In a specimen book from Stevens, Shanks & Sons, Ltd. of London (circa1930s) “Royal Gothic” was their version of a classic grotesk sans that had been in use as far back as 1899 when the Keystone Foundry called it “Charter Oak”. The terms "gothic" and "grotesk" were equally applied to early sans serif typefaces – at first not well embraced by printers as being too ugly (grotesque) for use. One familiar characteristic of early grotesk fonts (such as this one) is the numerous variations of character widths and shapes. By combining those two terms into a font name, the digital version of this design is called Gothic Grotesk JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Xylo is a rugged, no-nonsense typeface that was originally designed in 1924 by the Benjamin Krebs type foundry in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Even back then, Xylo must have been very popular; the design made it at least as far as England. In 1995, after finding its design in an old London printer's reference book, the Letraset Type Studio faithfully converted Xylo into digital format. A time-proven display face, Xylo will convey a feeling of power and strength in any application. Best used big in headlines or logos; Xylo exudes an expressionistic and art deco spirit that just as much at home today as it was during the roaring 20s!

The Bitstream version of Caslon 540 of the American Type Founders, 1902. Based on William Caslon I's first English Old Style typefaces of 1725. Caslon modeled his designs based on late 17th century Dutch types, but his artistic skills enabled him to improve those models, bringing a variety of forms and subtlety of details. Strokes in Caslon fonts are somewhat heavier than in earlier Old Style fonts, serifs are thicker and a bit stubby. Italic letters have uneven slope. A text set in Caslon looks legible and aesthetically appealing. Caslon is a favorite font of English printers for setting of classical literature. Cyrillic version was developed for ParaType in 2002 by Isay Slutsker and Manvel Shmavonyan.

Even though the phrase Art Nouveau originated in Paris at the shop of Siegfried Bing, the French preferred to call it Le style moderne. This very sinuous, very Art Nouveau typeface was designed by an E. Mulier around 1894, probably also in Paris. The organic, vine-like curve forms are frequently seen in the art of the period. Examples include the architecture of Victor Horta, the furniture of Henry van de Velde and the jewelry of Max Gradl. Mulier Moderne is an all-cap font with a full Western European character set plus ST and TH ligatures, an alternate ‘E’ and two glyphs of period printer’s cuts. Warning: do not use for extended text. Duh!

This family was inspired by the well-known Caslon typeface created by William Caslon, the English font designer, who was, with John Baskerville, the progenitor of English Transitional typeface classification in the mid-18th century (See also our 1776 Independence). We were inspired by a Caslon style set used by an unknown Flemish printer from Bruges, in the beginning of 1800s, a little before the revival of Caslon style in the 1840s. Our font covers all Western, Eastern and Central European languages (including Celtic diacritics) and the Turkish alphabet, with a complete small-caps set in each of the two styles. (Please note: The complete character set is available only in TTF and OTF “Pro” version.)

This script font was inspired from a lot of manuscripts, notes and drafts, written by the famous American poet Walt Whitman. It is a very elegant type, in spite of a few curious ligatures, often concerning the r or z small letters. Notice the very characteristic “th”. It is used as variously as web-site titles, posters and fliers design or greeting cards, all various sorts of presentations, menus, certificates, letters. This font, in spite of its small size, supports very strong enlargements as well as small sizes ( the original size was about 36 to 48 pts ). When printed, it remains perfectly legible and elegant from 9/11 pts even if using an ordinary inkjet printer.

Aldo New Roman (1000+ glyphs, incl. medieval Latin, Cyrillic, some Greek, ornaments, small capitals, nut fractions...) Renaissance antiqua · Venetian types · Venetian serif · Humanist serif · Old style antiqua A modern version of the typeface cut by Francesco Griffo for Venetian printer Aldus Manutius around 1490 AD. Intentionally not the original Griffo / Aldus / Bembo — but the part of the large project on revival and further development (by drawing many additional glyphs, sometimes over 1000) of the 20th century's typewriters’ fonts. Triple pun here :: :: #1 Aldine Roman type; #2 Since it is equalized, modernized version — the parallel to the Times New Roman; #3 He called himself Aldus Pius Manutius Romanus — he was a new Roman during his Renaissance times.

Although initially designed as a rational/geometric font, Triplex developed into one of Zuzana Licko's most intuitive typeface designs at the time. Its first extensive use was in Emigre magazine #14, a special issue devoted to Swiss designers published in 1990. Triplex was intended as a friendly substitute for Helvetica. The name Triplex refers to the three versions that make up the entire family; Triplex, Triplex Serif and Triplex Italic. Each version of the typeface comes in light, bold and extra bold. The italic was designed and drawn by type designer and sign painter John Downer, and was designed to work with both the serif and sans serif versions. See also Triplex Italic OT.

ITC New Baskerville is one of many contemporary type families based on the work of John Baskerville (1706-1775), a writing master and printer from Birmingham, England, whose types were cut by the punchcutter John Handy. Baskerville produced a masterpiece folio Bible for Cambridge University, and today, his types are considered to be fine representations of eighteenth-century rationalism and neoclassicism. ITC New Baskerville is a late 20th-century interpretation of Baskerville’s style, designed by John Quaranda. It makes an excellent and very readable text face; its sharp, high-contrast forms make it suitable for elegant advertising settings as well. ITC New Baskerville® font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Cities often have their own voice, a voice that can be read... in each location and each business, voice portraying a cultural fabric with an array of manifestations. Balneario Script is a small tribute to a coastal port and tourist city. Through the Sign Painters, in its golden age, a clear, friendly, practical, and functional way of making itself heard evolved. Far from wanting to be perfect, a typeface seeks to be close, warm, and casual. Inspired by the gestures of the brush, Balneario Script reverts to the use of “Casual Letters” so used by Sign Painters. In this adaptation, we sought to adjust its morphology to optimize its performance in small formats and extend the system to include lower case letters as part of the set. The set of fonts has two script weights in addition to an all caps version. The design emphasizes creating a harmonious morphological criterion. Friendly, rhythmic, and with a firm stroke Balneario Script is unique, ideal for headlines and short texts that need to be gestural but simple and highly functional. This typeface was designed to be used in promotional posters or for relaxed and fun Packagings. Balneario Script goes beyond constructive or functional aspects. It seeks to capture the smell of the sea, the warm summer breeze and the nostalgic feeling of a city that from its daily life, knew how to forge a unique personality. This atmosphere allows it to host millions of tourists year after year, and with them reinforce their spirit each summer.

Whomp takes its inspiration from the work of an American master in sign painting and alphabet manipulation: Alf Becker . In 1932, Becker began designing a series of alphabets to be published in Signs of the Times magazine at the rate of one alphabet per month. Nine years later, 100 of those alphabets were compiled in one book that became an enormous success among sign painters. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many Alf Becker alphabets were digitized with blurbs that falsely credit an “Alf Becker typeface”. Alf Becker was not really a typeface kind of guy. He was more of a calligrapher and sign painter. His alphabets were either incomplete or full of variations on different letters, and didn't become typefaces until the digital era. This particular Becker alphabet was quite incomplete. In fact, it wasn't a showing of an alphabet, but words on a poster. Alejandro Paul took the challenge of drawing, digitizing, restructuring, and finally building a complete usable typeface from that partial alphabet. He then extended his pleasure by once again playing with the wonderful possibilities of OpenType. Whomp comes with more than 100 alternates, tons of swashy endings and ligatures, all built into the font and accessible through OpenType palettes in programs that support such features. This is the in-your-face kind of font that stands among other Becker-based alphabets as paying most homage to the vision of this great American artist who saw letters as live ever-changing beings. Whomp is right at home when used on packaging, signage, posters, and entertainment related products.

Emblema is an evocative font that exudes Art Deco style from early decades of the 20th Century. Its geometric shapes give a clean and modern look to any design where it is applied. Emblema was designed in 12 subtly different weights and is ideal for achieving the same weight in a single word when using different point sizes. Open Type users can access an extensive set of alternative and ornamental characters including 3 different size sets of caps, providing the utmost in versatility.

The Tecn@ Dark&Light Triangle Background Nomenclature Font family is differentiated by the direction of the triangle tip in the 4 cardinal points. The family were designed to head, enumerate, indicate or highlight writings or design plans, for this reason, the characters are available only in capital letters and some signs or symbols that can serve such purposes. A triangle or empty character is included so that the user can use it overlaying any character of his choice or to be used alone.

ITC Belter was designed by Andreu Balius in 1996. Out of a purposely limited form repertoire Balius created a constructed typeface with a cool and technical character. A distinguishing characteristic of this font is the cross at the ends of many strokes. The figures seem to be products of mass production, which heightens the mechanical feel of the font. Belter is meant for point sizes of 10 and larger in headlines and shorter texts and must be set with generous spacing.

Peter Kin-Fan Lo designed the award winning Linotype Ancient Chinese™ in 1997. It is a symbol font that contains 92 “portraits” of figures who look as if they could have populated ancient China. These portraits are black and white symbols, gathered together into a font. This symbol font may be used for any design piece dealing with history, China, Chinese restaurants, or Asian art. To clearly see all the details, these symbols should be used at larger point sizes.

Retail Script was designed by Vince Whitlock in 1987. It is a font with strong, dynamic base forms and very small ascenders and descenders, which makes a closed, solid overall image. The fine white lines which are traced within the figures make the font a bit more cheerful and the shading makes the figures look three dimensional. The energetic Retail Script is best used in headlines in larger point sizes in order to preserve the look of its fine details.

Linotype Bariton is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. Designer Alexej Chekoulaev designed his font in one weight to mirror the Zeitgeist of the early 1930s. The characters of this extremely bold font are based on the form of a rectangle though its rounded edges soften its look a bit. Linotype Bariton should be used only in larger point sizes in headlines which should really catch the eye.

Adelya - Elegant Signature Font is a free-flowing monoline, the two style typeface exploits the common letter-to-letter transitions of the typical cursive hand by utilizing two style points controlled within the machinations of OpenType Contextual Alternates. It can be used to create almost all types of design projects like print materials. Just use your imagination and some graphic design set in Extras, your project will become more alive and look great than ever with one of the Adelya font.

ITC Bradley Hand is a calligraphy font from Richard Bradley, designed in 1995. The contours make it look as though it were written by hand with a felt tip pen on rough paper and it has all the details which give it a handwritten character. The font has a balanced, harmonious look and lends correspondence a personal touch. Bradley Hand is legible in point sizes as small as 8 and is good for headlines and short to middle length texts.

Hexi is a modern style serif font. It has 9 thicknesses (Thin to Black) to provide more support when designing and also Oblique version to give your texts more different or contrast. Have bold serifs to reduce the pixel effect on digital devices. Minimized the nodes in each design to keep the glyphs bodies clean. Give the extrema point on each curve, it will make Hexi look smooth and neat. There are several subpackage options for you to save even more.

No prizes for guessing this font family was inspired by the 1950s - the sounds (Buddy, Eddie, Elvis), the styles (polka dots, petticoats and Dior's New Look), and the kitsch, from furry dice above the dashboard to plaster ducks over the mantlepiece! A particular point of reference is the furnishings and fabrics of the Fifties (with their distinctive kidney shapes and angular curves) as showcased in the Festival of Britain 1951. See also my other fun fonts Barrowboy, Calypso and Pier Arcade.

Elegant and prickly; smooth and sharp; beautiful, but evil - Stervella - display typeface. Its serifs resemble the twisting branches and thorny thorns of a blackthorn, trying to prick neighboring letters. This font is inspired by the forms of ancient Uncial, combining antique with pointed gothic writing. Изящная и колючая; плавная и острая; красивая, но злая - акцидентная Стервелла. Ее засечки напоминают извилистые ветви и колючие шипы терновника, стремящиеся уколоть соседние буквы. Этот шрифт вдохновлен формами старинного Унциала, совмещая в себе антикву с остроконечным готическим письмом.

The font, Arnold Boecklin, appeared in 1904 with the font foundry Otto Weisert. Traces of the floral forms of the Jugendstil can still be seen in this typeface. Alphabets of this type were mainly meant for larger point sizes, as on posters. A decorative feel was much more important than legibility, and Arnold Boecklin was of particular importance to the book design of the Jugendstil movement. Today the font is often used to remind people of “the good old days”.

Smilodon an ancient distressed font made with raptor claws, cat’s teeth, stone and sky? It's a corroded, distressed, punk scrawl with lots of attitude. This is a basic minimal glyph set with uppercase and lowercase forms. This is a headline display font suggested use would be 60 point or larger. Note: The metric and kerning on this font is extremely tight spacing and user should letterspace to desired width within application type controls. This monster cat is pre-historic indeed.

Bannertype is – at least for my feeling – the most German of all fonts. It was used heavily mostly in newsprint and advertising in the early 1900s. I designed a dirty version of the narrow font in 4 stages of dirtiness, plus one free shadow font. Since the font has too many points I cannot generate a OTF-version, I am over the limit for that. But I have tried this TrueType version and it works like a jiffy in MacOS 10.8.2!

Milk Cursive is the healthy choice. Fortify your designs & fulfill your daily textual needs with these flowing, bubbly letters. Enjoy the refreshingly natural look of an every-man's calligraphy with a fat & wide style. Milk Cursive is extended, containing West European diacritics & ligatures, making it suitable for multilingual environments & publications. It also contains some icons as extra characters, such as a star, a heart, an arrow, flowers, a butterfly, and manicules (pointing hands). Go ahead and have fun with it!

The Tecn@ Dark&Light Triangle Background Nomenclature Font family is differentiated by the direction of the triangle tip in the 4 cardinal points. The family were designed to head, enumerate, indicate or highlight writings or design plans, for this reason, the characters are available only in capital letters and some signs or symbols that can serve such purposes. A triangle or empty character is included so that the user can use it overlaying any character of his choice or to be used alone.

The Tecn@ Dark&Light Triangle Background Nomenclature Font family is differentiated by the direction of the triangle tip in the 4 cardinal points. The family were designed to head, enumerate, indicate or highlight writings or design plans, for this reason, the characters are available only in capital letters and some signs or symbols that can serve such purposes. A triangle or empty character is included so that the user can use it overlaying any character of his choice or to be used alone.

The Tecn@ Dark&Light Triangle Background Nomenclature Font family is differentiated by the direction of the triangle tip in the 4 cardinal points. The family were designed to head, enumerate, indicate or highlight writings or design plans, for this reason, the characters are available only in capital letters and some signs or symbols that can serve such purposes. A triangle or empty character is included so that the user can use it overlaying any character of his choice or to be used alone.

The Tecn@ Dark&Light Triangle Background Nomenclature Font family is differentiated by the direction of the triangle tip in the 4 cardinal points. The family were designed to head, enumerate, indicate or highlight writings or design plans, for this reason, the characters are available only in capital letters and some signs or symbols that can serve such purposes. A triangle or empty character is included so that the user can use it overlaying any character of his choice or to be used alone.

The Tecn@ Dark&Light Triangle Background Nomenclature Font family is differentiated by the direction of the triangle tip in the 4 cardinal points. The family were designed to head, enumerate, indicate or highlight writings or design plans, for this reason, the characters are available only in capital letters and some signs or symbols that can serve such purposes. A triangle or empty character is included so that the user can use it overlaying any character of his choice or to be used alone.

Linotype Matthia is part of the Take Type Library, which features the winners of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contest from 1994 to 1997. Dieter Kurz designed Matthia as a slender, flowing brush font. Its characters are in a handwritten style yet stand almost straight, making Matthia a mixture of reserved and lively, of static and dynamic. The font is reminiscent of advertisement typefaces popular in the 1950s and extremely versatile, suitable for short texts in small point size or headlines on posters.

Here's a deluxe comic book dialogue font with a vintage feel! Nerves of Steel BB comes with Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic. Contextual Alternates and Auto-ligatures enable six versions of every letter, and three versions of each number, the exclamation point and question mark. Barred-I correction is included as well as bouncy baselines when three or more duplicate letters are typed. To top it off, you get glyphs included for manga letterers, and a large European set of characters!

The first slab serif fonts appeared at the beginning of industrialization in Great Britain in 1820. Clarendon and Ionic became the names for this new development in England, known as English Egyptienne elsewhere in Europe. Clarendon is also the name of a particular font of this style, which, thanks to its clear, objective and timeless forms, never lost its contemporary feel. In small point sizes Clarendon is still a legible font and in larger print, its individual style attracts attention.

Linotype Dummy is a part of the Take Type Library, chosen from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. The Canadian artist Tad Biernot based the design of his font on optical illusions like those of M. C. Escher. The reader cannot always exactly decide if a character is twisting toward or away or both. Linotype Dummy is available in black and outline weights and is suited exclusively to short headlines in large point sizes.

Linotype Graphena is part of the Take Type Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. It is a handwriting font designed by the Italian artist Giancarlo Barison. Consciously irregular and erratic, the letters dance across a page, large and small, tilted and erect. Linotype Graphena could be described as angular, restless, even mischievous. It should be set in point sizes no smaller than 12 and is best used for headlines and displays.

Impresssionable JNL is a font created from samples printed from a vintage rubber stamp toy set. This is a limited character design without spacing or kerning in order to preserve the hand-made look of inkpad printing on paper. A few extra punctuation glyphs, a percent sign and Euro were added to the original characters. At smaller sizes (72 point or less), the letters resemble the imprints of the stamps, but at higher sizes, they take on a different look of deconstructed lettering.

The first slab serif fonts appeared at the beginning of industrialization in Great Britain in 1820. Clarendon and Ionic became the names for this new development in England, known as English Egyptienne elsewhere in Europe. Clarendon is also the name of a particular font of this style, which, thanks to its clear, objective and timeless forms, never lost its contemporary feel. In small point sizes Clarendon is still a legible font and in larger print, its individual style attracts attention.

The Tecn@ Dark&Light Triangle Background Nomenclature Font family is differentiated by the direction of the triangle tip in the 4 cardinal points. The family were designed to head, enumerate, indicate or highlight writings or design plans, for this reason, the characters are available only in capital letters and some signs or symbols that can serve such purposes. A triangle or empty character is included so that the user can use it overlaying any character of his choice or to be used alone.

Aquinas is distinguished by the contrast between its upright, generous capitals and its narrow, slanted lower case letters which look almost like italics. The combination of these so different alphabets creates an opportunity to give texts an unusual yet elegant look. Aquinas is suitable for both running text and headlines and should be used in point sizes of 10 or larger. The lyrical and sophisticated feel of Aquinas makes it a particularly good typeface for poems, songs and other artistic texts.