Inspired by the classical “Fell Types”, especially the charmingly quirky weights designed by Peter De Walpergen. WT Solaire is a liberal interpretation of those cuts, meant for the digital age. Its design reflects an elegant tension between tradition and modernity. Its elegance and sharpness make it a perfect fit for any project that requires impact and subtlety at the same time. It is especially meant for editorial design, be it magazines or books, but it also works well with images.

Beauchef is a sans serif typeface originally created to meet the needs of Centro de Modelamiento Matemático de la Universidad de Chile (University of Chile Center for Mathematical Modeling). Beauchef is a typeface with rough strokes that features subtle optical compensation and does not strictly follow the laws of perception. This typeface might not be too cheerful, but shows a very particular idiosyncrasy of form. Beauchef is as tough as advanced mathematics; however, it is as legible and exact as numbers themselves. This is an avant-garde typeface that resembles the development of mathematics, but at the same time it is as conservative, calm and respectful as clients who require its services. Beauchef is so astonishing as mathematical formulas that mathematicians work with, but at the same time it is as humble as resulting figures.

Sam Suliman is a condensed display face supplied in three weights – Regular, Medium and Bold – plus a set of handy italics (obliques). All six fonts are included in the value family pack. The fonts are inspired by lowercase lettering on a Sarah Vaughan album cover designed by Sam Suliman in 1962, a style which contrasts sharp tight outer corners with soft rounded counters. The letters were perhaps influenced by a Solotype font called Herald Square, but without that font’s aversion to diagonals, and adding distinctive perky ascenders/descenders on the lowercase r, a, u, g and n. The Sam Suliman fonts also add the nubs to d, m, p, and q. Suliman was born in Manchester, England in 1927. After working for McCann Erikson in London, he moved to New York where he took on freelance work designing album covers, particularly celebrated are his striking minimalist designs for jazz records. He moved back to England in the early 1960s, designing many book jackets, film titles and fabrics, also working in Spain and India before settling in Oxford in the 1980s.

In 1939 the Stephenson Blake Company bought a very popular script called Undine Ronde and began marketing under the name Amanda Ronde. Although Undine/Amanda was quite popular and can be seen in many advertisements from the 1930s and 1940s, there seems to be no surviving record stating the original foundry or designer. We thought that six and half decades of dust layers over the once-popular typeface were enough, so here and now you have its complete and expanded digital incarnation, Adore. It is quite easy to see why this typeface was popular. A round script with graceful meaty curves is rarely found and can be used in plenty of applications. Wedding paraphernalia, chapter titles, posters, poetry, book covers, religious literature... you name it, Adore can fit it. Aside from its totality being unmatched by currently available designs, Adore also possesses some of the most unique and imaginative letter shapes. The narrow loops on the B, P and R, the minuscule-like Z, the looped b and d, the descending h... all these shapes contribute to a breathtaking and adorable calligraphic work unlike any other. The original design came in a basic alphabet, but we have updated it for current digital technologies, and expanded it to include plenty of alternates and ligatures, as well as some ornaments. The Postscript Type 1 and True Type versions come in two fonts, the second containing the alternates and extras, while the Open Type version is a single font containing all the alternates and extras in conveniently programmed features, easily accessible at the push of a button in OpenType-supporting software. We also encourage you to take a look at Typodermic's Mecheria font, which is further experimentation with the same letter forms, resulting in a quirky, friendly, curly, angular gothic-like creature.

This family was inspired from the set of fontfaces used by Francisco Del Hierro, to print in 1726 the first Spanish language Dictionary from the Spanish Royal Academy (Real Academia Española, Diccionario de Autoridades). These two Transitional styles are said to have been the first set of official typeface in Spain, like the French “Reale” (take a look at our "[/fonts/glc/1790-royal-printing/ 1790 Royale Printing)". In our two styles (Regular & Italic), fontfaces, kernings and spaces are as closely as possible the same as in the original. This Pro font is covering Western, Eastern and Central European, Baltic and Turkish languages, with standard and “s long” ligatures and twin letters in each of the two styles and a few Italic swashes inspired from the font used in 1746 by the same printer for another edition from the Royal Academy.

Adolf Rusch von Ingweiler, was in the 19 th century known mysteriously as the “R'' printer. He was the first printer North of the Alps to introduce the new Roman style of type known now as Antiqua. He was active in the city of Strasbourg from around the early 1460's to 1489. One wonders if the unusual form of “R'' was a personal conceit. This font is, therefore, an Antiqua style font and has over a 1000 defined glyphs with wide support for medieval characters that have since fallen out of use. The baseline was slightly tidied up in order to give the printed text an even cleaner look than the original. The letters are very close approximations of the original type catalogued by the “Veröffentlichungen der Gesellschaft für Typenkunde des 15. Jahrhunderts” as Typ.1:103R GfT1197.

This font was inspired by one of Antoine Augereau's three roman typefaces: the Gros Romain (±16 Pts) size, used in 1533 to print Le miroir de l'âme..., a religious poetic compilation by Marguerite de Navarre, sister of the French king François the first. It seems possible that Augereau may have also engraved italic styles. This alphabet, with its complete small caps collection, is covering all West, East and Central European languages (including Baltic and Celtic) and Turkish.

The title card for the 1938 screwball comedy "Four's a Crowd" (starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Rosalind Russell) offered a classic, thin Art Deco type design with stylized letter forms. This is the basis for Society Column JNL; which derives its name from the newspaper columns popularized in that era detailing the whereabouts of the "upper crust" of society.

Earlier this year I visited a bakery in Newport Beach, CA and fell in love with the organic design and typography of the place. Hand-drawn menus, table cards, chalkboards, and wall quotes surrounded the charming spot. It inspired me to create a new font family based on the combination of hand drawn fonts. Included in this package are 5 font families, with 2 graphic ornament fonts. Each font family contains at least a light, medium and bold. Here is a breakdown of what's cookin' at Catalina's Bakery: Catalina Anacapa: Tall and skinny, this font comes in 3 weights for both sans and slab serif styles. It includes contextual alternatives (giving 3 versions of each letter), stylistic alternatives for select letters (A, K, P, Q, R, Y) and also includes Small Caps. Catalina Avalon: Based off Anacapa, this sub family has a high contrasting line weight. It comes in light, regular and bold as well as an inline alternative for both sans and slab serif styles. Avalon also includes opentype features such as contextual alternatives (giving 3 versions of each letter), stylistic alternatives for select letters (A, K, P, Q, R, Y) and small caps for each letter. Catalina Clemente: In a more standard width, Clemente is one of the two sub families that can be used for paragraph text as well as headlines. It's organically geometric in style and comes in ALL CAPS and lowercase, includes upright and custom italics, and has the opentype feature giving 3 versions of each letter. Catalina Script: A great compliment with the display sub-families, Catalina Script rounds out the package with a hand-drawn cursive flair. It includes contextual alternatives (giving 2 variations to each letter) as well as stylistic alternatives for many of the capital and lowercase letters. It has special ligatures for some letter combinations, and titling alternatives for all the capital letters. Catalina Typewriter: The second of the paragraph text sub-families, this typewriter inspired hand-drawn font family works great as either a display or paragraph text. It has contextual alternatives with 3 versions of each letter, and comes in both upright and custom italics versions. Catalina Extras! These two fonts go perfectly with the Catalina Family. They includes borders, frames, arrows, banners, flourishes and more. Catalina Flourish has all of it's options in a light and bold style, to use the light version type all lowercase letters, then to make something bold, used it's uppercase (or shift+) characters. For a breakdown of graphic/letter correlation, see the breakdown PDF. All of Catalina was drawn by the same hand, using the same ink and technique. While they contrast in their type styles, they work together perfectly to create one cohesive font family.

Mowaq es una tipografía limpia, abstracta, moderna, minimalista y de trazos sencillos pero elegantes. Sus cuatro pesos hacen un juego visual de degradados muy marcados. La tipografía Mowaq fue inspirada a partir de los estilos mayúsculas sans-serif, como uso de encabezados y subtítulos en dos libros donde se necesitaba mostrar un aspecto limpio, moderno y minimalista. Los tipos minúsculas fueron adaptados posteriormente a la familia Mowaq. Mowaq is a clean, abstract, modern, minimalist typeface with simple but elegant lines. Its four weights make a visual game of very marked gradients. The Mowaq typeface was inspired by sans-serif uppercase styles, used for headings and subheadings in two books where a clean, modern and minimalist look was needed. The lowercase types were later adapted to the Mowaq family.

It’s a mixture of digital exactness and analog freedom. With over 130 Opentype features, the font can change its look from strict to charming twirly. GELI offers many different ways to highlight words, which gives the font a personal character. It is a powerfull corporate font with a wide range to play with. Tobias Gutmann designed the Font in 2009/10 in the Typoclub which is part of the Hochschule der Künste Bern.

Distill draws its inspiration mainly from Theo van Doesburg's De Stijl era lettering. The type he designed for the Aubette Café, De Stijl Magazine, etc was used as a starting point and then expanded upon. While this typeface was inspired by historical references, it also has the ability to invoke a contemporary feel under the right conditions. Distill will work hard whether you are designing a neo-constructivist poster or a futuristic website. Distill is a family of 12 fonts: 4 weights, each containing condensed, regular, and expanded widths. It also features several alternate characters.

The BD Roylac typeface has its roots in some lowercase glyphs drawn by Jacques Loison in 1972. Some of these characters are included in the use of stylistic alternates. Filed under a retro-futuristic design the font separates two filled shapes by a thin and curvy line; sometimes following to the path leaning readability and sometimes interfere with it. The font is dedicated to the BD fanboy Monsieur «Eric de Broche des Combes» aka «Roy La Combe» to his fiftieth anniversary.

Cute FS Kitty is the type equivalent of Bagpuss: plump, cute, cuddly and not fond of exercise. So don’t go giving it a run-out on body copy; FS Kitty is an all-caps font made for showing off in posters and headlines, and on products, point-of sale and especially sweets. Blubber Kitty had been quietly curled up in Phil Garnham’s sketchbook for a year before he brought it out to be brushed up. “It was in the mix as a basic form when I started thinking about FS Lola. It was a twisted, bubbly beauty – quite squishable and huggable. The working file was called Blubber. “At that time it was a basic construction of strokes. I created the ‘A’ first, purely as a shape to play with, not as type. I flipped it for ‘V’, and copied that for a ‘W’. I flipped the ‘W’ for an ‘M’... I thought, ‘This looks a bit wacky, but I like it,’ and just carried on. The most tricky characters were the ‘B’ ‘P’ and ‘R’. I must have drawn about 20 kinds of B for this, just to get it to fit.” Variety “When the regular weight of Kitty had been designed,” says Jason Smith, “it just felt like a natural progression to go on and explore how far we could go with it: Light, Solid, Headline, Shadow.” Phil Garnham thinks there’s still more to come. “There are some really individual characters in this font that I think have yet to be exploited: the Greek Omega symbol, the strange face in the ampersand. Like Bagpuss, Kitty has kept a low profile so far. “We know people are using Kitty. In fact, it was the first of any of our fonts that we sold on the day it was released. But I still haven’t seen it out there in the wild. It’s going to be a exciting moment.”

Cute FS Kitty is the type equivalent of Bagpuss: plump, cute, cuddly and not fond of exercise. So don’t go giving it a run-out on body copy; FS Kitty is an all-caps font made for showing off in posters and headlines, and on products, point-of sale and especially sweets. Blubber Kitty had been quietly curled up in Phil Garnham’s sketchbook for a year before he brought it out to be brushed up. “It was in the mix as a basic form when I started thinking about FS Lola. It was a twisted, bubbly beauty – quite squishable and huggable. The working file was called Blubber. “At that time it was a basic construction of strokes. I created the ‘A’ first, purely as a shape to play with, not as type. I flipped it for ‘V’, and copied that for a ‘W’. I flipped the ‘W’ for an ‘M’... I thought, ‘This looks a bit wacky, but I like it,’ and just carried on. The most tricky characters were the ‘B’ ‘P’ and ‘R’. I must have drawn about 20 kinds of B for this, just to get it to fit.” Variety “When the regular weight of Kitty had been designed,” says Jason Smith, “it just felt like a natural progression to go on and explore how far we could go with it: Light, Solid, Headline, Shadow.” Phil Garnham thinks there’s still more to come. “There are some really individual characters in this font that I think have yet to be exploited: the Greek Omega symbol, the strange face in the ampersand. Like Bagpuss, Kitty has kept a low profile so far. “We know people are using Kitty. In fact, it was the first of any of our fonts that we sold on the day it was released. But I still haven’t seen it out there in the wild. It’s going to be a exciting moment.”

Vernon’s inspiration came while researching and investigating a 'legible' typeface design for tangible purpose. The main characteristics of ‘Vernon’ can be seen in the slightly modulated strokes that reference the natural and friendly humanist proportions of the humanist hand, with open interior letterspace characteristics. The subtle detailing and finishing of strokes and junctions – seen in the curved tail of the lowercase ‘l’ and the head serif of the lowercase ‘i’, create a smooth rhythm along the baseline. Utilizing the ‘contextual alternative’ feature of OpenType, Vernon substitutes select characters in words with word-shapes that may cause visual confusion to some readers. Vernon uses subtle character differentiation in the detailing of the inner-shape / counter space from similar letter shapes (for example: ‘p’, ‘d’, ‘g’ and ‘q’) to assist in creating the contextual alternate designs. Vernon is recommended for use as a text typeface, as it performs well at small text sizes (12 point size and below) intended for continuous reading of printed instructional and presentational information, especially where an inclusive audience demographic is required.

A type of “handwriting” discovered by chance, extremely abstract On April 8, 1948 a certain Walter Plaga wrote a crude poem about a hero on a commemorative plaque. The very poor reproduction of the handwritten original, etched into a metal sheet, produced extremely abstract forms so that — even if unintentional — a script completely void of bowls was created. That which originally was the normal clumsy handwriting of a layman thus transformed into a pseudo-modern deconstructive typeface, which in the 21st century appears contemporary. The capital letters especially reflect the original: in part they show forms labeled incorrectly ”old German“ handwriting, which is actually Latin, in the letters A D G I J K L S V W X Z , whereas C H N O P R appear very modern. Truly a form of handwriting: without joining the letters, especially between the lower case characters, a silhouette effect is formed. To a great extent Hero is impressive due to its driven-to-the-limit abstraction and to a lesser extent by retaining an antiquated and nearly illegible effect.

Presenting Heirloom Artcraft-- by Baseline Fonts within the Grit History B series. Like an auntie who insists on baking cookies from scratch every time you visit, Heirloom Artcraft is a beacon of tradition and consistent delight with every letterform. Gentleness and subtlety keep this font far away from kitsch. This font sincerely says "ma'am" and "sir" and is perfect for business cards, custom stamps, coffeetable books, letterhead, invitations and anywhere you or your client wish to make an extremely well mannered and charming statement. There are many alternate ligatures available within the font including capital alternates for T, A, P, B, D, and N. It also boasts a full symbol set and the most darling little swashes scattered tastefully throughout the character map you ever did key. Heirloom Artcraft is available in Thin, Thin Italic, Book, Book Italic, Demi Italic, Black, and Black Italic. It also features Metrics and Optical kerning - metrics displays characters with letterpress-traditional spacing that is pleasantly askew, or more rigid optical kerning which displays characters at identical distances for times when the importance of readability exceeds that of stylistic merit.

Homework Dashed font was specially conceived/designed for teaching cursive writing. This resource allows tutors and parents to create worksheets for individual or class teaching. Associated with the Homework font, students can learn and exercise their handwriting abilities. All capital letters, excluding I, F, T and P, link to any following small letter: the sequence of the previous letter stroke always follows the angle of the initial stroke of the subsequent letter. This, in the real world, means that words built with the font can be handwritten without having to lift the pen from the paper (except to cross t and f and dot i and j) or interrupt the writing flow. All the letters are base aligned and all small letters have the same ‘x’ height. Homework Dashed font is a tool with which teachers and tutors can create repetitive alphabetical writing exercises that can be printed on lined sheets.

Stadia is designed around a series of modular units: quartercircles, teardrop shapes, squares, circles and variations thereon. The versatility of these basic shapes is such that a teardrop, for example, can represent a looped bowl, as in the lower part of the a, while also representing a curved arc at the top of the same character. The strict grid is broken for the T and the Y, and the placement of accents. The alternative – basing a T, for example, across three units – though rational, is far less aesthetically pleasing. As always with type design, one has to know when the internal structural rules should be bent for a more beautiful result. The horizontal lines appear to travel through the letters, bursting into stars in the counters of lower-case characters such as the o and p. The outline version is weighted to the same width as the gaps between the units.

Uranus is a futuristic font inspired by space and extraterrestrial civilizations. The proportions of the letters are wide, the elements of the letters have organic curves, reminiscent of the design of streamlined spaceships. What gives the font a special character is the excessive contrast between the upper element and the crossbar in letters such as A, B, E, F, K, P, R. In these letters, there is a barely noticeable intra-letter gap in the form of a line. Due to this contrast and rounded elements in these letters, a negative space of a triangular shape also turned out. Particular attention should be paid to the broad language support for the font. The font has support for Latin, extended Cyrillic, and Korean (2780 base syllables). Total glyphs: 3562. Uranus is well-suited for large typography, logos, and any other design related to futurism and space.

An open-hearted humanist sans-serif. Playful and friendly. Faible is everybody’s darling. You cannot not like this good-natured humanist typeface. Sure, it’s a typeface for serious work—but all serious work is better when you put a smile on your face and a whistle on your lips. The typeface itself isn’t rooted in calligraphy, but there are quite some details in Faible that reference handwriting and add a friendly, humanist facet to its appearance. Take the bowls of B, P, and R: they are merrily bulged, like balloons about to take off. The curved leg of the R adds to this joyful mood. Faible’s italics are rendered playfully, too: they’re not merely sloped Roman styles. Rather, they were designed independently with an internal dynamic that sets them apart on the page. With its trademark glyphs, the swooshin’ K and k, and its friendly details, Faible will radiate optimism in display sizes, titles, and headlines. That makes it a great choice for book covers, posters, editorial design, branding, corporate design, advertising, and packaging. Nontheless, it’s carefully spaced and equipped with plenty OpenType features—a reliable tool for short texts and body copy, too. The font family consists of six weights (ranging from Thin to Black), each with its corresponding italic style. Faible’s glyph set contains more than 600 characters, allowing you to enhance your layouts with ligatures, different sets of figures, case sensitive forms, arrows, and other necessities for the ambitious typographer. Faible is the typeface that puts “fun” back into “functional”.

Volume is a 3D font, with interlocked characters, inspired by vintage wooden block capitals! Superimposed weights bring light and shadow on the structure and allows many coloured combinations. Cubo est une fonte en volume dont les lettres s'imbriquent, inspirée d'anciens caractère d'imprimerie en bois. Les diiférentes graisses se superposent, créant des effets d'ombre et de lumière, et facilitant la colorisation des caractères.

30s inspired geometric inline display typeface Several titling typefaces made their appearance at the start of the 20th century, notably Acier and Bifur, both created by French poster artist Cassandre. Later, in the Netherlands, S.H. de Roos designed a version of Inline for its Nobel family called, naturally, Nobel Inline. AW Conqueror Inline pays homage to this beautiful version. AW Conqueror superfamily AW Conqueror Didot is part of a larger family, who include 4 others subfamilies with great potential: They’re but based on same structure, with some connection between them (width for example), to offer a great & easy titling toolbox to any designers, from skillful to beginner. Each of the members try their best to be different from the others because of their features. They should work harmoniously in contrast. Club des directeurs artistiques Prix 2010 European Design Awards 2011

A modern sans serif with open round forms. The ”round“ letters emphasize the condensed open oval; the light counter forms provide the rhythm of the typeface, causing the typeface to appear gentle and pleasing. The ”modern“ design of a and g being especially contributive here. All of the letters are recognizably narrow, almost ”condensed,“ the forms being very functionally shaped. The construction of the ”triangular“ upper case letters A M N V W as well as v and w, especially catches the eye with the shafts joined together as beams are stacked upon each other. With this construction Hedwig displays a down-to-earth touch. Contrary to the classical sans serifs, a few letters were given light echoes of serifs which promote fluency: a d l are displayed below the line in a reading direction and end in a compressed but also very short serif style; on m n p r the upstroke is gently displayed and on u the downstroke. For all the typo-maniacs among you designers there are alternative forms for a number of letters in Hedwig: A B D G I M R W and a d f g j l ß u. Even an antiquated ”long“ s and an upper case ß is available. Plus, Hedwig includes numerous ligatures which can save that little bit of space where required and which allow the typeface to appear more variable: ch, ck, ct, fi, fj, fl, ff, ffi, ffl, ft, mm, ti, tt, tz.

A unique kind of type by Michael Herold: The 14 cuts of Corner are equally distributed to the two style variants A and B. From Thin to Extra Bold, variant A comes with technical and pure forms while B appears with a soft, more personal character. In combination, the two variants add up to a highly versatile family which is very well suited for branding purposes, thanks to its diverse forms of expression. Eine besondere Schriftfamilie von Michael Herold: Die 14 Schnitte der Corner sind auf die beiden Stilvarianten A und B verteilt. Von Thin bis Extra Bold kommt die Corner im Stil A mit technischen, reinen Formen und im Stil B mit weichem, persönlicherem Charakter. Als Kombination ergibt sich eine sehr vielfältige Familie, die sich mit ihren verschiedenen Ausdrucksformen besonders fürs Branding eignet.

CONCEPT/CHARACTERISTICS
 The curly, pixelated, edgy and futuristic cha­rac­ter, gives the type­face a high reco­gni­tion value and uniqueness. APPLICATION AREA 
The fancy, videogame like, vintage and sci-fi font „india snake pixel labyrinth game“ would look good at logos, dis­play size for poster, flyer, comics and gra­phic novel let­te­ring, head­lines in maga­zi­nes or web­sites, packa­ging, music covers or webbanner etc. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS 
Head­line Font | Dis­play Font | Sci-Fi Font „india snake pixel labyrinth game“ OpenType Font with & 275 gly­phs & 4 styles (regu­lar, bold, light & 3d). Alter­na­tive let­ters, symbols and liga­tures (with accents & €) KONZEPT/BESONDERHEITEN
 Der ausgefallene, videospielartige, retro und futuristische Cha­rak­ter, geben der Schrift eine hohe Wiedererkennung und eine gewisse Einzigartigkeit.

‘Krul’ is a typographic interpretation of the lettering style created by Dutch letter painter Jan Willem Joseph Visser at the end of the 1940s, which decorated the traditional brown bars of Amsterdam. In the beginning, these letters were strongly associated with the pubs connected to the Amstel brewery, given that Visser was the company’s official painter. As the years passed, the style became increasingly popular, and various business owners in Amsterdam and other Dutch and Belgian cities also commissioned its use. In the 1970s and 1980s, Leo Beukeboom, another talented letter painter, continued and expanded this lettering tradition while employed under the Heineken brand. Much of his work can still be found in the Jordaan and De Pijp neighborhoods in Amsterdam. The Amsterdamse Krulletter, or Amsterdam’s curly letter, is strongly inspired by the calligraphic works of the 17th century Dutch writing masters, of which Jan van den Velde was a central figure. However, distinct characteristics of this style, for example, its unusual and beautiful ‘g’, originate from a model that was published by Johannes Heuvelman in 1659, which J. W. J. Visser referenced. Typographic circles have somehow overlooked the Amsterdamse Krulletter and its heritage. The Dutch calligraphic hands preceded and influenced the formal English penmanship which has inspired numerous typefaces in the Copperplate style. In contrast, the models from van den Velde, Heuvelman, and Jean de la Chambre, among others, are a missing chapter in Dutch typographic history, and had never been turned into typefaces until now. Conscious of the cultural and identity issues that arise in reviving a unique style, and concerned about the speed with which the lettering style was disappearing, Ramiro Espinoza focused the project of designing ‘Krul’ on digitally recreating the calligraphic complexity of these beautiful letters. Created through several years of research, ‘Krul’ is not a direct digitization of the Amsterdamse Krulletter, but instead, an interpretation that incorporates numerous alternative characters absent in the original model, and improves upon details where necessary, resulting in an optimal performance on the printed page. The typeface is presented in Open Type format, with an abundance of intricate ligatures, fleurons, and swashes, which permit the creation of numerous calligraphic effects. The very high contrast and rhythm of the strokes in this typeface make it especially suited for media applications conveying a sense of elegance and sophistication. Designers of feminine magazines, advertisements, and corporate identities within the fragrance and fashion industries will find in this typeface to be an extremely useful and appropriate resource.The great Amsterdamse Krulletter is finally back, and we are proud to make it available to you.

Luxor Pro is a semi-encircled Egyptienne with exaggerated serifs. It is a font of Victorian style which was widespread in Europe and America at the fin de siècle, especially in advertisements.

Youthful Fontsmith received a brief to develop a font that would form part of the broadcast identity for the UK’s first digital Freeview channel – E4. It needed to work seamlessly in text and display, both in print and on-screen, and please the eye of the target audience, 18-34-year-olds. So, young, fresh and informal. No problem. Except for one thing: the timing. Daughter As he worked on FS Maja, Jason Smith was occupied by another imminent deadline: the birth of his third child. The pressure was mounting, but rather than let it get to him, Jason embraced the challenge and made light of the tension, fashioning a bright, bubbly, entertaining type with a personality made for memorable headlines. Beautifully random FS Maja’s soft, rounded shapes and assured, fluent lines encompass lots of notable features that contribute to its warm, fun-loving personality, including: a very large x-height; a short, rounded serif to allow for close spacing and give texture to body text; a slight convexity, or bulge, in the stroke terminals; a calligraphic fluidity in the entry to the down-stroke of most lowercase letters; open, generous curves, especially in the “B”, “P” and “R”; and a “w” made of two “u”s.

Megumi was originally commissioned as a headline face for a fashion and lifestyle magazine with a heavy Japanese influence. The uppercase letters are narrow and have an almost monospaced aesthetic, being influenced by Romaji letterforms. Serifs are severe, and curves sinuous. Although experiments were made with extra weight, it was decided that only this ultra light weight would be developed, to be set large in headlines. The italic has an over-the-top 35° slant (so slanted in fact that the backslash from the italic is the exact same shape as the forward slash in the Roman) and a discretionary ligature feature that can be engaged to add extra interest to headlines. The Roman has a few wide alternate glyphs for round uppercase characters. Both styles have a stylistic set (ss03) feature which switches regular parentheses for angle brackets, which the Art Director thought “looked cool”. In a mess of venture capitalist pull-outs and Covid related issues, the publication never came to be, but the Hipster Japanophile Magazine World’s loss is your gain, as this beautifully crafted, editorial oddity is now available to license. Use it editorially, obviously, but it would also look great on posters, perfumes, postmodern publications, and perhaps some other things that don’t begin with p.

A comprehensive set of initials (usually referred to as Uncials, Lombardic Initials, or Lombards) of the Germanic variety, designed after Henric Pieterszoon’s “Gothise Monnikke Letteren” as appearing in Enschedé, J. (1768), Proef van Letteren, Haarlem (p. 120); also mentioned as “Great Primer Uncials” and "2-line Brevier Uncials" in Vervliet, H.D.L. (1968), Sixteenth-Century Printing Types of the Low Countries, Amsterdam: Hertzberger (pp. 54-55, and 212-213). The font contains over one hundred glyphs, including as a bonus six layered plus two plain ornamental initials adapted from the Gutenberg Bible (Mainz, ca. 1455) and the Mainz Psalter (Mainz, 1457). Suitable to accompany most Gothic (especially Textura and Rotunda) typefaces, or to be displayed as drop caps or in full titles and headings. Specimen, detailed character map, OpenType features, and font samples available at Alter Littera’s The Initials “Gothic C” Font Page. Note: Several uncial initials in The Oldtype “Psalterium” Font have been derived from corresponding characters in The Initials “Gothic C” Font, adjusting them to cope with the special (large) x-height and letter spacing of the Psalterium font (so the two sets of initials are not directly interchangeable).

‘Skiart Serif Mini’ is now available online. Originally inspired by the san serif font ‘Skia’ by Mathew Carter for Apple. ‘Skiart’ was designed to feel more like a serifed font, but without any serifs. It took a step between sans serif and serif fonts. Next on the path towards a serif font comes Skiart Serif Mini, with tiny serifs added. This is a true serif font, all be it on the small side. It remains fully readable and feels as clean and normal as any of the best body copy serifs, and yet still has the strong solid bones of all the other Skiart font familys. If compared to one of the more commonly used serifs like ‘Times New Roman’, the ‘Skiart Serif Mini’ lowercase is more open with a taller x-height, increasing its readability and friendliness. The serifs are smaller and less distracting. They are not pretending to be ligatures. Where ‘Times’ makes its p q b d forms out of a barely touching oval and stem, the ‘Serif Mini’ forms are much more firmly attached, appearing clearly as single letters. The standard setting for the g’s are round single storied, (the italic a’s are also), feeling warmer and more inviting in the ‘Serif Mini’ font. Much more friendly than the stuffy double storied versions in fonts such as ‘Times’ etc.

Andrade is a new typeface designed by Dino dos Santos in 2005. This typeface was inspired in the typographic work of Manoel de Andrade de Figueiredo (b.1670-d.1735), Nova Escola para Aprender a Ler, Escrever e Contar, printed in 1722 at Offcina de Bernardo da Costa de Carvalho. This is one of the most important books, and almost forgotten, about Portuguese calligraphy and typography, and the work of Andrade de Figueiredo is among the most amazing examples of type design of the Eighteenth Century. His work inspired Ventura da Silva, a Portuguese typographer, who in 1803 published a book named Regras Methodicas, where he redesigns some of Figueiredo's type specimens. But Ventura's purpose was to create a more elegant and readable typeface than Didot and Bodoni. This kind of typeface used to be called leitura and is a transition between the baroque and modern typography. Andrade is a brilliant text typeface and is available in Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Ligatures, Ligatures Italic, Swashes and Ornaments. Andrade is my tribute to Portuguese typography and to the work of Manoel de Andrade de Figueiredo in particular.