An extremely versatile, intelligently restrained design by Robin Nicholas for Monotype in 1980. It works very well at small sizes thanks to its large x-height, sturdy serifs, and lack of ornament; yet it is not characterless. Nimrod has been used successfully in national newspapers and books. (The Guardian, London, from its late-1980s redesign until it was replaced by a Carter interpretation of Miller in 1998; the Concise Oxford English Dictionary in the typographically unsurpassed 1990 edition.)

Book Country first appeared on a poster for "New York is Book Country". It was inspired by the lettering of Ben Shahn protesting the 1927 execution of Italian radicals Nicolo Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. The letterforms effected an urgent and powerful message. The font includes a derived lower case and an OpenType contextual feature which maintains the rhythm of the uneven baseline when characters repeat to mitigate the stiff, mechanical feeling that occurs when casual lettering is typeset.

Happenstance came out of a play session with Bezier curves with a sense of fun built into its being. First came play, then came work. Thomas Edison once said,”Creativity is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Nikola Tesla thought the opposite. In this case, what started as inspiration took a lot of perspiration to corral into a usable font. So maybe the reality is a) different for different people or b) somewhere in the middle. Just sayin’.

Fontanella is a typeface designed by Coto Mendoza, which emerged from calligraphy and manual drawing exploring the skeleton and classic proportions of Roman capital letters. This initial process later gave rise to a sans serif family composed of 8 pesos and its italic variants. It also includes small caps, old numbers and width variants in the set of alternates. The slightly enlarged x-height makes it perfect for composing short texts in editorial, fashion, branding, magazine, television, window display and other media projects. Fontanella a classic spirit reinterpreted in a contemporary language. We especially thank Alfonso García for his impeccable work on the digital edition and Nicolás Tobar for the art direction on the specimens.

NewJune is a very strong unique character. It is already used in many magazines all over the world. Like Harvey Nichols magazine in London and later W magazine in New York. NewJune is the corporate typeface of the Academy of the Arts in Munich.

Designed at ParaType in 1992 by Vladimir Yefimov. Based on Kudryashevskaya Encyclopedicheskaya of Polygraphmash, 1960-74, a typeface by Nikolai Kudryashev and Zinaida Maslennikova. A very lightweight style with neutral letterforms, it is quite space-saving. Excellent for long texts, headings and display typography.

Some 40 km north of Helsinki, surrounded by meadows and a serene Finnish lake, lies Ainola, the former home and now museum of composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957). I know the place quite well, since it is only a stone’s throw away from the art school where I began my graphic design studies. We sometimes went there after classes—a beautiful walk, especially in spring, when the days were getting longer, the snow melting in the sun and the ice cracking on the lake. The composer often professed his love for this landscape and found constant inspiration in its moods, sounds and scents during different seasons. For many people, Sibelius and his music, most notably his famous symphonic poem Finlandia, are a symbol of Finland. I decided to name the typeface family I’m presenting here FinlandiaScript, because it owes its influence to both Sibelius’ manuscripts and the Finnish landscape around Ainola. The shape of letters, their poise and the rhythm they create resemble Sibelius’ handwriting without copying it. The letters form gently flowing lines of text which is legible without giving up individuality. The font family comes in three styles: FinlandiaScript, FinlandiaScript Bold and FinlandiaScript Frost. Together they are perfect for magazines, websites and brands aiming to create a personal and sincere image. While the fine details of FinlandiaScript Frost are best suitable for display sizes, FinlandiaScript and FinlandiaScript Bold work well in both headlines and texts of smaller sizes. Hundreds of ligatures give them an especially flexible appearance. The FinlandiaScript family contains Western, Central European and Extended Cyrillic character sets and supports almost 100 languages. It is best suited for Opentype savvy programs with the “standard ligatures” and “contextual alternates” features turned on.

NewJune is a very strong unique character. It is already used in many magazines all over the world. Like Harvey Nichols magazine in London and later W magazine in New York. NewJune Serif was actually the basis for NewJune Sans. And now NewJune Serif is available on MyFonts!

In HU Ketchup KR, the consonant and vowel strokes are naturally connected to add writing power to the thick headline, and the vowels are shaped like 'ㅅ', adding personality and cuteness at the same time.

In 1994, John Benson designed Balzano, Alexa and Caliban, three typefaces with a similar calligraphic character. Balzano differs from the other in its vertical figures, adding a static element to the otherwise lively, flowing components. Balzano is good for short texts and headlines, anywhere in which a personal, elegant look is desired.

The Ehrhardt name indicates that this typeface is derived from the roman and italic typefaces of stout Dutch character that the Ehrhardt foundry in Leipzig showed in a late-seventeenth-century specimen book. The designer is unknown, although some historians believe it was the Hungarian Nicholas Kis. Monotype recut the typeface for modern publishers in 1937 to 1938. Ehrhardt has a clean regularity and smooth finish that promote readability, as well as a slight degree of condensation, especially in the italic, that conserves space. Ehrhardt is a fine text face, especially for books.

The impetus behind Felbridge was both ambitious and highly practical: to develop an ideal online" typeface for use in web pages and electronic media. Robin Nicholas, the family's designer, explains, "I wanted a straightforward sans serif with strong, clear letterforms which would not degrade when viewed in low resolution environments." Not surprisingly, the design also performs exceptionally well in traditional print applications. In 2001, to achieve his goal, Nicholas adjusted the interior strokes of complex characters like the M and W to prevent on-screen pixel build-up and improve legibility. Characters with round strokes were drawn with squared proportions to take full advantage of screen real estate. In addition, small serifs were added to characters like the I, j and l to improve both legibility and readability. "The result," according to Nicholas, "is a typeface with a slightly humanist feel, economical in use and outstanding legibility - even at relatively small point sizes. Most sans serif typefaces have italics based on the simple "sloped Roman" principle, but italic forms for Felbridge have been drawn in the tradition of being visually lighter than their related Roman fonts, providing a strong contrast when the italic is used for emphasis in Roman text. The italic letter shapes also have a slightly calligraphic flavor and distinctive "hooked" strokes that improve fluency. Felbridge is available in four weights of Roman - Light, Regular, Bold and Extra Bold - with complementary italics for the Regular and Bold designs. The result is a remarkably versatile typeface family, equally comfortable in magazine text copy or in display work for advertising and product branding. As a branding typeface, Felbridge works in all environments from traditional hardcopy materials to web design, and is even suitable for general office use. As part of a corporate identity, this no-nonsense typeface family will be a distinctive and effective communications tool." Felbridge™ font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

The pattern for this elegant, if slightly quirky, Art Deco typeface was drawn by Gustav Jensen for the 1931 classic, American Alphabets. Perfect for suggesting the exotic, the font also includes several graphic elements in Jensen’s inimitable style. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

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."

The typeface (formerly known as Kudryashevskaya Entsiklopedicheskaya) was designed in 1960-1974 by Nikolay Kudryashev and Zinaida Maslennikova at Polygraphmash type design bureau for the Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopedia (the Large Soviet Encyclopaedia) publishing house. New improved digital design and extention of character set was done by Natalia Vasilyeva and released by ParaType in 2008

Swithin is based on hand lettering from the titles in a Victorian fairy tale collection. It has a playful look which seems just right for the holiday season, with some rough, hand-drawn variations which make make it feel more unique. It's conceptually similar to our Candlemas and Summerisle fonts, but has its own special personality. It ought to be excellent for holiday cards and other seasonal uses.