The Brass Family has a lineage that extends into English history. About five hundred years ago a devout, but anonymous Englishman gave glory to the God he worshipped by designing the capital letters and decorations of these two fonts. Originally recorded in The History Of Mediaeval Alphabets And Devices by Henry Shaw (London 1853), they are described by Alexander Nesbitt in his Decorative Alphabets And Initials (Mineola, NY 1959) as “Initials and stop ornaments from brasses in Westminster Abbey.” I wish I could say I remember seeing them when I was there, but that was forty-two years ago and all I remember was seeing the tomb of Edward the Confessor. One definition of “stop” as a noun is a point of punctuation. I have heard people from the British Isles speak of a “full stop” when referring to a period. Some may remember a 19th century form of communication called a telegram being read aloud in an old movie, with the use of the word “stop” to indicate the end of a sentence or fragment. A full dozen of these stop ornaments are provided. They occupy positions 060, 062, 094, 123, 125, 126, 135, 137, 167, 172, 177 & 190. The Brass Family consists of two fonts: Brass and Brass Too. Both fonts have an identical upper case and ornaments, but paired with different lower cases. Although the typefaces from which the lower cases were drawn are both of modern design, both are interpretations of the textura style of blackletter in use in England when the upper case and ornaments were fashioned for the Abbey. Brass is paired with Morris Gothic, which matches the color of the upper case quite well. Brass Too is paired with Wedding Regular, which is distinctly lighter than the upper case. I find it very interesting how each connects differently. The resulting fonts are unusual and most useful for evoking an historic atmosphere.

Kangaroo FS Joey was the offspring of a project with Rudd Studio to develop a logotype for an online streaming TV service, in 2008. While under wraps, the secret project was code-named Kangaroo. The logotype led to a second project, to design a corporate typeface for the service. It was the first big project Fernando Mello had worked on with Jason Smith. “Like any designer who just joined a team, I was very excited about it, drawing and sketching lots of ideas. I remember Jason and I experimenting with lots of possibilities, for both the logo and the typeface.” Online As the font for a Spotify-style, internet-based service, FS Joey needed to be highly legible on-screen, including at very small sizes. There had to be a range of weights, and they’d have to work well in print, too. It was also important that it felt corporate, not too quirky, while still having a strong character of its own. Quirkiest “We designed three weights specifically for use on the Web,” says Jason Smith. “There was the usual fight between me and my team. I wanted at least one identifiable letter that was a quirk. As always I went straight for the lowercase ‘g’, and it was drawn numerous times with lots of variation. I got the quirkiest one accepted by the client.” But, later in 2009, the Competition Commission blocked Project Kangaroo, and Fontsmith were left with a couple of weights of an as yet unused font. From Kangaroo, Joey was born. A favourite “Straight away, people started to notice the typeface,” says Jason. “I can take the credit for pushing the art direction and standing up for the quirks. But it was Fernando who was the key to pulling it all together and adding his own distinct flavour. Now it’s one of my favourite designs in our library.” Fresh and friendly, geometric and energetic, Joey is available in five weights, all with italics, all finely-tuned for both screen and print.

Kangaroo FS Joey was the offspring of a project with Rudd Studio to develop a logotype for an online streaming TV service, in 2008. While under wraps, the secret project was code-named Kangaroo. The logotype led to a second project, to design a corporate typeface for the service. It was the first big project Fernando Mello had worked on with Jason Smith. “Like any designer who just joined a team, I was very excited about it, drawing and sketching lots of ideas. I remember Jason and I experimenting with lots of possibilities, for both the logo and the typeface.” Online As the font for a Spotify-style, internet-based service, FS Joey needed to be highly legible on-screen, including at very small sizes. There had to be a range of weights, and they’d have to work well in print, too. It was also important that it felt corporate, not too quirky, while still having a strong character of its own. Quirkiest “We designed three weights specifically for use on the Web,” says Jason Smith. “There was the usual fight between me and my team. I wanted at least one identifiable letter that was a quirk. As always I went straight for the lowercase ‘g’, and it was drawn numerous times with lots of variation. I got the quirkiest one accepted by the client.” But, later in 2009, the Competition Commission blocked Project Kangaroo, and Fontsmith were left with a couple of weights of an as yet unused font. From Kangaroo, Joey was born. A favourite “Straight away, people started to notice the typeface,” says Jason. “I can take the credit for pushing the art direction and standing up for the quirks. But it was Fernando who was the key to pulling it all together and adding his own distinct flavour. Now it’s one of my favourite designs in our library.” Fresh and friendly, geometric and energetic, Joey is available in five weights, all with italics, all finely-tuned for both screen and print.

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.”

The classic modernist FS Alvar grew out of a library of pure modular shapes gathered by Fontsmith’s master of the abstract starting point, Mr Phil Garnham. “It was a collection that just had to be explored and brought to life in a typographic voice. “We debated long and hard about this. It was big decision to make a shift away from the typefaces that people knew us for. And we didn’t want to compromise our reputation of well crafted typographic quality”. Modular forms A headline font that’s both graphic and functional, in the modernist tradition, FS Alvar focused Fontsmith’s eyes on the bigger issue of what makes a font show its age. “Looking at those fonts from the 1980s that were supposed to represent the ‘future’,” says Phil, “they looked so dated now. With Alvar, we weren’t concerned with creating future-thinking typography but with exploring form for form’s sake, and how that can evolve to create letterforms. Modular forms with a typographic eye.” Stencilled The concept for Alvar first materialised back in 2001 with some sketches Phil made while still at Middlesex University. Eight years later, something made him dig them out again. “There was something really nice about the proportions of that first design. Working on it again, I thought about it properly, but it still needed something to give it that edge. “Jason stood up in the studio and supplied the missing link: ‘Why don’t we make it stencilled?’ He didn’t mean in an obvious way, but by building a kind of architectural stencil into the form. It worked and the idea of using an architect’s name (Alvar Aalto) to describe the font felt perfect.” Featured in... The three weights of FS Alvar are made for standout headlines in advertising campaigns and magazines. Alvar has had a starring role in campaigns for brands from Nike to Amnesty International, as well as on CD covers, record labels and packaging.

Duos Pro, a script for illusionists, comes in 10 styles. Whatever style you pick: apply this speedy monolinear handwriting font in large sizes, because it is made for catching the attention. Take Duos Sharp, which comes with speedy strokes and sharp endings in light, regular and black weights. Or pick Duos Round, and its 3 styles with a softer voice and round endings. Some people call those endings “funky ball noses“, an odd but appropriate description. Round styles look more like round tip speedball lettering, but contrary to most speedball letterings they're written with a very high speed. Especially Duos Round Black is more cuddlesome than its sharper counterpart. For an even more intuitive feel, we added two more sets: Duos Brush & Duos Paint. Duos Brush combines monoline strokes with brush beginnings and endings, for that graphical, freshly lettered touch. A closer look will reveal how its brushed tails vary all the time. Duos Paint is made up out of rough & artistic painted strokes, with all its accompanying shortcomings. In contradiction to the finesses of lighter weights, Duos Paint Black scores in being the most nonchalant and impressionistic. Poésie brutale! As well as having the option to choose between (or mix) these 10 styles, Duos Pro has additional hidden functionalities. For example, every style has many alternate lettershapes and ligatures, offering various different results and lengths to display every single word. Or manually add one of the swashes for more emphasis. A bonus font, Duos Tools, includes tool icons, strokes and banners. If that ain’t enough, throw in some polysemic letters for smart, ambiguous communication if you like. Want to become a signpainter? Then be a signpainter. Always wanted to be an artist? This is your chance! Duos Pro boosts your look. Make your visual vocabulary as grandiose, dramatic, sensitive or picturesque as you want. But whatever you do, don't hesitate to apply Duos Pro “short & big”!

The Englishman William Caslon punchcut many roman, italic, and non-Latin typefaces from 1720 until his death in 1766. At that time most types were being imported to England from Dutch sources, so Caslon was influenced by the characteristics of Dutch types. He did, however, achieve a level of craft that enabled his recognition as the first great English punchcutter. Caslon's roman became so popular that it was known as the script of kings, although on the other side of the political spectrum (and the ocean), the Americans used it for their Declaration of Independence in 1776. The original Caslon specimen sheets and punches have long provided a fertile source for the range of types bearing his name. Identifying characteristics of most Caslons include a cap A with a scooped-out apex; a cap C with two full serifs; and in the italic, a swashed lowercase v and w. Caslon's types have achieved legendary status among printers and typographers, and are considered safe, solid, and dependable. Caslon Antique was designed by Berne Nadall and brought out by the American type foundry Barnhart Bros & Spindler in 1896 to 1898. It doesn't bear any resemblance to Caslon, but has the quaint crudeness of what people imagine type looked like in the eighteenth century. Use Caslon Antique for that old-timey" effect in graphic designs. It looks best in large sizes for titles or initials. Caslon Black was designed by David Farey in the 1990s, and consists of one relatively narrow and very black weight. It is intended exclusively for titles or headlines. Caslon Black has a hint of the original Caslon lurking in the shadows of its shapes, but has taken on its own robust expression. Caslon Graphique was designed by Leslie Usherwood in the 1980s. The basic forms are close to the original Caslon, but this version has wide heavy forms with very high contrast between the hairline thin strokes and the fat main strokes. This precisely drawn and stylized Caslon has verve; it's ideal for headlines or initials in large sizes."

Weatsyam is a unique and elegant handwritten font. It looks beautiful on a variety of designs requiring a personalized style, such as wedding invitations, thank you cards, weddings, greeting cards, logos and so on. Weatsyam is PUA encoded which means you can access all of the amazing glyphs and ligatures with ease!

One of the guys is a simple, highly legible, mono lined comic book font. Simple, yes, but full of personality! Use it as it is, or spice up your text by using the extra layer. The extra layer could be ghouly slime, birthday cake cream, snow or whatever your imagination figures out!

Futurist typeface from the programming era, Plau is a sans-serif with rounded corner personality and interestingly deliberate lettershapes. Comfortable in headlines, reads surprisingly well in longer passages of text. Includes the following OpenType features: OT All Small Caps, Small Caps, Fraction, Proportional/Tabular Oldstyle and lining figures, subscript and superscript numbers.

Futurist italic typeface from the programming era, Plau is a sans-serif with rounded corner personality and interestingly deliberate lettershapes. Comfortable in headlines, reads surprisingly well in longer passages of text. Includes the following OpenType features: OT All Small Caps, Small Caps, Fraction, Proportional/Tabular Oldstyle and lining figures, subscript and superscript numbers.

Raguki is a sans serif display font with a modern and unique style. Aesthetic letterforms with stylistic ink traps make this font have bags of personality. Raguki has open-type features (salt and ss01) that enable the user to transform the letterforms to create different designs. We hope you enjoy it. Saga Studio

Churchward Lorina is a four weight typeface family originally designed in 1996 by New Zealand type designer Joseph Churchward. A personable geometric sans serif, it possesses some of Churchward's trademark quirkiness but reamins highly legible and readable on screen as well as in print. The family includes Light, Regular, Bold and Black.

Contrary to its name, Curmudgeon is a fun and whimsical typeface that's perfect for children's books, holiday announcements or anything that needs a charmingly playful touch. Its naive and bouncy personality will add interest to any project, whether it be a logo, packaging, or any other project that needs some quirky character.

Looking for a typeface with a unique appearance? Jungle Man is the right choice for advertising, graphic design and webdesign to make a personal statement. And when it comes to readability, you are on a safe side by using Jungle Man. There are numerous occasions where a handwritten font makes a great impression.

Cherie Bomb is a handmade brush font with a punk-rock feeling, but with personality and heart. It will allow you to create stunning hand-lettering quickly and easily. Cherie Bomb includes over 350 characters, uppercase and lowercase, basic punctuation, numerals and works great with a lot of international languages besides english.

Modeled after some antique stencil cutting tools spotted in an online auction, Stencil Cutter JNL portrays the look of hand tooled lettering. The rounded-end characters have their own personality and this eccentricity provides a warmth and charm from times past. Stencil Cutter JNL is available in both regular and oblique versions.