Before Bodoni, there was Didot. With the publication by Francois Ambroise Didot of Paris in 1784 of his prospectus for Tasso’s La Gerusalemme Liberata, the rococo typographical style of Fournier de Jeune was replaced with a spartan, neo-classical style that John Baskerville pioneered. The typeface Didot used for this work was of Didot’s own creation and is considered by both G. Dowding and P. Meggs to be the first modern face. Three years later, Bodoni of Parma is using a very similar face. Just as Bodoni’s typeface evolved over time, so did that of the Didot family. The eldest son of Francois Ambroise Didot, Pierre, ran the printing office; and Firmin ran the typefoundry. Pierre used the flattened, wove paper, again pioneered by Baskerville, to permit a more accurate impression and allow the use of more delicate letterforms. Firmin took full advantage of the improved paper by further refining the typeface introduced by his father. The printing of Racine’s Oeuvres in 1801 (seen in our gallery image #2) shows the symbiotic results of their efforts, especially in the marked increase in the sharpness of the serifs when compared to their owns works of only six years earlier. It has been suggested that one reason Bodoni achieved greater popularity than Didot is the thinner hairlines of Didot were more fragile when cast in metal type and thus more expensive for printers to use than Bodoni. This ceased to be a problem with the advent of phototypesetting, opening the door for a renewed interest in the work of the Didot family and especially that of Firmin Didot. Although further refinements in the Didot typeface were to come (notably the lower case ‘g’ shown in 1819), we have chosen 1801 as the nominal basis for our presentation of HiH Firmin Didot. We like the thick-thin circumflex that replaced the evenly-stroked version of 1795, possible only with the flatter wove paper. We like the unusual coat-hanger cedilla. We like the organic, leaf-like tail of the ‘Q.’ We like the strange, little number ‘2’ and the wonderfully assertive ‘4.’ And we like the distinctive and delightful awkwardness of the double-v (w). Please note that we have provided alternative versions of the upper and lower case w that are slightly more conventional than the original designs. Personally, I find the moderns (often called Didones) hard on the eyes in extended blocks of text. That does not stop me from enjoying their cold, crisp clarity. They represent the Age of Reason and the power of man’s intellect, while reflecting also its limitations. In the title pages set by Bodoni, Bulmer and Didot, I see the spare beauty of a winter landscape. That appeals to a New Englander like myself. Another aspect that appeals to me is setting a page in HiH Firmin Didot and watching people try to figure out what typeface it is. It looks a lot like Bodoni, but it isn't!

Czech designer Oldrich Menhart (1897-1962) devoted his life to making letters. He was a calligrapher, lettering artist, and typeface designer with over twenty faces to his credit. The Monotype typeface, Menhart, was the second of his designs. Menhart began work on the design in the early 1930s and turned over his final artwork to the Monotype Drawing Office in 1934. The first size cut was 14 Didot (Didot points are the traditional European system of type measure, and are roughly equivalent to the point system commonly used by today's digital fonts). The 14D font was followed by 18D and 24D, indicating that the design was considered most suitable for display work. However, a 10D size was later cut from the same master drawings at the request of a Monotype customer. Menhart's design was light and open, with an even color and a slight squareness" to its round shapes. Because the Czech alphabet has 15 accented letters, Menhart included these diacritics as an integral part of his design, not as an afterthought. As a result, accented copy set in Menhart has a cohesive quality rarely seen in other typefaces. Monotype's new digital release of Menhart is the first revival since the hot metal fonts were cut. Menhart Display is based on the original Monotype drawings, while a slightly heavier, re-spaced version has been created for text sizes. Both versions offer the full capabilities of the OpenType format, such as the automatic insertion of old style figures, ligatures and small caps. In addition to English, the extended character set supports most Central European and many Eastern European languages. One of Menhart's lifelong goals was to share the richness of his Czech culture by drawing typefaces that uniquely served Czechoslovakia literature. In his words: "I believe that a Czech style of type comes above all from the spirit in which it was designed, which gives it its 'signature,' and not so much from decorative composition, and even less from the geographic location of its creation." The typeface Menhart is a tribute to his values. Now, Menhart Pro and Menhart Display Pro capture the unique personality of this timeless design while greatly extending its range of use. "

DIN Stencil Pro on Behance. DIN Stencil Pro: Specimen Manual PDF. Despite the fact that over the years several designers have manually created stencil lettering based on DIN for various projects, there had never been a professional digital stencil version of a DIN-based typeface until 2010 when the original DIN Stencil was first released. The Pro version was released in 2014 and adds multiscript support for Cyrillic and Greek. DIN Stencil Pro was based on its original counterpart DIN Text Pro and was particularly designed to address contemporary projects, by incorporating elements and weights which are akin to industries such as fashion, music, video, architecture, sports and communications. Traditionally, stencils have been used extensively for military equipment, goods packaging, transportation, shop signs, seed sacks and prison uniforms. In the old days, stencilled markings of ownership were printed on personal possessions, while stencilled signatures on shirts were typical of 19th century stencilling. Two companies dominated the market in the mid-twentieth century: the Marsh Stencil Machine Company in the United States and the Sächsische Metall Schablonen Fabrik in Germany. Ever since the late 1930s, it was the German Sächsische Metall Schablonen Fabrik which used heavily the new DIN 1451 standard font (introduced in 1936), attempting to overthrow the reign of the Didot-style modern roman which was at the time the most common stencil letter in Germany. These letters were manufactured mainly as individual zinc stencils which could be ordered in sizes between 10 and 100mm. The DIN Stencil family manages to preserve several traditional stencil features, but introduces additional modernities which enhance its pleasing characteristics which make it an ideal choice for a large number of contemporary projects. Furthermore, the spacing attributes of the glyphs were redefined and legibility was improved by revising the shape of the letterforms. The DIN Stencil Pro family is an enhanced version of the popular DIN Stencil. It consists of 8 diverse weights from the elegant Hairline to the muscular Black and supports Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Eastern European, Turkish and Baltic. The new version 3.0 includes several additions such the recently unicode encoded character of the German uppercase Eszett (ẞ), the Russian currency symbol for Rouble (₽), Ukrainian Hryvnia (₴), Azeri and Kazakh letterforms.

Looking back on my production to date, neither so little nor so large, it does not come as a surprise to find myself now introducing Lady René. A brief review of my career would read as follows: graphic designer graduated from Buenos Aires University, a 10-year professorship in Typography in the same institution, an illustrator in the making. For almost 15 years now my work has focused on the design of editorial pieces, predominantly books and CD sleeves. Typography proper has always been central to my research projects. All my obsessions eventually embodied as much the search for a perfect, spotless text as for a daring and provoking one. In my view, "how-to-say-something" ranks highest amongst a graphic designer’s responsibilities. It was in this vein that I called in the written word to illustrate, to draw, to narrate. Why not reverse the saying and proclaim that “a word is worth a thousand images”? If so, one single word could trigger endless meanings, associations, ideas, and memories in every reader’s mind. Language, we know, has a strong power and is a living expression of a culture. In my illustrations, letters and drawings reunite in one synergy said and unsaid, the finiteness of the message and the freedom of the free reading. And this is how and when, Lady René, my first born type font sees the light of day conceived out of a love of illustration and a reverence for the written word, recalling the whimsicality of the handmade drawing and reflecting its sensitive, warmth and spontaneity. Enabled by the characteristics of Open Type and the hard, outstanding work of designer Ale Paul, Lady René succeeds in composing texts in a simple, organic way by means of its contextual and stylistic alternates, swash characters, ligatures and connecting words. A bundle of decorative miscellanea completes the set of signs, enabling the user considerable freedom to create new typographic landscapes. Lady René is then prepared, very much like a character in a short story, to come to life in the reader’s mind. I expect you will enjoy her as much as I did creating her. Laura Varsky

Fantini is the revival and elaborate update of a typeface called Fantan, made in-house and released in 1970 by a minor Chicago film type supplier called Custom Headings International. In the most excellent tradition of seriously-planned American film faces back then, CHI released a full complement of swashes and alternates to the curly art nouveau letters. Fantan didn't fare much among the type scene's big players back then, but it did spread like electricity among the smaller ones, the mom-and-pop type shops. But by the late 1980s, when film type was giving up the ghost, most smaller players in the industry were gone, in some cases along with little original libraries that existed nowhere else and became instant rarities on their way to be forgotten and almost impossible to resurrect for future technologies. Fantini is the fun and curly art nouveau font bridging the softness and psychedelia of the 1960s with the flirtatious flare of the 1970s like no other face does. Elements of psychedelia and funk flare out and intermix crazily to create cool, swirly letters packed with a lot of joy and energy. This is the kind of American art nouveau font that made its comeback in the late 20th century and is now a standard visual in the branding drive of almost every consumer product, from coffee labels to book and music covers to your favorite sugar or thirst-crunching fix. Alongside Fantini's enormous main font come small caps and three extra fonts loaded with swashy alternates and variations on plenty of letters. All available in all popular font formats. Fantini Pro, the OpenType version, packs the whole she-bang in a single font of high versatility for those who have applications that support advanced type technologies. In order to make Fantini a reality, Canada Type received original 2" film specimen from Robert Donona, a Clevelander whose enthusiasm about American film type has never faltered, even decades after the technology itself became obsolete. Keep an eye out for that name. Robert, who was computer-reluctant for the longest time, has now come a long way toward mastering digital type design.

Legible, technical, clear—with a hint of retro: Compiler is a no-frills font family straight from the heart of a microprocessor. Inspired by console typefaces, the humanist sans serif typeface combines a large x-height with striking serifs on certain letters such as i and l. Those serifs evoke the aesthetics of monospace typefaces for programming. Even though Compiler is a proportional typeface, this detail improves glyph recognition and helps differentiate between individual letters. Combined with vertical stroke ends, which allow for particularly even spacing, the serifs make for an extremely legible typeface. (Even in small sizes.) Brand recognition guaranteed: Compiler is ideal for applications that require a mechanical flavor without appearing offish. You can use it for websites, apps, branding, corporate design, annual reports, signage, and many other areas with perfect results. Compiler consists of two font families; the second one is Compiler Plain. In Compiler Plain, the signature letters lose their serifs and the forms of "a" and "g" are simplified. This way, the shapes are neutralized. The technical impression recedes into the background. Both families can be combined smoothly: you might use the standard Compiler fonts for display sizes and Compiler Plain styles for body copy. For total design control, you can toggle each of the defining design elements individually from Compiler to Compiler Plain and vice versa. Just use Stylistic Sets to fine-tune your Compiler fonts. Compiler provides you with 8 weights in 4 variations: Upright, Italics, Plain Upright and Plain Italics. That's a total of 32 fonts. Each style contains more than 860 glyphs, including advanced typographic tools such as proportional and tabular figures (both lining and old-style) or small caps—something you'll rarely find in this genre. Other glyphs are optimized for display sizes, such as circled figures and various arrows. There's also a set of glyphs designed for web use: with symbols for shopping carts, hamburger menus or checkboxes, you can implement your web projects elegantly and consistently without relying on third-party tools (like an external icon font). Powered by highly productive OpenType functions, Compiler is an intermedia workhorse straight from cyberspace.

The Bree font family is a spry sans serif by Veronika Burian and José Scaglione that delivers a spirited look and feel for branding and headline usage. As an upright italic, Bree shows a pleasant mix of rather unobtrusive capitals with more vivid lowercase letters, giving text a lively appearance. Bree is clearly influenced by handwriting. As such, some of its most characteristic features are the single-story ‘a’, the cursive ‘e’, the outstroke curves of ‘v’ and ‘w’, the flourished ‘Q’, and the fluid shapes of ‘g’, ‘y’, and ‘z’. Alternates of these letters are available when a more neutral look is desired. Bree has a touch of cheekiness, a wide stance for each character, and an extra-large x-height. All this adds up to a big personality, so even when set in small text there is no skimming past the words Bree voices. In 2019, the Bree font family got a huge update. A few shapes were updated or added (the ‘k’ and German capital ‘ß’), two entirely new weights were added (Book and Book Italic), and spacing was perfected. More than that, Vietnamese support was added to Bree Latin, and the Bree Greek and Bree Cyrillic scripts were designed from scratch to parallel the Latin’s tone. Additionally, Bree was designed in variable font format for those who want complete control over the font’s appearance while simultaneously saving digital weight in the form of kilobytes and megabytes. Bree is in the perfect position for the next digital revolution. The complete Bree font family, along with our entire catalogue, has been optimised for today’s varied screen uses. Bree has been chosen for such wide-ranging uses as Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the US, the branding for the country of Peru, and numerous layouts including mobile apps, magazines, newspapers, and books. Awards – Tipos Latinos exhibition 2008 – Several best-of-the-year typeface lists of 2008 MyFonts Top 10 Fonts of 2008 Smashing Magazine: 60 Brilliant Typefaces For Corporate Design https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/60-brilliant-typefaces-for-corporate-design/ Die besten Schriften 2008 http://www.fontwerk.com/619/die-besten-schriften-2008/ – Selected for Typographica’s Best Typefaces of 2008 – Won Bronze for Original Typeface in the 2009 European Design Awards

Andinistas.net presents Makeup Script. Expressive hand-made typography to design sentences with high textured impact; has 4 creative tools. Our priorities are continually updated and we prefer to use the elevator since taking the stairs is a very long process. If you see a long text, you close it and look for something shorter. For quick calligraphy you need to consume hours and hours of learning, discomfort and effort. Think of calligraphic words or phrases to write about a photo no matter how expressive it may be. Try to write quickly with signature style for logos, labels or packaging for clothes, suitcases, shops, malls, department stores, etc. Do you want to be able to calligraphy well? STUDY. Do you want to be a calligrapher? PRACTICE. Want to produce good ideas? PUSH YOURSELF. If you practice for hours every day, those hours will turn into years, but for many, to think in years of study and practice is too long, since most want everything instantaneous and few want to cultivate skills related to calligraphic patience. Makeup was born in the midst of this type of reflections about countless themes about art, beauty and calligraphy. All the ideas that revolve around makeup parade through its insightful and solitary design, lover of instant and fast writing for graphic design related to food, household goods, fashion, etc. CFCG. teamwork by Carolina Suarez & Illustrations by Eder Salas. In that order of ideas Makeup offers the following tools: • Makeup Script (238 glyphs): It is a script with vibrant fleeting strokes that form capital letters, lowercase letters, numbers and character sets and extended punctuation for Central, Eastern and Western Europe. • Makeup Alternates (238 glyphs): Offers new script possibilities, different from uppercase, lowercase, numbers that work at the beginning or end of words, in a way that your design will look more real and calligraphic. • Makeup Swashes (238 glyphs): These are tiny script letters that reinforce the idea of fast binding between handwritten letters that will fill your design or concepts with power and expressiveness through multiple textured contours. • Makeup Extras (80 glyphs): Here you'll find over 70 exciting, hand-crafted decorations that are ideal for underlining your ideas written in Makeup.