TT Tsars useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options The TT Tsars font family is a collection of serif display titling fonts that are stylized to resemble the fonts of the beginning, the middle and the end of the XVIII century. The project is based on title fonts, that is, the fonts that were used to design book title pages. The idea for the project TT Tsars was born after a small study of the historical development of the Cyrillic type and is also based on Abram Shchitsgal’s book "Russian Civil Type". At the very beginning of the project, we had developed a basic universal skeleton for the forms of all characters in all subfamilies of the family, and later on, we added styles, visual features, artifacts and other nuances typical of the given period onto the skeleton. Yes, from the historical accuracy point of view it might be that such an approach is not always justified, but we have achieved our goal and as a result, we have created perfectly combinable serifs that can be used to style an inscription for a certain time period. The TT Tsars font family consists of 20 fonts: 5 separate subfamilies, each of which consists of 4 fonts. Each font contains 580 glyphs, except for the TT Tsars E subfamily, in which each font consists of 464 characters. Instead of lowercase characters in the typeface, small capitals are used, which also suggests that the typeface is rather a display than text one. In TT Tsars you can find a large number of ligatures (for Latin and Cyrillic alphabets), arrows and many useful OpenType features, such as: frac, ordn, sinf, sups, numr, dnom, case, onum, tnum, pnum, lnum, salt (ss01), dlig. Time-related characteristics of the subfamilies are distributed as follows: • TT Tsars A—the beginning of the 18th century (Latin and Cyrillic) • TT Tsars B—the beginning of the 18th century (Latin and Cyrillic) • TT Tsars C—the middle of the 18th century (Latin and Cyrillic) • TT Tsars D—the end of the 18th century (Latin and Cyrillic) • TT Tsars E—conditionally the beginning of the 18th century (only Latin) TT Tsars A and TT Tsars B families (both the beginning of the 18th century) have different starting points: for TT Tsars A it is Latin, for TT Tsars B it is Cyrillic. The development of the TT Tsars A family began in Latin, the font is based on the royal serif Romain du Roi. The Cyrillic alphabet is harmoniously matched to the Latin. The development of the TT Tsars B family began in Cyrillic, which is based on a Russian civil type. Characteristic elements are the curved one-sided serifs of triangular characters (A, X, Y), drops appear in the letter ?, the middle strokes ? and P are adjacent to the main stroke. Latin was drawn to pair with Cyrillic. It is still based on the royal serif, but somewhat changed: the letters B and P are closed and the upper bar of the letter A rose. This was done for the visual combination of Cyrillic and Latin and at the same time to make a distinction between TT Tsars A and TT Tsars B. TT Tsars C is now the middle of the 18th century. Cyrillic alphabet itself did not stand still and evolved, and by the middle of the 18th century, its forms have changed and become to look the way they are shown in this font family. Latin forms are following the Cyrillic. The figures are also slightly modified and adapted to the type design. In TT Tsars C, Cyrillic and Latin characters are created in parallel. A distinctive feature of the Cyrillic alphabet in TT Tsars C is the residual influence of the flat pen. This is noticeable in such signs as ?, ?, K. The shape of the letters ?, ?, ?, ? is very characteristic of the period. In the Latin alphabet, a characteristic leg appears at the letter R. For both languages, there is a typical C characterized by an upper serif and the appearance of large, even somewhat bolding serifs on horizontals (T, E, ?, L). TT Tsars D is already the end of the 18th century when with the development of printing, the forms of some Cyrillic characters had changed and turned into new skeletons of letters that we transposed into Latin. The figures were also stylized. In this font, both Cyrillic and Latin are stylistically executed with different serifs and are thus logically separated. The end of the century is characterized by the reduction of decorative elements. Straight, blueprint-like legs of the letters ?, R, K, ?. Serifs are very pronounced and triangular. E and ? are one-sided on the middle horizontal line. A very characteristic C with two serifs appears in the Latin alphabet. TT Tsars E is a steampunk fantasy typeface, its theme is a Latinized Russian ?ivil type (also referred to as Grazhdansky type which emerged after Peter the Great’s language reform), which includes only the Latin alphabet. There is no historical analog to this typeface, it is exclusively our reflections on the topic of what would have happened if the civil font had developed further and received a Latin counterpart. We imagined such a situation in which the civil type was exported to Europe and began to live its own life.

Hey! See Reina Neue in action here! INTRODUCTION When I designed the first Reina¹ circa 2010, I was at the dawn of my career as a type designer. The S{o}TA, short for the Society of Typographic Aficionados, described it as complex display typeface incorporating hairline flourishes to a nicely heavy romantic letterform². And it was like that; that’s what I was pursuing at that time since I was very passionate about ornaments and accolades of Calligraphy. Why? I felt that Typography, in general, needed more of them. These subtle flourishes could breathe life into letters. Maybe, I thought it was the only way I could propose something new into the field of type. However, after some years, I came across a very interesting quote: –Beautiful things don’t ask for attention– Wow! What did this mean? How could something be attractive if it’s not actually showing it. Could this be applied to my work? Sure. I think every type-designer goes through this process (aka crisis) regarding his or her career. At the beginning we love everything. We are kind of blind, we only see the big picture of a project. And that’s not because we are lazy. We actually can’t see the small mistakes nor the subtleties that make something simpler beautiful. We are not able. But, the small subtleties… They are actually everything: With experience, one puts more attention into the details and learns that every single decision in type has to be first meticulously planned. Here I am now, introducing a new Reina, because I felt there was a lot of it that could be improved, also the novelty of Variable Fonts caught my attention and I had to take that to my type library. THE FONT A thing of beauty is a joy forever Now, a decade later, I’m presenting Reina Neue. This font is not just an update of its predecessor: –A thing of beauty is a joy forever– is the first line of the poem ‘Endymion’ by John Keats, and despite the meaning of “beauty” may vary from person to person, and even from time to time (as read in the last paragraph), with Reina I always wanted to bring joy to the eye. In 2010, and now, in 2020. I believe the font is today much better in every aspect. It was entirely re-designed: Its shapes and morphology in general are much more clean and pure. The range of uses for it is now wider: While the old Reina consisted in just one weight, Reina Neue was converted into a big family of many weights, even with italics, smallcaps and layered styles. The idea behind the font, this kind of enveloping atmosphere made out of flourishes, is still here in the new Reina. This time easier to get amazing results due to the big amount of available alternates per glyph and also more loyal from a systemic point of view. However, and as read in the introduction -Beautiful things don’t ask for attention-, if none of the flourishes are activated the font will look very attractive anyway. Reina Neue is ready to be used in book covers, magazines, wedding cards, dazzling posters, storefronts, clothing, perfumes, wine labels and logos of all kind. Like it happened with the previous Reina, I hope this new font satisfies every design project around the world if used, and can be a joy forever. SOME INSTRUCTIONS Before choosing the right style for your project, hear my advice: -Reina Neue Display was meant to be used at big sizes. If you plan to print the font smaller than 72pt, I suggest using Reina Neue, not Display. Otherwise, if the font will be BIG or used on a digital platform, Reina Neue Display should be your choice. For even smaller sizes, use Reina Neue Small. This style was tested and printed in 12pt with nice results. (Note for variable fonts: Print them in outlines) -Reina Italic is not a slanted version of the roman, and this means some flourishes are different between each other. The Italic version has other kind of swirls. More conservative, in general. -All the styles of Reina Capitals have Small Capitals inside. -Reina Capitals Shine should be used/paired ONLY with Reina Capitals Black. The engraved feeling can be achieved if Reina Capitals Black and Reina Capitals Shine are used as layers, with the same word. Variable fonts instructions: -For more playful versions, choose Reina Neue VF, Reina Neue Italic VF or Reina Neue Capitals VF: With them you can adjust between 3 axes: Weight (will change the weight of the font) – Optic Size (will thicken/lighten the thin strokes and open/close the tracking) – Accolades (will modify the weight of the active flourishes). SOME VIDEOS OF REINA NEUE VF https://youtu.be/8cImmT5bpQM https://youtu.be/1icWfPmKAkg https://youtu.be/YC9GkJDL1a8 NOTES 1. The original Reina, from a decade ago: https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/argentina-lian-types/reina/ 2. In 2011, Reina received an honourable mention by S{o}TA. “Great skill is shown in the detailing, and an excellent feel for the correct flow of curves and displacement of stroke weight.” https://www.typesociety.org/catalyst/2011/ Reina was featured in the “Most Popular Fonts of the year” in MyFonts in 2011 https://www.myfonts.com/newsletters/sp/201201.html In 2012, the font was also selected in Tipos Latinos, the most prestigious competition of type in Latinoamerica. https://www.tiposlatinos.com/bienales/quinta-bienal-tl2012/resultados Also, chose as a “Favorite font of the year” in Typographica. https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/reina/