Many years ago I studied American Sign Language in an effort to better communicate with some friends of mine within the deaf community. I found ASL to be a beautifully expressive language from a vibrant and active culture. Out of that attempt came this stylized depiction of the manual alphabet used in finger-spelling. Until recently it had only existed in analog form, born of pen and ink on paper. So now I'm glad to say it’s turned digital. Typing a period (.) will reveal the sign for “I Love You” (a combination of the letters I, L and Y), which fits nicely within the shape of a heart. Holding down the shift key while again typing period (greater symbol) will reveal the heart in its filled-in form, which can serve as an underlay. Use these in an application that supports layering in order to create different color combinations. There’s a stylistic alternate letter “S” and an “OO” ligature which can be accessed in OpenType-savvy apps.

Six Hands is a set of handwritten fonts based on various writing tools, such as pencil, felt-tip pen, ball-point pen, and brush. The character set of each of these fonts supports the Cyrillic alphabet, as well as the extended Latin script for all European languages. Most of the styles also contain additional alternatives that have the capability of automatically interchanging in the setting, which significantly variegates and humanizes the text. Six Hands is quite a rare combination of diverse display fonts that work well together. It is made for talented designers who can use it creatively in packaging, advertising, displays, posters, menus, invitations and so on. The design of Six Hands was a result of collaboration between Alexandra Korolkova, Alexander Lubovenko and all those who assist them in this work. This set of fonts was released by Paratype in 2018.

Introducing Promenade – a calligraphic serif that started on paper with a flat nib pen (see the 6th image), and blossomed into a full serif with italics. At its core, this font is just... beautiful. It's elegant, it's crisp, it's delicate, but can still hold its own. As I was creating the graphics, I just couldn't get over the flow of the letters – especially the italic. It's got class, but also isn't afraid to rock a pair of Doc Marten's. Funny enough, Jen from Tonic (they make beautiful websites) saw a preview of this font and said, "I'd take that font to prom." Which of course spurred a conversation about how this font would take a Mercedes G-Series instead of a limo, and wear Doc Marten's instead of heels, but still wear the most gorgeous dress, and that is 100% Promenade (and inspo for the name – thanks, Jen!). I've also been loving combining the regular and italic, especially for logos (see the "Friendfolk" logo) One thing to note about Promenade is the letter spacing. It was spaced for clean reading and intentional balance, so I recommend setting the spacing a little tighter if you want to create the display look found in many of the logo mockups(around -20 to -40 should do!).

Rose Garden Deluxe is an elegant type collection including a luscious high contrast serif in three weights and an ethereal pen script also in three weights. Together the fonts form an effective all-around set for sophisticated display purposes. The fonts are best used for imposing headlines, as a logotype, in packaging and posters. Rose Garden Serif has an extra high contrast giving it a sophisticated look, suitable for fashion or luxurious high-end products, magazines and anything such. Rose Garden Pen has no contrast, as if it was written with a steady and precise inking pen. Rose Garden Pen is equipped with plenty of useful OpenType features: it has Contextual Alternates and Standard Ligatures to enliven the flow of “writing” and to keep the connections between letters smooth. In addition it has Stylistic and Swash Alternates for every standard uppercase and lowercase characters, as well as for ampersand and few ligatures. On top of that it has initial and terminal swashes - a feature that is set in Titling Alternates. The feature works following: click it on and write normally. Type a space before a word and after it to get a special swash character in the beginning and in the end of the word. If that isn’t enough seek for even more alternates in the Glyphs Palette. Each weight has over 650 glyphs in total. Rose Garden Ornaments is an extension to Rose Garden Pen. It’s a set of Ornaments with the same weight and handwriting style as the font. The swooshes can be combined with the font for even more ornamental looks and the swashes set in lowercase letters can be used as additional terminal swashes, combined with any lowercase character.

Say hello to our new contemporary all-caps font "Wilde Rosa". Perfect for logos, magazine titles, this lovely font can be paired with clean sans serif. Wilde Rosa is designed to be used for large headings whether it be displayed on billboards, advertisements, or magazines.

Evening Paper JNL, one could say, was "culled from the headlines". It was. The front page headlines from some 1938 newspapers archived online were the basic model for this font. The typeface design goes back to a font first issued by Ludlow in the 1920s.

Say hello to my handy font! Use it whenever you need something handmade, vibrant and lively. I've added 6 different versions of each letter - just fo ahead and type and watch the letters automatically cycle - or choose the ones you prefer from the glyphs menu

Multiverse is a display typeface designed to combine retro and futuristic styles into one package. Its geometric characters intertwine in unique ways that can support a high-tech context, but its curves and boldness echo the sci-fi of the 70's and 80's.

The Wood-Regan Instruments Company (Wrico) of New Jersey manufactured for decades a line of lettering kits called the Wrico Sign Maker. With only special ink pens, plastic templates and a template guide anyone could letter clean, clear signs, posters and notices. Based on the same principles of architectural templates, the lettering was [for the most part] utilitarian and functional. Few templates were of stylized or decorative lettering. Informational Gothic JNL and its oblique version are based on the four inch high lettering templates from one of those kits.

Tiza is a rough take on informal faces and handwriting, brought on by the recent demand for scripts and brush lettering. Its flow leaves traces simulating runny pen ink, which makes it very suitable for handwriting-like paragraphs as well as casual greeting card and invitation setting. The bold weight, Tiza Negra, fits very nicely on book covers as well as large signs. Tiza is the proverbial reminder that typefaces can sometimes be more human than they are normally perceived. Designed by lettering great Angel Koziupa, and digitized and completed for Sudtipos by Alejandro Paul.

Kanna Aoki had fairy tales in mind when she designed MVB Greymantle. She drew dots with a felt pen to build up the forms, giving them their particular rough character. The “Extras” font contains a set of whimsical illustrations, including a portrait of Greymantle—her 18-pound cat, a set of curly initial caps, and border parts.  MVB Greymantle has been spotted on numerous children's books, in magazines, in salad dressing advertisements, and on food packaging.

A contemporary interpretation of grotesque (historic) typestyle, relying on geometric shapes applied to a grid. Idiosyncrasies within the typeface are based on how this grid is constructed and applied rather than those inherent in drawing type with a pen or cutting from a block of wood. Other grot types retain the quirks of original woodcut typefaces. Elephant has a different vocabulary of quirks that remove it from being too reverential or constrained to a historic context.

I have been making some clean, connected fonts lately and when I was working on another one of these, I felt the need for something chaotic. So, Scapegoat was born. I used a round nibbed steel pen and Chinese ink and the result is quite a messy font. It may look chaotic, but as Nietzsche once said: ‘from chaos comes order’. Amen to that! Comes with double letter ligatures for the lower case and a whole lot of diacritics.

Despite what some might say, you can’t just always go for that most ubiquitous font in the world, can you? Avion font family channels those cool modernist vibes yet brings something new to the table. With a slightly more rectangular approach and some clever detailing, Avion has a distinct look of its own, yet provokes a calming familiarity of neutrality and objectiveness. As goes without saying, it’s also equipped with a sensible amount of features that make it a true, versatile workhorse. Get on board.

Lyra is an Italian Renaissance script that might have developed if metal type had not broken the evolution of broad pen calligraphy. It lies in the area between the humanist bookhand and the chancery cursive, combining the fullness and articulation of the Roman letters with a moderate italic slant and condensation. A steep pen-angle allows use of a broader pen relative to the x-height, giving the letters more contrast with light verticals and heavy curves. Lyra embodies the Renaissance spirit of refining technical advances of the late middle ages with reintroduction of ancient classical principles. Based on the moving penstroke with constantly changing pen-angle, it brings the vitality of handwriting to the ordered legibility of type. Lyra is a formal italic, too slow for copying books. By eliminating the element of speed, digital technology opens up a new level of calligraphy, bringing it into the sphere of typography as would naturally have happened if metalworkers had not controlled the process. If classical Western traditions are respected, digital calligraphy has the potential to recapture the work of the past and restart its stalled evolution. There is of course no substitute for the charm of actual writing, with each letter made for its space; but the tradeoff is for the formal harmony of classical calligraphy as every curve resonates in tune with every other. This three-weight font family marks Philip Bouwsma's much-requested return from a three year hiatus. It also reminds us of his solid vision in regards to how calligraphy, typography and technology can interact to produce digital beauty and vesatility. Each of the three Lyra fonts contains almost three character sets in a single file. Aside from the usual wealth of alternates normally built into Bouwsma's work, Lyra offers two unique features for the user who appreciates the availability of handy solutions to subtle design space issues: At least three (and as many as six) length variations on ascending and descending forms, and 65 snap-on swashes which can be attached to either end of the majuscules or minuscules. The series also offers 24 dividers and ornaments built into each weight, and a stand-alone font containing 90 stars/snowflakes/flowers, symmetric contstructs for building frames or separators, masking, watermarking, or just good old psychedelia.

Kakadu is a squarish sans serif, designed to work equally well on paper and on screen. The angular curves in this typeface create a firm and dependable appearance. The square-like forms also provide an inward openness and allow large and open letterforms, adapting perfectly to the orthogonal pixel grid of the monitor. Kakadu works well in small sizes while, it appears strong and distinguished in larger ones. Play the classic snake game and see the Kakadu fonts in action here.

Horror/Metal/Punk upper case only font with varied double letters (open type feature). Open type Latin Pro with alternate upper case using the lower case, and varied double letters for an even more genuine handwritten look. (Open type feature.) Ink on paper, carefully and meticulously touched up digitally so that all letters will look good printed in bigger sizes.

Broad pen script typeface from 1930s and 40s; magazine advertising.

Broad pen script typeface from 1930s and 40s; magazine advertising.

Broad pen script typeface from 1930s and 40s; magazine advertising.

Created with the needs of branding design in mind, Jan Hendrik Weber's Unitext is a crisp, clean typeface that functions well across print and online use. It blends humanist and grotesque qualities, adopting a style that the designer describes as “neo grotesque”. Narrow spacing is what sets this typeface apart, however it also uses open counters and angled details to boost readability. “The ideal font should work at every touchpoint,” says Weber. “And designers shouldn’t need an introduction or a set of rules on how to handle this typeface. Unitext allows designers to work without explanation.” The Unitext family includes 7 weights, spread across 14 fonts with extensive Western, Central and Eastern European language support. Unitext Variables are font files which are featuring one axis and have 14 names instances: Hairline, Hairline Italic, Extralight, Extralight Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, Italic, Semibold, Semibold Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Black, Black Italic

Based on the hit album by Glen Campbell, Southern Nights is the font with a style that’s “free as a breeze,” as the song says. It’s fun and casual, yet it has a flair for fashion and elegance. It also has an art nouveau look which lends itself to greeting cards as well as the branding of perfume, clothing, retailing, dining, and other luxury/high-end uses. This font includes alternate characters for the upper R, S, and T, the lower g and z, plus ligatures that include a double lower t and double lower l (L). As the song might say, I apologize to anyone who can truly say that they have found a better font! Digitized by John Bomparte.

Introducing Khodijah, brand new display font in Arabic style. Designed with a digital flat-pen and gothic typography technique which gives the elegant looks of the letters. This font also adopted from the Hijaiyah letters that highly usable for any Islamic or Mid-east content. Perfect for Book covers, poster, flyer, banner, t-shirt, logo, branding, and other advertising needs. Khodijah has OpenType features such as alternates, swashes, and ligatures that you can access them from the software which has an open-type panel. Happy designing! Ramz.

Say Hello to Swily Bright. Trendy, classy & modern style serif font for your fancy projects. Elegant, fashion and classic style on Swily Bright font will be great for any branding project. With 2 style Regular and Italic, alternates and ligatures will help you to create unique letters

Techno Retro JNL looks like a design straight out of the 1980s, but it actually appeared as hand lettering on a sheet music cover for the circa-1940s edition of the song "To You Sweetheart, Aloha", proving the old saying that "everything old is new again".

Thymesans was one of Chank’s earliest fonts, created way back in 1994 for CAKE Magazine. Sometimes it's got serifs, sometimes it doesn't. “What a weird and fickle futuristic font!” says Chank. Emancipate your designs with this decidedly modern font. Good for funk or country album covers.

Created in Minneapolis in 1996, Chunder is inspired by the hand-painted cursive signage of urban boutiques where a shopkeeper can't afford to hire a very good sign painter. Kinda clunky, kinda flowery. Like beer spilled on a daffodil. "It's not pretty, but it's mine," says Chank.

Streamlined Stencil JNL is based on a photo of an Art Deco era shipping stencil saying "With Care" which was heavily influenced by the Futura Black style of lettering. The image was seen in the Steven Heller-Louise Fili book "Stencil Type" (published by Thames and Hudson).

When master letterer Hugh Gordon and his student, Ross F. George developed a set of lettering pens between June 16, 1913 and Sept. 1, 1914, they had no idea that their invention (which they named Speed-Ball®) would still be in use nearly a hundred years later. The C. Howard Hunt pen company [originally of Camden, New Jersey] became the original (and sole) distributor of these pens. By 1915 an instructional booklet entitled "Modern Pen Lettering" was produced, and it was copiously illustrated with examples of layouts, lettering techniques and an assortment of alphabets for the user to learn. Nouveau Poster JNL is Jeff Levine's interpretation of a sanserif design found within the pages of this vintage publication.

The Data Error Horiz AOE Pro family is a spinoff of my Data Error AOE Pro family. Quite simply, it takes on a slightly different feel than the original pin matrix grid by stroking across all horizontal glyph lines. The horizontal lines add more readability to the original grid and lend a more sci-fi vibe to the family. Check out the range of posters created to see the various Capitals, Lowercase, smallcaps and varying styles that the family has to offer and how it both differs from and compliments the original Data Error AOE Pro family. Be sure to note that the "family" price is the same as the "individual" price, so buy the family for the price of a single font!

Based on William Caslon’s design (c1720) which was itself based on Dutch Baroque typefaces. The old saying “when in doubt, use Caslon.” can now be updated ... “use RM Almanack instead!” Includes: Western European, Central European, Baltic & Turkish sets Due to the modular nature of this design there may be a slight lack of smoothness to the curves at very large point sizes (around 100 pt and above).

Gladstone is a charming script typeface inspired by pen lettering techniques.

For several years I have been thinking about the design of a type family that explores, on the one hand, the modernist aesthetic that we know, from the Alphabet "a.r." designed by Władysław Strzemiński, and on the other, to the multiscript pre-war Warsaw. This is how the idea of creating the Polin Sans typeface was born. After researching on geometric variants of the Cyrillic alphabet, I was inspired by the text "Towards an open layout: A letter to Volodya Yefimov". I was intrigued by the fact that circular forms, which we are mostly familiar with in the Bulgarian Cyrillic, can be implemented in the classical version, without disrupting the reading process. At the same time, while working on typoteka.pl, I was fascinated by the Hebrew typeface jaffa, published by the Idźkowski & Sk-a foundry, which at some points looks like the Hebrew equivalent of the Alphabet "a.r.". Ben Nathan from Israel joined the project and was responsible for creating his native script. The idea of creating a multiscript family expanded to include Greek and Vietnamese. As a result, Polin Sans is a historical journey through the nooks and crannies of Polish modernism, which was created by people with diverse cultural backgrounds. The Polin Sans family was designed by Mateusz Machalski and Ben Nathan with the support of Michał Gorczyca and Małgorzata Bartosik.

Neue Jugend is an art nouveau typeface orientated on letter shapes of original Jugendstil fonts. The shapes are reduced to a straight modern look, so one could say it is the 21st century art nouveau. Neue Jugend supports all latin languages and their is a little ligature to bring P and Y closer together, if wanted. It is an uppercase typeface, so it is suggested to be used in headlines. For example on a poster or a book.

Inspired by the typefaces used for company insignia on aircraft in the 1930's and 1940's, Streamliner is light, friendly and open.

A thorn-laden split flare serif typestyle inspired by the lettering of Ben Shahn on the cover of the novel, Rendezvous with Destiny.

Woodlawn JNL is based on an open face wood type. A bold outline sans, this design is excellent for headline and titling applications.