The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

The Charles Bluemlein Script Collection is an intriguing reminder of the heady days of hand lettering and calligraphy in the United States. From the early 1930s through World War II, there were about 200 professional hand letterers working in New York City alone. This occupation saw its demise with the advent of photo lettering, and after digital typography, became virtually extinct. The odd way in which the Bluemlein scripts were assembled and created - by collecting different signatures and then building complete alphabets from them - is a fascinating calligraphic adventure. Because the set of constructed designs looked nothing like the original signatures, fictitious names were assigned to the new script typefaces. The typeface styles were then showcased in Higgins Ink catalogs. Alejandro Paul and Sudtipos bring the Bluemlein scripts back to life in a set of expanded digital versions, reflecting the demands of today’s designer. Extreme care has been taken to render the original scripts authentically, keeping the fictitious names originally assigned to them by Bluemlein.

Irrlicht is based on C. H. Kleukens’ 1923 typeface Judith Type . Whilst Dunkle Irrlicht is a fairly faithful rendition and extension of Kleukens’ typeface, the Licht style was initially added as a stand-alone stencil version; yet, the two styles work perfectly together – for different nuances, for emphasis or simply stacked/layered. Irrlicht is equipped with upper- and lowercase ligatures, contextual and stylistic alternates, fractions, superior and inferior figures, extended language support and a few extra goodies. Additional information – How Irrlicht came to life Christian Heinrich Kleukens cut his Judith Type in 1923, at the peak of German expressionism, exclusively for publications with the Ernst-Ludwig-Press, such as a limited series of biblical prints – the first being the Book of Judith , hence the original’s name. I stumbled upon this typeface a couple of years ago in a nice little 1930 booklet of the Gutenberg-Gesellschaft and was struck by its forceful darkness on paper and its seemingly simple, crude letterforms. The lack of a long-ſ in the final version of Judith Type – quite unusual for a German typeface of that time – adds to this feel of crudeness and spontaneity*. Judith Type seemed to me like a semi-blackletter cousin of Rudolf Koch’s typeface Neuland (cast in the same year). Besides its apparent affinity with expressionism, it reflects a lot of that deeply spiritual craftsmanship of the era – much like Neuland. A few months later, when I was working on a stencil project and looking for a typeface that could be cut into thin wooden plates easily, I remembered those dark, sharp letters that seemed to be lacking any curves at all. After enlarging a few letters and tracing them by hand, the whole set was redrawn digitally, using only straight lines. As for spacing, the goal was to keep the letters tight but to avoid touching characters – without ironing out all the original’s tension and rhythm. Deliberate kerning, subtle contextual alternates and ligatures help to deal with critical glyph combinations. Two additional versions were developed: a stencil version with open counters and, in reference to a popular style of the 1920s and inspired by dry, cracked wood, an inline version. These two additional styles were later merged into one font – Lichte** Irrlicht was born. — AARHAUS * Consequently, the original typeface’s German eszett is simply a ligature of the “round s” and standard z . In some of his publications, Kleukens dispenses with using eszett altogether and sets double s instead. Irrlicht , however, does feature a more common eszett (ß); the original, among other more faithful letter forms, can be accessed via the stylistic sets feature ** licht – literally bright – being the German term for inline typefaces – not to be confused with leicht ( light )

Any typeface has two intrinsic elements that does´t work at the same levels, form and appearance. These peculiar visual behavior generate a wide range of graphics games. At reading level, we observe a uniform gray spot, but large bodies allows us to appreciate their shapes and counterforms. Milio takes this duality to offer unparalleled service in newsprint and magazine publishing, specially in small bodies but hard and formal cogency in titling. Its wide variety of weights, 10 in total, together with a slight condensation allows us to save space without losing legibility, even under poor printing conditions. Its basic quasi humanistic forms include support for a wide range of details that give great originality and strength. A friendly appearance, but a strong, all-road typeface with internal forms that reinforced visibility in small sizes thanks to its high average eye and the contrast that generates its soft curved external and internal squared angles. The nuances here are fundamental and explain its powerful large sizes, where you can see these contrasts between the curved, organic, humanistic, and straight, angled, almost mechanical shapes. Milio has the bonus of a large multilingual support for all alphabets based on the Latin and Cyrillic, as well as large Opentype features for expert users, among which we have true small caps, ligatures and automatic contextual alternates. Several sets of numerals for use on tables and other “delicatessen” as fractions are also included. Having in mind the daily struggle in newspaper and magazines´ edition, Milio has been designed with the idea of being Cinta´s perfect couple, a similar contrast and proportion typographic san serif family produced by the same Foundry as Milio, to cover almost all the graphic needs in actual DTP.

Daenerys is a thin, elegant signature font that is perfect for a wide range of design projects. It has a delicate, calligraphic style with smooth, flowing lines that give it a sense of grace and beauty. The letters have a slight slant, which gives them a hand-written feel, making it suitable for invitations, wedding stationery, and other special occasions. One of the most striking features of this font is the abundance of swashes. These are decorative flourishes that extend from the letters, adding a unique and ornate touch to your designs. The swashes come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and they can be used to add emphasis to specific letters or words. This makes the font perfect for creating elegant, eye-catching titles and headlines. The lowercase letters have a unique and modern touch, The uppercase letters are more formal and elegant, making them great for headlines and titles. Daenerys is a versatile font, it's perfect for branding, packaging, and web design. The thin lines make it easy to read in small sizes and it's also great for overlaying on top of other design elements. Overall, Daenerys is a beautiful and sophisticated font that can add a touch of elegance to any design project. Daenerys features: A full set of uppercase and lowercase Numbers and punctuation Multilingual language support PUA Encoded Characters OpenType Features +274 Total Glyphs +40 Signature Swashes

Patmos Serif is a hand drawn serif font, inspired by the art of the cyrillic calligraphy, as well as the script of the Greek Orthodox art. The font contains Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets and it is delivered in Opentype and Truetype format. It supports Central, Eastern, Western European, Baltic, Turkish, Greek and Russian languages. Patmos Serif has a variety of stylistic alternates and classes, titling altrenates, discretionary and standard ligatures and it is fully unicode-mapped (PUA encoded). The standard ligatures of the font are 4 decorative ornaments, that you may add at the end of a word and they match perfectly with the titling alternates. All you have to do is to make sure that ‘standard ligatures’ are activated in your application and then type "d" and a number from 1 to 4.

Art into type In 2008, Fontsmith were approached by their friend, Jon Scott, to investigate whether a typeface could assume the aesthetic of one artist’s body of work. Jon’s not-for-profit charity, Measure, was organising an event for the artist, Conrad Shawcross, whose giant mechanical installation, entitled Chord, was going on public display in the long-disused Kingsway tram tunnel in Holborn. Chord explores the way we perceive time, as either a line or a cycle. Two enormous machines with dozens of rotating arms and moving in opposite directions, weave rope with almost infinite slowness. An unusual brief Phil Garnham visited Conrad in his Hackney studio to get a feel for his work and ideas. “Conrad is a very clever and philosophical guy. He struggled to see how typeface design had any relevance to him and his art. This was going to be a challenge.” The artist presented the type designer with a pile of rope and a huge diagram of sketches and mathematical workings. “This was, in essence, my brief.” Phil developed three concepts, the simplest of which ticked all the boxes. “The idea of the strokes in the letterforms appearing and ending at peaks or points of origin fitted perfectly with Conrad’s idea of time occurring and ending at two ends of the sculpture.” Two versions Phil planned modules for two versions of the typeface: one with five lines in the letterforms and one with seven. He then drew the modules on-screen and twisted and turned them to build the machine that is FS Conrad. “This is not a simple headline typeface,” says Phil. “It’s not a rigid structure. It has varying character widths, and it’s informed by real typographic insight and proportions so that it actually works as piece of functioning, harmonious type.”

I started Rainmaker Script by hand sketching a huge amount of letters to find the right tone. After having enough I picked the characters that I liked and begun composing a font out of them. With this method I ended up with the Rainmaker Script - an elegant signature style connected script with natural variation in the rhythm. Rainmaker Script is great for branding, headlines and packaging. It’s equipped with (automatic) Contextual Alternates that keep the flow natural and variable. There’s also Swash, Stylistic and Titling Alternates, and even more alternates can be found for some characters from the Glyph Palette. From the Glyph Palette you’ll also find a handful of ending swooshes and ornamental strokes that can be combined with the font. All the extras in Rainmaker Script are PUA encoded so you can access them in most graphic design software.

Christmas Surprise is a joyful and festive display font. It is ideal for holiday-themed greeting cards and for any crafting project so add this font to your designs and make them come alive! This font is PUA encoded which means you can access all of the glyphs and swashes with ease!

Once upon a midnight dreary, this Comicraftsman pondered, weak and weary, For a name synonymous with Mighty and Marvelous comics lore. Solid, Outline, Inline was the nameless font I'd crafted, I nodded, nearly napping o'er the work I'd grafted When suddenly came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my cubicle door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my cubicle door-- Calling out "EXCELSIOR!" Then an Amazing Vision beguiled my sad fancy into smilin', By the Spectacular decorum of the countenance it wore, "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven," he said, "thou art sure no craven, And thy font should not remain nameless here forevermore!" Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow From comic books surcease of sorrow, letters that called out "EXCELSIOR!" Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking of the nominative neuter singular thing Like Some Silvered Surfer wandering from the Nightly shore-- The Vision shrieked, upstarting--"Tell me what thy lordly name is thus!" Quoth the Craftsman: "EXCELSIUS!"

Arnold Therhoernen. (Arnoldus ther Hornen, Drucker des Dictys , Arnold ter Hoernen, Arnold ther Hoernen, Arnoldus TherHornen.) Who was this guy? He was a printer active in the city of Cologne, having graduating from the university there. He learned his craft under Ulrich Zell. He printed books from 1470 to 1482 when the plague carried him off. Was he just another printer of the era? No, he brought out the first edition of the "Fasciculus temporum'' (The most popular work by a living author at that time.) And he was the first to use both a title page and page numbers. His page numbers, an idea probably suggested to him by Werner Rolevinck, were interesting in that they were centered half way down the page on the outer margin and were set in Roman Numerals.

A comprehensive and faithful rendition of one of the finest metal typefaces of the 20th century. Rudolf Koch designed Wilhelm Klingspor Schrift (initially conceived as “Missal Schrift”, and later referred to also as “Wilhelm Klingspor Gotisch”) between 1919 and 1925 for the Gebr. Klingspor Type Foundry in Offenbach am Main. It is an impressive textura typeface, being sharp, elegant, spiky, sensitive and noble at the same time. Some of its most notable features have to do with the delicate decorations, the thin but subtly swelling lines that parallel or bridge strokes in the capitals, the hairline endings that terminate each stroke in both the capitals and the lowercase letters, the subtle joining of hairlines to thicker strokes, and the tension of some of the transitional curves. Koch’s original design included two sets of capitals (normal and condensed); alternates for a, d, e, r, s and z, plus long s; short and long flourished finial forms for f and t; thirty-five ligatures; and eighteen decorative pieces (Zierstücke). All of these features, plus several additional ones for modern use (including the usual standard characters for typesetting in modern Western languages, additional alternates and ligatures, plus carefully coded Opentype features), have been thoroughly implemented to the highest and most lively level of detail in the present font, in the hope that the past greatness of Wilhelm Klingspor Schrift will finally step into the modern OpenType realm. The main sources used during the font design process were several pages from a specimen book issued by the Gebr. Klingspor Type Foundry in 1927. Other sources were as follows: Bain, P., and Shaw, P. (Eds.) (1998), Blackletter: Type and National Identity, New York: Princeton Architectural Press (p. 43); Hendlmeier, W. (1994), Kunstwerke der Schrift, Hannover: Bund für Deutsche Schrift und Sprache (pp. 56-7); Kapr, A. (1983), Schriftkunst, Dresden: VEB Verlag der Kunst (p. 453); Kapr, A. (1993), Fraktur - Form und Geschichte der gebrochenen Schriften, Mainz: Verlag Hermann Schmidt (pp. 124-5); and Klingspor, K. (1949), Über Schönheit von Schrift und Druck, Frankfurt am Main: Georg Kurt Schauer (pp. 136-7). Some public and private comments by renowned designer and design historian Paul Shaw have also influenced both the design and the description of the present font. Specimen, detailed character map, OpenType features, and font samples available at Alter Littera’s The Oldtype “Wilhelm Klingspor Schrift” Font Page.

This cute bunting style font includes extras like a cupcake, anchor, and a fleur de lis. Use the ( ) { } [ ] to make end pieces and join them with the underscore __.

I’d been thinking for a while about making a serif font with ball terminals: big fun round ends to the letters anywhere I can squeeze them in. So I made Breakfast Pastry! I started with a hand-drawn set of basic letters, then went hog-wild making alternates and ligatures galore with fun swirls, curls, and even more balls! I’ve cleaned the letters up significantly to make them smooth and easy for any cutting or printing you may want to do, but I’ve also left in some of the hand-drawn character so that the letters are warmer and not too formal. Then I took the first font, and made a second solid version without the cutouts. After that I thought: I tend to make plumper fonts ... why not make an even thinner version? So I did! All three versions have the same character set (over 700 glyphs total), which means they all have the same extras and alternates. All three fonts have over 300 extended Latin characters for language support, as well as over 200 bonus items: alternate letters, letters with swashes, two-letter ligatures, small caps, catchwords, and even some bonus ornaments and elements to make the fonts even more flexible. (After all, if one swash on a letter is good, two or three might be great!)

Over the past few years, every designer has seen the surprising outbreak of blackletter types in marketing campaigns for major sports clothing manufacturers, a few phone companies, soft drink makers, and more recently on entertainment and music products. In such campaigns, blackletter type combined with photos of usual daily activity simply adds a level of strength and mystique to things we see and do on a regular basis. But we couldn't help noticing that the typography was very odd in such campaigns, where the type overpowers all the other design elements. This is because almost all blackletter fonts ever made express too much strength and time-stamp themselves in a definite manner, thereby eliminating themselves as possible type choices for a variety of common contemporary design approaches, such as minimal, geometric, modular, etc. So extending the idea of using blackletter in modern design was a bit of a wild goose chase for us. But we finally found the face that completes the equation no other blackletter could fit into: Leather is a digitization and major expansion of Imre Reiner's forgotten but excellent 1933 Gotika design, which was very much ahead of its time. In its own time this design saw very little use because it caused problems to printers, where the thin serifs and inner bars were too fragile and broke off too easily when used in metal. But now, more than seventy years later, it seems like it was made for current technologies, and it is nothing short of being the perfect candidate for using blackletter in grid-based settings. Leather has three features usually not found in other blackletter fonts: - Grid-based geometric strokes and curves: In the early 1930s, blackletter design had already begun interacting back with the modern sans serif it birthed at the turn of the century. This design is one of the very few manifestations of such interaction. - Fragile, Boboni-like serifs, sprout from mostly expected places in the minuscules, but are sprinkled very aesthetically on some of the majuscules. The overall result is magnificently modern. - The usual complexity of blackletter uppercase's inner bars is rendered simple, geometric and very visually appealing. The contrast between the inner bars and thick outer strokes creates a surprising circuitry-like effect on some of the letters (D, O, Q), wonderfully plays with the idea of fragile balances on some others (M, N and P), and boldly introduces new concepts on others (B, F, K, L, R). Our research seems to suggest that the original numerals used with this design in the 1930s were adopted from a previous Imre Reiner typeface. They didn't really fit with the idea of this font, so we created brand new numerals for Leather. We also expanded the character set to cover all Western Latin-based languages, and scattered plenty of alternates and ligatures throughout the map. The name, Leather, was derived from a humorous attempt at naming a font. Initially we wanted to call it Black Leather (blackletter...blackleather), but the closer we came to finishing it, the more respect we developed for its attempt to introduce a plausible convergence between two entirely different type categories. Sadly for the art, this idea of convergence didn't go much further back then, due to technological limitations and the eventual war a few years later. We're hoping this revival would encourage people to look at blackletter under a new light in these modern times of multiple design influences.

Frantic, man, and solid, Jackson! This crazy-quilt collection of dingbats inspired by the works of famed album-cover artist Jim Flora will add spice, zing and a certain je ne sais quoi to any project they grace.