Imperia is derived from my Classic font Imperium – the Roman Original from the Trajan column. I pushed Imperia a lot further, adding two versions of swings. To make the family more usable I threw in my own version of lowercase letters for free; Roman did not have lowercase letters of that kind! The other three cuts – A, B, and C –have classic smallcaps.

Big Ballpen is a modern, slightly naive handwriting typeface, which has the feel of graffiti with its rough lines. The font lines are basically fat and the thickness is not regular from letter to letter. Some numbers are inspired from Tony Buzan concept of picture-number. For example, the number 2 resembles a swan. Some special characters like €$*#@&{Ç~• are available.

Carlos was inspired by a Spanish typeface designed by Carlos Winkow called 'Elektra' (c. 1940), available elsewhere as Casablanca. Carlos is an exceptionally graceful, condensed art deco sans serif design that supports all European languages that use the Latin alphabet as well as those that use the Cyrillic alphabet, and includes OpenType features, arbitrary fractions, and a collection of geometrics, dingbats & fleurons.

Antoinette Monogrammes is a monogram font based on old embroideries in the early 20th century by Janon Co. This font includes Upright script capitals and Normal slanted script capitals and 24 fancy frames. By combining each letters and frames, you can make your own monogram. And Every letters and frames were added handwritten effect to make warm and handcrafted impression. How about making monogram for wedding card, scrap book, stamp, logo? Upright script capitals can be accessed by typing Uppercase keys(A, B, C ....) and Slanted script capitals by lowercase key(a, b, c ...). Frames are 0-9 and exclamation mark(!), at mark(@), number sign(#), dollar($), percent(%), ascii circumflex(^), ampersand(&), asterisk(*), left and right brackets(()), period(.), comma(,), less and greater(). You need to arrange and set the position manually to finish making monograms. Please use graphic applications such as adobe illustrator or photoshop but not microsoft word.

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.”

Nawin is an informal Arabic typeface inspired by handwriting. The idea behind this design is to create a type family attractive and ownable for children but at the same time a design that keeps excellent letter recognition for reading. Handwriting has been a great source of inspiration in this particular typeface. By emulating the movements of the pen, we have obtained letter shapes that express spontaneity. A bright group of letters create a lively and beautiful paragraph of text. To get closer to handwriting and the variety of letter shapes that we draw while writing, this typeface offers a large number of alternative characters, which differ slightly from the default ones. Because we have programed the «Contextual Alternate» feature in the fonts, these alternate characters appear automatically as you set a text on your computer. For instance, in the Arabic variability on vertical proportions between letters Alef and initial Lam, create movement in text and avoid the cold mechanical feel of repetition. In the case of the Latin a part from having an entire alternate basic alphabet, there are also different letterforms for characters with diacritics, this way variability becomes even greater. Nawin is quirky and elegant at the same time. Letter recognition is relevant when reading continuous text. For this reason, in the Arabic, we have added another contextual alternate feature with alternate characters that help to avoid confusion when letters with similar or the same shape repeat inside one word. This is the case of medial «beh and Yeh» repeated three times continuously in the same word. The alternate characters change in shape and length, facilitating distinction to the reader. Since this typeface is inspired by handwriting and the free movement of the hand while writing, we considered ligatures a good asset for this design. The Arabic has a wide range of ligatures that enhance movement and fluidity in text making look text alive, while the Latin achieves this same effect via contextual alternates.

Etrusco Now is the revival of a lead typeface originally cast in lead by Italian foundry Nebiolo in the early 1920s. Heavily inspired by the design of the Medium weight of Schelter & Giesecke's Grotesk, Etrusco was, like Cairoli, an early precursor of the modernist grotesque superfamilies: a solid, multi-purpose "work-horse" typeface family that could solve a wide range of design problems with its range of widths and weights. When designing the new incarnation of Nebiolo's Etrusco, the Italiantype team directed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Mario de Libero decided to extend the original weight and width range to keep this "superfamily" approach. Etrusco Now has twenty-one styles widths in three widths of seven weights each, with matching italics; the original weights for the typeface have been collected in the Etrusco Classic subfamily. Etrusco Now new widths allowed the team to include in the design many nods and homages to other vintage classics of Nebiolo. The lighter weights of the normal width have been heavily influenced by the modernist look of Recta, while the heavy condensed and compressed widths refer to the black vertical texture of Aldo Novarese's Metropol. This infuses the typeface with a slightly vintage mood, making Etrusco at the same time warmly familiar and unexpected to eyes accustomed to the formal and cold look of late modernist grotesques like Helvetica. Contemporary but rich in slight historical quirks, Etrusco Now is perfect for any editorial and branding project that aims to be different in a subtle way. Etrusco Now's deviations from the norm are small enough to give it personality without affecting readability, while its wide range of open type features (alternates, stylistic sets, positional numbers) and language coverage make it a problem solver for any situation. Like its cousin Cairoli, Etrusco is born out of love for lost letterforms and stands like its lead ancestor from a century ago, at the crossroads between artsy craftsmanship and industrial needs.

Ten years or so after his unique treatment of Garalde design with Trump Mediaeval, Georg Trump took on the transitional genre with Mauritius, which was to be his last typeface. He started working on it in 1965. The Stuttgart-based Weber foundry published a pamphlet previewing it under the name Barock-Antiqua in 1967, then announced the availability of the metal types (a roman, a bold and an italic) a year later. The global printing industry was already in third gear with cold type technology, so there weren't that many takers, and Weber closed its doors after more than 140 years in business. Subsequently, Trump’s swan song was unfairly overlooked by typography historians and practitioners. It never made it to film technology or scalable fonts. Thus, one of the most original text faces ever made, done by one of the most influential German type designers of the 20th century, was buried under decades of multiple technology shifts and fading records. The metal cuts of Mauritius seem to have been rushed in Weber’s desperation to stay afloat. So the only impressions left of the metal type, the sole records remaining of this design, show substantial problems. Some can be attributed to technological limitations, but some issues in colour, precision and fitting are also quite apparent, particularly in Mauritius Kursiv, the italic metal cut. This digital version is the result of obsessing over a great designer’s final type design effort, and trying to understand the reasons behind its vanishing from typography’s collective mind. While that understanding remains for the most part elusive, the creative and technical work done on these fonts produced very concrete results. All the apparent issues in the metal types were resolved, the design was expanded into a larger family of three weights and two widths, and plenty of 21st century bells and whistles were added. For the full background story, design analysis, details, features, specimens and print tests, consult the PDF available in the Gallery section of this page.

Smallstep - One geometric sans serif with a free spirit. If we presume that geometric typefaces play with the idea of what typography would look like in the future when all unnecessary elements would disappear, than most of their designers seem to envision the future in a rather metropolisque kind of way. We love geometric faces, but the cold and heartless feelings that most of them leave is just not our cup of tea. That is why we are happy to bring some optimism in that genre with our new typeface. We called it Smallstep. Smallstep is a typeface that follows the traditions of classic geometric sans serifs like “Futura”, but is at the same time friendly and whimsical. We took the liberty to deviate from the standard sans serif glyphs while drawing some characters (such as ”a” and ”r” ), others (“w” “k”) are completely redesigned. Probably the biggest trademark of this typeface is the way vertical lines in most lower case characters are “cut” so they end in a 60 degree angle. Smallstep is over all a expressive face, which means it brings some emotions to your design and feelings in itself, and should be used accordingly. Other than that, it is suitable for both headline and body text, print and web. So what kind of name is “Smallstep”? We view the type design process as a form of evolution: There can be no typeface that differs drastically from the current standards, since its characters would be unrecognizable and thus unreadable. But at the same time there are hundreds of faces that differ a little, and still manage to make a difference by moving with small steps towards better and more refined looks. Smallstep consist of 4 weights, that cover all the features, that are expected of a modern Opentype face: kerning pairs, ligatures, true italics and alternative characters, plus a set of symbols, that will help you start off your designs more easily.

Nawin is an informal Arabic typeface inspired by handwriting. The idea behind this design is to create a type family attractive and ownable for children but at the same time a design that keeps excellent letter recognition for reading. Handwriting has been a great source of inspiration in this particular typeface. By emulating the movements of the pen, we have obtained letter shapes that express spontaneity. A bright group of letters create a lively and beautiful paragraph of text. To get closer to handwriting and the variety of letter shapes that we draw while writing, this typeface offers a large number of alternative characters, which differ slightly from the default ones. Because we have programed the «Contextual Alternate» feature in the fonts, these alternate characters appear automatically as you set a text on your computer. For instance, in the Arabic variability on vertical proportions between letters Alef and initial Lam, create movement in text and avoid the cold mechanical feel of repetition. In the case of the Latin a part from having an entire alternate basic alphabet, there are also different letterforms for characters with diacritics, this way variability becomes even greater. Nawin is quirky and elegant at the same time. Letter recognition is relevant when reading continuous text. For this reason, in the Arabic, we have added another contextual alternate feature with alternate characters that help to avoid confusion when letters with similar or the same shape repeat inside one word. This is the case of medial «beh and Yeh» repeated three times continuously in the same word. The alternate characters change in shape and length, facilitating distinction to the reader. Since this typeface is inspired by handwriting and the free movement of the hand while writing, we considered ligatures a good asset for this design. The Arabic has a wide range of ligatures that enhance movement and fluidity in text making look text alive, while the Latin achieves this same effect via contextual alternates.

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.”

Introducing Xenu—the technical typeface of the future, designed for those who demand precision and efficiency in their communication. Inspired by industrial classics like DIN, Xenu exudes a cold, business-like demeanor that will immediately convey a sense of technical prowess and sophistication. Crafted with a unique blend of traditional scientific letterforms and contemporary aesthetics, Xenu’s impassive letterforms are a perfect representation of the future of industrial design. Its sleek lines and rigid structure make it a perfect choice for any project that requires a technical edge. Whether you’re designing a user manual, technical guide, or an engineering report, Xenu’s four weights and italics will instill your message with mechanical confidence and technological elegance. Its technical look and feel are perfect for businesses that want to project a cutting-edge image and convey a sense of precision. So why settle for a mediocre typeface when you can have Xenu—the ultimate expression of technical perfection? Choose Xenu and experience the future of technical communication. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Lust Sans is the penultimate exploration of producing a high-contrast sans wholly influenced by its bracketed ancestor. The aspect of this endeavor I enjoyed the most was finding sneaky ways to infuse warmth and whimsy into the letterforms when you least expect it. The result, however, is subtle and uniquely balances against Lust and Lust Didone without becoming cold and overbearing. To accomplish this, Lust Sans has 6 weights. What I found during development was, based on any setting where Lust or Lust Didone were in the same layout, the amount of contrast shown with Lust Sans needed to be adjusted. Expanding the weight offering, produces opportunities for Lust Sans to modulate the rhythm of the layout comfortably while keeping contrast—this is even more obvious with the Italics. I love those. You will too. If you don’t, you do not have a soul. Not sorry. The Lust Collection is the culmination of 5 years of exploration and development, and I am very excited to share it with everyone. When the original Lust was first conceived in 2010 and released a year and half later, I had planned for a Script and a Sans to accompany it. The Script was released about a year later, but I paused the Sans. The primary reason was the amount of feedback and requests I was receiving for alternate versions, expansions, and ‘hey, have you considered making?’ and so on. I listen to my customers and what they are needing… and besides, I was stalling with the Sans. Like Optima and other earlier high-contrast sans, they are difficult to deliver responsibly without suffering from ill-conceived excess or timidity. The new Lust Collection aggregates all of that past customer feedback and distills it into 6 separate families, each adhering to the original Lust precept of exercises in indulgence and each based in large part on the original 2010 exemplars produced for Lust. I just hate that it took so long to deliver, but better right, than rushed, I imagine.

A creative context 2003. Fontsmith was sharing a small, cold, whitewashed studio space in Northburgh Street, Clerkenwell. But things were on the up following prestigious custom type commissions for The Post Office and E4. “Slab serifs were on the brink of another revival, we could feel it,” says Jason Smith. “All we wanted to do was have a play with these slabs, go as far as we could within what was acceptable and readable.” “It wasn’t initially clear what was happening,” recalls Phil Garnham. “We were becoming very influenced by our surroundings, outside the studio space. We absorbed the essence and the designer grime of where we were.” Process Jason began by drawing stems on-screen. “The key aspect of the font is the upward bend of the leading shoulder serif, the way it kind of ramps up and then plummets back down the stem. “The regular and light characters are quite narrow – great for text but the bold is quite wide and chunky – better for headlines. I think ‘y’ is quite different for a slab design. We call it the Fontsmith ‘y’.” Promotion Fontsmith were determined to get FS Clerkenwell noticed. To launch the font, Ian Whalley, a designer friend of Fontsmith, captured words heard on the streets of Clerkenwell, set them in the new font and crafted a small book of typographic conversations. It was a first for Fontsmith. “I think that’s part of why this font has been so successful,” says Phil. “It really does embody the spirit of the area, as a special place for design, arts and crafts. And designers love that.” Contemporary twist FS Clerkenwell, based on influences in and around this part of London with a rich tradition of printing and design, mixes tradition with creation. Old-fashioned values meet new-school trends. Its quirky, contemporary character lends an edge to headlines, logotypes and any large-size text.

Introducing Xenara—a typeface born from the mechanical precision of vintage calculators and electric typewriters of the 1970s. Designed with technical applications in mind, Xenara features stolid letterforms and rounded ends that communicate a cold, businesslike style with scientific precision. Xenara’s unique design elements include an alternate barless “A”, trident “M”, zigzag “E”, and square “S”, which are available when you use the OpenType alternates feature. These details add a level of technical sophistication to your work that is unmatched by other typefaces. Available in both Regular and Bold weights, Xenara is the perfect choice for projects that require a technical look and feel. Whether you’re creating data-heavy reports, technical manuals, or scientific publications, Xenara will ensure your message is delivered with the utmost precision. Choose Xenara for a typeface that speaks to the essence of science and technology with a timeless design that will endure for years to come. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.