Kufi Mutamathil is an Arabetic (extended Arabic) typeface design with heavy Arabic Kufi calligraphy accent, both on a single letter level and in an overall text look and feel. Although Kufi, the earliest Arabic calligraphy style, is often described as “stiff”, it is in fact a very flexible style. The Kufi Mutamathil typeface design underlines this calligraphy style flexibility and openness through visualizing a very legible Mutamathil design with Kufi shapes. The Mutamathil type style utilizes only one isolated glyph per Arabic Unicode character or letter, as defined in Unicode Standards. It is a very light style which does not require any standard glyph substitution or the shaping engine. The Kufi Mutamathil font family employs variable, unrestricted, x-height values. It comes in regular and left-slanted italic styles. Kufi Mutamathil includes all required Lam-Alif ligatures. Soft-vowel diacritic marks, or harakat, are selectively positioned with the majority of them appearing on the same level, over or below, following a letter, to ensure that they would not interfere with individual glyphs appearance. Kashida, or tatweel, (shft-j) is a zero-width character. Keying it before Alif-Lam-Lam-Ha will display the Allah ligature. Kufi Mutamathil includes both Arabic and Arabic-Indic numerals, in addition to all Standard English keyboard punctuations and major currency symbols.

Have you ever searched for a font that looked like it was really someone's handwriting, only to find that it was too feminine or too hard to read? I used to want a font like that, too, until I discovered that a font like that had been residing in my attic, in letters to me from my late grandfather. Not only was I thrilled to have a font like this at hand, but also one that would be a memory of my grandfather every time I used it. He was a hard-working man, raising a family during the Depression, yet was still fun-loving, kind, and generous. We called him Grandhappy. As a wedding present, I received from him rolling pins and a cutting board made of 8 different kinds of wood that he pieced together. In this font, the bullet is a rolling pin in honor of that! Other than the fact that this is a font from the hand of one greatly loved, my favorite thing is that although a True Type Font, it has some features of an Open Type font. There are many alternative letter choices available through the use of little-used keys on the keyboard and alt codes. This font was chosen to portray Jay Gatsby's handwriting in The Great Gatsby (2013).

Elliptical The squareness of curves. That was the elliptical – in more than one sense – notion being explored in the making of FS Hackney. The squareness of curves and vertical terminals to create a gentle, soft sans serif, with a little bit of magic. A momentary thought – “It doesn’t have to be like this” – provided the spur to explore the verticals and skeletons of letterforms beyond conventional type design limits. A 12-month gestation period gave rise to a font with a larger-than-usual character set, including non-lining figures, small caps and superior and inferior numbers. It’s a collection that speaks confidently for itself. Assertive It was the Hackney carriage – the black London cab – that gave this font its name, not the north London neighbourhood. Solid, dependable, effective and built to last, FS Hackney was honed to perform in all conditions. Cool, compelling lines and a satisfying overall simplicity lend FS Hackney its assertive air. Assured, versatile and effective; just like a black cab (but without the grumbling). Machined Over a string of meetings, Jason Smith and FS Hackney designer Nick Job worked out how to infuse Nick’s sketched letterforms with Fontsmith’s familiar geniality. “Nick is very meticulous and produces very clean design work,” says Jason. “Hackney is ideal for branding as it’s very clear and its quirks are sensible ones, not odd ones, that don’t distract from the message.”

Wakerobin takes its charming swagger from the hand-painted billboard, poster and signage lettering of the mid-19th century. These showy styles did everything they could to stand out from the background cacophony of advertising, with signwriters using sharp and high contrast serif letters, squared block shapes, or art nouveau forms to grab the attention of passersby. Wakerobin embraces the spirit of these letterforms, bringing these various styles together in one typeface - as if users had their own sign painter on hand. Just as lettering artists had to adapt to a variety of sizes - from wide streetcar lettering to compressed forms that squeezed into narrow Victorian windows - the variable version of Wakerobin scales up and down in width to fit whatever environment the user’s working in. The static fonts come in three widths and five weights. As well as its adaptability, Wakerobin is bursting with vintage flavour, making it hard to ignore. Its distinctive, spiky serifs would be right at home on food and drinks packaging, as well as shop windows, adverts, and any other place that calls for some typographic showmanship. It performs particularly well in busy environments, or anywhere with a lot of visual noise - just as its historic predecessors did. And while Wakerobin is first and foremost a display typeface, it’s surprisingly elegant when used at text size, or in the lighter end of the weight spectrum.

Introducing Fruitypops! A friendly, versatile script font ready for any project. Hand drawn with a real marker pen on paper, Fruitypops is bold and standout yet maintains large counter spaces with its large loops and carefully crafted letterforms. With 56 ligatures, a full set of unconnected lowercase alternates, and a bold version included, it’s designed to be a go-to script font for any design brief in need of a personal touch. The Fruitypops family includes; 1. Fruitypops Regular • A handwritten script font containing upper & lowercase characters, numerals and a large range of punctuation. 2. Fruitypops Bold • A bold version of Fruitypops with thicker letterforms, great for use at smaller sizes. Lowercase Alternates • A full set of a-z lowercase alternates are included with unconnected strokes. These can be accessed by turning on ‘Stylistic Alternates’, via a Glyphs panel, or pasted via Font Book/Windows Character Map. 56 Ligatures • 56 ligatures are included for lowercase letters (see image). These are uniquely designed double and triple letter combinations designed to create realistic handwriting and fix tricky character pairings. These can be accessed by turning on ‘Standard Ligatures’, via a Glyphs panel, or pasted via Font Book/Windows Character Map. Language Support • English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Indonesian, Malay, Hungarian, Polish, Croatian, Turkish, Romanian, Czech, Latvian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Slovenian.

This is Lady Slippers, a delicate and beautiful typeface resembling one of Eliza Gwendalyn’s popular modern calligraphic styles! She is the full blown version with many OpenType bells and whistles such as, swashes, ligatures, discretionary ligatures and stylistic alternates. Enabling them makes it possible to create beautiful and seemingly hand-written calligraphy designs. Then there’s Lady Slippers Basic, Lady Slippers Loops, and Lady Slippers Align. These fonts are toned down versions of Lady Slippers. Still beautiful and delicate handwritten script typefaces, they are meant for users who don't require all of OpenType goodies. Each of these fonts support some basic OT features, like fractions, superiors, and ordinals. In an interesting twist, we have redrawn the lowercase in Lady Slippers Align to align on the baseline, giving Lady Slippers a more traditional calligraphic appeal. Finally, Lady Slippers Ornament is offered as a companion for any font in the Lady Slippers family. It contains decorative ornaments, crests and other hand drawn elements, as well as a set of figures, minimal punctuation, and some catchwords useful for invitations and bridal pieces. The package includes a key map so finding the ornaments is made easy. All the glyphs are accessible from any standard keyboard. You can purchase the fonts separately, or one of the discounted bundles we've put together, Lady Slippers 4 Pack (includes Basic, Loops, Align and Ornaments) or the Lady Slippers & Ornaments pack.

We have transformed the “99 names of ALLAH” into a font. That means each key on your keyboard represents 1 of the 99 names of ALLAH Aaza Wajal. The fonts work with both the English and Arabic Keyboards. We call this Calligraphy "Spiral" because of the spiral like design. The first "Alef" has a "hamzit wasel", this indicates that you can pronounce the names both ways, "AR-RAHMAAN" or "R-RAHMAN". (in the zip file you will find a pdf file explaining the differences in the "harakat", pronunciation and spelling according to the Holy Quran). The "Ye" doesn't have 2 dots at the end of a name, instead we chose to include a small "ye" on the letter "ye". Also, we used the traditional "soukoun" instead of the Quranic "soukoun". Decorative letters used in this calligraphy: "Mim, Aain, Sin, HHe, He, Kaf, Alef & Ye". Purpose & use: - Writers: Highlight the names in your texts in beautiful Islamic calligraphy. - Editors: Use with kinetic typography templates (AE) & editing software. - Designers: The very small details in the names does not affect the quality. Rest assured it is flawless. The MOST IMPORTANT THING about this list is that all the names are 100% ERROR FREE, and you can USE THEM WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED. All the “Tachkilat” are 100% ERROR FREE, all the "Spelling" is 100% ERROR FREE, and they all have been written in accordance with the Holy Quran. No names are missing and no names are duplicated. The list is complete "99 names +1". The +1 is the name “ALLAH” 'Aza wajal. Another important thing is how we use the decorative letters. In every font you will see small decorative letters, these letters are used only in accordance with their respective letters to indicate pronunciation & we don't include them randomly. That means "mim" on top or below the letter "mim", "sin" on top or below the letter "sin", and so on and so forth. Included: Pdf file telling you which key is associated with which name. In that same file we have included the transliteration and explication of all 99 names. Pdf file explaining the differences in the harakat and pronunciation according to the Holy Quran. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is a link to all the extra files you will need: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Xj2Q8hhmfKD7stY6RILhKPiPfePpI9U4?usp=sharing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TT Fellows useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options There can't be too many universal fonts! Meet TT Fellows, a new workhorse whose functionality allows you to comfortably use the font in a variety of projects. Calm and neutral at first glance, the mood of TT Fellows can change. Working with the typeface, you can reveal its soft and friendly nature, or even the brutal one, for example, by typing the text exclusively in capital letters in the bold style. TT Fellows is easy to use and perfect for setting large text arrays. Thanks to the font's uniwidth and versatility, the font is ideal for use on websites or in periodicals. Bold styles will work harmoniously in headlines or as accents in print or on packaging. TT Fellows is a humanist sans serif with a mechanical touch. With its open shapes, the friendly neutral character of thin weights and an even softer character in bold weights, the new typeface differs in character from the classic TT Norms® and TT Commons sans serifs, while still offering the same functionality. Calm regular styles differ from bold, deliberately display and more expressive ones. By the way, TT Fellows is a unwidth typeface. It was important for us that the user could change the styles, knowing that the layout will not suffer. The typeface features equal width proportions, open apertures, and slightly squared ovals, which associatively brings it closer to other popular modern fonts. Since the idea of the typeface was focused on it being a uniwidth typeface, we needed to fit the bold styles into the regular em squares, which led to interesting graphic solutions that are noticeable, for example, in the k and ж characters, in which the branches are cut directly into the stems. TT Fellows consists of 19 styles: 9 upright, 9 italic and 1 variable, each with over 700 glyphs. The font has 26 useful OpenType features. For example, there is a switch to single-part versions of letters a and y, fractions, tabular characters, case versions of punctuation, and localized versions of characters for different languages. There is a ligature for a combination of two characters of a complex design fl. TT Fellows font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

JT Collect is a hybrid sans-serif typeface for the 21st century that takes a playful approach to the type design heritages of Germany and Switzerland. Confidently built on a geometric structure and infused with elements from traditional grotesque typefaces, it hits the sweet spot between geo and grot. I developed JT Collect purely digitally, drawing from years of experience with analog type design. The letters aren’t based on one particular source but seek to merge different type genres from the first half of the 20th century and lift them to a contemporary quality level. JT Collect is less reserved than strictly geometric designs and brings some industrial workmanship and honesty into the game. The six weights plus three optical sizes of JT Collect offer what you need to make an impact. While cool and elegant in the Light weight, the fonts show more presence on the page as they grow bolder. To this end, I drew the letterforms with a slightly unrefined, brawny air in the bolder weights. This sets them apart from the perceived purity of more geometric designs. The Book weight is ideal for short texts and medium-length copy, and the forceful Bold makes wordmarks look crisp and lets headlines radiate cosmopolitan self-confidence. JT Collect is suitable as a primary typeface for branding, advertising, packaging, stationery, posters, documents, and websites from trades and industries as diverse as food & fashion, media & makers, culture & creators, games & gems, sports & startups. Use JT Collect for film titles or watch faces, for leaflets or store signs, for business cards or billboards: this font family is as adaptable as a chameleon (and like a chameleon, it’s never boring). Try it in different contexts. You won’t be disappointed. Its adaptability also makes JT Collect a great starting point for poised and persuasive font combinations. Even a sans/sans pairing is possible due to hybrid nature of JT Collect—something that’d be hard to achieve with most other sans-serif typefaces on the market. You can add to it a heavy slab from the OGJ library, like Temper Wide. You might go for a geometric or a grotesque typeface as secondary (text) typeface. Or you could set your body copy in a classic serif typeface such as Caslon, Sabon, or Plantin. That’s right: JT Collect is a true team player. Whether you need a grotesque or a geometric sans: try JT Collect. You can get the best of both worlds.

Klothilde is a handwriting font which came to life in one of my doodling sessions (I must admit I still doodle with pen and paper). The idea was to create a font which resembles writing with a quill on paper with exaggerated ball terminals. Sometimes there is too much ink which makes the letters fat and the strokes uneven. The paper soaks the ink resulting in blurred line crossings. The form gets blurry. On the other hand, when the quill runs out of ink the stroke gets thinner looking like the light version of Klothilde. In order to emulate the different looks, I created six fonts with a common skeleton but different appearance which can be altered seamlessly by using the Variable Fonts technology (e.g. in latest Adobe apps or CorelDRAW Graphics Suite) along the Weight and Blurred sliders. But even without, Klothilde can be used even in longer copy. Use it from 18 pt upwards, flush left with tight leading and intersecting ascenders and descenders. Due to extensive manual kerning, it gives your text an even colour. To my knowledge, Klothilde is one of the first script Variable fonts in different weights. No, Klothilde’s letters are not connecting. But I added a whole bunch of connecting ligatures which are simply activated by the ligature feature of your app. Even Microsoft Word can do that. Thus Klothilde comes to life, as it should be expected from a handwriting font. In order to add to variety there are additional glyphs for some critical initial and standalone letters. Repeating letter combinations like nn, mm or rr are avoided by replacing the second letter by an alternative form. All features are activated by the standard ligature feature. Ligatures are available for most European languages, some even in Cyrillic (some special Serbo-Croat letters included and accessible through localization or Style Set 08 features). Romanian comma-accent characters and ligatures are accessible through the OpenType locl feature. For the topping on the cake, I added an alternate ampersand (stylistic set 1) and asterisk (ss04), an alternate Cyrillic b (ss02) and t (ss03), a few fleurons, arrows and a skull (OpenType feature ornm), fractions (frac feature), circled numbers (ss06) and an interrobang (ss07) which result in exactly 900 glyphs in each of the six fonts. There should be enough to play with. Should you be missing a special character, do give me a hint.

I am thrilled to unveil my latest creation, the Elio & Oliver font family. Inspired by the timeless elegance and undeniable allure of Italy, this sans serif typeface captures the essence of sophistication and refinement. Named after the main protagonists of the beloved novel "Call Me by Your Name," Elio & Oliver is a testament to the power of passion, beauty, and the transcendent experiences that shape our lives. Just like their story, this font aims to evoke emotions and create a lasting impression. With nine meticulously crafted weights ranging from the delicate Ultra Light to the bold intensity of Black, Elio & Oliver offers a spectrum of possibilities. Each weight is thoughtfully designed to ensure versatility and harmonious visual aesthetics across various design projects. Intricate and purposeful, the font pack boasts over 30 ligatures that seamlessly combine letters, elevating the fluidity and legibility of your typography. These ligatures add an extra touch of sophistication to your designs, making them truly stand out. Recognizing the importance of language diversity, Elio & Oliver is equipped with full language support, enabling you to effortlessly communicate your message to a global audience. From English to Italian, French to Spanish, and beyond, this font embraces the richness and cultural nuances of different languages. Whether you're working on editorial layouts, branding projects, or digital interfaces, Elio & Oliver will infuse your designs with an air of refined elegance. It is the embodiment of style and grace, effortlessly capturing attention and leaving a lasting impression on viewers. Step into the world of Elio & Oliver, where every letter tells a story and every curve is a testament to the power of design. It's time to elevate your creative projects and evoke the spirit of Italian chicness with this exquisite typeface. Discover Elio & Oliver and let your designs speak the language of timeless elegance. If you end up publishing your designs on Instagram, tag me - @silverstagco and I will make sure to showcase your design and work to my audience as well! Elio & Oliver - Elegant Sans Serif Includes: Elio & Oliver Font Family - 9 Font Weights - From Ultra Light to Black Elio & Oliver Variable Font Over 30 ligatures and alternate letters Numerals & Punctuation Language Support Web Font Kit is included as well Detailed instructions on how to use alternates in most of the apps on your computer as well for Canva Happy creating everyone!

Bunyan Pro is the synthesis of Bunyan, the last face Eric Gill designed for hand setting in 1934 and Pilgrim, the machine face based on it, issued by British Linotype in the early 1950s — the most popular Gill text face in Britain from its release until well into the 1980s. Gill’s last face doesn't date itself anywhere near as obviously as Gill’s other serif faces, which were all really products of their time, heavily influenced by the richly ornamental and constantly changing aesthetic trends of the interwar period. When compared to Gill’s previous work, Bunyan seems like a revolution in the way he thought and drew. It’s as if he was shrugging off all heavy burden of what was popular, and going back to the basics of older standards. Bunyan had no bells and whistles, doesn't risk functionality with contrasts that are too high or too low, and didn't venture far outside the comfortable oldstyle rhythm Gill grew up with. By interbellum standards, this was utter austerity, a veritable denial of deco excess. Surprisingly, even without all the cloying trivialities, Bunyan still stood indisputably as an aesthetically pleasing, space saving design that could have been made only by Eric Gill. Bunyan Pro comes in three weights and their italics. The main font is intended for use between 8 and 14 points. The medium and the bold are great for emphasis but also have good merit in larger sizes, so can make effective display types as well. All six fonts include small caps, ligatures, alternates, six sets of figures, and three original Gill manicules. We tried to keep the best features of the handset (Bunyan) and machine (Pilgrim) versions while building a text face that can function in today’s immersive reading media. Deciding on which useful letterpress features to preserve for aesthetic importance was hell on our eyeballs — which lead to complex and painstaking ways of ironing out irregularities and inconsistencies related to metal technologies, in order to provide something with authenticity. The result is a unique typeface based on a Gill design that, to a much greater extent than any of his other faces, works well as a text face that can be used for entire books and magazines. For more information on Bunyan Pro’s character set, features, development process and some print tests, please consult the PDF in the gallery section of this page.

TT Octosquares useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options TT Octosquares is a fresh, revised, expanded, and significantly improved version of our first commercial typeface TT Squares and its narrow version TT Squares Condensed. With all our love for the original font family, it felt there was a lack of functionality, character composition, features, and design freshness, which prompted us to the idea of a complete restart. Now TT Octosquares can be safely called a superfamily consisting of 4 widths (Compressed, Condensed, Standard, Expanded), 72 faces (18 in each width), and 1 incredible variable font in which variability works jointly on three axes. In addition to working on the contours themselves and their design, we completely revised the composition of the typeface. First, we added two completely new widths: Compressed and Expanded. Secondly, we increased the number of weights in each of the subfamilies—while in the old versions there were 5 weights, now in each of the subfamilies there are 9 weights. At the stage of working with the contours of characters, we revised the roundings, changed the forms of shoulder and stem crossings, added noticeable shelves at the letters, removed the sharpness from the triangular characters and cut off all sharp endings. From the very beginning of work on TT Octosquares, we planned to make a variable 3-axis version of it sewn into 1 font file. This means that by installing just one variable font file, you get access to three axial adjustment of the font: by thickness, width and inclination. Thanks to this flexibility in settings, you can always choose a custom combination of thickness, width or inclination that best suits your tasks. Due to the increased language support and the appearance of a bunch of useful OpenType features, the number of glyphs in the typeface has increased from 480 to 825 in each style. Now you can use stylistic alternates, standard and discretionary ligatures, or use old-style figures, numbers in circles and even slashed zeros in your design. Full list of features: aalt, mark, mkmk, ccmp, subs, sinf, sups, numr, dnom, frac, ordn, lnum, pnum, tnum, onum, case, zero, dlig, liga, salt, ss01, ss02, ss03, ss04, ss05, ss06, ss07, ss08, ss09, ss10, ss11, ss12, calt, locl. To use the variable font with three variable axes on Mac you will need MacOS 10.14 or higher. For other software and browsers, you can check the support status here: v-fonts.com/support/.

The Joanna® Sans Nova family is the only typeface in the Eric Gill Series that was not initially designed by Gill. Created by Monotype Studio designer Terrance Weinzierl over a three-year period with digital applications at the forefront of the design criteria, Joanna Sans Nova is a humanist sans serif based primarily on Gill’s original Joanna. The design comprises 16 fonts, from thin to black, each with a complementary italic. Joanna Sans Nova has a larger x-height to ensure high levels of legibility – even on small digital screens. Due to its inherent humanist proportions, Joanna Sans Nova is surprisingly comfortable for longer form reading. Its low contrast in character stroke weights also improves imaging in a variety of environments. In addition, the calligraphic and fluid details enable the roman and italic designs to shine in headlines and other display uses. Joanna Sans features a robust range of OpenType features for fine typography, including small caps, old style figures, proportional figures, ligatures, superscript and subscript figures and support for fractions. With over 1000 glyphs per font, Joanna Sans supports more than 50 languages – in Latin, Greek and Cyrillic scripts. “I've always been a fan of Gill’s work, explains Weinzierl, and found the simple, humanist qualities of Joanna really fitting for a sans serif design. I wanted to make something with Gill flavor, but with more harmony in the extreme weights than Gill Sans – and with my twist on it. I went through six or seven different italic designs before landing on the current direction.” “The original Joanna had a very distinct italic, Weinzierl continues. “It’s very condensed, and has a very shallow angle. I wanted to have an italic that stood out, but in a different way. I took a cursive direction for the italic details, which are wider and slanted more, both improving character legibility.” The Joanna Sans Nova typeface family is part of the new Eric Gill series, drawing on Monotype’s heritage to remaster and expand and revitalize Eric Gill’s body of work, with more weights, more characters and more languages to meet a wide range of design requirements. The series also brings to life new elements inspired by some of Gill’s unreleased work, discovered in Monotype’s archive of original typeface drawings and materials of the last century.

Maestrale is a paradigm-breaking new take on calligraphy, built around a compact, serif-style core and outrageously long, flamboyant extenders. At large sizes, its confident, charismatic lettershapes are ideally suited for branding and decorative uses, whereas longer texts at smaller sizes naturally weave themselves into a flowing texture. The font comprises 1299 glyphs, including many stylistic alternates, ligatures, small capitals, and initial, terminal, and linking forms, and offers extensive OpenType programming to support them. The calligraphic form of Maestrale is complemented by a matching text font (Maestrale Text) with short extenders, available in three cuts (a serif-style Roman, an upright Cursive, and a tilted Italic). Maestrale is all about the lowercase; its capitals are deliberately understated so as not to steal the limelight. In fact, the font works very well when set exclusively in lowercase. Maestrale�s small capitals are fitted into the core space of the lowercase, allowing them to be freely interspersed with lowercase characters. Alternately, an OpenType feature is available to replace a and e in small-caps text with their lowercase equivalents for a fresh unicase look. Since alternates and ligatures play such an important role, Maestrale offers three different modes of use. The most straightforward approach is simply to start typing using Maestrale Pro � the extensive OpenType programming will ensure that collisions between extenders are avoided and attractive ligatures are substituted for common glyph combinations. A more interactive approach is provided by the font Maestrale Manual, which allows the user to manually select alternate forms and ligatures even in typographically unsavvy applications, such as PowerPoint (as long as standard ligatures are supported). Stylistic alternates are simply represented as ligatures of their base forms with one or more instances of the rarely-used by easily-accessed characters "~" (ASCII tilde) and "`" (spacing grave accent); linking forms are built with �_� (underscore), multi-character ligatures with "|" (pipe), and initial and terminal forms with the �less than� and �greater than� characters. For instance, the Maestrale wordmark in the posters above was simply typeset with the string (`ma`est|r_a```l```e)| in Maestrale Manual (The parentheses represent �less than� and �greater than� characters here.) Feel free to type this string into the test line below and see what happens! Make sure Standard Ligatures are enabled. An instruction sheet listing all alternate forms and their accessibility is available from the Gallery tab on this page. The third mode of usage is aimed at professional designers, who make use of sophisticated software with extensive OpenType support. These power users are advised to use the font Maestrale Pro again, where all glyphs are accessible as stylistic alternates. Maestrale Text is a less extravagant but more versatile variation on the design of Maestrale, replacing Maestrale�s swashes with efficiently compact extenders. It is intended to serve as a perfectly matching text companion to Maestrale calligraphy, but constitutes a full-fledged typeface in its own right. It is equally at home at display sizes as it is in pull quotes, titles, and high-impact blocks of text. Maestrale Text comes in three complementary faces: A serif-style Roman, an upright Cursive, and a tilted Italic. Maestrale is the Italian word for �masterful�. It is also the traditional Italian name for the northwesterly mediterranean wind, better known by its French name, Mistral. Acknowledgements: I am grateful to the helpful souls on the Typophile forums for extensive feedback and encouragement on Maestrale, and to the TypeDrawers forum for feedback on Maestrale Text. This font is dedicated to Simone.

Pure and not-so-simple Maybe it’s the air of purity, openness and transparency that they transmit, but geometric typefaces are more popular than ever among leading brands. Based on near-perfect circles, triangles and squares, geometric letterforms look uncomplicated, even though making them readable is anything but – something the designers of the first wave of geometric fonts discovered nearly a century ago. Many of the world’s most recognisable brands in technology, retail, travel, food, manufacturing and other industries continue to be drawn to the straightforward, honest character that geometric fonts convey. Fontsmith set out in 2015 to develop a typeface in the same tradition, but optimised for the demands of modern brands – online and offline usage, readability and accessibility. And, of course, with the all-important Fontsmith x-factor built in. FS Lucas is the bold and deceptively simple result. Handle with care The letterforms of FS Lucas are round and generous, along the lines of Trajan Column lettering stripped of its serifs. But beware their thorns. Their designer, Stuart de Rozario, who also crafted the award-winning FS Millbank, wanted a contrast between spiky and soft, giving sharp apexes to the more angular letterforms, such as A, M, N, v, w and z. Among his inspirations were the colourful, geometric compositions of Frank Stella, the 1920s art deco poster designs of AM Cassandre, and the triangular cosmic element symbol, which led him to tackle the capital A first, instead of the usual H. The proportions and angles of the triangular form would set the template for many of the other characters. It was this form, and the light-scattering effects of triangular prisms, that lit the path to a name for the typeface: Lucas is derived from lux, the Latin word for light. Recommended reading Early geometric typefaces were accused of putting mathematical integrity before readability. FS Lucas achieves the trick of appearing geometric, while taking the edge off elements that make reading difficult. Perfectly circlular shapes don’t read well. The way around that is to slightly thicken the vertical strokes, and pull out the curves at the corners to compensate; the O and o of FS Lucas are optical illusions. Pointed apexes aren’t as sharp as they look; the flattened tips are an essential design feature. And distinctive details such as the open terminals of the c, e, f, g, j, r and s, and the x-height bar on the i and j, aid legibility, especially on-screen. These and many other features, the product of sketching the letterforms in the first instance by hand rather than mapping them out mechanically by computer, give FS Lucas the built-in humanity and character that make it a better, easier read all-round. Marks of distinction Unlike some of its more buttoned-up geometric bedfellows, FS Lucas can’t contain its natural personality and quirks: the flick of the foot of the l, for example, and the flattish tail on the g and j. The unusual bar on the J improves character recognition, and the G is circular, without a straight stem. There’s a touch of Fontsmith about the t, too, with the curve across the left cross section in the lighter weights, and the ampersand is one of a kind. There’s a lot to like about Lucas. With its 9 weights, perfect proportions and soft but spiky take on the classic geometric font, it’s a typeface that could light up any brand.

Over the past few years, every designer has seen the surprising outbreak of blackletter types in marketing campaigns for major sports clothing manufacturers, a few phone companies, soft drink makers, and more recently on entertainment and music products. In such campaigns, blackletter type combined with photos of usual daily activity simply adds a level of strength and mystique to things we see and do on a regular basis. But we couldn't help noticing that the typography was very odd in such campaigns, where the type overpowers all the other design elements. This is because almost all blackletter fonts ever made express too much strength and time-stamp themselves in a definite manner, thereby eliminating themselves as possible type choices for a variety of common contemporary design approaches, such as minimal, geometric, modular, etc. So extending the idea of using blackletter in modern design was a bit of a wild goose chase for us. But we finally found the face that completes the equation no other blackletter could fit into: Leather is a digitization and major expansion of Imre Reiner's forgotten but excellent 1933 Gotika design, which was very much ahead of its time. In its own time this design saw very little use because it caused problems to printers, where the thin serifs and inner bars were too fragile and broke off too easily when used in metal. But now, more than seventy years later, it seems like it was made for current technologies, and it is nothing short of being the perfect candidate for using blackletter in grid-based settings. Leather has three features usually not found in other blackletter fonts: - Grid-based geometric strokes and curves: In the early 1930s, blackletter design had already begun interacting back with the modern sans serif it birthed at the turn of the century. This design is one of the very few manifestations of such interaction. - Fragile, Boboni-like serifs, sprout from mostly expected places in the minuscules, but are sprinkled very aesthetically on some of the majuscules. The overall result is magnificently modern. - The usual complexity of blackletter uppercase's inner bars is rendered simple, geometric and very visually appealing. The contrast between the inner bars and thick outer strokes creates a surprising circuitry-like effect on some of the letters (D, O, Q), wonderfully plays with the idea of fragile balances on some others (M, N and P), and boldly introduces new concepts on others (B, F, K, L, R). Our research seems to suggest that the original numerals used with this design in the 1930s were adopted from a previous Imre Reiner typeface. They didn't really fit with the idea of this font, so we created brand new numerals for Leather. We also expanded the character set to cover all Western Latin-based languages, and scattered plenty of alternates and ligatures throughout the map. The name, Leather, was derived from a humorous attempt at naming a font. Initially we wanted to call it Black Leather (blackletter...blackleather), but the closer we came to finishing it, the more respect we developed for its attempt to introduce a plausible convergence between two entirely different type categories. Sadly for the art, this idea of convergence didn't go much further back then, due to technological limitations and the eventual war a few years later. We're hoping this revival would encourage people to look at blackletter under a new light in these modern times of multiple design influences.

Pure and not-so-simple Maybe it’s the air of purity, openness and transparency that they transmit, but geometric typefaces are more popular than ever among leading brands. Based on near-perfect circles, triangles and squares, geometric letterforms look uncomplicated, even though making them readable is anything but – something the designers of the first wave of geometric fonts discovered nearly a century ago. Many of the world’s most recognisable brands in technology, retail, travel, food, manufacturing and other industries continue to be drawn to the straightforward, honest character that geometric fonts convey. Fontsmith set out in 2015 to develop a typeface in the same tradition, but optimised for the demands of modern brands – online and offline usage, readability and accessibility. And, of course, with the all-important Fontsmith x-factor built in. FS Lucas is the bold and deceptively simple result. Handle with care The letterforms of FS Lucas are round and generous, along the lines of Trajan Column lettering stripped of its serifs. But beware their thorns. Their designer, Stuart de Rozario, who also crafted the award-winning FS Millbank, wanted a contrast between spiky and soft, giving sharp apexes to the more angular letterforms, such as A, M, N, v, w and z. Among his inspirations were the colourful, geometric compositions of Frank Stella, the 1920s art deco poster designs of AM Cassandre, and the triangular cosmic element symbol, which led him to tackle the capital A first, instead of the usual H. The proportions and angles of the triangular form would set the template for many of the other characters. It was this form, and the light-scattering effects of triangular prisms, that lit the path to a name for the typeface: Lucas is derived from lux, the Latin word for light. Recommended reading Early geometric typefaces were accused of putting mathematical integrity before readability. FS Lucas achieves the trick of appearing geometric, while taking the edge off elements that make reading difficult. Perfectly circlular shapes don’t read well. The way around that is to slightly thicken the vertical strokes, and pull out the curves at the corners to compensate; the O and o of FS Lucas are optical illusions. Pointed apexes aren’t as sharp as they look; the flattened tips are an essential design feature. And distinctive details such as the open terminals of the c, e, f, g, j, r and s, and the x-height bar on the i and j, aid legibility, especially on-screen. These and many other features, the product of sketching the letterforms in the first instance by hand rather than mapping them out mechanically by computer, give FS Lucas the built-in humanity and character that make it a better, easier read all-round. Marks of distinction Unlike some of its more buttoned-up geometric bedfellows, FS Lucas can’t contain its natural personality and quirks: the flick of the foot of the l, for example, and the flattish tail on the g and j. The unusual bar on the J improves character recognition, and the G is circular, without a straight stem. There’s a touch of Fontsmith about the t, too, with the curve across the left cross section in the lighter weights, and the ampersand is one of a kind. There’s a lot to like about Lucas. With its 9 weights, perfect proportions and soft but spiky take on the classic geometric font, it’s a typeface that could light up any brand.

One menorah that I have long found particularly appealing was named The Tree of Life Menorah, a replica of which I gave as a gift one holiday to a kindly old couple who were neighbors and became friends. It had a simple, organic elegance that I see in the best of Art Nouveau sculpture. To me personally, Judeism is a celebration of life, like the triumph of the flower that blossoms in the crack of the city sidewalk. Just as Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the temple and the miracle of the oil, it celebrates the victorious quest for freedom of the Hebrew people led by Judah Maccabee. Hanukkah represents determination and courage and faith — and it represents the presence of God in the lives of His people. It is interesting to note that the founding of the Albanian nation in the early twentieth century grew out of the resistance of the Albanian people to the imposition of Greek language and culture in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The typeface, HADASSAH, designed by Henri Friedlander (1904-1996), is my favorite Hebrew typeface. Thirty years in the crafting, I believe it is unsurpassed for its shear beauty, combining a subtle modulation of stroke with a simplicity and clarity of form. No doubt, that is why it has become so popular. For me, the Sîyn/Shîyn characters are especially satisfying. For a Hanukkah message in Hebrew, I would choose HADASSAH LIGHT for a headline and print it as large as I could. If, however, you are looking for a friendly, warm face for a seasonal message in a roman-letter based language, may I suggest BETHLEHEM EPHRATH. It will be as comfortable as a bulky, hand-knit sweater on a frosty afternoon and reflects the solid, encompassing, family orientation of this holiday. It was on the way to Ephrath that Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel gave birth to Benjamin and then died from her labor. It was to Ephrath that Naomi and Ruth returned and in Ephrath that we have the wonderful, heart-warming story of the marriage between Ruth and her Redeemer-Kinsman, Boaz. And it was to Ephrath that prophet, Samuel, went to find a new king and there in Ephrath that the prophet annointed a small shepherd boy named David. The Proverbs tell us to seek wisdom. Never underestimate the impact you have on others. Words of kindness can change people’s lives. The Talmud says that the highest form of wisdom is kindness. Be wise this holiday season. The font BETHLEHEM EPHRATH is based on the typeface Accent with the permission of URW++ of Hamburg, Germany. Like most display fonts, it is most effective at 18 points and larger. Like most script fonts, it is most effective when set with both upper and lower case. Although this font is readable in all caps (many scripts are not), that does not make it a good idea. Do so only with caution.

After doing this for so many years, one would think my fascination with the old history of writing would have mellowed out by now. The truth is that alongside being a calligraphy history buff, I'm a pop technology freak. Maybe even keener on the tech thing, since I just can't seem to get enough new gadgets. And after working with type technologies for so many years, I'm starting to think that writing and design technologies as we now know them, being about 2.5 post-computer generations, keep becoming more and more detached from what the very old humanity arts/tasks they essentially want to facilitate. In a world where command-z is a frequently used key combination, it’s difficult to justify expecting a Morris-made book or a Zaner-drawn sentence, but accidental artistic “mutations” become welcome, marketable features. When fluid pens were introduced, their liquid saturation influenced type design to a great extent almost overnight an influence professional designers tend to play down. Now round stroke endings are a common sight, and the saturation is so clean and measured, unlike any liquid-paper relationship possible in reality. Some designers even illustrate their work by overlaying perfect circles at stroke ends, in order to illustrate how “geometric” their work was. Because if it’s measured with precise geometry, it’s got to be meaningful design. And once in a while, by a total freak accident, the now-cherished mutations prove to have existed long before the technology that caused them. Rolling Pen was cued by just such a thing: A rounded, circular, roll-flowing calligraphy from the late nineteenth century seemingly one of those experimental takes on what inspired Business Penmanship, another font of mine. Looking at it now it certainly seems to be friendlier, more legible, and maybe even more practical and easier to execute than the standard business penmanship of those days, but I guess friendliness and simplicity were at odds with the stiff manner business liked to present itself back then, so that kind of thing remained buried in the professional penman’s oddities drawer. It would be quite a few years before all this curviness and rounding were thought of as symbolic of graceful movement, which brought such a flow closer to the idea of fine art. Even though in this case the accidental mutation just happens to not be a mutation after all, the whole technology-transforms-application argument still applies here. I'm almost sure “business” will be the last thing on people’s minds when they use this font today. One extreme example of that level of disconnect between origin and current application is shown here, with the so-called business penmanship strutting around in gloss and neon. Rolling Pen is another cup of mine that runneth over with alternates, swashes, ligatures, and other techy perks. To explore its full potential, please use it in a program that supports OpenType features for advanced typography. Enjoy the new Rolling Pen designed by Ale Paul with Neon’s visual poetry by Tomás García.

Fashion style meets typography in 9 styles The Ysans designed by Jean François Porchez is a sanserif influenced by Cassandre lettering pieces and the geometric sanserif style from the inter-war period. Since Chanel logo, the geometric sanserif style is the favorite typographic thing in fashion. Ysans asserts this reference. Not only Haute-Couture houses use these categories of typefaces for their visual identity, but fashion magazines usually strength their layout with these geometric sanserif when a Didot isn’t used. Details of Ysans drawings Nevertheless, Ysans takes its sources in certain details imagined by the graphic designer Adolphe Mouron Cassandre for the monogram then logotype Yves Saint Laurent (1961 …). One thing keeps coming in again and again in Cassandre’s post-war graphic work: the pointed finish and endings, the references to the Roman capitals engraved and unique features such as the open R or other details influenced by Antiqua and calligraphic forms or ductus (you should have in mind that an earlier typeface by Cassandre is the Peignot, a modern uncial based on researches of the palaeographer Jean Mallon.) Certain letters from the Ysans are directly an homage to the Yves Saint Laurent logo, the R, the narrow U, the apex of the N, and all the details of such pointed endings on the f and t lowercases. The Ysans, a typeface between diversity and synthesis There are several ways to approach the design of a new geometric sanserif. The first approach is to follow the Bauhaus philosophy by designing in the most rational way, typographic forms based on simple geometric elements: square, round, triangle. Another approach is to start a revival based on an historical geometric typeface and optimize the original ideas, in order to adapt certain details to the contemporary needs. For Ysans, the approach is somewhat different because this project started in 2011 at ZeCraft as a typeface designed specifically for Yves Saint Laurent Beauty, still in use by the brand under its original name Singulier. The Singulier-Ysans has been conceptualized by ZeCraft, both drawing its sources from Cassandre and various historical geometric typefaces. Some will spot specific traits as in Futura, others in Metro or Kabel. By closely observing the Ysans, the result can also recall the way Eric Gill draw the curves and endings of his typefaces, of which Jean François Porchez is a fervent admirer. In the end, Ysans is like fashion as envisioned by Yves Saint Laurent who constantly revealed multiple references in his new collections, without being recognisable any other than with his unique style. “Fashions pass, style is eternal. Fashion is futile, not style.” Cherry on the cake: Ysans Mondrian Ysans Mondrian, named in reference to the Mondrian dress created by Yves Saint Laurent, is the multi-layer version of the family. Ysans, fashion style meets typography Club des directeurs artistiques, 49e palmarès

The 1940s-era hand-lettered title on vintage sheet music for the song hit "Donkey Serenade" had an interpretation of the classic typeface "Broadway" used in a Mexican/Southwest motif with wavy lines cutting through the letters. Adapting Playwright JNL (itself, a hand-lettered interpretation of "Broadway") to this style, the festive design is now a digital typeface called Southwest Serenade JNL.

Anatolian typeface was designed with inspiration from the traditional Anatolian kilim motifs and symbols that characterize Turkish culture. Motifs and design elements that has been used for centuries on carpets now found place in a typeface as serifs. It was exciting to see how these old design elements would turn into a modern font that would be applicable for modern designs.

Atomgeek is inspired by old arcade games. Use it for your comics - especially the ones with superheroes and their counterparts! The capital letters have lightning flaming out of the left side, and if you want them flaming out of the right side then just use the Open Type Stylish Alternates! You will need to use OpenType supporting applications to use the autoligatures.