Minicomputer is an exceptional typeface that pays homage to the antique look of computer fonts from the mid-20th century. It is a magnetic ink typeface, characterized by a versatile range of seven weights and italics, which is perfect for graphic design themes. Minicomputer also includes OpenType fractions and numeric ordinals, as well as an array of mathematical symbols that can add depth to any design. With its OpenType old-style numerals feature, Minicomputer enables users to evoke the original MICR E-13B numerals, the very numerals that were once used in bank checks. Back in the 1950s, the MICR E-13B numerals were printed in magnetic ink and were associated with the innovative technology of the time. But that didn’t stop Leo Maggs from creating Westminster, a typeface that emulated the look of the MICR E-13B. Soon after, dozens of magnetic typefaces appeared and quickly became fashionable. By the 1980s, home computers emerged, and the once fashionable magnetic typefaces became outdated. They were replaced with pixel fonts and dot matrix typefaces, which gave a fresh look to digital designs. However, designers today are reviving the magnetic typeface trend in a new context. Magnetic typefaces are now associated with a vintage look that has a unique and synthetic feel and an association with 1960s fashion trends. Despite the half-century since the first magnetic typefaces appeared, designers had limited choices when it came to using them, mainly having to rely on digitized versions of analog fonts from the 1990s. Minicomputer offers an exciting and modern take on the magnetic ink typeface and is a must-have for any designer or writer looking to add a touch of the past to their work. Most Latin-based European, Vietnamese, Greek, and most Cyrillic-based writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Buryat, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dungan, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Gikuyu, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaingang, Khalkha, Kalmyk, Kanuri, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kazakh, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Komi-Permyak, Kurdish, Kurdish (Latin), Kyrgyz, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Macedonian, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Nahuatl, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Russian, Rusyn, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tajik, Tatar, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Uzbek (Latin), Venda, Venetian, Vepsian, Vietnamese, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xavante, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec, Zarma, Zazaki, Zulu and Zuni.

Karl-Heinz Lange presented his first drafts of Rotola during a Typoart® type design competition in 1985 under the name "Boutique". A year later, Norbert du Vinage, former manager of the type design department, integrated "Boutique" in his production plan. Due the Fall of the Wall, it took about 18 years until Lange finished this font family in cooperation with Elsner+Flake. Karl-Heinz Lange was born on July 29, 1929 in Wiesenkirch in West Prussia. He was enrolled in the Humanistic Gymnasium at Elbing from 1939 to 1945 and changed to the Wernigerode High School after his family had to flee to central Germany. From 1949 to 1951, Karl-Heinz Lange studied at the Werkkunstschule Halle, where one of his teachers was Professor Post. After 1951, he continued his studies at the Hochschule for Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig with an emphasis on book design. He received his diploma in 1955 with distinction based on his design of a hot metal typeface. From 1956 to 1961, Karl-Heinz Lange worked as a lecturer for Type and Commercial Graphics at the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in Magdeburg. From 1961 to 1963, he taught at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, and finally as a freelance commercial designer in Magdeburg. He worked on a variety of assignments, one of which was the design of trick films. From 1969 to 1976 he took the position of Artistic Director of the Henschelverlag, Berlin; from 1976 to 1994 he was Professor of Type and Typography at the Fachschule für Werbung und Gestaltung in Berlin; and, until 2004, he taught at various institutes for advanced professional education. From 2005 to 2007 he taught at the Fachhochschule Magdeburg/Stendal. Karl-Heinz Lange was awarded the second prize at the "International Type Design Contest 1971" for a headline typeface, and, in 1984, at the XI. Biannual of Graphic Design in Brno, he won a Silver Medal for the design of his typeface family Publica. He created the telephone book typeface Minima and re-designed the Typoart Super Grotesk® (Arno Drescher, 1930) as well as the Newspaper typeface Magna® by Herbert Thannhaeuser for the use on digital typesetting systems. To the day of his death on June 29, 2010, Karl-Heinz Lange lived and worked as a type designer. Among others, he closely followed the designs of the typefaces which were developed under his guidance for Typoart®: "Publica®", "Typoart Super Grotesk®" and "Minima®" which he launched as "Publicala", "Minimala" and "Superla" in 2009. In cooperation with Elsner+Flake, he developed the Typeface family "Rotola" between 2006 and 2009 as well as the script families of the "Viabella®" series. To the end, he followed the development of his first typeface, the "Diplom Antiqua", which he also wanted to bring to market together with Elsner+Flake.

A sturdy workhorse with the grace of a gazelle, the FF Pastoral typeface family marries pure craftsmanship with rapturous excesses of form. With his fifteenth release under the FontFont brand, prolific French designer Xavier Dupré has filled a typographic toolbox with plentiful options ranging from a tender, feathery Thin to a robust, healthy Black. At a glance, FF Pastoral appears deceptively simple, particularly in the middle weights. That surface serenity is intentional and allows for easy reading and quick comprehension of short blocks of copy. Upon closer inspection, FF Pastoral is complex and nuanced, carrying a balanced tension in its forms. This plays particularly well in magazine spreads and corporate logos, where uniqueness is a virtue. In creating his latest design, Dupré drew inspiration from a tasteful mix of references, combining diverse elements with a deft hand. While its letter shapes were informed by humanist-geometric hybrid Gill Sans, FF Pastoral’s proportions have been optimized for contemporary typography. Slightly condensed but generously spaced, FF Pastoral features a tall x-height, open counters, and subtle, sprightly italics slanted at just 5°. Proportional oldstyle figures are the default in the family, with tabular and lining numbers and fractions accessible through OpenType features. Elegant details evocative of calligraphy judiciously pepper the FF Pastoral glyph set. The ‘e’ bears an oblique crossbar, while the right leg of the ‘K’ and the ‘R’ are insouciantly curved in both the upright and italic variants. Further flourishes appear throughout the italics, notably in the ‘T’ and the ‘Z’, the gloriously looped tail of the ‘G’, and an extraordinary ampersand. Sharp-eyed fans of Dupré’s work may feel like they’re in familiar territory, and they would be right. An early version of FF Pastoral sprang to life in 2017 as Malis, a family in four weights on the heavier side of the spectrum. Over time, Dupré refined his original design, expanding it with four lighter styles and including true italics for all. The lightest weights are ethereal, with exquisitely delicate strokes drawing the eye in and across a line of type. The most substantial styles are tremendous in their power, allowing text to make a deep impression in print or on screen. Fully fleshed out, FF Pastoral works sublimely in a vast array of text and display settings. Dupré sees his latest FontFont offering as a ‘cultural’ typeface, perfect for the pages of an oversized coffee-table book or business communications where warmth and informality will win the day. Born in Aubenas, France (1977), Xavier Dupré is a gifted user of type as well as an award-winning type designer and lettering artist. After training in graphic design in Paris, Dupré studied calligraphy and typography at the Scriptorium de Toulouse. Since releasing FF Parango in 2001, Dupré has published such FontFont classics as the FF Absara and FF Sanuk superfamilies, FF Megano, FF Tartine, and FF Yoga. A designer of Khmer fonts as well as Latin typefaces, Dupré splits his time between Europe and Asia.

A mediterranean style sanserif in 4 styles The original idea of Costa was to create a contemporary mediterranean typeface style. Costa is a synthesis of the purity, as found on Greek capitals, and softness, found in Renaissance scripts. First thing was the design concept that take its roots on the Chancery script. Such writing style appeared during Italian Renaissance. Later few typefaces have been developed from such cursive models. Today most serifed typeface italic take their roots on such triangular structure we can find on gylphs like the n, p, or d. The Costa capitals remains close to pure sanserif models when the lowercases features an ending serif on many letters like the a, n, d, etc. This ending serif being more like a minimal brush effect, creating a visual contrast and referencing the exoticness of the typeface. Knowing that the Costa typeface family began life in the 90s as a bespoke typeface for Costa Crociere, an Italian cruise company — it suddenly makes sense and explains well why Jean François Porchez focused so much on Italian Chancery mixed to a certain exotism. The curvy-pointed terminals of the Costa n can obviously get find on other glyphs, such as the ending of the e, c and some capitals. So, the sanserif looks more soft and appealing, without to be to pudgy or spineless. The general effect, when set for text, remains a sanserif, even not like Rotis Semiserif. Costa is definitly not a classical typeface, or serif typeface which convey past, tradition, historicism as Garamond does beautifully. Because of the Costa crocieres original needs, Costa typeface was designed to be appropriate for any uses. Anytime you’re looking for good mood, qualitative effects, informal tone, cool atmosphere without to be unconvential or blowzy, Costa will convey to your design the required chic and nice atmosphere, from large headlines sizes, brands, to small text sizes. It’s a legible typeface, never boring. A style without neutrality which doesn’t fit comfortably into any typeface classification! Does it proves the novelty of its design and guarantees as well as its originality? Its up to you to be convinced. Barcelona trip Originally not planned, this need appeared because of a trip to Barcelona at the time of the project, where Jean François was giving a lecture. He wanted to pay an homage to that invitation to create something special. So, he designed during his flight some variations of the Spanish Ch, following ideas developed by the Argentinian type designer Rubén Fontana for his typeface called Fontana ND (published by the Barcelona foundry Bauer). Then, he presented during his lecture variations and asked to the audience which design fit the best to their language. They selected the design you can find in the fonts today. Read more about pairing Costa Type Directors Club 2000 Typographica: Our Favourite Typefaces 2004

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.

Style and elegance in 14 styles PS Fournier, created by Stéphane Elbaz, is designed in tribute to Pierre Simon Fournier. Fournier was the prolific Parisian type designer whose work is best known for its iconic representation of French transitional style. PS Fournier elegantly represents the transition to the modern era of typography. Featuring three optical sizes, PS Fournier is designed to perform in any context. The Pierre Simon Fournier heritage Pierre Simon Fournier (1712—1768) was a leading innovative type designer of the mid-18th century. Early in his career, the young Pierre Simon developed a strong aesthetic that he cultivated throughout his life. His art is representative of the pre-revolutionary “Age of Enlightenment” (Siècle des Lumières). Precursor of the Modern style, Fournier’s body of work deeply influenced his times, and created the fertile ground from which the Didot family and Giambattista Bodoni developed their own styles. During the historical period of the 18th century, Fournier exemplified the intellectual pursuits of the times with his own research on type, documenting in detail the typefounding process. He also offered a unique vision: he is the first to clearly comprehend the concept of “type family,” sorting a set of similarly styled alphabets by sizes, width, and by x-heights. In addition, Fournier is one of the earliest advocates of the point system to organize the practice of typography, the point system that contemporary typographers continue to use to this day. The refined and discreet elegance of PS Fournier With a close look at the family, one finds you’ll find that the difference between the optical sizes (Petit, standard and Grand) is more than a contrast variation between the thin and the thick; the eye can also denote a palette of distinct tones: More streamlined and robust in the smaller sizes (Petit), more refined and detailed in the larger sizes (Grand). The PS Fournier standard family is designed to adapt to any situation with its intermediate optical size, from body copy to headlines. With a bit of tracking, PS Fournier Petit will make the smallest captions perfectly readable. However, Petit family is not limited to body and captions — its “slabby robustness” will make a relevant headline choice as well. PS Fournier Grand presents a higher contrast adapted to large text sizes, displays or banners. Its refined elegance makes it a perfect choice for Design, Fashion or Luxury publications. As a “modern” type PS Fournier Grand features a larger x-height than the preexistent old style typefaces such as Garamond or Jenson. These proportions provide any basic text set in PS Fournier Grand a strong typographic texture. As a result, the PS Fournier global family is a versatile alternative to the Modern typefaces commonly used in the publishing industry. The optical sizes, the large range of weights, and the design variations make this family adaptable to captions, paragraphs, and pages, as well as to large texts and displays. A leading-edge typography in the 18th century In the spirit of modernity, Pierre Simon Fournier did not find any use for the conventional swashes still produced by peers such as Caslon or Baskerville. Nevertheless the French designer created many inventive elements to decorate the page and set delightful variations in the text itself. To this regard PS Fournier includes a large set of glyphs variations, ligatures and more than one hundred glyphs for borders, rules and ornaments or — as called in French — “vignettes.” PS Fournier: A tribute to the French modern typography era by Stéphane Elbaz

Comenia Sans was designed in the framework of a unique typographic project for all types of schools. It is a complementary face for Comenia Serif, released by our friends at Storm Type Foundry. Comenia Sans has a lot in common with its serif sister: the height of both upper and lower case, the length of ascenders and descenders, and the general weight. This makes the two perfect partners which work well even when set side by side in a single line of text. Comenia Sans does, however, lack all serifs, ornamental elements and stroke stress variation. All these elements freshen up the feel of long texts, but for shorter texts use, they are not necessary. Despite that, Comenia Sans retains the soft, friendly character of its big sister, as well as a few tiny details which lend it its unique character without compromising legibility or utility. Open counters give all letters an airy feel and permit enough variation in construction. This is why the face works well even in multiple-page texts. All its letters are easily distinguished from each other, so the reader's eyes are not strained. Diacritics and punctuation harmonize with both upper and lower case. As usually, all diacritical marks fully respect conventional shapes of accents and they are perfectly suitable for Czech, Slovak, Polish and other Central European languages, where a lot of diacritics abounds. Similarly to the renaissance italics which refers to the cursive forms, Comenia Sans introduces novel shapes of some characters drawing from the hand-written heritage. This is most apparent in the single-bellied a, the simplified g, and the stem of f which crosses the baseline and ends with a distinct terminal. In the text, emphasized words are thus distinguished not only by the slant of letters, but also by the shapes of the letters themselves. All twelve styles contain set of small caps, suitable for the names, in the indexes or the headlines in longer texts. Legibility in small sizes under 10 points was at the center of designers' attention, too. This is why the counters of a, e and g are large enough to prevent ink spread in small sizes, both on-screen and in print. After all, the font was specifically optimized for screen use: its sober, simple forms are perfectly fit to be displayed on the computer screen and in other low-resolution devices. When used in the context of architecture, the smoothness of all contours stands out, permitting to enlarge the letters almost without limit. A standard at the Suitcase Type Foundry, each style of Comenia Sans boasts a number of ligatures, an automatic replacement of small caps and caps punctuation, a collection of mathematical symbols, and several types of numerals which make it easy to set academic and other texts in an organised, well-arranged way. For the same purpose, fractions may come in handy, too. Apart from the standard emphasis styles, the family also contains six condensed cuts (each set has the same number of characters), designated for situations where space is limited or the need for striking, poster-like effect arises. Comenia Sans is the ideal choice for the setting of magazines, picture books, and navigation systems alike. Its excellent legibility and soft, fine details will be appreciated both in micro-typography and in poster sizes. Although it was designed as a member of a compact system, it will work equally well on its own or in combination with other high-quality typefaces.

Geometric sans fonts in the Bauhaus tradition were the inspiration for the design of FF Mark®, for example the Universal font by Herbert Bayer, Erbar® Grotesk, Kabel®, Neuzeit Grotesk and of course Paul Renner's Futura®. From an aesthetic point of view, FF Mark is a descendant of these classics of German typeface design that intends to meet the needs of modern communication. Hannes von Döhren and Christoph Koeberlin had the support of the entire FontFont Type Department in the design of FF Mark, including Erik Spiekermann, who took over the artistic direction of the project. The teamwork resulted in carefully planned, balanced forms, which are responsible for the harmonious overall impression of the font. The capitals are not based on Roman square capitals; rather, they have a uniformly wide letter form in a comfortable ratio to the x-height. Thanks to the x-height, which is significantly larger compared to the historical models, FF Mark is also very legible in small sizes. This makes it a very flexible font in terms of its range of applications. A contrast in the stroke width is barely noticeable. At the same time, light modulation supports readability, especially in the bold styles in small sizes. The uniform line ends are obvious for a contemporary sans family nowadays (unlike some of the historical precedents, which evolved over years). Other details from the predecessors are consciously maintained and provide for added individuality in FF Mark. For example, the limbs in the uppercase "K" and "R" are offset slightly from the stem. Alternative characters with crossbars are available for the numbers "0", "1", "7" and the uppercase "Z" and the lowercase "a" also has an alternative with an open form. German typesetters have the option of uppercase umlauts with points that are set lower, as well as a long "s" from the Fraktur. And last but not least, FF Mark has the very characteristic ft-ligature of Futura. FF Mark is available in ten finely tuned weights ranging from Hairline to Black. A Book style for text setting further emphasizes the well-rounded features of this contemporary typeface. When the font was published, it also included ten carefully designed cursives for all weights. Users also have the option of various numeral sets with old-style and uppercase numbers as well as small capitals. FF Mark also has some geometric shapes and arrows based on the features of Futura. FF Mark is a modern, full-featured, geometric sans serif that you can use without hesitation for large projects in headlines as well as in texts. FF Mark's design is a nod to the historical models and transports their charm, elegance and in some cases unusual design applications into a modern font family equipped with the most current typographical features. NEW: the new FF Mark W1G versions features a pan-European character set for international communications. The W1G character set supports almost all the popular languages/writing systems in western, eastern, and central Europe based on the Latin alphabet and also several based on Cyrillic and Greek alphabets.

Father's Day, or June 17 of this year, is in the middle of Argentinian winter. And like people do on wintery Sunday mornings, I was bundled up in bed with too many covers, pillows and comforters. Feeling good and not thinking about anything in particular, Father's Day was nowhere in the vicinity of my mind. My eleven year old son, Matías, came into the room with a handmade present for me. Up to this point, my Father's Day gift history was nothing unusual. Books, socks, hand-painted wooden spoons, the kind of thing any father would expect from his pre-teen son. So you can understand when I say I was bracing myself to fake excitement at my son's present. But this Father's Day was special. I didn't have to fake excitement. I was in fact excited beyond my own belief. Matí's handmade present was a complete alphabet drawn on an A4 paper. Grungy, childish, and sweeter than a ton of honey. He'd spent days making it, three-dimensioning the letters, wiggle-shadowing them. Incredible. A common annoyance for graphic designers is explaining to people, even those close to them, what they do for a living. You have to somehow make it understandable that you are a visual communicator, not an artist. Part of the problem is the fact that "graphic designer" and "visual communicator" are just not in the dictionary of standard professions out there. If you're a plumber, you can wrap all the duties of your job with 3.5 words: I'm a plumber. If you're a graphic designer, no wrapper, 3.5 or 300 words, will ever cover it. I've spent many hours throughout the years explaining to my own family and friends what I do for a living, but most of them still come back and ask what it is exactly that I do for dough. When you're a type designer, that problem magnifies itself considerably. When someone asks you what you do for a living, you start looking for the nearest exit, but none of the ones you can find is any good. All the one-line descriptions are vague, and every single one of them queues a long, one-sided conversation that usually ends with someone getting too drunk listening, or too tired of talking. Now imagine being a type designer, with a curious eleven year old son. The kid is curious as to why daddy keeps writing huge letters on the computer screen. Let's go play some ball, dad. As soon as I finish working, son. He looks over my shoulder and sees a big twirly H on the screen. To him it looks like a game, like I'm not working. And I have to explain it to him again. This Father's Day, my son gave me the one present that tells me he finally understands what I do for a living. Perhaps he is even comfortable with it, or curious enough about that he wants to try it out himself. Either way, it was the happiest Father's Day I've ever had, and I'm prouder of my son than of everything else I've done in my life. This is Matí's font. I hope you find it useful.