A grotesque Mr Palkerson and slab serif Mr Palker build one superfamily together. These are blank types. In a way even the display ones. Typefaces for newspapers, announcements, cheap advertising and police posters.  Mr Palker and Mr Palkerson will turn every language into a fence. And due to six types of faces one can choose what material should the fence be made from — from Thin steel rods to   the Black stone blocks. In their simplest appearance Mrs P&P are intended for the solid blank composition in victorian or industrial style. They are quite decent, a bit old-fashioned slab serif and grotesque with closed aperture. All my types have layers. Walker and Palkerson also do. Besides the standard set of symbols, they have 4 add-ons. 1. Alternate glyphs, including unicase ones. 2. Ligatures with A letter. 3. Extra tall small caps. 4. Two-storey ligatures. All this options are intended for the complex composition. The additional letters are rather eccentric as their main function here is to imitate the victorian oddities. Imitate, parody, just not repeat. There are lower-case As and Es in the set in height of small caps and uppercases. They can turn every writing into the unicase.    The lower-case A (as well as uppercase and small caps version of it) has deliberately by my taste grown a ludicrous tail. To compensate it I’ve built all the possible ligatures - ад, ал, ая. There are 35 of this ligatures all together. Take a closer look at the Russian letters D, L, K, Ya from the main set as well as their alternates. The additional glyphs are one more comic than the other — on purpose to imitate (not to repeat!) the victorian set. This sets have lowercase numbers. And small caps numbers as well. What a modern typeface without them. They also have an У-letter with a generously curvy tail. As if before the WWI. The Latin of course has alternates as well. It has letters to make the perfect French sound more like the russian provincial version of it. The tails of Js and Ts can be made a little bit more open — or a little bit closed. My favorite feature here, an invention of a kind - extra tall small caps. It allows to compose logos with the small caped uppercases directly from the keyboard. The small caps of this typefaces are usually much taller than the customary ones. This is the kind of small caps that Palker and Palkerson have. More to that, the strokes’ weight and the letters width are corresponded to the uppercases. Just a ready set for making a logo a la 1913 style. With a unicase, one has to mind! One more trick with the tall small caps is a possibility to make them work like lower uppercases. Their height is just in between of lower- and uppercases. Isn’t it great to have an additional set of uppercase working ponies in stock for the case of emergency. And finally — the trademark of Palkerson family, two-storey ligatures. They are made in the height of uppercases and turn every writing into an ornament or a puzzle of a kind, while at the same time making them much shorter. Each face has 90 of them. Mainly those are twins: CC, BB, DD and so on. ll this things are for the unhasty compositing, even for lettering. Which means that for the things which are not there you always should have Command+Option+O and some patience. Also — among the two storey ligatures one also can find some belvedere villas. All my types are glasses from the one kaleidoscope. The P&Ps family was preliminary part of the victorian set, which already has 21 Cents and Clarendorf - optionally one can add Costro, Gordoni, Handy, Guardy, Surplus, Red Ring, Red Square, Babaev to the list. And also Sklad, Odessa, Dreamland, Romb, Platinum - here, at Letterhead’s, every second one is victorian. All together our typefaces can allow one to set advertisement of any kind, even the trickiest one, and compose everything, from the coffee place’s menu to the antiquarian magazine.

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.

Type designers are crazy people. Not crazy in the sense that they think we are Napoleon, but in the sense that the sky can be falling, wars tearing the world apart, disasters splitting the very ground we walk on, plagues circling continents to pick victims randomly, yet we will still perform our ever optimistic task of making some little spot of the world more appealing to the human eye. We ought to be proud of ourselves, I believe. Optimism is hard to come by these days. Regardless of our own personal reasons for doing what we do, the very thing we do is in itself an act of optimism and belief in the inherent beauty that exists within humanity. As recently as ten years ago, I wouldn't have been able to choose the amazing obscure profession I now have, wouldn't have been able to be humbled by the history that falls into my hands and slides in front of my eyes every day, wouldn't have been able to live and work across previously impenetrable cultural lines as I do now, and wouldn't have been able to raise my glass of Malbeck wine to toast every type designer who was before me, is with me, and will be after me. As recently as ten years ago, I wouldn't have been able to mean these words as I wrote them: It’s a small world. Yes, it is a small world, and a wonderfully complex one too. With so much information drowning our senses by the minute, it has become difficult to find clear meaning in almost anything. Something throughout the day is bound to make us feel even smaller in this small world. Most of us find comfort in a routine. Some of us find extended families. But in the end we are all Eleanor Rigbys, lonely on the inside and waiting for a miracle to come. If a miracle can make the world small, another one can perhaps give us meaning. And sometimes a miracle happens for a split second, then gets buried until a crazy type designer finds it. I was on my honeymoon in New York City when I first stumbled upon the letters that eventually started this Affair. A simple, content tourist walking down the streets formerly unknown to me except through pop music and film references. Browsing the shops of the city that made Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, and a thousand other artists. Trying to chase away the tourist mentality, wondering what it would be like to actually live in the city of a billion tiny lights. Tourists don't go to libraries in foreign cities. So I walked into one. Two hours later I wasn't in New York anymore. I wasn't anywhere substantial. I was the crazy type designer at the apex of insanity. La La Land, alphabet heaven, curves and twirls and loops and swashes, ribbons and bows and naked letters. I'm probably not the very first person on this planet to be seduced into starting an Affair while on his honeymoon, but it is something to tease my better half about once in a while. To this day I can't decide if I actually found the worn book, or if the book itself called for me. Its spine was nothing special, sitting on a shelf, tightly flanked by similar spines on either side. Yet it was the only one I picked off that shelf. And I looked at only one page in it before walking to the photocopier and cheating it with an Argentine coin, since I didn't have the American quarter it wanted. That was the beginning. I am now writing this after the Affair is over. And it was an Affair to remember, to pull a phrase. Right now, long after I have drawn and digitized and tested this alphabet, and long after I saw what some of this generation’s type designers saw in it, I have the luxury to speculate on what Affair really is, what made me begin and finish it, what cultural expressions it has, and so on. But in all honesty it wasn't like that. Much like in my Ministry Script experience, I was a driven man, a lover walking the ledge, an infatuated student following the instructions of his teacher while seeing her as a perfect angel. I am not exaggerating when I say that the letters themselves told me how to extend them. I was exploited by an alphabet, and it felt great. Unlike my experience with Ministry Script, where the objective was to push the technology to its limits, this Affair felt like the most natural and casual sequence of processions in the world – my hand following the grid, the grid following what my hand had already done – a circle of creation contained in one square computer cell, then doing it all over again. By contrast, it was the lousiest feeling in the world when I finally reached the conclusion that the Affair was done. What would I do now? Would any commitment I make from now on constitute a betrayal of these past precious months? I'm largely over all that now, of course. I like to think I'm a better man now because of the experience. Affair is an enormous, intricately calligraphic OpenType font based on a 9x9 photocopy of a page from a 1950s lettering book. In any calligraphic font, the global parameters for developing the characters are usually quite volatile and hard to pin down, but in this case it was particularly difficult because the photocopy was too gray and the letters were of different sizes, very intertwined and scan-impossible. So finishing the first few characters in order to establish the global rhythm was quite a long process, after which the work became a unique soothing, numbing routine by which I will always remember this Affair. The result of all the work, at least to the eyes of this crazy designer, is 1950s American lettering with a very Argentine wrapper. My Affair is infused with the spirit of filete, dulce de leche, yerba mate, and Carlos Gardel. Upon finishing the font I was fortunate enough that a few of my colleagues, great type designers and probably much saner than I am, agreed to show me how they envision my Affair in action. The beauty they showed me makes me feel small and yearn for the world to be even smaller now – at least small enough so that my international colleagues and I can meet and exchange stories over a good parrilla. These people, whose kindness is very deserving of my gratitude, and whose beautiful art is very deserving of your appreciation, are in no particular order: Corey Holms, Mariano Lopez Hiriart, Xavier Dupré, Alejandro Ros, Rebecca Alaccari, Laura Meseguer, Neil Summerour, Eduardo Manso, and the Doma group. You can see how they envisioned using Affair in the section of this booklet entitled A Foreign Affair. The rest of this booklet contains all the obligatory technical details that should come with a font this massive. I hope this Affair can bring you as much peace and satisfaction as it brought me, and I hope it can help your imagination soar like mine did when I was doing my duty for beauty.

“A picture is worth a thousand words” and here, that’s more than true. Take a look at Erotica’s Booklet; Erotica’s Poster Design and Erotica’s User’s Guide before reading below. THE STYLES The difference between Pro and Std styles is the quantity of glyphs. Therefore, Pro styles include all the decorative alternates and ligatures while Std styles are a reduced version of Pro ones. Big and Small styles were thought for better printing results. While Big is recommended to be printed in big sizes, Small may be printed in tiny sizes and will still show its hairlines well. INTRODUCTION I have always wondered if the circle could ever be considered as an imperfect shape. Thousands of years have passed and we still consider circles as synonyms of infinite beauty. Some believe that there is something intrinsically “divine” that could be found in them. Sensuality is many times related to perfectly shaped strong curves, exuberant forms and a big contrasts. Erotica is a font created with this in mind. THE PROCESS This story begins one fine day of March in 2012. I was looking for something new. Something which would express the deep love I feel regarding calligraphy in a new way. At that time, I was practicing a lot of roundhand, testing and feeling different kinds of nibs; hearing the sometimes sharp, sometimes soft, sound of them sliding on the paper. This kind of calligraphy has some really strict rules: An even pattern of repetition is required, so you have to be absolutely aware of the pressure of the flexible pen; and of the distance between characters. Also, learning copperplate can be really useful to understand about proportion in letters and how a minimum change of it can drastically affect the look of the word and text. Many times I would forget about type-design and I would let myself go(1): Nothing like making the pen dance when adding some accolades above and below the written word. Once something is mastered, you are able to break some rules. At least, that’s my philosophy. (2) After some research, I found that the world was in need of a really sexy yet formal copperplate. (3) I started Erotica with the idea of taking some rules of this style to the extreme. Some characters were drawn with a pencil first because what I had in mind was impossible to be made with a pen. (4) Finding a graceful way to combine really thick thicks with really thin hairlines with satisfactory results demanded months of tough work: The embryo of Erotica was a lot more bolder than now and had a shorter x-height. Changing proportions of Erotica was crucial for its final look. The taller it became the sexier it looked. Like women again? The result is a font filled with tons of alternates which can make the user think he/she is the actual designer of the word/phrase due to the huge amount of possibilities when choosing glyphs. To make Erotica work well in small sizes too, I designed Erotica Small which can be printed in tiny sizes without any problems. For a more elegant purpose, I designed Erotica Inline, with exactly the same features you can find in the other styles. After finishing these styles, I needed a partner for Erotica. Inspired again in some old calligraphic books I found that Bickham used to accompany his wonderful scripts with some ornated roman caps. Erotica Capitals follows the essentials of those capitals and can be used with or without its alternates to accompany Erotica. In 2013, Erotica received a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design in the 59th TDC Type Directors Club Typeface Design Competition. Meet Erotica, beauty and elegance guaranteed. Notes (1) It is supossed that I'm a typographer rather than a calligrapher, but the truth is that I'm in the middle. Being a graphic designer makes me a little stubborn sometimes. But, I found that the more you don't think of type rules, the more graceful and lively pieces of calligraphy can be done. (2) “Know the forms well before you attempt to make them” used to say E. A. Lupfer, a master of this kind of script a century ago. And I would add “And once you know them, it’s time to fly...” (3) Some script fonts by my compatriots Sabrina Lopez, Ramiro Espinoza and Alejandro Paul deserve a mention here because of their undeniable beauty. The fact that many great copperplate fonts come from Argentina makes me feel really proud. Take a look at: Parfumerie, Medusa, Burgues, Poem and Bellisima. (4) Some calligraphers, graphic and type designer experimented in this field in the mid-to-late 20th century and made a really playful style out of it: Letters show a lot of personality and sometimes they seem drawn rather than written. I want to express my sincere admiration to the fantastic Herb Lubalin, and his friends Tony DiSpigna, Tom Carnase, and of course my fellow countryman Ricardo Rousselot. All of them, amazing.

‘Thwaites’ typeface is fully dedicated to one of my best Canadian friends who I do cherish and value highly. This great and industrious Canadian friend is ‘James Douglas Thwaites’ who lives along with his good-natured family in British Columbia, Canada. For me, James is like a source of inspiration and I do consider him as an ideal in my life. Our strong friendship has started since 1999 and I hope that it will endure just to the last moment of my life. Sometimes I see him as the writer and poet that I learn a lot from, sometimes I see him as a devoted religious minister that I try to understand more about his teachings, and other times I see him as the educator that I strive to imitate verbatim in my life. When I want to talk more about this Canadian friend, I will not be able to give him his due in full. Thus, I will instead mention some excerpts of his biography that he wrote himself saying that: “James D. Thwaites is a self-accomplished man. Having worked in various fields including restaurant management and cleaning, he has achieved his goals of being a full-time teacher, past-time writer, and volunteer religious minister for the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. His personal and academic pursuits have led him to be published in various magazines, newspapers, self-published books, and websites, including his now defunct ‘poetryofthemonth.com’ website. He continues to learn and augment the craft of writing while working primarily in early literacy and delayed literacy learners, teaching reading and literature to a wide age range of students. He views his religious endeavors as an extension of his academic ones. He teaches others both as a public speaker and in one-on-one situations, teaching about the benefits of submission to God and to His teachings. His future goals include expanding his ministry and continuing his writing.” The name ‘Thwaites’ itself comes from Great Britain and originated from the last Viking raids upon England, being an Anglicized version of a Scandinavian term meaning—depending on the source material—either "a place that is difficult to approach" or "a small thicket of trees." Another recitation mentions that ‘Thwaites’ can be described also as an English surname but one of pre 7th century Norse-Viking origins. It may be either topographical or locational, and is derived from the word "thveit", meaning a clearing or farm. As a locational surname it originates from any one of the various places called "Thwaite", found in several parts of Northern England and East Anglia to the south. The various modern spelling forms include Thwaite, Thwaites, Thwaytes, Thoytes, Twaite, Twatt, Twaites, Tweats and Twite. The name, although often appearing unique to outsiders, can often be found within other famous names like Braithwaite, Goldthwaites, or Misslethwaites. With various spellings, some families not including the ‘e’ or the ‘s’ at the end, Thwaites and its derivations—although not exceedingly common—is a name found worldwide. ‘Thwaites’ typeface is simply a sans-serif streamlined, stylish, and versatile font. It is designed using a combination of thick and thin strokes for its +585 characters. Its character set supports nearly most of the Central, Eastern, and Western European languages using Latin scripts including the Irish language. The typeface is appropriate for any type of typographic and graphic designs in web, print, and other media. It is also absolutely preferable to be used in the wide fields related to publication, press, services, and production industries. It can create a very impressive impact when used in headlines, posters, titles, products’ surfaces, logos, medical packages, product and corporate branding, and also signage. It has also both of lining and old-style numerals which makes it more suitable for any printing or designing purposes. ‘Thwaites’ typeface is really the cannot-miss choice for anyone who wants to possess unique artistic and modern designs produced using this streamlined typeface.

Johann Michael Fleischmann was born June 15th, 1707 in Wöhrd near Nuremberg. After attending Latinschool he started an apprenticeship as punchcutter in the crafts enterprise of Konstantin Hartwig in Nuremberg, which ought to last six years. For his extraordinary talent Fleischmann completed his apprenticeship after four and a half years, which was very unusual. 1727 his years of travel (very common in these days) began, during which he perfected his handcraft by working in different enterprises as journeyman. First location was Frankfurt/Main where he worked for nearly a year at the renowned type foundery of Luther and Egenolff. Passing Mainz he continued to Holland, where he arrived in November 1728 and stayed till he died in 1768. In Amsterdam he worked for several type founderies, among others some weeks for Izaak van der Putte; in The Hague for Hermanus Uytwerf. Between 1729 and 1732 he created several exquisite alphabets for Uytwerf, which were published under his own name (after his move to Holland Fleischmann abandoned the second n in his name), apparently following the stream of the time. After the two years with Uytwerf, Fleischmann returned to Amsterdam, where he established his own buiseness as punchcutter; following an advice of the bookkeeper and printer from Basel Rudolf Wetstein he opened his own type foundery 1732, which he sold in 1735 to Wetstein for financial reasons. In the following Fleischmann created several types and matrices exclusively for Wetstein. In 1743 after the type foundery was sold by Wetstein’s son Hendrik Floris to the upcoming enterprise of Izaak and Johannes Enschedé, Fleischmann worked as independent punchcutter mostly for this house in Haarlem. Recognizing his exceptional skills soon Fleischmann was consigned to cutting the difficult small-sized font types. The corresponding titling alphabets were mostly done by Jaques-Francois Rosart, who also cut the main part of the ornaments and borders used in the font examples of Enschedé. Fleischmann created for Enschedé numerous fonts. The font example published 1768 by Enschedé contains 3 titling alphabets, 16 antiquacuts, 14 italic cuts, 13 textura- and 2 scriptcuts, 2 greek typesets (upper cases and ligatures), 1 arabic, 1 malayan and 7 armenian font systems, 5 sets of musicnotes and the poliphonian musicnotesystem by Fleischmann. In total he brought into being about 100 alphabets - the fruits of fourty years of creative work as a punchcutter. Fleischmann died May 27th, 1768 at the age of 61. For a long time he was thought one of the leading punchcutters in Europe. A tragedy, that his creating fell into the turning of baroque to classicism. The following generations could not take much pleasure in his imaginative fonts, which were more connected to the sensuous baroque than to the bare rationalism of the upcoming industrialisation. Unfortunately therefore his masterpieces did not survive the 19th century and person and work of Fleischmann sank into oblivion. The impressive re-interpretation of the Fleischmann Antiqua and the corresponding italics by Erhard Kaiser from Leipzig, which were done for the Dutch Type Library from 1993 to 1997, snatched Fleischmann away from being forgotten by history. Therefore we want to place strong emphasis on this beautiful font. Fleischman Gotisch The other fonts by Fleischmann are only known to a small circle of connoisseurs and enthusiasts. So far they are not available in adequat quality for modern systems. Same applies the "Fleischman Gotisch", which has been made available cross platform to modern typeset-systems as CFF Open Type font through the presented sample. The Fleischman Gotisch has been proved to be one of the fonts, on which Fleischmann spent a good deal of his best effort; this font simply was near to his heart. Between 1744 and 1762 he created 13 different sizes of this font. All follow the same principles of forms, but their richness of details has been adapted to the particular sizes. In later times the font was modified more or less sensitive by various type founderies; letters were added, changed to current taste or replaced by others; so that nowadays a unique and binding mastercopy of this font is missing. Likewise the name of the font underwent several changes. Fleischmann himself probably never named his font, as he did with none of his fonts. By Enschedé this textura was named Nederduits, later on Nederduitsch. When the font was offered by the german type foundery Flinsch in Frankfurt/Main, the more convenient name of Fleischmann-Gotisch was chosen. In his "Masterbook of the font" and his "Abstract about the Et-character" Jan Tschichold refered to it as "Duyts" again. To honour the genious of Johann Michael Fleischmann we decided to name the writing "Fleischmann Gotisch PT" (unhyphenated). Developing the digital Fleischman Gotisch I decided not to use one of the thirteen sizes as binding mastercopy, but corresponding to the typical ductus of the font to re-create an independent use of forms strongly based on Fleischmann´s language of forms. All ascenders and descenders were standardised. Some characters, identified as added later on, were eliminated (especially the round lower case-R and several versions of longs- respectively f-ligatures) and others were adjusted to the principles of Fleischmann. Where indicated the diverse characters were integrated as alternative. They can be selected in the corresponding menu. All for the correct german black letter necessary longs and other ligatures were generated. Through the according integration into the feature-code about 85% of all ligatures in the type can be generated automatically. Problematic combinations (Fl, Fk, Fh, ll, lh, lk, lb) were created as ligatures and are likewise constructed automatically. A historically interesting letter is the "round r", which was already designated by Fleischmann; it is used after preceding round letters. Likewise interesting is the inventive form of the &-character, which is mentioned by Tschichold in his corresponding abstract. Nevertheless despite all interpretation it was very important to me to maintain the utmost fidelity to the original. With this digital version of a phantastic texturfont of the late baroque I hope to contribute to a blossoming of interest for this genious master of his kind: Johann Michel Fleischmann. OpenType features: - Unicode (ISO 10646-2) - contains 520 glyphes - Basic Latin - Latin-1 Supplement - Latin Extended-A - Latin Extended-B - Central European Glyhps - Ornaments - Fractions - Standard ligatures - Discretionary ligatures - Historical ligatures - Kerning-Table

Originally designed in 1996, Mrs Eaves was Zuzana Licko’s first attempt at the design of a traditional typeface. It was styled after Baskerville, the famous transitional serif typeface designed in 1757 by John Baskerville in Birmingham, England. Mrs Eaves was named after Baskerville’s live in housekeeper, Sarah Eaves, whom he later married. One of Baskerville’s intents was to develop typefaces that pushed the contrast between thick and thin strokes, partially to show off the new printing and paper making techniques of his time. As a result his types were often criticized for being too perfect, stark, and difficult to read. Licko noticed that subsequent interpretations and revivals of Baskerville had continued along the same path of perfection, using as a model the qualities of the lead type itself, not the printed specimens. Upon studying books printed by Baskerville at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, Licko decided to base her design on the printed samples which were heavier and had more character due to the imprint of lead type into paper and the resulting ink spread. She reduced the contrast while retaining the overall openness and lightness of Baskerville by giving the lower case characters a wider proportion. She then reduced the x-height relative to the cap height to avoid increasing the set width. There is something unique about Mrs Eaves and it’s difficult to define. Its individual characters are at times awkward looking—the W being narrow, the L uncommonly wide, the flare of the strokes leading into the serifs unusually pronounced. Taken individually, at first sight some of the characters don’t seem to fit together. The spacing is generally too loose for large bodies of text, it sort of rambles along. Yet when used in the right circumstance it imparts a very particular feel that sets it clearly apart from many likeminded types. It has an undefined quality that resonates with people. This paradox (imperfect yet pleasing) is perhaps best illustrated by design critic and historian Robin Kinross who has pointed out the limitation of the “loose” spacing that Licko employed, among other things, yet simultaneously designated the Mrs Eaves type specimen with an honorable mention in the 1999 American Center for Design competition. Proof, perhaps, that type is best judged in the context of its usage. Even with all its shortcomings, Mrs Eaves has outsold all Emigre fonts by twofold. On MyFonts, one of the largest on-line type sellers, Mrs Eaves has been among the 20 best selling types for years, listed among such classics as Helvetica, Univers, Bodoni and Franklin Gothic. Due to its commercial and popular success it has come to define the Emigre type foundry. While Licko initially set out to design a traditional text face, we never specified how Mrs Eaves could be best used. Typefaces will find their own way. But if there’s one particular common usage that stands out, it must be literary—Mrs Eaves loves to adorn book covers and relishes short blurbs on the flaps and backs of dust covers. Trips to bookstores are always a treat for us as we find our Mrs Eaves staring out at us from dozens of book covers in the most elegant compositions, each time surprising us with her many talents. And Mrs Eaves feels just as comfortable in a wide variety of other locales such as CD covers (Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief being our favorite), restaurant menus, logos, and poetry books, where it gives elegant presence to short texts. One area where Mrs Eaves seems less comfortable is in the setting of long texts, particularly in environments such as the interiors of books, magazines, and newspapers. It seems to handle long texts well only if there is ample space. A good example is the book /CD/DVD release The Band: A Musical History published by Capitol Records. Here, Mrs Eaves was given appropriate set width and generous line spacing. In such cases its wide proportions provide a luxurious feel which invites reading. Economy of space was not one of the goals behind the original Mrs Eaves design. With the introduction of Mrs Eaves XL, Licko addresses this issue. Since Mrs Eaves is one of our most popular typefaces, it’s not surprising that over the years we've received many suggestions for additions to the family. The predominant top three wishes are: greater space economy; the addition of a bold italic style; and the desire to pair it with a sans design. The XL series answers these requests with a comprehensive set of new fonts including a narrow, and a companion series of Mrs Eaves Sans styles to be released soon. The main distinguishing features of Mrs Eaves XL are its larger x-height with shorter ascenders and descenders and overall tighter spacing. These additional fonts expand the Mrs Eaves family for a larger variety of uses, specifically those requiring space economy. The larger x-height also allows a smaller point size to be used while maintaining readability. Mrs Eaves XL also has a narrow counterpart to the regular, with a set width of about 92 percent which fulfills even more compact uses. At first, this may not seem particularly narrow, but the goal was to provide an alternative to the regular that would work well as a compact text face while maintaining the full characteristics of the regular, rather than an extreme narrow which would be more suitable for headline use. Four years in the making, we're excited to finally let Mrs Eaves XL find its way into the world and see where and how it will pop up next.

The concept of the Baroque Roman type face is something which is remote from us. Ungrateful theorists gave Baroque type faces the ill-sounding attribute "Transitional", as if the Baroque Roman type face wilfully diverted from the tradition and at the same time did not manage to mature. This "transition" was originally meant as an intermediate stage between the Aldine/Garamond Roman face of the Renaissance, and its modern counterpart, as represented by Bodoni or Didot. Otherwise there was also a "transition" from a slanted axis of the shadow to a perpendicular one. What a petty detail led to the pejorative designation of Baroque type faces! If a bookseller were to tell his customers that they are about to choose a book which is set in some sort of transitional type face, he would probably go bust. After all, a reader, for his money, would not put up with some typographical experimentation. He wants to read a book without losing his eyesight while doing so. Nevertheless, it was Baroque typography which gave the world the most legible type faces. In those days the craft of punch-cutting was gradually separating itself from that of book-printing, but also from publishing and bookselling. Previously all these activities could be performed by a single person. The punch-cutter, who at that time was already fully occupied with the production of letters, achieved better results than he would have achieved if his creative talents were to be diffused in a printing office or a bookseller's shop. Thus it was possible that for example the printer John Baskerville did not cut a single letter in his entire lifetime, for he used the services of the accomplished punch-cutter John Handy. It became the custom that one type founder supplied type to multiple printing offices, so that the same type faces appeared in various parts of the world. The type face was losing its national character. In the Renaissance period it is still quite easy to distinguish for example a French Roman type face from a Venetian one; in the Baroque period this could be achieved only with great difficulties. Imagination and variety of shapes, which so far have been reserved only to the fine arts, now come into play. Thanks to technological progress, book printers are now able to reproduce hairstrokes and imitate calligraphic type faces. Scripts and elaborate ornaments are no longer the privilege of copper-engravers. Also the appearance of the basic, body design is slowly undergoing a change. The Renaissance canonical stiffness is now replaced with colour and contrast. The page of the book is suddenly darker, its lay-out more varied and its lines more compact. For Baroque type designers made a simple, yet ingenious discovery - they enlarged the x-height and reduced the ascenders to the cap-height. The type face thus became seemingly larger, and hence more legible, but at the same time more economical in composition; the type area was increasing to the detriment of the margins. Paper was expensive, and the aim of all the publishers was, therefore, to sell as many ideas in as small a book block as possible. A narrowed, bold majuscule, designed for use on the title page, appeared for the first time in the Late Baroque period. Also the title page was laid out with the highest possible economy. It comprised as a rule the brief contents of the book and the address of the bookseller, i.e. roughly that which is now placed on the flaps and in the imprint lines. Bold upper-case letters in the first line dramatically give way to the more subtle italics, the third line is highlighted with vermilion; a few words set in lower-case letters are scattered in-between, and then vermilion appears again. Somewhere in the middle there is an ornament, a monogram or an engraving as a kind of climax of the drama, while at the foot of the title-page all this din is quietened by a line with the name of the printer and the year expressed in Roman numerals, set in 8-point body size. Every Baroque title-page could well pass muster as a striking poster. The pride of every book printer was the publication of a type specimen book - a typographical manual. Among these manuals the one published by Fournier stands out - also as regards the selection of the texts for the specimen type matter. It reveals the scope of knowledge and education of the master typographers of that period. The same Fournier established a system of typographical measurement which, revised by Didot, is still used today. Baskerville introduced the smoothing of paper by a hot steel roller, in order that he could print astonishingly sharp letters, etc. ... In other words - Baroque typography deserves anything else but the attribute "transitional". In the first half of the 18th century, besides persons whose names are prominent and well-known up to the present, as was Caslon, there were many type founders who did not manage to publish their manuals or forgot to become famous in some other way. They often imitated the type faces of their more experienced contemporaries, but many of them arrived at a quite strange, even weird originality, which ran completely outside the mainstream of typographical art. The prints from which we have drawn inspiration for these six digital designs come from Paris, Vienna and Prague, from the period around 1750. The transcription of letters in their intact form is our firm principle. Does it mean, therefore, that the task of the digital restorer is to copy meticulously the outline of the letter with all inadequacies of the particular imprint? No. The type face should not to evoke the rustic atmosphere of letterpress after printing, but to analyze the appearance of the punches before they are imprinted. It is also necessary to take account of the size of the type face and to avoid excessive enlargement or reduction. Let us keep in mind that every size requires its own design. The longer we work on the computer where a change in size is child's play, the more we are convinced that the appearance of a letter is tied to its proportions, and therefore, to a fixed size. We are also aware of the fact that the computer is a straightjacket of the type face and that the dictate of mathematical vectors effectively kills any hint of naturalness. That is why we strive to preserve in these six alphabets the numerous anomalies to which later no type designer ever returned due to their obvious eccentricity. Please accept this PostScript study as an attempt (possibly futile, possibly inspirational) to brush up the warm magic of Baroque prints. Hopefully it will give pleasure in today's modern type designer's nihilism.