Compendium is a sequel to my Burgues font from 2007. Actually it is more like a prequel to Burgues. Before Louis Madarasz awed the American Southeast with his disciplined corners and wild hairlines, Platt Rogers Spencer, up in Ohio, had laid down a style all his own, a style that would eventually become the groundwork for the veering calligraphic method that was later defined and developed by Madarasz. After I wrote the above paragraph, I was so surprised by it, particularly by the first two sentences, that I stopped and had to think about it for a week. Why a sequel/prequel? Am I subconsciously joining the ranks of typeface-as-brand designers? Are the tools I build finally taking control of me? Am I having to resort to “milking it” now? Not exactly. Even though the current trend of extending older popular typefaces can play tricks with a type designer’s mind, and maybe even send him into strange directions of planning, my purpose is not the extension of something popular. My purpose is presenting a more comprehensive picture as I keep coming to terms with my obsession with 19th century American penmanship. Those who already know my work probably have an idea about how obsessive I can be about presenting a complete and detailed image of the past through today’s eyes. So it is not hard to understand my need to expand on the Burgues concept in order to reach a fuller picture of how American calligraphy evolved in the 19th century. Burgues was really all about Madarasz, so much so that it bypasses the genius of those who came before him. Compendium seeks to put Madarasz’s work in a better chronological perspective, to show the rounds that led to the sharps, so to speak. And it is nearly criminal to ignore Spencer’s work, simply because it had a much wider influence on the scope of calligraphy in general. While Madarasz’s work managed to survive only through a handful of his students, Spencer’s work was disseminated throughout America by his children after he died in 1867. The Spencer sons were taught by their father and were great calligraphers themselves. They would pass the elegant Spencerian method on to thousands of American penmen and sign painters. Though Compendium has a naturally more normalized, Spencerian flow, its elegance, expressiveness, movement and precision are no less adventurous than Burgues. Nearing 700 glyphs, its character set contains plenty of variation in each letter, and many ornaments for letter beginnings, endings, and some that can even serve to envelope entire words with swashy calligraphic wonder. Those who love to explore typefaces in detail will be rewarded, thanks to OpenType. I am so in love with the technology now that it’s becoming harder for me to let go of a typeface and call it finished. You probably have noticed by now that my fascination with old calligraphy has not excluded my being influenced by modern design trends. This booklet is an example of this fusion of influences. I am living 150 years after the Spencers, so different contextualization and usage perspectives are inevitable. Here the photography of Gonzalo Aguilar join the digital branchings of Compendium to form visuals that dance and wave like the arms of humanity have been doing since time eternal. I hope you like Compendium and find it useful. I'm all Spencered out for now, but at one point, for history’s sake, I will make this a trilogy. When the hairline-and-swash bug visits me again, you will be the first to know. The PDF specimen was designed with the wonderful photography of Gonzalo Aguilar from Mexico. Please download it here http://new.myfonts.com/artwork?id=47049&subdir=original

Zebramatic - A Lettering Safari Zebramatic is a font for editorial design use, to create headlines and titles in eye-catching stripes. Constructed to offer flexible and a variety of graphical possibilities, Zebramatic type is easy to use. The font is offered in three styles: POW, SLAM and WHAM. These styles work both as ready-made fonts and as patterns to create unique, individualized type. The font design’s full potential is unleashed by layering glyphs from two or all three styles in different colors or shades. Working with the different styles I was reminded of the late Jackson Pollock poured paintings—in particular the documentation of his painting process by Hanz Namuth and Paul Falkernburg in the film Jackson Pollock 51. In Pollock’s pictures the complex allure arises from how he layered the poured and dripped paint onto the canvas. Similar joyful experience and exciting results emerge by layering the different styles of Zebramatic type. Texture In the heart of the Design is Zebramatics unique texture. It is based on an analog distorted stripe pattern. The distortion is applied to a grade that makes the pattern complex but still consistent and legible. You can view some of the initial stripe patterns in the background of examples in the Gallery. Zebramatic POW, SLAM and WHAM each offer a distinct pallet of stripes—a unique zebra hide. POW and WHAM use different distortions of the same line width. SLAM is cut from a wider pattern with thicker stripes. The letter cut and kerning is consistent throughout styles. Design Concept Attention-grabbing textured or weathered fonts are ideal for headlines, ads, magazines and posters. In these situations rugged individuality, letter flow, and outline features are magnified and exposed. Textured fonts also immediately raise the design questions of how to create alignment across a word and deal with repeated letters. Zebramatic was conceived as an especially flexible font, one that could be used conveniently in a single style or by superimposing, interchanging and layering styles to create a unique type. The different styles are completely interchangeable (identical metrics and kerning). This architecture gives the typographer the freedom to decide which form or forms fit best to the specific project. Alignment and repetition were special concerns in the design process. The striped patterns in Zebramatic are carefully conceived to align horizontally but not to match. Matching patterns would create strong letter-pairs that would “stick out” of the word. For example, take the problematic word “stuff”. If Zebramatic aligned alphabetically, the texture of S T and U would align perfectly. The repeated F is also a problem. Imagine a headline that says »LOOK HERE«. If the letters OO and EE have copied »unique« glyphs - the headline suggests mass production, perhaps even that the designer does not care. Some OpenType features can work automatically around such disenchanting situations by accessing different glyphs from the extended glyph-table. However these automations are also repeated; the generated solutions become patterns themselves. Flip and stack To master the situation described above, Zebramatic offers a different programmatic practice. To eliminate alphabetic alignment, the letters in Zebramatic are developed individually. To avoid repetition, the designer can flip between the three styles (POW, SLAM, WHAM) providing three choices per glyph. Stacking layers in different sequences provides theoretical 27 (3*3*3) unique letterforms. A last variable to play with is color (i.e. red, blue, black). Images illustrating the layering potential of Zebramatic are provided in the Gallery. The design is robust and convenient. The font is easily operated through the main font panel (vs. the hidden sub-sub-menu for OpenType related features). The process of accessing different glyphs is also applicable in programs that do not support OpenType extensively (i.e. Word or older Versions of Illustrator). International Specs Zebramatic is ready for your international typographic safari. The font contains an international character set and additional symbols – useful in editorial and graphic design. The font comes in OpenType PostScript flavored and TrueType Format.

A smooth contemplative Antiqua with aspiring to the sky ascenders, inspired by the Quietism philosophy. Clarity of the mind is achieved by bringing the body into a state of calm and contemplation, and this is reflected in the design – the quiet horizontal serifs (body) are opposed to the peaky soaring ascenders (mind). The design also features four optical size subfamilies with different x-height and contrast, oldstyle diagonal stress, oldstyle figures by default, smooth details and slightly dark texture. Variable axes: Weight, Contrast, X-Height. Scripts: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic. Languages: 480+. The complete list of supported languages: michaelrafailyk.com/quietism Kerning: 4553 class-to-class pairs. Hinting: Not applied. Format: TTF – OpenType with TrueType outlines. Variable Font: Quietism Variable provides more options than static versions, and has three axes: Weight (Thin–Black), Contrast (Low-High), and X-Height (Low-High). Variable fonts includes thousands of styles that you can access using a sliders on graphic editor or via CSS on web browser. Mixing different axes gives you extra styles not represented by static fonts. Optical Size: The typeface is represented by four subfamilies: Text (low contrast, high x-height – for paragraph 10-20 pt), Deck (medium contrast, medium x-height – for subheading 20+ pt), Display (high contrast, medium x-height – for heading 72+ pt), Poster (high contrast, low x-height – for big size 120+ pt). Small Caps: Lowercase letters and Oldstyle Figures are replaced with Small Capitals forms. Capitals to Small Caps: Uppercase letters, all figures, and some punctuation are replaced with Small Capitals forms. Case Sensitive Forms: ()[]{}‹›«»-–—•·#%‰@ and Arrows are centered on capitals. Oldstyle figures are replaced with Lining figures. Oldstyle Figures: 0123456789 #%‰. Designed to work with lowercase letters. Used by default. Lining Figures: 0123456789 #%‰. Figures are the same height as uppercase letters (cap height). Proportional Figures: Lining, Oldstyle, Small Caps, Capitals to Small Caps. Tabular Figures: Lining, Oldstyle, Small Caps, Capitals to Small Caps. Ordinals: adehnorst. Superscript, Subscript, Numerator, Denominator: 0123456789. Fractions: ¼½¾⅐⅑⅒⅓⅔⅕⅖⅗⅘⅙⅚⅛⅜⅝⅞⅟ (precomposed). Any other fractions (even those typed through a slash) will also be displayed correctly, with the automatic replacement to Numerator + fraction + Denominator. Slashed Zero: All 0 figures. Contextual Alternates: Number sign character (#) before uppercase letters is replaced by its version centered on capitals. Hyphen character (-) between two uppercase letters is replaced by its version centered on capitals. First of two TT letters is replaced by its alternate form. Letters vwy before the letters fijmnprtuvwxy are replaced with an alternate shorter versions that fits better in the context. Contextual Alternates (Greek): ΆΈΉΊΌΎΏ. Greek uppercase accented characters lose their tonos accent and retain only dieresis in All Caps and Small Caps modes. Turned on by default. If you need tonos accents in All Caps then turn off Contextual Alternates (calt) feature. Stylistic Alternates: FTГТИЦЩцщ and their versions with diacritical marks. Stylistic Set 01 “Arrows”: Left <- Right -> Up Left Right <-> Up Down North West South East \> South West Stylistic Set 02 “Round-Square Cyrillic”: ДИЙЍЛФвгджзийѝклнптцчшщьъю characters are replaced with its Bulgarian or Russian forms. Stylistic Set 03 “Cyrillic Tse Shcha short tails”: ЦЩцщ characters are replaced with its alternate form with short tail. Stylistic Set 04 “Cyrillic I full serifs”: ИЙЍӢ characters are replaced with its alternate form with inner serifs. Stylistic Set 05 “FT bent inward serif”: FTГ characters and their versions with diacritical marks are replaced with its alternate form with right head serif that bent inside. Stylistic Set 06 “Small Caps centered on Capitals”: Small Caps are vertically centered on uppercase letters. Standard Ligatures: fi fl fb ff fh fj fk ffb ffh ffi ffj ffk ffl. Discretionary Ligatures: Th ct st. Localized Forms: 52 character substitutions for Azeri, Bulgarian, Catalan, Dutch, German, Kazakh, Macedonian, Moldavian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Tatar, Turkish. Glyph Composition/Decomposition (Diacritics): Full Latin and based Vietnamese set of diacritics (571 characters). Precomposed.

Francesco Canovaro created Bakemono as a way to explore the design space around the duality of fixed/proportional width. He was also interested in the concept of monowidth design, inherent in monospaced typefaces, that can bring flexibility and ease of use also to proportional type - allowing you to change the weight of a word without losing the text alignment. In his research on fixed width type design he mixed the lessons of mechanical typewriter technology with the intuitions of eastern brush calligraphy, which has been dealing with for centuries with fixed space grids. The name of the typeface comes from the Japanese shape-shifter yokais that could change their form freely between human and animal, and aptly describes the metamorphic nature of this wide superfamily coming in proportional, monospace and intermediate subfamilies. With a design mixing the expansion principles of the brush with the sharp technicality of typewriter and system fonts, Bakemono can both excel at text size in its regular widths optimized for legibility as well as owning the page at display size with its uncommon design details. Bakemono reflects its multicultural nature with its extended latin + cyrillic charset, soon to be expanded with Bakemono Arabic (exploring the fascinating world of monospaced arabic script) and Bakemono Kana (our first experiment in cjk scripts). • Suggested uses: born to allow you to change the weight of a word without losing the text alignment, Bakemono can both excel at text size in its regular widths optimised for legibility as well as owning the page at display size with its uncommon design details. Perfect for contemporary branding, web design, packaging and countless other projects; • 21 styles: 7 weights x 3 different styles + 1 variable font; • 839 glyphs in each weight; • Useful OpenType features: Access All Alternates, Contextual Alternates, Case-Sensitive Forms, Glyph Composition / Decomposition, Denominators, Fractions, Localized Forms, Mark Positioning, Mark to Mark Positioning, Alternate Annotation Forms, Numerators, Ordinals, Scientific Inferiors, 7 Stylistic Sets, Subscript, Superscript, Slashed Zero • 217 languages supported (extended Latin and Cyrillic alphabets): English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Javanese (Latin), Vietnamese, Turkish, Italian, Polish, Afaan Oromo, Azeri, Tagalog, Sundanese (Latin), Filipino, Moldovan, Romanian, Indonesian, Dutch, Cebuano, Igbo, Malay, Uzbek (Latin), Kurdish (Latin), Swahili, Hungarian, Czech, Haitian Creole, Hiligaynon, Afrikaans, Somali, Zulu, Serbian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Shona, Quechua, Albanian, Catalan, Chichewa, Ilocano, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Neapolitan, Xhosa, Tshiluba, Slovak, Danish, Gikuyu, Finnish, Norwegian, Sicilian, Sotho (Southern), Kirundi, Tswana, Sotho (Northern), Belarusian (Latin), Turkmen (Latin), Bemba, Lombard, Lithuanian, Tsonga, Wolof, Jamaican, Dholuo, Galician, Ganda, Low Saxon, Waray-Waray, Makhuwa, Bikol, Kapampangan (Latin), Aymara, Ndebele, Slovenian, Tumbuka, Venetian, Genoese, Piedmontese, Swazi, Zazaki, Latvian, Nahuatl, Silesian, Bashkir (Latin), Sardinian, Estonian, Afar, Cape Verdean Creole, Maasai, Occitan, Tetum, Oshiwambo, Basque, Welsh, Chavacano, Dawan, Montenegrin, Walloon, Asturian, Kaqchikel, Ossetian (Latin), Zapotec, Frisian, Guadeloupean Creole, Q’eqchi’, Karakalpak (Latin), Crimean Tatar (Latin), Sango, Luxembourgish, Samoan, Maltese, Tzotzil, Fijian, Friulian, Icelandic, Sranan, Wayuu, Papiamento, Aromanian, Corsican, Breton, Amis, Gagauz (Latin), Māori, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Alsatian, Atayal, Kiribati, Seychellois Creole, Võro, Tahitian, Scottish Gaelic, Chamorro, Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), Kashubian, Faroese, Rarotongan, Sorbian (Upper Sorbian), Karelian (Latin), Romansh, Chickasaw, Arvanitic (Latin), Nagamese Creole, Saramaccan, Ladin, Kaingang, Palauan, Sami (Northern Sami), Sorbian (Lower Sorbian), Drehu, Wallisian, Aragonese, Mirandese, Tuvaluan, Xavante, Zuni, Montagnais, Hawaiian, Marquesan, Niuean, Yapese, Vepsian, Bislama, Hopi, Megleno-Romanian, Creek, Aranese, Rotokas, Tokelauan, Mohawk, Onĕipŏt, Warlpiri, Cimbrian, Sami (Lule Sami), Jèrriais, Arrernte, Murrinh-Patha, Kala Lagaw Ya, Cofán, Gwich’in, Seri, Sami (Southern Sami), Istro-Romanian, Wik-Mungkan, Anuta, Cornish, Sami (Inari Sami), Yindjibarndi, Noongar, Hotcąk (Latin), Meriam Mir, Manx, Shawnee, Gooniyandi, Ido, Wiradjuri, Hän, Ngiyambaa, Delaware, Potawatomi, Abenaki, Esperanto, Folkspraak, Interglossa, Interlingua, Latin, Latino sine Flexione, Lojban, Novial, Occidental, Old Icelandic, Old Norse, Slovio (Latin), Volapük