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  1. Schism Two by Alias, $55.00
    Schism is a modulated sans-serif, originally developed from our Alias Didot typeface, as a serif-less version of the same design. It was expanded to three sub-families, with the thin stroke getting progressively heavier from Schism One to Schism Three. The different versions explore how this change in contrast between thick and thin strokes changes the character of the letterforms. The shape is maintained, but the emphasis shifts from rounded to angular, elegant to incised. Schism One has high contrast, and the same weight of thin stroke from Light to Black. Letter endings are at horizontal or vertical, giving a pinched, constricted shape for characters such as a, c, e and s. The h, m, n and u have a sharp connection between curve and vertical, and are high shouldered, giving a slightly square shape. The r and y have a thick stress at their horizontal endings, which makes them impactful and striking at bolder weights. Though derived from an elegant, classic form, Schism feels austere rather than flowery. It doesn’t have the flourishes of other modulated sans typefaces, its aesthetic more a kind of graphic-tinged utility. While in Schism Two and Three the thin stroke gets progressively heavier, the connections between vertical and curves — in a, b, n etc — remain cut to an incised point throughout. The effect is that Schism looks chiselled and textural across all weights. Forms maintain a clear, defined shape even in Bold and Black, and don’t have the bloated, wide and heavy appearance heavy weights can have. The change in the thickness of the thin stroke in different versions of the same weight of a typeface is called grading. This is often used when the types are to used in problematic print surfaces such as newsprint, or at small sizes — where thin strokes might bleed, and counters fill in and lose clarity, or detail might be lost or be too thin to register. The different gradings are incremental and can be quite subtle. In Schism it is extreme, and used as a design device, giving three connected but separate styles, from Sans-Didot to almost-Grotesk. The name Schism suggests the differences in shape and style in Schism One, Two and Three. Three styles with distinct differences, from the same start point.
  2. Capital by Fenotype, $19.00
    Capital is a multifunctional super family with modernist roots. It is comprised of two distinct subfamilies: Gothic and Serif. Both share the same structure and proportions and come in seven weights – thin, light, regular, bold, extra bold and black, along with corresponding italics. Both Capital families are equipped with a full set of Cyrillic characters, making them a versatile choice for multinational use. All Capital fonts come with the following Open Type features: Small Caps, Old Style Figures, Fractions, Numero-sign & Ligatures.  Features specific for Gothic roman versions only are Circle Numerals, Titling alternate for the R character and Arrows. The Gothic italics have a Titling alternates feature where the true italic forms are omitted and replaced with simpler stroke endings. Both Capital gothic and Serif families are true workhorse fonts that can carry out almost any typographic task. Combine them both for the best results – multi-pack available for a no-brainer price.
  3. Alina by Melvastype, $35.00
    Alina is a laid-back condensed script font. Alina includes OpenType ligatures to all lowercase double letters to make them subtly differ from each other. So Alina feels a little bit more hand lettered and lively.
  4. Kirsty - Unknown license
  5. Kingthings Lupine Pro by CheapProFonts, $10.00
    I loved this monster font the second I saw it - it reminded me of Franquins Idées Noires... Reworking it and adding the missing glyphs and diacritics was quite time-consuming - but a lot of fun! Lots of details. The Lupineless variant is Lupine with eyes, decorations and stray hairs removed - which leaves just a very usable fuzzy font for your monster-related headline. Kevin King says: "I love fantasy writing and my favorite author is Terry Pratchett. In Reaper man, my favorite book, there is a werewolf character called Lupine, I wanted to make a font for him and for Ludmilla... It's a long story, it's a hairy font." All fonts from CheapProFonts have very extensive language support: They contain some unusual diacritic letters (some of which are contained in the Latin Extended-B Unicode block) supporting: Cornish, Filipino (Tagalog), Guarani, Luxembourgian, Malagasy, Romanian, Ulithian and Welsh. They also contain all glyphs in the Latin Extended-A Unicode block (which among others cover the Central European and Baltic areas) supporting: Afrikaans, Belarusian (Lacinka), Bosnian, Catalan, Chichewa, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Kashubian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Maori, Polish, Saami (Inari), Saami (North), Serbian (latin), Slovak(ian), Slovene, Sorbian (Lower), Sorbian (Upper), Turkish and Turkmen. And they of course contain all the usual "western" glyphs supporting: Albanian, Basque, Breton, Chamorro, Danish, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galican, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish (Gaelic), Italian, Northern Sotho, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romance, Sami (Lule), Sami (South), Scots (Gaelic), Spanish, Swedish, Tswana, Walloon and Yapese.
  6. Spicy Taste by Vozzy, $10.00
    A new script label typeface named Spicy Taste. This typeface contents caps and small letters, numbers, punctuation signs and some alternates for small letters. This is a handwritten brush font with authentic dry brush strokes like drawn on paper.
  7. Chalk Hand Lettering by Fontscafe, $39.00
    If you are into the vintage feel, you will love this one. This is as vintage as it probably gets. There are probably only a handful of places in the world where schools still use blackboards and chalk – they’ve given way to their white board and marker counterparts for decades now. White boards are definitely more practical and less messy when compared to chalk, but then if you are creatively inclined you will agree that a little bit of mess is worth it if you are going to get the effects that you desired! Well, we can give you the effects minus the mess with our chalk hand lettering fonts! As the name suggests, this font gives you that distinctly unique chalk on slate feel, and if you are wondering what’s distinct about it; writing on slate or blackboard was a slow process which required deliberated and concentrated efforts resulting in a handwriting which was usually quite different to a person’s handwriting on paper. Typography of chalk on slate was an everyday event in the classrooms of yesterday, and today we hardly ever get to see one of these if it all. Writing on a black board with chalk was quite an interesting achievement in its own right, if you ended up with anything legible and if your writing remained focused and ‘in-line’! But of course like everything else, his took time to master and when you did get it right, chalk hand lettering was quite an enjoyable experience! For semi-permanent designs, say for example an eventful day at school; students of the day would create beautiful typography on the boards, and add a solidarity to it sometimes by shading one side of the lettering – usual y the right side towards which the lettering leaned. This is the effect our chalk hands lettering shaded variation gives you. You could get this font individually, but we strongly advise you check out the “chalk hand lettering pack” font. It includes the simple “chalk hand lettering” (minus the shading effect) and also a “chalk hand elements” bag of tricks. The elements is a collection of graphic art which resemble shapes and designs that used to be added to chalk art, to beautify the typography. If you enjoyed seeing the effects of our Chalk Hands font, and the shaded variant – you are simply going to go gaga over Chalk Hand Elements! The chalk hand font of course enables you to make typographic art similar to the effect of chalks on slates and black boards. This was quite the art form in the days gone by! The shaded variation added a bit of solidarity and the technique was commonly used to make semi-permanent designs say for example a welcome note when somebody important was to visit. Classic chalk hand designs, especially the semi permanent ones often had little pieces of art to help beautify the creation as a whole. It could simply be symmetrical graphics appearing before and after the title and headings, maybe just an interesting shape to fill in an empty area on the board, and such…our Chalk Hand Elements offers you a ton of such graphics. The two chalk hand variations and the elements are all included in the Chalk Hand Family, and this is strongly recommended if you want to make designs that are truly reminiscent of the days of chalk on slate.
  8. Defect Scam by PizzaDude.dk, $12.00
    Defect Scam could easily have been a name for a punk band. But it's not - it's the name of my stencil wannabe font. But, it was inspired by a combination of some punkband's LP cover and the vibes of that genre of music - but not overdoing it by making an obvious punk font! Well, you get 4 different versions of each letter in the Regular, Black and Fill versions, as well as multilingual support!
  9. Chocolate Box Pro by CheapProFonts, $10.00
    The lowercase has classical Roman letterforms, and together with the cute, swirly capitals they make for a slightly more feminine take on the genre. Trajan lettering - with added sugar! ALL fonts from CheapProFonts have very extensive language support: They contain some unusual diacritic letters (some of which are contained in the Latin Extended-B Unicode block) supporting: Cornish, Filipino (Tagalog), Guarani, Luxembourgian, Malagasy, Romanian, Ulithian and Welsh. They also contain all glyphs in the Latin Extended-A Unicode block (which among others cover the Central European and Baltic areas) supporting: Afrikaans, Belarusian (Lacinka), Bosnian, Catalan, Chichewa, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Kashubian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Maori, Polish, Saami (Inari), Saami (North), Serbian (latin), Slovak(ian), Slovene, Sorbian (Lower), Sorbian (Upper), Turkish and Turkmen. And they of course contain all the usual "western" glyphs supporting: Albanian, Basque, Breton, Chamorro, Danish, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galican, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish (Gaelic), Italian, Northern Sotho, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romance, Sami (Lule), Sami (South), Scots (Gaelic), Spanish, Swedish, Tswana, Walloon and Yapese.
  10. Moris by Katatrad, $29.00
    Moris™ is a family of modern sans serif typeface with simple and condensed proportions. Moris is recommended for publication, screen and Corporate use. This new font family includes nine weights with true italics, numeric tabular function and Opentype features.
  11. Brooster by Gassstype, $29.00
    Hello Everyone, introduce our new product Font Brooster This Is Hand Drawn Marker Font.This is a Textured Natural Style and classy style with a clear style and dramatic movement. You can activate 12 Ligatures and 35 Alternate glyphs OpenType panel.
  12. Bathroom Terror by Gassstype, $29.00
    Hello Everyone, introduce our new product Font Bathroom Terror This Is Horror Display Font.This is a Textured Natural Style and classy style with a clear style and dramatic movement. You can activate 5 Ligatures and 8 Alternate glyphs OpenType panel.
  13. Soul Taker by Gassstype, $27.00
    Hello Everyone, introduce our new product Font Soul Taker This is a Monsters Display Font.This is a Textured Natural Style and classy style with a clear style and dramatic movement. You can activate 3 Ligatures and 7 Alternate glyphs OpenType panel.
  14. Super Blaster by Gatype, $10.00
    Super Blaster is the original Comic Font typeface enhanced with smoothed corners to give the typeface a more playful charisma. Super Blaster font if you want to use this font for your work can be used easily and simply because there are many features in it contains a complete collection of lowercase and uppercase letters, a wide range of punctuation, numbers, and multilingual support.
  15. Azingdar by Stringlabs Creative Studio, $25.00
    Azingdar feels playfully nostalgic and delivers an incredible vintage aesthetic. It will elevate a wide range of design projects to the highest level, be it branding, headings, wedding designs, invitations, signatures, logos, labels, and much more! This font is PUA encoded which means you can access all of the glyphs and swashes with ease! It also features a wealth of special features including alternate glyphs and ligatures.
  16. Brice by Studio Sun, $10.00
    Brice refers to cultural products of the 80s such as music, art, literature, fashion, dance, film, that are consumed by the majority of society population. The Characteristic of Brice are in the small bouncy serif with a dynamic contrast, like R, B, S, K, P, etc. Perfect for Logotype, Caption, & Header. Brice are available in 5 Widths (Condensed - SemiCondensed - Normal - SemiExpanded - Expanded) with matches 6 weights (ExtraLight - Light - Normal - SemiBold - Bold - Black) and support for 75+ language.
  17. Sauber Script by Typejockeys, $25.00
    After its period of exclusivity expired, the corporate typeface of the Saubermacher recycling company was revised and expanded. Now it is available for everyone! Whether on fresh buttermilk, a Honolulu surfer bar, or a hotel on the Arlberg, this preppy script face is versatile and full of character.
  18. Fancy Deco JNL by Jeff Levine, $29.00
    This decorative, scalloped thick-and-thin Art Deco type design is one of the many inspirations found within the pages of the 1934 French lettering book “L'Art du Tracé Rationnel de la Lettre”. Now in digital format, Fancy Deco JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.
  19. Culoare v.2 by Luxfont, $19.00
    Introducing Culoare V2.0 is the second version of the space bright color gradient font. (The first version is here - Culoare) This is a new set with completely new color combinations, bright and saturated like neon. 3 types of stylization in 9 different color gradient combinations with soft transitions. Letters seem to be backlit and it looks very original in addition to stylish minimalist glyphs. Lots of design use cases. Ideal for promotional illustrations, headlines and covers. Font family is based on the Regular font Boldini - which means that if necessary you can combine these two families and they will be absolutely stylistically identical and complement each other. Check the quality before purchasing and try the FREE DEMO version of the font to make sure your software supports color fonts. P.s. Have suggestions for color combinations? Write me an email with the subject "Culoare V2 Color" on: ld.luxfont@gmail.com Features: - Free Demo font to check it works. - Uppercase and lowercase the same size but different colors. - Transparency in letters. - Kerning. IMPORTANT: - Multicolor version of this font will show up only in apps that are compatible with color fonts, like Adobe Photoshop CC 2017.0.1 and above, Illustrator CC 2018. Learn more about color fonts & their support in third-party apps on www.colorfonts.wtf -Don't worry about what you can't see the preview of the font in the tab "Individual Styles" - all fonts are working and have passed technical inspection, but not displayed, they just because the website MyFonts is not yet able to show a preview of colored fonts. Then if you have software with support colored fonts - you can be sure that after installing fonts into the system you will be able to use them like every other classic font. Question/answer: How to install a font? The procedure for installing the font in the system has not changed. Install the font as you would install the classic fonts. How can I change the font color to my color? · Adobe Illustrator: Convert text to outline and easily change color to your taste as if you were repainting a simple vector shape. · Adobe Photoshop: You can easily repaint text layer with Layer effects and color overlay. ld.luxfont@gmail.com
  20. Roxie rossa by ToniStudio, $15.00
    Introducing the new font Roxie rossa Ligature Sans serif!!! Roxie rossa is a modern and elegant Sans serif font. This font is modern and nostalgic and is perfect for logos, magazines, social media. It's matched and ready to be used together for your next design! For those of you who need a touch of elegance, style, classy, ​​chic and modernity to your designs, this font was created for you! Roxie rossa is built with OpenType features and includes ligatures, alternatives, numbers, punctuation, and also supports other languages.
  21. Cabarga Cursiva by ITC, $29.00
    Cabarga Cursiva is the work of the father and son team of Demetrio E. Cabarga and Leslie Cabarga, both New York designers. The details of the sharp strokes almost give the impression of a knife blade, whether straight or curved like a scimitar. The capitals should be used only as initials and are complemented by a robust lower case alphabet as well as alternate forms and ligatures.
  22. Old Thunder by FontMesa, $25.00
    Old Thunder is a revival of an 1800’s Tuscan style font called Lavinia, we've expanded the original font to include a lowercase, an Open faced version, a very attractive Black face and last this set just wouldn't be complete without a Fill font. When you see the word Fill in a fonts name this describes its purpose which means the font is intended to be used for filling in the open space of its parent font or the Open faced shadowed version from that font family or group. Some Fill fonts look as if they may be used as stand alone fonts but others simply do not look good used as a plain font. The Fill font for Old Thunder was designed to work as both a fill and a regular font, although when used as a regular font the letter spacing will appear a little wide. If needed the spacing can be adjusted in some applications font settings, check the help file in your application for further information on spacing. You will need an application that allows layering of your fonts in order to take advantage of FontMesa Fill fonts.
  23. HWT Bulletin Script Two by Hamilton Wood Type Collection, $29.95
    Bulletin Script was a style offered by several American wood type manufacturers in the late 19th Century. It may actually be one of the most iconic styles of the late 1960 Psychedelic era when Victorian revival was in full swing. The style known as "Bulletin Script No. 2” varies from the more commonly seen Bulletin in that its bottom strokes have a concave swash to them rather than rounded bulbous bottom terminals. This new digitization features over 300 glyphs including Central European characters.
  24. Journeyman by Cafe.no, $12.00
    Journeyman is an all caps layered display typeface in the sign painter tradition. It has normal width caps in lowercase position and a wider caps in uppercase position. Letters in lowercase position are slightly more rounded than those in uppercase position thus providing two styles. Journeyman supports languages with latin characters and ligatures as well as Greek and Cyrillic. The normal front layer is Line while Silhouette is usually put at the back for a three dimensional effect. Other layer arrangements are possible. The type works well for shop displays, poster work, menus, signage and other purposes where you want the type to have impact.
  25. Song Merchant JNL by Jeff Levine, $29.00
    Although the early 1900s through the 1920s seemed to be the "Golden Age" of ridiculously long novelty song titles, it appears that even the decade of the 1940s had its fair share as well. Song Merchant JNL was modeled from the hand lettered [but exhausting] title of the sheet music for "Princess Poo-Poo-Ly Has Plenty Pa-Pa-Ya (and she Loves to Give it Away)". Despite the obvious double-entendre inferences of the title, the square block letters with rounded corners make for a useful headline font (even if the source material it was drawn from is quite forgettable). Available in regular and oblique versions.
  26. Bear Claw by Ira Natasha, $10.00
    Bear Claw is a handwritten script font. A new fresh handmade font with rough edges. This font is support multi language and available in OTF file. This font will perfect for many different project ex: quotes, logo, blog header, poster, branding, fashion, apparel, letter, invitation, stationery, etc….
  27. Paradox Runa by Dawnland, $13.00
    Paradox Runa is based on the futhark, norse elder runes. “Missing” characters has been replaced with either other “real” runes, or “new” ones have been “invented” so that the font hold all characters for the latin alphabet (A-Z + swedish Å Ä & Ö) + “Numbers” 0-9. I do not claim that this rune alphabet is totally authentic nor correct! All upper and lower-case letters are the same except for the letter S. “Ligatures” have been created for the th, ng and eo sounds. These are accessed by writing TH, NG and EO (in upper case letters). Space is automatically replaced by a ‘colon’ (':') - if you want a “real” space, write an underscore! (open type version of the font and open type compatible layout application required). Paradox Runa goes perfect with the font Paradox X (regular yet enigmatic hand drawn latin letters)!
  28. Nouveau Auto JNL by Jeff Levine, $29.00
    “The Auto Show” is the title of an early 1900s pieces of sheet music proving that America has had a fascination with cars since the earliest days of the automotive industry. The song sheet’s title was hand lettered in a casual Art Nouveau style which has been re-drawn digitally as Nouveau Auto JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions… and what’s better than a nouveau auto (a new car)?
  29. Surf Bum by Jeff Levine, $29.00
    The term “Surf Bum” was a slang phrase used to casually describe anyone who spent as much of their time as possible at the beach catching waves in the 1960s. The Revell Company was a well-established maker of plastic model kits such as military airplanes, monsters from Universal horror films and other such items when it hooked up with custom car designer Ed “Big Daddy” Roth to develop a model kit line capitalizing on the surfing fad that was sweeping the West Coast at the time. A number of crazy-looking hot rods, dune buggies and what-have-you were turned out, and one such kit (“Surfite”, with Figure) featured a futuristic one-person dune buggy. It was on the box for the model that the words “with Figure” appear in a casual, brush design type face. Those few letters were the inspiration for creating a new retro type face entitled Surf Bum JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.
  30. Langit Salju by Aisyah, $12.00
    This casual handwriting font adds a touch of personality and charm to any project. With its organic, flowing lines and unique character, it captures the essence of natural handwriting while remaining legible and easy to read. The font is perfect for adding a natural touch to invitations, posters, social media graphics, and more. Its versatility makes it a great choice for a wide range of creative projects. Whether you're looking to add a fun and casual vibe or simply want to create something that stands out, this handwriting font is the perfect choice.
  31. Slam Normal by Wiescher Design, $12.00
    »SLAM« is my new, very sturdy but elegant slab-serif font family. I designed this font family with body copy in mind and gave it all the glyphs necessary for use with all latin writing languages. I also gave the fonts all kinds of different numerals as well as a complete set of small caps and overall extensive kerning. It comes in eight normal weights with corresponding oblique cuts and it comes in a rounded version and corresponding obliques as well. Enjoy this original font, it is a real work horse!
  32. Moxtas by holyline design, $24.00
    MOXTAS by Holyline, MOXTAS is a retro serif font family, This font very elegant and unique comes in seven weight with italic. It's very unique, playful, elegant and very easy to combine with your design style. MOXTAS perfect for headline, sub headline ,custom logo,packaging, quote, invitations, watermark,social media posts, label, anything for your creativity and MOXTAS is perfect font if you want something new with your project, you can play the 14 font style, and you can pairing this font with the weight, its very satisfy. Happy creating!
  33. Slam Rounded by Wiescher Design, $12.00
    »SLAM« is my new, very sturdy but elegant slab-serif font family. I designed this font family with body copy in mind and gave it all the glyphs necessary for use with all latin writing languages. I also gave the fonts all kinds of different numerals as well as a complete set of small caps and overall extensive kerning. It comes in eight rounded weights with corresponding oblique cuts and it comes in a normal version and corresponding obliques as well. Enjoy this original font, it is a real work horse!
  34. Fuuld by That That Creative, $20.00
    Fuuld is a brutalist condensed modern display font that mixes organic and geometric, hand made, and digital production. it has a contemporary look perfect for logos, posters, branding, magazines, and avant garde social media accounts be it instagram, TikTok, or whatever. The cool thing about this font besides how cool it looks is that it uses less ink than a regular font in its weight. this makes it perfect for any environmentally conscious print projects. Try the font with no fill and a stroke for a whole new style.
  35. Ruttels by Creative17studio, $9.00
    Introducing A new typeface, “Ruttels“. “Ruttels” is a unique and powerful display font. Inspired by the unique and popular Motter Ombra font designed by Othmar Motter. Ruttels is a custom font, which this font can be applied in various types of design and web-print. the form of a character that seems strong, makes this font can give a prominent impression in every design. Features: – Complete basic characters – Numbers and punctuation marks -Multilingual support -Alternative letters Available in regular, italic, and outline styles Any question? just ask. Free update.
  36. Tanqueray by Funk King, $10.00
    Tanqueray is a modern new and sleek modular font. It is contemporary in its design; but also playful and dramatic. Intoxicating.
  37. Fosho by Chank, $49.00
    For more than 70 years the 10-foot tall letters displaying the word FOSHAY have illuminated the Foshay Tower in the Minneapolis skyline. However, the typestyle has never been made into a font before. This new modern font family, dubbed Fosho Book, is optimized for book print usage as well as functioning as big bold display type on screen. The Fosho fonts are available in three styles: Outlines, Dotted Bulb Inlines and Composite with both. You can use the three styles in overlapping colors for dramatic chromatic effects.
  38. Boola Boola NF by Nick's Fonts, $10.00
    This typeface is a new and improved (really!) version of one of my most popular freeware fonts, Team Spirit, which has made appearances in the Tank McNamara comic strip and on Blue Collar TV. Add the “nose” at the front with an open parenthesis -(- and add the tail with a close parenthesis -). To continue the bar beneath between words, use the _underscore in place of a space. No math operators and limited punctuation, but complete accented characters for the Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.
  39. Modica Pro by Monotype, $30.00
    Modica Pro is here to expand upon the success and versatility of the original Modica typeface (2019). Modica has been compressed, condensed, narrowed, widened, and extended to a mega-family of 108 fonts that now includes small caps as well as additional language coverage. Modica Pro is a nimble typeface that can handle a multitude of applications – everything from body copy to retail fashion to corporate identities... why not put Modica Pro to task today? There are 108 fonts in this family, ranging from Hairline to Ultra weights across six widths in both roman and italic. A single variable font (included with the full family) covers all weights, widths, and italic angle with every increment in between to suit whatever style you prefer. Modica Pro has a character set that covers all Latin European languages. Key features: 1 Variable Font 9 Weights in Roman and Italic 6 Widths Small Caps Full European character set (Latin only) 650+ glyphs per font.
  40. Antique by Storm Type Foundry, $26.00
    The concept of the Baroque Roman type face is something which is remote from us. Ungrateful theorists gave Baroque type faces the ill-sounding attribute "Transitional", as if the Baroque Roman type face wilfully diverted from the tradition and at the same time did not manage to mature. This "transition" was originally meant as an intermediate stage between the Aldine/Garamond Roman face of the Renaissance, and its modern counterpart, as represented by Bodoni or Didot. Otherwise there was also a "transition" from a slanted axis of the shadow to a perpendicular one. What a petty detail led to the pejorative designation of Baroque type faces! If a bookseller were to tell his customers that they are about to choose a book which is set in some sort of transitional type face, he would probably go bust. After all, a reader, for his money, would not put up with some typographical experimentation. He wants to read a book without losing his eyesight while doing so. Nevertheless, it was Baroque typography which gave the world the most legible type faces. In those days the craft of punch-cutting was gradually separating itself from that of book-printing, but also from publishing and bookselling. Previously all these activities could be performed by a single person. The punch-cutter, who at that time was already fully occupied with the production of letters, achieved better results than he would have achieved if his creative talents were to be diffused in a printing office or a bookseller's shop. Thus it was possible that for example the printer John Baskerville did not cut a single letter in his entire lifetime, for he used the services of the accomplished punch-cutter John Handy. It became the custom that one type founder supplied type to multiple printing offices, so that the same type faces appeared in various parts of the world. The type face was losing its national character. In the Renaissance period it is still quite easy to distinguish for example a French Roman type face from a Venetian one; in the Baroque period this could be achieved only with great difficulties. Imagination and variety of shapes, which so far have been reserved only to the fine arts, now come into play. Thanks to technological progress, book printers are now able to reproduce hairstrokes and imitate calligraphic type faces. Scripts and elaborate ornaments are no longer the privilege of copper-engravers. Also the appearance of the basic, body design is slowly undergoing a change. The Renaissance canonical stiffness is now replaced with colour and contrast. The page of the book is suddenly darker, its lay-out more varied and its lines more compact. For Baroque type designers made a simple, yet ingenious discovery - they enlarged the x-height and reduced the ascenders to the cap-height. The type face thus became seemingly larger, and hence more legible, but at the same time more economical in composition; the type area was increasing to the detriment of the margins. Paper was expensive, and the aim of all the publishers was, therefore, to sell as many ideas in as small a book block as possible. A narrowed, bold majuscule, designed for use on the title page, appeared for the first time in the Late Baroque period. Also the title page was laid out with the highest possible economy. It comprised as a rule the brief contents of the book and the address of the bookseller, i.e. roughly that which is now placed on the flaps and in the imprint lines. Bold upper-case letters in the first line dramatically give way to the more subtle italics, the third line is highlighted with vermilion; a few words set in lower-case letters are scattered in-between, and then vermilion appears again. Somewhere in the middle there is an ornament, a monogram or an engraving as a kind of climax of the drama, while at the foot of the title-page all this din is quietened by a line with the name of the printer and the year expressed in Roman numerals, set in 8-point body size. Every Baroque title-page could well pass muster as a striking poster. The pride of every book printer was the publication of a type specimen book - a typographical manual. Among these manuals the one published by Fournier stands out - also as regards the selection of the texts for the specimen type matter. It reveals the scope of knowledge and education of the master typographers of that period. The same Fournier established a system of typographical measurement which, revised by Didot, is still used today. Baskerville introduced the smoothing of paper by a hot steel roller, in order that he could print astonishingly sharp letters, etc. ... In other words - Baroque typography deserves anything else but the attribute "transitional". In the first half of the 18th century, besides persons whose names are prominent and well-known up to the present, as was Caslon, there were many type founders who did not manage to publish their manuals or forgot to become famous in some other way. They often imitated the type faces of their more experienced contemporaries, but many of them arrived at a quite strange, even weird originality, which ran completely outside the mainstream of typographical art. The prints from which we have drawn inspiration for these six digital designs come from Paris, Vienna and Prague, from the period around 1750. The transcription of letters in their intact form is our firm principle. Does it mean, therefore, that the task of the digital restorer is to copy meticulously the outline of the letter with all inadequacies of the particular imprint? No. The type face should not to evoke the rustic atmosphere of letterpress after printing, but to analyze the appearance of the punches before they are imprinted. It is also necessary to take account of the size of the type face and to avoid excessive enlargement or reduction. Let us keep in mind that every size requires its own design. The longer we work on the computer where a change in size is child's play, the more we are convinced that the appearance of a letter is tied to its proportions, and therefore, to a fixed size. We are also aware of the fact that the computer is a straightjacket of the type face and that the dictate of mathematical vectors effectively kills any hint of naturalness. That is why we strive to preserve in these six alphabets the numerous anomalies to which later no type designer ever returned due to their obvious eccentricity. Please accept this PostScript study as an attempt (possibly futile, possibly inspirational) to brush up the warm magic of Baroque prints. Hopefully it will give pleasure in today's modern type designer's nihilism.
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