SAV Display PT is directly inspired from hand-painted commercial signage found around Savannah, Georgia. There is a strong tradition of hand-painted signs adorning small car wash stations, to beauty salons, to mechanics and restaurants. Currently a collection of about four to five painters account for the majority of the signs. This font was derived from 10 uppercase letters that seemed to represent the aesthetic thread found throughout the signs. There are no lowercase letters found in these signs, so the lowercase of the font had to be designed from scratch. I felt this added versatility to the font and its possibilities for usage. This font is strictly a display font. However, because of the apparent roots (intended or unintended) of the lettering to transitional/modern modulated fonts, it does read surprising well at smaller sizes.

Perfect in its imperfection, Psychedelic Xylophones is a retro trippy hippie font that brings a hand-lettered groove to your text graphics. It features a large complement of two-character alternate glyphs that adds a subtle sway and an ebb-and-flow that results in some customized surprises and other more subtle variations to your text. It's great for that bendy, melty, warped headline psychedelic poster thing. Try it on retro t-shirt messages and surf/skate graphics, or a daring branding choice for drink or snack packaging. The alternate glyphs are turned on by default but can be over-ridden easily in the Glyphs panel of many popular software packages.

Thunder Inferno is a gothic black metal typeface with sharp serifs. Rooted in the aesthetics of heavy metal and the occult, this typeface is a harbinger of darkness and intensity. Evocative of Halloween and gothic grandeur, Thunder Inferno also captures a march toward darkness. It serves as a rebellious voice for skate culture and alternative lifestyles. Crafted exclusively in uppercase, this font is a growl in typographic form, a visual cacophony that grabs your attention and refuses to let go. Capitalize the first and last letters of any word for symmetrical heavy metal style. Example: Heavy metaL Enclose any word in < > ( ) [ ] { } to give it wings. Example: [HawkstylE]

Siren Script takes its cue from BB&S's Stationers Semiscript (metal, 1899) and its countless imitations/inspirations from throughout the 20th century, particularly a variety of uncredited film faces from the 1960s. What makes this kind of script stand out in the genre is its mixing of flourished majuscules with mostly subdued, traditional minuscules. The result is a balance between formal and informal lettering, as if the letterer is applying his or her learned art without going into full-throttle calligraphy. The message is clearly and gracefully delivered, and the artistic endeavor is fully appreciated without causing coronaries. The Siren Script family comes in four full fonts, and a fifth one that contains alternates, ending letters, and some ligatures. Siren Script Pro combines all five fonts into a single one of over 880 characters, which includes programming for push-button stylistic alternates, class-based kerning, and other glyph palette conveniences.

Hebden is a ‘Northern’ font. Inspired by the town Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, the family is a mix of a grotesque and an incised serif. The grot is based on Victorian train station signage and the serif is style that can be spotted in and around the Yorkshire Dales region. Hebden has a nostalgic twist and is ideal for labelling, signage and memorable messages. The grotesque face with its robust angles and warm circular curves recalls the style of traditional English sans-serifs like Caslon’s 2-Line Egyptian. The incised face has strong but sophisticated and natural forms and is based on a wood carved style popular in the early 20th century. The weight of the two faces are are drawn to complement each other creating an evenly balanced combination. Both faces come with caps, lower caps across letters and numerals, and have Western, Central and Eastern European language support.

Smashed Typeface is a reversed-contrast, slab serif, display font. Was inspired by the old west days that we can often see in printing, circus posters and wanted notices in western movies, even tho the style was really used in many parts of the world during that period. This style is sometimes called as "circus letter" too. Was designed to have a modern look, using straighter lines and an extended style, can be used on various situations like posters, logos for restaurants, alternative business like an old washing station (as you can see on the next images), music bands etc. I believe that is a promising typography that can be used by various designers in a lot of diverse project. It counts with 226 multi language characters, one weight on version 1.0, on a next version I hope to take this project to another level, creating a variable typeface from condensed to really extended weights. It would complete this typography and eliminate the limits of use.

The inspiration source for Monarchy Initials is the 1934 Book of American Types by American Type Founders. In that specimen book, they had created a sophisticated two color initial design they called "Stationers Initials" which was only available in metal type at 24, 36, and 48 points. This wonderfully detailed initial style is now digitally recreated and revived for modern use. Monarchy Initials is only capable of initial or single letter monograms due to its unique design. The two color aspect of the original design has been preserved and made accessible within all programs. The Capital character slots contain the background color glyphs, and the lowercase slots hold the outline art for the letters. You can choose a color, type a capital letter, then switch to black and type a lowercase letter for the two color effect, or just tpe a lowercase letter on its own. It's that easy! Download and view the Monarchy Initials Guidebook if you would like to learn a little more.

Senohraby is an uppercase display typeface inspired by the old sign at Senohraby train station that is now slowly chipping away. Senohraby is available in three interconnected styles that freely various ages of the sign. “Paint” is a more or less preserved font written with a flat brush and featuring slight scratches and errors. The other styles, “Dirt” and “Trash”, follow up on this style and are increasingly marked by age, damage and erosion... In each style one can use simple alternation with lowercase letters, context-based alternation to eliminate repetition of adjacent characters, and a broad range of language support. As a result, each letter offers six variations that can be combined. These can be used as another alternation within a single word or as different bold weights. As a bonus, a fourth, additional style named “Crap” is freely available and as the name implies, it contains a wide array of various impurities.

Graphic designers, meet Angelik: a stylish typeface that you can really put through its paces. This unique font can bring one of its multiple personalities to a wide variety of design challenges. It’s a louder and prouder version of a typical assertive editorial-style bold serif headline font. But it can also really shine as a great choice for logos and branding, spanning a variety of vibes and styles. Works superbly in a high-fashion context, as well as in lowbrow surf-skate-ski-snowboard gear branding, or perhaps as an understated – yet exotic – vacation travel poster font. With its finely-tuned contouring, extensive kerning, and a multilingual character set, Angelik will not let you down.

Binario is a simple and friendly font with three weights and matching obliques. The geometric and modular characteristics of this typeface subtly reference the Art Deco and early modernist periods. It is an ideal choice for achieving a clean, distinctive, and contemporary aesthetic, making it suitable for branding, posters, and screen-based designs. The light weight of Binario is good for body text. The regular weight exudes confidence, making it suitable for both body and heading text. For impactful headlines, the bold weight is superb. The clear weight distinction of this family make it easy to create organized text. Binario was designed in Siena, Italy taking some inspiration from train stations and shop signage. The name Binario means train platform in Italian. Other aspects that informed the design of this font are modularity and efficiency. The interior rounded forms of the letters (counterforms) are based on shape of the Roman arch. Binario has a sibling, Binario Soft. This version has gently rounded stroke ends, which make a softer impression on the page.

Nosegrind is a bit of a departure from our usual more traditional font offerings. It's based on skate-culture graffiti gleaned from various samples of similar style found on walls in Austin and online. The font includes two character sets, one which is plain and one which is enhanced with outlines. In normal usage the characters should nest, with slight overlap from one character to the next as shown in the sample to the right, but the lower case characters in the font are spaced evenly but not pre-nested, leaving the degree of overlap up to the user - nesting is easily adjusted with the tracking option in programs like Photoshop, Quark or InDesign. Ultimately Nosegrind will be added to our Modern Fonts collection, where it ought to fit in nicely.

Comply Slab is inspired by action and extreme sports, Comply gets it's name from the well known skate trick the “No Comply”. This type family doesn't mess about! With 9 weights from thin to black, Comply Slab will give you some great options to use. This font family will “kill it” in both print and digital, in headlines for editorial, posters, banners, websites, apparel, packaging, logos or magazines just to name a few. If you want to make a statement that gets the message across in a slick way with some cool looking glyphs Comply Slab is the font! There is an alternate R and S so you can choose to go with the cool default sharp glyphs or swap them for a more traditional chamfered corner version. Each of the 9 weights has an italic version to add even more action.

The typeface family TV Nord is based on the corporate typeface NDR Sans which was developed by Elsner+Flake for the Norddeutsche Rundfunk (www.ndr.de) between 1999 and 2001. This new design came into being as part of a complete overhaul of the visual image of the NDR. This became necessary because the NDR, founded in 1954, incorporated the stations of the East German states Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (1992) and Brandenburg (1997) after the re-unification of Germany. The Hamburg advertising agency DMCGroup developed a new and unified image for the NDR which is in existence to this day. The typeface TV Nord relates to the design of the Trade Gothic and similar American sans serif typefaces of the early part of the last century. Its development concerns itself as much with good legibility for print, as it does for the reproduction on TV screens, which among others, is achieved through its high x-height. The logotype for the NDR as well was developed from the capitals of the NDR Sans. In 2014, the TV Nord was revised stylistically and expanded to incorporate all European-Latin languages. As part of this effort, further complementary cuts were added.

Look back to learn how to look forward - Joe Girard Find yourself and share your purpose with the Caride Script. With its bold vintage script type, sometimes you need to remind others that we must look to the past to pave a better way for our future. It’s time for you to unleash the old school retro trend again. Leather jackets? Making a comeback. Pompadour hairdos? Definitely cool. 70s music? They’re sampled in the music all over our radio stations! The magnificence of the past will surely help you give a new and fresh breath of life to your projects. This font was designed for you to use in any kind of projects that you might have! They were specifically designed to fit in anywhere you want them to be. We assure you that there will be no awkwardness in the relationship between your text and your designs, they’ll get along well like old-timey partners! The Caride Script is the perfect addition to bring your perspective to the world. Have the world see you and your encompassing view of the human experience with your creations!

If you take the South Shore Line from Chicago to South Bend, your train will pass though the small community of Beverly Shores, Indiana. The beautifully restored and highly colorful “Beverly Shores” train station sign not far from the Lake Michigan beach is the source of inspiration for this connecting script typeface. The sign’s existing ten letters have now been extended to include the entire alphabet. This old-fashioned depot letterstyle is much in the spirit of such faces as Fulton Sign and Inserat Cursive. Ascenders and descenders have been lengthened and capitals are now much larger. Alternate lowercase swashes, capitals, and small figures have been included for your convenience. And custom uphill words such as “The,” “for,” and “to” have been added for more novelty and spark in headline settings. Beverly Shores Script with Alternates is also available in the OpenType Std format. Some new characters including old style figures have been added to this OpenType version. Advanced features currently work in Adobe Creative Suite InDesign, Creative Suite Illustrator, and Quark XPress 7. Check for OpenType advanced feature support in other applications as it gradually becomes available with upgrades. All aboard for Beverly Shores!

EraMax 123 is a multi-layered display geometric sans serif, meant to be set BIG, for large, colourful statements. It's the perfect face for packaging, posters & branding, where a strong, colourful voice is needed... Did I mention posters? The "Max" in EraMax comes from the ultra bold weight, but also, and mainly as a tip of the hat to Peter Max, the designer and artist, known for creating so many images which have come to be emblematic of the sixties and seventies. The bold gradient effects in some of his posters were the inspiration behind the dotted and striped layers. This font's vintage flavour truly stand out in a retro setting, but also has a modern flavour that lends it the flexibility to work well in a more contemporary context. This is the second of what is to be an extended family of typefaces based on the original hand painted signage found in the T. H. & B Railway station in Hamilton Ontario, a classic Art Moderne building, designed by the New York architectural firm of Fellheimer and Wagner for the Toronto Hamilton and Buffalo Railway line and completed in 1933.

Wasted Youth: A 90s Grunge Inspired Brush Font by Wingsart Studio Wasted Youth is a versatile brush font with shades of grunge, punk and horror. The font comes in three styles including a clean-edged original, plus two additional versions drawn with inky brush and marker pen. It takes inspiration from 90s grunge bands, with a hand-made punk aesthetic that’s equally at home in music videos, album covers, horror movies and skate culture. It aims to combine the best of these popular looks into one versatile font. Along with its unique uppercase and lowercase characters, Wasted Youth also comes with a host of custom ligatures, underlines and alternatives, along with numerals, punctuation and language support. It’s a truly flexible font that can be shaped into titles and headlines that look authentically hand-made. Try it on t-shirts, posters, stickers, movie titles, YouTube videos and more! Check out my visuals to see it in action.

The sources of inspiration for the Atyp typeface are spread out widely both stylistically and chronologically. The basic proportions of the uppercase refer to the elementary geometric constructions of the Bauhaus. The subtle details in the drawing of the characters and the microscopic adjustments, which evoke the illusion of uniformity and mechanical purity, pay homage to the rationalism of the typefaces popular in the International Style. The increased contrast of the joints of the bowls and shoulders in the Display weight, which in certain diagonal curves transition into almost deconstructive permutations. For a change these take delight in doing things on purpose, teasing readability and breaking the rules of the new millennium's typography. Atyp was created by adapting a typeface originally made for a commercial television station. The potential of the neutral grotesque, proven by its excellent readability on screens, gave the impetus for its preparation into an extremely wide character set. Coherence across all eight key masters lays the groundwork ideally for using the variable font format. The key benefits of this technology are a significant reduction in data consumption in the case of web fonts, as well as an unlimited access to the full range of styles, which in turn is a significant benefit in the area of responsive design.

Stamen is the answer to a big question: What would happen if one tried to create a typeface that was ‘out of time’? If a type designer was to turn off the internet and put away the type specimens and just try to explore limbic, phantom history, what might that look like? No slavish explorations of the past. No gropings toward the future. No exhaustive core sample of the contemporary. Instead, using what one remembers of history and our collective vision of the future (usually a future imagined from the past) and channeling that into something that is, hopefully, new… The Bentons meet Frutiger for a Manhattan on a space station while Matthew Carter sways to the sweet sounds of the chorale that occasionally played through the halls of Stephenson Blake. This smear of implicit history expressed without explicit reference—this is Stamen: a family of 12 typefaces with a ton of alternate characters. The bold weight was designed for the LP “I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler” ( http://ittfwbc.com/ ) by the band YACHT in response to their request for a typeface that was ‘lost in time’, and refers to neither strict historical models nor purely futuristic forms. I built a small family out from there. It works well in text, but just as well for display setting. I think you’ll enjoy using it.

The sources of inspiration for the Atyp typeface are spread out widely both stylistically and chronologically. The basic proportions of the uppercase refer to the elementary geometric constructions of the Bauhaus. The subtle details in the drawing of the characters and the microscopic adjustments, which evoke the illusion of uniformity and mechanical purity, pay homage to the rationalism of the typefaces popular in the International Style. The increased contrast of the joints of the bowls and shoulders in the Display weight, which in certain diagonal curves transition into almost deconstructive permutations. For a change these take delight in doing things on purpose, teasing readability and breaking the rules of the new millennium's typography. Atyp was created by adapting a typeface originally made for a commercial television station. The potential of the neutral grotesque, proven by its excellent readability on screens, gave the impetus for its preparation into an extremely wide character set with full support for three language scripts. Coherence across all eight key masters lays the groundwork ideally for using the variable font format. The key benefits of this technology are a significant reduction in data consumption in the case of web fonts, as well as an unlimited access to the full range of styles, which in turn is a significant benefit in the area of responsive design.

Dynamic and sportive. A well-balanced experiment for sparkling headlines. Glance Slab is an experimental design that plays on the tension between connection and detachment. In this typeface, serifs may be detached and some strokes may not connect to their stems. This creates a dynamic impression of balance and movement. The elegance of an ice skater and the determination of a quarterback: Glance Sans has it all. Where a curve meets a stem and where serifs seem to “hover” near their respective letters, the nonjoining elements create an impression similar to a stencil typeface. But here, the function of the gaps differs from strictly stencil designs: while the gaps provide a “sparkling” effect in Glance Slab that’s clearly visible in large sizes, they take on the role of ink traps when set smaller, making for surprisingly legible body copy. With its strong visual character, this font family is quickly recognizable, making it perfectly suitable for branding and any large-scale application, such as posters, billboards, and event signage. Glance Slab consists of seven weights from Thin to Black. Each style has a character set of about 570 glyphs, which includes circled numbers and arrows (positive and negative versions), ligatures, extended language support, and many other features.

Here in the heart of Santa Monica, in the disused 1940s aircraft hangar we like to call the Comicraft Studios, we know that times are tough. As we were driving to “work” in the back of our chauffeur driven Humvee limo, sipping martinis out of the navels of Playboy bunnies and wondering what font we should release next, we decided it was time to reach out to the poor people. Yes, we felt it was time to create a font for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, for the wretched refuse of our teeming shores. A font, if you will, for the tempest-tossed. It’s a little skinny and might be described as pinched and starved, but it’s guaranteed to see you through this current economic crisis as only the 26 letters of the alphabet can. It was a tall order, but Jazzy JG Roshell created this one while he was in line at the bank, waiting for his personal bailout. Meticulously crafted using one of those ballpoint pens attached to the cashier’s station by elastic, Credit Crunch is the Hamburger Helper of comic book fonts. It’s kind of a hybrid -- just like the Priuses our trophy wives drive to their personal plastic surgeons -- and it’s solar powered and also comes with a tank full of good old fashioned Biro ink. The Recession, Climate Change AND Global Hunger will probably end mere minutes after you crack open your life’s savings to buy this font. How can you afford NOT to...? See the families related to Credit Crunch: Credit Extension.

LaFarge is a typeface primarily inspired by the historic mosaic titling capitals found in the New York City Subway, designed by architect Squire J. Vickers and his staff between 1915-1927. These elegant but industrial signs are characteristic of early-20th century American architectural lettering, and show an evolution of the classical Roman capitals to lower contrast, bolder serifs, and more regular character widths. The majority of this lettering still remains in subway stations today, and though elements of the style vary from sign to sign, many carry the unique features that are reflected in LaFarge: high-waisted crossbars with angled serifs, elegantly curved “R” leg, and distinctive trapezoidal serifs. LaFarge expands this style into a lower case, taking cues from contemporary typefaces like Bookman, Cheltenham, and Della Robbia. A number of typographic features are included, such as small caps, ordinal indicators / superscript letters, arrows, and a set of borders inspired by early subway tile. The result is a fashionable, architecturally-minded typeface that is just as at home on the façade of a grand public building as it is on packaging, magazines, or the web. LaFarge works well in both text and display settings, remaining readable at small sizes but showing off its elegant details in larger uses. LaFarge has received the Communication Arts Typography Award, the ADC Annual Merit Award, is included in the 2020 STA 100, and was part of designer Greg Shutters’ winning portfolio in the 2019 Type Directors Club Ascender Awards. You can download a PDF specimen of LaFarge, and also view a video of LaFarge in action.

Surf's up! Take an unforgettable adventure to the sparkling shores of Paradise Point. Ride our 25 majestic weights, from tranquil tall & thin to thunderous wide & heavy. Expand your horizons with the versatile Variable font to select any spot between. One-of-a-kind activities: Drop in a thrilling Inline weight for stylistic flair. Overlay with the matching Heavy for striking color effects. Discover hidden wonders! Stylistic Alternates will take you to the scenic heights of uppercase in a friendly lowercase style. Or immerse your text in interlocking Discretionary Ligatures for an authentic Tiki Type island experience. Enchanting views: Two versions of each letter and number automatically rotate for a natural, hand-drawn appearance. The Light weights have round ends to simulate a single pen stroke, which matches the center of the Inline weights for a perfect pairing. Explore! If you venture into unknown territory, each weight of Paradise Point contains 775 glyphs for stress-free support of over 200 languages. An all-inclusive getaway: Each weight of Paradise Point includes the features above, and can set readable body text as well as create striking logos and headlines. Use it for restaurant menus, surf and skate brands, or any design project where you want to convey lively, friendly, stress-free fun.

Smart, legible and elegant, Gravesend Sans is a based on the unique typeface used for the iconic grass-green signage for the Southern Railway. In existence from 1923 to 1948, when the network was nationalised, the Southern Railway linked London with the Channel ports, South West England, the South coast resorts and Kent. The same design was also used for the ‘hawkeye’ signs on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, differentiated by black letters on a yellow background. Reference for each letter was taken from vintage ‘target’ station nameplates and other platform signage. The rarest letters were the Q, seen in Queens Road Battersea, the X, seen in East Brixton, and the Z, used in Maze Hill, site of an infamous train crash in 1958. Being hand-made, the letters often differ in width and thickness. There was no lower case. The Bluebell Railway, a heritage steam line, runs over part of the old Southern Railway network and uses a very similar type. The design of the numbers differed considerably, but here have been taken from the Device 112 Hours font Smokebox. As well identifying platforms, they were used on the front of the steam engine’s smokebox, hence the name, and stylistically are more in keeping with the letters than some of the squarer versions that can be seen in old photographs. William Caslon IV is credited with the first Latin sans-serif type, shown in a 1816 Caslon specimen book. ‘Two Lines English Egyptian’, as it was called, was caps-only, and there are several other correlations between that type design and this one. Includes a selection of authentic arrows and manicules, plus abbreviated ligatures such as ‘St.’ (Saint or Street) ‘Rd.’ (Road) and ‘Jn.’ (Junction). The Cameo version includes many graphic banner elements that can be freely combined.

The Engraver’s Square Gothic—like its rounder cousin, the engraver’s sans serif, Sweet® Sans,has been one of the more widely used stationer’s lettering styles since about 1900. Its minimal forms, made without curves, were popularized long ago by bankers and others seeking a serious, established feel to their stationery. One might argue that the design is a possible precursor to Morris Fuller Benton’s Bank Gothic® typeface. Sweet® Square is based on antique engraver’s lettering templates called “masterplates.” Professional stationers use a pantograph to manually transfer letters from these masterplates to a piece of copper or steel that is then etched to serve as a plate or die. This demanding technique is rare today given that most engravers now use a photographic process to make plates, where just about any font will do. But the lettering styles engravers popularized during the first half of the twentieth century remain both familiar and appealing. Referencing various masterplates, Mark van Bronkhorst has drawn Sweet Square in nine weights. The sources offered just uppercase, small caps, and figures, yet similar, condensed examples had a lowercase, making it possible to interpret a full character set for Sweet Square. Italics were also added to give the family greater versatility. The fonts are available as basic, “Standard” character sets, and as “Pro” character sets offering special characters, a variety of typographic features, and full support for Western and Central European languages. Sweet Square gives new life to an uncommon class of typeface: an early twentieth-century commercial invention that brings a singular verve to modern design. Its unique style is as useful as it is novel. Bank Gothic is a registered trademark of Grosse Pointe Group LLC.

It was expected that Joluvian’s third type font would be inspired by the city where he currently resides: Madrid, Spain. His previous creations had originated in Venezuela (Zulia) and The Philippines (Salamat), both, places where he had once lived. Joluvian believes “now is the time to pay tribute and show gratitude towards a city that has bestowed me with so many fortunes.” He considers that Madrid’s people, streets, scents, flavor and sounds are gift enough to awaken the creative urgency in any artist. This time around, it is being expressed through the crafts of the Typographic industry. Since his arrival in Spain, Joluvian has been attached to the city’s central area, specifically to the renowned Atocha Street and its railroad station. It was precisely on that street that Joluvian and Mauco Sosa, his friend and partner, decided to establish the Patera Studio: a charming creative space that birthed the concept for this new font which they proudly named Atocha Script. The artists where still in the final phases of their previous script, Salamat, when the idea for Atocha came about. This dynamic is actually very typical of the artistic process, in which every finished product spawns the need to create its next level offspring. “Working on Atocha and Atocha Caps has been a very pleasant journey. We have given our best efforts, for we wanted to offer a typeface that was both versatile and user-friendly on a number of applications, showing a wide scope of alternatives in our glyphs,” says the artist. The illustrations were created by Mauco, to ensure visual integration that would showcase the work of both members of the Patera Studio and their complementing aesthetic voices.  Atocha, as Salamat and Zulia before, was digitized by Alejandro Paul.

The engraver’s sans serif—strikingly similar to drafting alphabets of the early 1900s—has been one of the most widely used stationer’s lettering styles since about 1900. Its open, simple forms offer legibility at very small sizes. While there are digital fonts based on this style (such as Burin Sans™ and Sackers Gothic™, among others), few offer the range of styles and weights possible, with the versatility designers perhaps expect from digital type families. Sweet Sans fills that void. The family is based on antique engraver’s lettering templates called “masterplates.” Professional stationers use a pantograph to manually transfer letters from these masterplates to a piece of copper or steel that is then etched to serve as a plate or die. This demanding technique is rare today given that most engravers now use a photographic process to make plates, where just about any font will do. But the lettering styles engravers popularized during the first half of the twentieth century—especially the engraver’s sans—are still quite familiar and appealing. Referencing various masterplates—which typically offer the alphabet, figures, an ampersand, and little else—Mark van Bronkhorst has drawn a comprehensive toolkit of nine weights, each offering upper- and lowercase forms, small caps, true italics, arbitrary fractions, and various figure sets designed to harmonize with text, small caps, and all-caps. The fonts are available as basic, Standard character sets, and as Pro character sets offering a variety of typographic features and full support for Western and Central European languages. Though rich in history, Sweet Sans is made for contemporary use. It is a handsome and functional tribute to the spirit of unsung craftsmanship. Burin Sans and Sackers Gothic are trademarks of Monotype Imaging.

Introducing Gaz, the square display typeface inspired by the gasoline station signs of the twentieth century. Sign painters used to refer to this type of lettering as “stovepipe”, due to its sharp angles and rounded corners. Gaz’s unique squareness exudes a vintage industrial charm, while still maintaining a friendly, almost organic feel. Gaz is available in seven weights and italics, giving you the flexibility to create a wide range of designs. But that’s not all. Gaz also comes in five greasy effect styles, perfect for creating that worn, grungy look. The ligatures contained in these styles are automatically substituted in most applications, projecting a more natural and authentic tone. Whether you’re creating a bold poster, an eye-catching logo, or a sleek website design, Gaz is the perfect choice for adding a touch of vintage industrial style. Try Gaz today and bring a piece of the past into your designs. 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.

The Engraver’s Square Gothic—like its rounder cousin, the engraver’s sans serif, Sweet® Sans,has been one of the more widely used stationer’s lettering styles since about 1900. Its minimal forms, made without curves, were popularized long ago by bankers and others seeking a serious, established feel to their stationery. One might argue that the design is a possible precursor to Morris Fuller Benton’s Bank Gothic® typeface. Sweet® Square is based on antique engraver’s lettering templates called “masterplates.” Professional stationers use a pantograph to manually transfer letters from these masterplates to a piece of copper or steel that is then etched to serve as a plate or die. This demanding technique is rare today given that most engravers now use a photographic process to make plates, where just about any font will do. But the lettering styles engravers popularized during the first half of the twentieth century remain both familiar and appealing. Referencing various masterplates, Mark van Bronkhorst has drawn Sweet Square in nine weights. The sources offered just uppercase, small caps, and figures, yet similar, condensed examples had a lowercase, making it possible to interpret a full character set for Sweet Square. Italics were also added to give the family greater versatility. The fonts are available as basic, “/fonts/sweet/square/” character sets, and as “Pro” character sets offering special characters, a variety of typographic features, and full support for Western and Central European languages. Sweet Square gives new life to an uncommon class of typeface: an early twentieth-century commercial invention that brings a singular verve to modern design. Its unique style is as useful as it is novel. Bank Gothic is a registered trademark of Grosse Pointe Group LLC.

The engraver’s sans serif—strikingly similar to drafting alphabets of the early 1900s—has been one of the most widely used stationer’s lettering styles since about 1900. Its open, simple forms offer legibility at very small sizes. While there are digital fonts based on this style (such as Burin Sans™ and Sackers Gothic™, among others), few offer the range of styles and weights possible, with the versatility designers perhaps expect from digital type families. Sweet Sans fills that void. The family is based on antique engraver’s lettering templates called “masterplates.” Professional stationers use a pantograph to manually transfer letters from these masterplates to a piece of copper or steel that is then etched to serve as a plate or die. This demanding technique is rare today given that most engravers now use a photographic process to make plates, where just about any font will do. But the lettering styles engravers popularized during the first half of the twentieth century—especially the engraver’s sans—are still quite familiar and appealing. Referencing various masterplates—which typically offer the alphabet, figures, an ampersand, and little else—Mark van Bronkhorst has drawn a comprehensive toolkit of nine weights, each offering upper- and lowercase forms, small caps, true italics, arbitrary fractions, and various figure sets designed to harmonize with text, small caps, and all-caps. The fonts are available as basic, Standard character sets, and as Pro character sets offering a variety of typographic features and full support for Western and Central European languages. Though rich in history, Sweet Sans is made for contemporary use. It is a handsome and functional tribute to the spirit of unsung craftsmanship. Burin Sans and Sackers Gothic are trademarks of Monotype Imaging.

A type designed in a grid, like on display panels Type is not only printed. There were always and still are a number of forms of type versions which function completely differently. Even very early in the history of script there were attempts to combine a few single elements into the diverse forms of individual characters and also efforts to construct the forms of letters within a geometric grid system. The “instructions” of Albrecht Dürer are probably most well-known. But although designers of past centuries assumed the ideal to basically be an artist’s handwritten script, the idea which developed in the course of mechanization was to “build” characters in a building block system only by stringing together one basic element — the so-called grid type was discovered, represented most commonly today by »pixel types.« But even before computers, there were display systems which presented types with the help of a mechanical grid display, like the display panels in public transportation (bus, train) or at airports and train stations. In a streetcar, I met up with a modern variation of this display which reveals the name of each tram stop as it is approached. This system was based on a customary coarse square grid, but the individual squares were also divided again diagonally in four triangles. In this way it is possible to display slants and to simulate round forms more accurately as with only squares. The displayed characters still aren’t comparable to a decent typeface — on the contrary, the lower case letters are surprisingly ugly — but they form a much more legible type than that of ordinary [quadrate] grid types. DeDisplay from ingoFonts is this kind of type, constructed from tiny triangles which are in turn grouped in small squares. The stem widths are formed by two squares; the height of upper case characters is 10, the x-height 7 squares. DeDisplay is available in three versions: DeDisplay 1 is the complex original with spaces between the triangles, DeDisplay 2 forgoes dividing the triangles and thus appears somewhat darker or “bold,” and DeDisplay 3 is to some extent the “black” and doesn’t even include spaces between the individual squares.

How can Teutonia be called “Art Nouveau” with all those straight lines? It seems like a contradiction. In fact, however, Art Nouveau embraces a rather wide variety of stylistic approaches. Five well-known examples in the field of architecture serve to illustrate the range of diversity in Art Nouveau: Saarinen’s Helsinki Railroad Station, Hoffman’s Palais Stocklet in Brussels, Lechner’s Museum of Applied Arts on Budapest, Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art and Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Only the last fits comfortably within the common perception of Art Nouveau. Whereas Gaudi would avoid the straight line as much as possible, Macintosh seemed to employ it as much as possible. The uniting factor is that they all represent “new art” -- an attempt to look things differently than the previous generation. Even when they draw on the past -- e.g. Lechner in the use of traditional Hungarian folk art -- the totality of the expression in new. Teutonia clearly shows its blackletter roots in the ‘D’ and the ‘M.’ Roos & Junge of Offenbach am Main in Germany produced Teutonia in a "back-to-basics" effort that has seen many quite similar attempts in the field of topography. In 1883, Baltimore Type Foundry released its Geometric series. In 1910, Geza Farago in Budapest used a similar letter design on a Tungsram light bulb poster. In 1919 Theo van Doesburg, a founder with Mondrian and others of the De Stijl movement, designed an alphabet using rectangles only -- no diagonals. In 1923 Joost Schmidt at Bauhaus in Weimer took the same approach for a Constructivist exhibit poster. The 1996 Agfatype Collection catalog lists a Geometric in light, bold and italic that is very close to the old Baltimore version. Even though none of these designs took the world by storm, they all made a contribution to our understanding of letterforms and how we use them. Teutonia is compact and surprisingly readable at 12 points in print, but does not do as well on the screen. Extra leading is suggested. Four ligatures are supplied: ch, ck, sch and tz. The numerals are tabular.

DESCRIPTION With Skill I wanted to create something wild. Something that splashed the letters with life. To do this, I knew I'd have to break the barrier between analog and digital, so I took my best brush and started to play. Throughout the years as a type-designer I've met and become fan of many calligraphers. My belief that only a good calligrapher can make good typography (1) has become even stronger. I'm now absolutely sure that only practice improves the skill, especially in this field. So, with this in mind, I started a font which was a challenge for me because sometimes the gap between paper and screen can be gigantic. Skill is another of my attemps (2) to capture the spirit of the pointed brush, its expressiveness, the passions and fears of the artist. This font is about freedom. Freedom everywhere. Movement, velocity, passion. To achieve this, many alternates and ligatures per glyph were designed. Use it on magazines, posters, book covers, music albums, t-shirts, skates, tattoos. NOTES (1) This is mostly referred to script fonts, though text fonts made by designers with a deep calligraphic background have at least to me, an extra charm. (2) See my fonts Live and Indie. TIPS Thanks to Open-Type, the font gives the user the chance to play and get many wonderful results: In example, using the font with “discretionary ligatures” activated will give more life to the written word. Some letters will jump of the base, while others will ligate or not with the following (typical of gestural calligraphy). Adobe Illustrator is recommended. STYLES Skill is the most complete style. It has all the alternates and ligatures that can be seen in the posters and more! Skill Standard is a variant with no decorative glyphs. It has the basic alphabet and some ligatures for better legibility.

Rian Hughes’ 15th collection of fonts, “112 Hours”, is entirely dedicated to numbers. Culled from a myriad of sources – clock faces, tickets, watches house numbers – it is an eclectic and wide-ranging set. Each font contains only numerals and related punctuation – no letters. A new book has been designed by Hughes to show the collection, and includes sample settings, complete character sets, source material and an introduction. This is available print-to-order on Blurb in paperback and hardback: http://www.blurb.com/b/5539073-112-hours-hardback http://www.blurb.com/b/5539045-112-hours-paperback From the introduction: The idea for this, the fifteenth Device Fonts collection, began when I came across an online auction site dedicated to antique clocks. I was mesmerized by the inventive and bizarre numerals on their faces. Shorn of the need to extend the internal logic of a typeface through the entire alphabet, the designers of these treasures were free to explore interesting forms and shapes that would otherwise be denied them. Given this horological starting point, I decided to produce 12 fonts, each featuring just the numbers from 1 to 12 and, where appropriate, a small set of supporting characters — in most cases, the international currency symbols, a colon, full stop, hyphen, slash and the number sign. 10, 11 and 12 I opted to place in the capital A, B and C slots. Each font is shown in its entirety here. I soon passed 12, so the next logical finish line was 24. Like a typographic Jack Bauer, I soon passed that too -— the more I researched, the more I came across interesting and unique examples that insisted on digitization, or that inspired me to explore some new design direction. The sources broadened to include tickets, numbering machines, ecclesiastical brass plates and more. Though not derived from clock faces, I opted to keep the 1-12 conceit for consistency, which allowed me to design what are effectively numerical ligatures. I finally concluded one hundred fonts over my original estimate at 112. Even though it’s not strictly divisible by 12, the number has a certain symmetry, I reasoned, and was as good a place as any to round off the project. An overview reveals a broad range that nonetheless fall into several loose categories. There are fairly faithful revivals, only diverging from their source material to even out inconsistencies and regularize weighting or shape to make them more functional in a modern context; designs taken directly from the source material, preserving all the inky grit and character of the original; designs that are loosely based on a couple of numbers from the source material but diverge dramatically for reasons of improved aesthetics or mere whim; and entirely new designs with no historical precedent. As projects like this evolve (and, to be frank, get out of hand), they can take you in directions and to places you didn’t envisage when you first set out. Along the way, I corresponded with experts in railway livery, and now know about the history of cab side and smokebox plates; I travelled to the Musée de l’imprimerie in Nantes, France, to examine their numbering machines; I photographed house numbers in Paris, Florence, Venice, Amsterdam and here in the UK; I delved into my collection of tickets, passes and printed ephemera; I visited the Science Museum in London, the Royal Signals Museum in Dorset, and the Museum of London to source early adding machines, war-time telegraphs and post-war ration books. I photographed watches at Worthing Museum, weighing scales large enough to stand on in a Brick Lane pub, and digital station clocks at Baker Street tube station. I went to the London Under-ground archive at Acton Depot, where you can see all manner of vintage enamel signs and woodblock type; I photographed grocer’s stalls in East End street markets; I dug out old clocks I recalled from childhood at my parents’ place, examined old manual typewriters and cash tills, and crouched down with a torch to look at my electricity meter. I found out that Jane Fonda kicked a policeman, and unusually for someone with a lifelong aversion to sport, picked up some horse-racing jargon. I share some of that research here. In many cases I have not been slavish about staying close to the source material if I didn’t think it warranted it, so a close comparison will reveal differences. These changes could be made for aesthetic reasons, functional reasons (the originals didn’t need to be set in any combination, for example), or just reasons of personal taste. Where reference for the additional characters were not available — which was always the case with fonts derived from clock faces — I have endeavored to design them in a sympathetic style. I may even extend some of these to the full alphabet in the future. If I do, these number-only fonts could be considered as experimental design exercises: forays into form to probe interesting new graphic possibilities.