foundation to support, raise awareness and bring some dignity to the life of homeless people in Barcelona Spain. Each of the fonts was carefully digitized from the handwriting of different homeless people who agreed to participate in this initiative. Please Note: these fonts include only the latin alphabet; no accented characters, no numbers or punctuation. MyFonts is pleased to donate all revenue from the sales of Homelessfonts to the Arrels foundation in support of their mission to provide the homeless people in Barcelona with a path to independence with accommodations, food, social and health care. Luis Serra was born in Alicante. There he grew up and even started a family His life was there. But at the age of 35 he split up with his wife and decided to go to Barcelona in search of a new life. And it wasn’t easy for him. He had to turn his hand to all kinds of jobs and didn’t manage to find the stability he needed. Luis is a shy, retiring person who takes great pleasure in the little things in life such as walking in the mountains or celebrating the victories of his football team, Barça. After four years living in Barcelona, Luis found himself in a position he’d never imagined. “The street’s much worse now, there’s more trouble, there’s more tension,” says Luís. In the street he had to learn, as he always had, to move fast, to find a place to sleep and something to eat. Luís is one of those people who don’t let circumstances mould him, but adapts to them and always tries to do his best.

The new sans-serif Franzi typeface family – as neutral as can be, but at the same time individual and striking. Its unmistakable character lies in the detail, with no effect pushing itself to the fore. As a wide-running typeface with a relatively large x-height, the typeface family is perfectly suited to small text sizes but, with its elegant details, it leaves nothing to be desired in display applications either. Originally designed with constructed, often rectangular elements, Franzi has gradually been rounded during the development process and is now less hard in order to guarantee optimal legibility. Franzi Variable is designed alongside the italic and the weight axes. The italics are softly and elegantly drawn, while the upright characters appear much more severe. The design appeal reveals itself in the two-storey ‘a’ – a tribute to legibility in body copy; however, for those who prefer the geometric in applications, an alternative single-storey ‘a’ is also available. All styles have small caps, superscript and subscript lowercase letters, lining, non-lining and small caps figures, fractions as well as several ligatures, alternative fonts, symbols and arrows. The Latin uppercase letters are also available as discreet swash variants. In addition to the extended Latin alphabet, the typeface family also includes the complete Greek, Cyrillic and International Phonetic Alphabet IPA. Franzi was created as a further development of an order to produce a sign for a therapy practice in Vienna’s Franz-Hochedlinger-Gasse – hence the name, which is more common as an abbreviation for Franziska than as a diminutive for the male name Franz: Franzi is therefore a hybrid typeface name which has female tendencies.

Who doesn't want or need an expansive contemporary extended sans that has a sense of style and swagger… what if it had a lowercase, small caps and various numeral options… how could you say no? This was the foundational argument I made for myself when I drew the initial alphabet on my birthday last year (something I do each year, draw a new font, kind of a fun OCD thing). I wanted to see a wide, utilitarian sans that had more to it than just a basic character set and didn't resemble standard geometric models. As I continued sketching, the letterforms were being influenced more by my 'lettering tendencies' than the normal mechanical trappings of drawing flat, wide letters. The letters have retained aspects of letters created by hand — stresses, modulation, naturally ending terminals. Truncation and quick clipping of strokes became antithetical to the letterforms I drew, so I continued this once I brought the design into the computer. I kept it precise and dependable, but made every attempt to keep a conscientiously crafted typeface and not let it devolve into a grid-based drone. As such, it works just as well looking back in time as much as it does assuming a lead role in a sci-fi movie. Halogen does deliver and opts not to take a short cut and provide an anemic offering of glyphs — a modern typeface offered today must provide more than just the basics and this one does — lowercase, smallcaps, old style numerals, tabular forms, stylistic and titling alternates, fractions, case-sensitive features, and even an alternate uppercase ordinal set is included. So go make cool print and digital things with it, now.

Speakeasy is a 5-font combo thematically built as a toolset for designing menus and liquor labels as well as coffees, restaurants and signs when the desire is to communicate with style. Originally put together to be used by the most famous speakeasy in Buenos Aires, this set contains a script, a minor (almost flat) wedge serif, a flare serif, a sans serif, and a bold Didone. The seed for the script was found in a German lettering book, and the other fonts reflect the familiar advertising and announcement styles of the early 20th century. The Speakeasy script comes with two different ways to connect the letterforms. Also included are many alternates, swashes, endings and flourishes — all accessible via OpenType features or glyph palettes. Speakeasy Modern and Speakeasy Flare are small cap fonts, and come with a few alternates. Speakeasy Sans and Speakeasy Gothic come with full sets of majuscules and minuscules, but contain small caps and a few alternates as well. A few rules and ornaments are also sprinkled throughout the set. This combination of fonts worked wonderfully for the project that called for it. Hopefully it will work just as well for your project.

California Bound JNL is based on the hand lettering found on the side of the old California Zephyr passenger trains; the route now being a part of Amtrak. This somewhat unusual Art Deco design is more utilitarian than decorative, yet it still captures the "Streamline Era" perfectly.

Mochita Display is indeed a font made to give a fun, funny and cute impression. Even so, it still maintains good detail and balances the negative space. This font would be perfect for logo designs, titles, product names, labeling, or anything with a fun design theme.

A 1940s travel poster for the Florida East Coast Railway (which then carried passengers but is now a freight line) had the railroad’s name hand lettered in a bold Art Deco sans. This inspired Passenger Train JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

What makes a design creative? The typeface! Exquisito is a font that'll get your audience's attention. Whether you want to make the audience smile, laugh, or think, Exquisito will help you show off your creative side. The time to stand out from the crowd is now!

The cover of the 1908 sheet music for "When the Meadow-Larks Are Calling, Annie Laurie" has the title hand lettered in a semi-formal Art Nouveau Roman type design with gentle spurs. This is now available as Meadowlark JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Legendary lettering artist Alf Becker called his original offering “Aristocrat”; this version is a little less pretentious, but still suitably snooty. Graceful and elegant, but with a few amusing turns. Both versions of this font contain the complete Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

Craptoy is a grunge Open Type font - full of different auto ligatures! That means you can write words like beer, letter, bubble, success (just to name a few) without having the double letter repeating itself! (You will need to use OpenType supporting applications to use the autoligatures).

An attempt to insert a hammer into a work will require that such hammer be drawn, scanned, resized and inserted -- a laborious work. With TechTools such drawing, scanning, resizing to fit is a thing of the past. Technical Tools can now be inserted directly into any application.

KD Arguru Stencil is a geometric display font that will give your projects an elegant look. It breaks away from traditional stencil faces by using circle as a main design element. Originally published in 2014, it's now been updated with changes to letter shapes, curves, OT features.

On the cover of the 1926 sheet music for “There Ain’t No Maybe in My Baby’s Eyes”, the title is rendered in Art Nouveau hand lettering; pen-drawn with rounded ends. The type design is now available as Nouveau Vaudeville JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Ovala SRF is one of a number of Ray Larabie designs provided to the Stella Roberts Fonts project and adapted by Jeff Levine. The net profits from my font sales help defer medical expenses for my siblings, who both suffer with Cystic Fibrosis and diabetes. Thank you.

The 1957 French publication “La Letra Dans La Peinture et la Publicite” (“The Letter tn the Painting and Advertising”) had an illustration of split-serif letters and numbers with a decidedly Western feel. This is now available as Horse Thief JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Kanakira is a modern sans typeface that is heavy on a geometric take of the neo-grotesque model, with a special ink-trap feature. Available in 9 weights from thin to heavy, Kanakira is ready to be your “go-to” font for any kind of project.

In the last scene of the movie trailer for 1937’s “Varsity Show”, the movie’s title is hand lettered in a bold, condensed chamfer font with semi-serifs. This is now available digitally in the namesake font “Varsity Show JNL” – in both regular and oblique versions.

Urmeba JNL has an odd history. Originally conceived a few years back as a... well... ‘barf’ font, this limited-character type design was revised by Jeff Levine into a less-offensive idea... that of friendly little amoebas (such as you'd find in a glass of water).

Paviljoen (meaning Pavilion or Gazebo in Dutch) is an Art Deco typeface which was modeled on cast-iron lettering on some monumental buildings in Amsterdam. I only had a few glyphs to work with, so I designed the remaining ones myself. Paviljoen comes with extensive language support.

OK Corral is a revival of a very old Italian font that you may have seen in the past under the original name of Italian Print. The Lined version of this font has never been known to have a lower case set of letters until now.

Raw was designed in 2006 for Shelter, the UK homeless charity. It was originally called “Cathy”, after the film “Cathy Come Home”, which was instrumental in inspiring the founding of the charity. Now reworked with more “inkiness”, it is released as part of the Device range.

Scribner's Magazine was an illustrated periodical published from 1887 to 1939. The 1895 holiday issue “Scribner's for Xmas” had the cover text hand lettered in an Art Nouveau style with spurred serifs. This is now available digitally as Nouveau Style JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Mevada SRF and its oblique partner are a remix of the Ray Larabie design Devama SRF, another exclusive from Stella Roberts Fonts. The net profits from my font sales help defer medical expenses for my siblings, who both suffer with Cystic Fibrosis and diabetes. Thank you.

Valentine's Fleurons is a bit of romantic (the emotion, not the era) fun!. Need a few dingbats for that special card you're making for that special person-or for others to give to their special person(s)? You'll find them here in a charming hand-drawn style.

Some Assembly is a sans serif printer font which ran into a few problems when it came time to print. Offered with a wide range of distressed styles. It is a pleasantly styled geometric face which is highly legible and its various styles provide dynamic alternatives.

A 1940s sheet music edition of an early 1900s song entitled "You Taught Me How to Love You, Now Teach Me to Forget" was set in a popular metal type slab serif face. It is presented digitally as Elite Resort JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Inspired by an example of eroded Portuguese cast-iron ecclesiastical lettering mounted on marble, Apocrypha has been designed to evoke an age-worn imperfection; once elegant, but now eroded and distorted by time. Mix the characters in the upper and lower-case keystrokes for authentically uneven results.

Sheet music for 1907's "Just A Little Fond Affection" had the song title hand lettered in a simple sans serif design with influences from the then-current Art Nouveau movement. This is now available as Nouveau Titling JNL; available in both regular and oblique versions.