Centennial Script was designed and cut by Hermann Ihlenburg in 1876 (the centennial of American independence, hence the typeface's name) for the MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan foundry in Philadelphia. Ihlenburg was then only 33 years old, and these beautiful forms put him on his way to become the most prolific and innovative deco, ornamental and script typeface designer and punch cutter of the nineteenth century. In trying to be a true homage to the history of the new world, Centennial Script transcends its then-contemporary deco fashion to embrace script elements historically similar to lettering found on maps or political documents of the 18th century. Letters like the p and s extend themselves high and mighty to accentuate words and lines of text in a fancy hand-drawn manner. The dots on the i and j are those of a careful scribe who acknowledges the importance of the document being lettered. The lowercase letters connect with two slight angular motions of the hand, also very carefully and elegantly. Even the ligatures and ending swashes Ihlenburg made for this face were reminiscent of a mapmaker's patient hand, though Ihlenburg's elegant touch in them cannot be mistaken. Although Centennial Script was one of the few Ihlenburg faces to make it to film type technology, the transition was neither credited nor faultless. The film type version was a bit sloppy in the way the connectors were made, so the lowercase needed a lot of manual work to typeset properly. To alleviate such waste of time for the user of this digital version, the connectors were redrawn according to the original metal ones made by Ihlenburg himself, and tested thoroughly in print to ensure the quality of the typeface's flowing cursive nature. This wasn't an easy task, and very time-consuming, since the changing angles on both ends of the connection made it impossible to escape from having to build every lowercase letter with both left and right connectors that would fit with the rest of the letters. This is one typeface that couldn't be revived in any other manner than the way it was originally made, regardless of more than 130 years of technological advances since the face was designed. Centennial Script comes in all popular font formats, and supports most Latin-based languages. Also included is an Alts fonts that contains alternates, ligatures, snap-on swash endings, some ornaments, as well as a complete set of the lowercase without left side connectors, for a more natural combination when following a majuscule, or just in case the user finds it fit to set the copy in a non-connecting script instead of the face's original connected flow. Centennial Script Pro, the OpenType version, combines the main font with the Alts font in a feature-packed single font. Use the ligature feature to set wordmarks like Mr, Ms, Mrs, Dr, and &Co, the stylistic alternates feature to replace some letters with their alternative forms, the contextual alternates feature for better uppercase-lowercase sequences, and the titling feature to set your text in a disconnected script. Centennial Script is the only script we currently know of that can be set connected or disconnected simultaneously, either using the titling feature in the OpenType Pro version, or manually in the other formats.

The Treasury script waited over 130 years to be digitized, and the Canada Type crew is very proud to have done the honors. And then some. After seven months of meticulous work on some of the most fascinating letter forms ever made, we can easily say that Treasury is the most ambitious, educational and enjoyable type journey we've embarked upon, and we're certain you will be quite happy with the results. Treasury goes beyond being a mere revival of a typeface. Though the original Treasury script is quite breathtaking in its own right, we decided to bring it into the computer age with much more style and functionality than just another lost script becoming digital. The Treasury System is an intuitive set of fonts that takes advantage of the most commonly used feature of today's design software: Layering. Please do help yourself to the PDF and images in the MyFonts gallery for a quick look at the some of the limitless possibilities Treasury has to offer, from simple attractive elegance expressed in the main script, all the way into mysteriously magnificent calligraphic plates. To date in digital type history, this is the most comprehensive and versatile work of its kind. Every designer loves many options to experiment. Experimentation has never been as much fun and productive as it is with Treasury. If you're "compudling" your initial ideas for a layout, or you're just an alphabet fan who loves spending time with letters, working with Treasury is very inspiring and fulfilling. Some of Treasury's features are: - No more endless searching for initial caps that fit your project. The Treasury System lets you build your own initial caps, in any combination of colors, fills, linings or dimensions you like, with a few simple clicks of the mouse. - With two base styles and nine layer fonts, the Treasury System set helps you produce endless possibilities of alternation and variation in dimension, color, and calligraphic combinations to fit your layout's exact needs, down to the very last detail. - 12 pre-combined Treasury fonts are also there to help and inspire layout artists who love shortcuts and don't want to fiddle with too many layers in their layout. Available in small packages on their own, or as part of the complete Treasury package, these 12 fonts can start you up on your way to discovering the perfect fit for your layout. - Every single letter in the Treasury System comes with at least one alternative. Some characters have even three or four alternates. Although the main character set is an authentic rendition of Ihlenburg's 1874 classic, we made sure to include a treasure trove of alternates for maximum usability. - The most gorgeous set of numerals we have seen in a long, long time. The Treasury numbers are what really turned us onto this project in the first place. - Treasury Pro, the incredibly sophisticated OpenType version, combines the complete Treasury System into a single font, programmed for compatibility with Adobe's latest CS and CS2 software programs. Over 2000 characters in one font, for thousands of possibilities. Setting the ideal elegant wordmark, logotype, intitial cap, or headline, no matter how simple or complex, is as easy as taking a minute or two to push a few buttons in Illustrator, Photoshop, or InDesign. We can go on endlessly about the beauty and functionality of this Treasury set, but we really cannot do it justice with words. So try Treasury for yourself and see the amazing possibilities of fun and creativity it has. It can be used pretty much anywhere - signs, book covers, certificates, music inserts, movie posters, greeting cards, invitations, etc. Much thanks are due to the generous and considerable help Canada Type received from the Harvard Library in Boston, Klingspor Museum in Frankfurt, and many type hobbyists and researchers in Canada, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. Without them it would was near-impossible to track down the lost history of Hermann Ihlenburg, the most prolific German/American type designer and punch cutter of the 19th century. We hope Mr. Ihlenburg is proudly smiling down on us from type designer heaven.

Meet Ollie, a casual signage script whose friendly, bouncy exterior belies a heart of sophisticated OpenType programming. This font is designed to make the most of OpenType savvy applications, and as such is recommended for professional design use. Or to put it another way: Make sure that contextual alternates and ligatures are always turned on! Ollie includes about 900 glyphs, many of which are automagical substitutions to keep the text flowing smoothly, and to pseudo-randomly pick different glyphs to avoid repetition. With contextual alternates turned on (as they should be by default), most lowercase letters will alternate between at least two different forms. The powerful OpenType programming makes the font itself ‘look back’ (up to eight characters) on previously used letters; typing “banana” will give you three different a’s and two different n’s (the last a is a special ‘end form’ character). The calt feature controls many other ‘special effects’ which all add together to give a smooth-flowing, hand-lettered look. These effects include start and end forms (and indeed, ‘loner’ forms) of many letters, which are automatically substituted in at beginnings or ends of words, or when the previous or next letter doesn't connect. Another special feature tests to see if there is room for the crossbar of t (or tt ligature) to extend further over the previous or next letter, or both, as is often the case. The last main effect of the calt feature is to substitute certain letters typed before any ‘e’ character, to make for a more natural connection (see the pe combination in ‘Eclectotype’ in the first poster). Ligatures should be on by default, for a much nicer looking tt combination, and a few others besides. The swash feature should be used sparingly (one glyph at a time, really) to apply a more extravagant look to g,j and y in the lower case, and quite a few of the upper case too. Oldstyle figures are included, as well as the lining defaults. Now to delve into the stylistic alternates... These are all included in the salt feature, or for uses of applications that support them, separated into stylistic sets thus: ss01 - (with swash feature on) L and G swashes get even swashier. ss02 - standard s changes to a connected script s form. ss03 - r takes on a script form. ss04 - z also gets a scriptier look. [the previous three sets also change any versions of s, r or z with diacritics] ss05 - a useful underline function. When enabled, typing two or more underscores will extend a cool underline under the previous letters. More underscores = longer underline. ss06 - the Polish script lslash changes to its more standard form. ss07 - E, S and B change to a more top-heavy alternate form. ss08 - An alternate form for A characters. ss09 - Alterative rounder forms of M and N. ss10 - An alternate ampersand. That about wraps up the features. Now all that’s left is for you to license the font and get experimenting!

Here is a "Decorative Braille font". The initial design was indeed drawn on a K.I.S.S digital sketchpad, the Windows default drawing tool (Microsoft Paint, classic version). A. Glyph Concept The Braille 2x3 dot matrix is weaved around a diamond-shape. a.1. Each "dot" is represented by a "right-angle isocel triangle". a.2. Braille dots in Diamond Braille a.2.I. "Dots" are outside the diamond for first Braille row (Braille dots 1, 4) and third Braille row (Braille dots 3, 6). a.2.II. "Dots" are inside the diamond for second Braillle row (Braille dots 2, 5). a.3. Diamond lattice Glyphs are connected horizontally (to/bottom diamond's corners) and vertically (left/right corners) to each other (see poster 5). a.4. Special Glyphs - Space: its is either empty ("Empty cell") or a "non Braille shape" { _, ° } depending on your display needs (as explained in b.3.II) - 6 dots: { £, =, û } - 6 empty dots: { ç, ¥ } B. Font user guide b.1. Lowercase glyphs { A..Z } In these glyphs the "dots" are represented as a white right-angle isocel triangle filled with a smaller black triangle. b.2. Uppercase glyphs { a..z } In these glyphs, the "dots" are represented as an empty triangle (this is an "empty dot"). b.3. 'Space' vs 'Empty Cell' b.3.I. 'Space' - 'Space' glyph is an empty shape - '¶' glyph (at the end of each line in Microsoft Word) is also an empty shape b.3.II. 'Empty cell' glyphs: _ (underscore), ° (degree). In these glyphs there are 2 "empty dots" at top and bottom corners of the diamond, which differentiates them from regular Braille glyphs (which dont have a "dot in the middle"). b.4. Diamond Lattice To display text as a 'diamond lattice', replace each 'Space' by an 'Empty cell' (as explained in b.3.II, see poster 5) b.5. Connectors The connector glyphs allow the creation of "circuit like" designs (see poster 1). Here are the connector glyphs: { µ, à, â, ä, ã, è, é, ê, ë, î, ï } b.6. Domino feature Some Glyphs represent numbers 1..6 in a way which is similar than on dominos (see poster 6) C. Posters Poster 1: the "Font Logo", it displays "Diamond Braille" text together with the Connectors feature. Poster 2: a pangram which is published on pangra.me ( "Adept quick jog over frozen blue whisky mix" ). Poster 3: an illustration of the Domino feature. Poster 4: a DiamondBraille version of the Periodic table. Poster 5: illustration of the Diamond lattice using only 6 dots ( û ) and 6 empty dots ( ç ) glyphs.

Get your Aussie on! The new typeface, Ainslie, with its mix of influences from Oz, makes its mark as the first semi-serif from insigne Design. Ainslie, named for Mt. Ainslie and Canberra’s inner suburb of the same name, was originally developed for the Canberra Australia Centennial Typeface Competition. Canberra is Australia’s capital, and it’s a planned city designed by American Walter Burley Griffin, a contemporary and one-time associate of Frank Lloyd Wright. Griffin’s plan involved a distinctly geometric design with several focal points--one of which was Mt. Ainslie. This same purely geometric scheme is now the basis for insigne’s new release. Similar to the Chatype project in its scope, its challenge, and the way its concept was developed, Ainslie incorporates influences from Canberra and surrounding areas to form a font that is uniquely Australian. In comparison, Chatype was developed for the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee by insigne in conjunction with designer Robbie de Villiers. Chatype took elements from Chattanooga’s industrial character and Cherokee past and merged them with the area’s technological influences. Likewise, Ainslie takes Canberra’s distinct, geometric design and blends it with the organic, flowing effect of aboriginal art. Add in touches from the smooth, aerodynamic design of the boomerang and Ainslie gives you a look uniquely Australian yet usable in a wide range of applications. The fashionable typeface includes a multitude of alternates that can be accessed in any OpenType-enabled application. These stylish alternates along with a number of swashes as well as meticulously refined details with ball terminals and alternate titling caps keep the font well accessorized. Also included are capital swash alternates, old style figures, and small caps. Peruse the PDF brochure to see these features in action. OpenType enabled applications such as the Adobe suite or Quark can take full advantage of the automatic replacing ligatures and alternates. This family also offers the glyphs to support a wide range of languages. While Ainslie wasn't selected as the final font in the Canberra competition, the outcome allowed for additional adjustments to the typeface. Several approaches were attempted for the final product including a technological hexagonal concept, which may still be developed to another form later. Some of the organic forms were removed and substituted with more abrupt endings, leaving the face looking pretty spiffy and a fair bit more legible. In the end, Ainslie was pulled back to the basic forms from which it was started. Give it a go for your next project. It’s guaranteed to be anything but a barbeque stopper.

Peter Schnorr was a German artist/illustrator of Art Nouveau period (called Jugendstil in Germany and Austria). He was quite adept at calligraphy and did a variety of commercial work, including business signs. He designed at least four different alphabets and collaborated with Bruce Rogers on advertising work and title page designs for books. One of their clients was the publishing house of Houghton Mifflin. I have not been able to discover anything else about him, but I suspect he might be the grandson of the Bavarian artist Jules Schnorr von Carolsfeld, who was once commissioned to do a mural by Ludwig II of Bavaria (whose famous castle was copied by Disneyland). Schnorr did not give individual names to his fonts. Where there is no historical name, we like to follow the tradition initiated by Bauer and name fonts after their designer, with a descriptive adjective in the designer’s native language. Gestreckt is German for stretched or elongated. An interesting deign detail of this typeface is the cross bar of the “T” --it is NOT symetrical. The right hand side extends only 88% as far as the left hand side (a ratio of 9:8). I presume this was done for a more pleasing letter fit. Today Schnorr’s design is frequently offered under the name “Ambrosia.” However. close inspection will usually reveal that the serifs have been treated differently. I believe our font has a greater fidelity to the original design. Please also compare the design of the various auxiliary characters to those in other fonts. Often they are either borrowed from an inappropriate font of a different period or are missing altogether. We make every effort to design characters that are in keeping with the overall design and spirit of the typeface. For example, see the superscript Registered Trademark symbol (0174) and the Double s (0223). I think both are quite successful. Schnorr Gestreckt ML represents a major extension of the original release. In addition to the standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page with character slots up to decimal position 255, there are glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. There are also two alternate letter forms, one ornament and seven ligatures with Unicode codepoints (Private Use Area) and OpenType aalt, ornm & liga GSUB layout features. There are a total of 318 glyphs and 351 kerning pairs. Please note that some older applications may only be able to access the Western Europe character set (approximately 221 glyphs). This release also incorporates a redesign of several glyphs: the comma, quotes, acute accent, and grave accent.