Whether with pen on paper, or in digital, realistically connecting vertical handwriting is never an easy task to accomplish. After working with many handwriting fonts, and after intently dissecting so many different handwritings, one tends to expect such things to be quirky, disconnected, and almost never upright. In fact, in spite of vertical handwriting’s academically-sung virtues of rationality, efficiency, clarity and logic, very few people manage to deviate from the natural slant when writing. Even fewer manage to make the vertical handwriting connect and keep its natural flow. Calligraphy and upright cursive aside, it is almost impossible to make a vertical letters connect and maintain a real handwriting appearance. This is where the genius of this design comes in to bridge the gap between upright handwriting and calligraphy. Sincerely is based on one of the most fascinating handwriting designs to ever come out of Germany: Karlgeorg Hoefer’s 1968 Elegance for the Ludwig & Mayer foundry. It is a handwriting with the full meaning of the word, yet it possesses the rare, very commanding and appealing trait of being both vertical and connected while managing to remain realistic. It is the ultimate branding iron of handwriting fonts. When set and printed, Sincerely simply cannot be ignored. Ideal for humanity-asserting poster designs, lettering of short wording with plenty of space, poetry, notes, greeting cards, craft literature, book covers, history-related designs, and a whole range of other applications.

Our eye is able to join missing parts of worn letters back into undisturbed shapes. We tend to see things better than they really are. Thanks to this ability we ignore faults of those close to us as we can’t accept the fact that every once in a while we convene with an impaired entity. Typography is merely a man’s invention, hence imperfection and transience, albeit overlooked, are its key features. This typeface is based on worn-out letterings on tombstones in the St. Croce basilica in Florence. For hundreds of years, microscopic particles of marble are being taken away on the soles of visitors: the embossed figures become fossilised white clouds, fragments of inscriptions are nearing the limits of legibility. First missing are thin joins and serifs, then the main strokes finally slowly diminish into nothingness over time. Unlike an archaeologist, for whom even completely featureless stele is valuable, the typographer must capture the proper moment of wear, when the type is not too “new” but also not too much decimated. Such typeface is usable for catalogue jackets, invitations and posters. Calligraphy is a natural human trait. To write is to create characters of reasonable beauty and content, according to the nature of the writer. A natural characteristic of architecture is to create an aesthetic message very similar to the alphabet. A doric column, the gabled roof, the circle of the well plan: these are the basic shapes from which all text typeface is derived.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Price Didone has inspired a full alphabetic font - Mastadoni, so if you're after more than numerals, head over there! Price Didone is a font with a singular purpose: The setting of elegant, stylish price tags. As such it is non-alphabetic, featuring instead numerals, a large array of currency symbols, and a smattering of typographic niceties such as quotes, brackets, pilcrow, daggers and a very curvaceous ampersand. Certain currency symbols that are not independent glyphs (Q, Ft, kr etc.) are included as their constituent letters, some of which also have automatic ligatures for that little something extra. There are currency symbols included which have not (yet) been accepted to unicode, such as the Russian Ruble and Bitcoin symbols. For ease of access, these can be typed using the standard ligatures feature. See features below for the full list. Features: Automatic Fractions - with fractions feature engaged, arbitrary fractions are a doddle. Stylistic Sets: SS01 - an alternate look for 4 SS02 - a double stroked dollar symbol SS03- the # sign becomes a stylish numero Stylistic Alternates - for software that doesn't support stylistic sets, the above three features are grouped into the one SALT feature. Standard Ligatures - certain typed combinations automatically change to different glyphs: B|| = Bitcoin symbol P- = Russian Ruble RM = Malaysian Rimgit symbol Rp = Indonesian Rupiah Rs = Rupees Ft = Hungarian Forint kr = Kroner symbol % off;%off;%ff = Special percent off ligature Discretionary Ligatures - this feature sets decimal prices like $5.95 with the numerals after the period smaller and raised from the baseline, underlined by a nice swoosh. It also shrinks the dollar, sterling, and Euro symbols for a more authentic look. While intended for one sole purpose, Price Didone could nevertheless be quite versatile. Quote marks and typographic symbols can be used for decoration. Everybody loves a nice ampersand and this is one I'm really proud of. Or you might just want some pretty numbers for your house, or sports jersey, or just to stand out a little from the rest of your text. Whatever use you may have in mind, go for it. And do let me know if your currency symbol isn't included, and I'll quickly add it to the glyph set in future versions.

Full of life Hispanic Didot in 2 optical sizes Retiro is a daring interpretation of Spanish typography. Severe, austere and yet, full of life, Retiro is a vernacular version of Castilian and Andalusian in a typical Didot. Named after a lovely park in Madrid, Retiro started life as a a bespoke typeface designed to give a unique voice to the magazine Madriz. In 2006, the founder of Madriz was looking for a Didot for his new magazine. The Didot is the archetypal typeface used in high-end magazines. Retiro is a synthesis of these high contrast styles mixed with an Hispanic mind. Result is then, after 2-3 years of work, a typeface with countless variations to establish typographic shades adapted to different sections and pages of the Madriz. In 2014, it was necessary to further revise the typeface before its launch at Typofonderie. In order to keep its originality, the unique weight was retained, but complemented with optical size variants to set highly contrasted headlines into various sizes, visually balanced. How to use Retiro optical sizes? Each font provided in Retiro family is named according to the scale of body size: 24 pt and 64 pt. Of course, these names are referring to the body sizes used in typographic design. In the “glorious old days,” the letterpress period, it was customary to cut punches directly to the size at which typefaces would be used. The punchcutter had to visually adapt his design to the engraving size. The aim was to optimize the best contrast and general weight, but also to respect both design’s and reader’s needs. In Retiro’s case, intended for large titling sizes, it’s an adaptation of this ancient practice for our contemporary uses. Although each font is named by a typographic point size, do not feel obliged to use this font at this precise size, but why not, in larger or smaller. It’s rather the concept of gradients that must be preserved in layouts, rather than strictly size numbers. It’s up to the designer to select the right font size for his own designs. Granshan Awards 2012 Creative Review Type Annual 2011 Designpreis 2011 Club des directeurs artistiques, 41e palmarès Type Directors Club 2010 Certificate of Type design Excellence

Quentin Schmerber’s Temeraire serif font family was not designed to be invisible. It is a typographic exploration meant to be seen — with its beauty, one could even say beheld. While some fonts aim to be as easily ignored as possible, Temeraire is offered as a gift to wide-eyed readers with its anything-but-boring character and its conspicuous inconsistency in styles. Most type families increase the weight of each character to expand the family. Instead, research into 17th century sources produced Temeraire’s wide range of letterforms, from the predictable to the odd and loosely related through time. Each style is designed to work alongside the others but are also standalone homages to specific parts of English lettering tradition: gravestone cutting, writing masters’ copperplates, Italiennes, and others. Temeraire’s Regular style is a contrast-loving Transitional Serif with vertical stress, making it great for period and classic works, ironic pieces, and modern throwbacks. The weight of the Bold squares off the ends of each glyph to give it stability, and the italic style rings true: flowing, contrasting, and purposefully inconsistent. Temeraire’s Display Black style is one salvaged from expressive gravestone artistry. The details most easily noticed are the ‘g’ with its descending bowl that has been pressed back up in the centre, and the additional serif on the ‘t’ crossbar that holds its neighbouring character at bay. (The ‘g’ and ‘Q’ have loopless alternates.) The final style is the Italienne, the horizontally stressed counterpoint to the family. By design its characters flow and bend in ways not in step with the rest of the family. All the weight has been pushed to either hemisphere within each glyph, resulting in a display style that demands space and peacefulness around it so its presence can impress. As with all TypeTogether families, Temeraire meets the current designer’s needs. Not only does its five styles shine in print work, it includes alternates for when the defaults are too boisterous and has been expertly crafted for screens. The Temeraire serif font family is resurrected from echoes in time and finds its family relation through impeccable taste.

Five years into the 21st century and the promise of nanotechnology, high-end popular culture design seems to thrive on combining opposites and drawing a fine line between traditionally contradictory ideas. This is seen in modern society's usual cultural frontrunners - like consumer electronics, fashion items, music packaging and publications, where it is evident that traditionally complex marketing statements of fashionability and lifestyle are attempted with simple minimalism. But at the typographic end of this realm, the creative majority still uses old faces that help the modern statement only in passing. Some of the more adventurous creative professionals actively seek new elements to emphasize contemporary impact in their modern design. To those adventurous types (pun intended), Canada Type presents this new face called Go. It is very much a child of the new millennium, inspired by the unmistakable minimalist style of modern 21st century corporate logos, recent design shifts in electronic music and club-marketing collateral, and disc jockeys who have enthusiasm, energy, precision and total control of each and every vibration traveling from mixer to speakers. Go is an original modern techno-lounge face that offers the eyes pleasing collages of friendly minimal forms that give the words an impression of simplicity and depth at once. This is a font that prides itself on its precise grouping of elements and just enough original creativity in combining those elements. The precision builds the sharp edge sought for modern statements, while the creativity keeps the message rejuvenated, clear and interesting. Go's character set consists of a versatile and unexpected, yet mild mix of the uppercase and lowercase forms, with multiple variations on the majority of the letters. The e being a vertical mirror of G is only the first of the pleasant surprises. More than 30 alternates are inside the font. All the accented characters in Go have been meticulously (perhaps obsessively) drawn to be unusual for logos and short statements. Take a look at the character map and be ready for a space-age surprise. To borrow a Star Trek cliché, this font can Go where no font has gone before.

Guided tour available here. Port Vintage is a new typeface expanded upon the original Port typeface, released in 2013, and being an experimental Didone typeface with a modern twist, inspired by the well known forms of typography masters such as Bodoni and Didot and the exuberance and elegance of calligraphy typefaces. A lot of changes were made, the whole typeface is now softer and has less rough edges, the time it took to mature made it possible to achieve an entirelly new and distinct flavour from the original Port, giving away the rough edges from Port and giving place to the soft transitions and curved connections between the stems and serifs of Port Vintage. Port Vintage melts the straight lines and strong contrasts of the Didone typefaces with the elegant lines of calligraphy in a geometric way, resulting in exuberant characters with geometric swashes that can be combined in countless ways. The result of this experiment is Port Vintage, an unique and rich display typeface meant to be used on big sizes and it’s main perk is the amount of alternative characters it features. Port Vintage is Open-Type programmed and includes hundreds of alternates, from swashes to titling alternates, ligatures and stylistic sets with each character having a thin version of itself, giving complete freedom to all your creative needs. Port Vintage is available in 10 different styles: Port Vintage Regular, being the base version and featuring the whole base character set; Port Vintage Regular Decorated, featuring richer forms and containing more ornamentated and more extravagant characters; Port Vintage Medium and Port Vintage Medium Decorated, designed for the occasions you need a bit more thickness and the decoration variants: Port Vintage Ornaments, containing a wide set of elements meant for the creation of fillets, vignettes and fleurons, resulting in an almost infinite number of possible combinations to embellish your designs and Port Vintage Words, a set of some of the most common words used in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese. All styles, except Port Vintage Ornaments and Port Vintage Words, include italic styles. For a better understanding of all the uses of Port Vintage and the full character list the reading of the manual is recommended.

Alias Vertical is a sans serif typeface with a vertical cut-off point for letter endings. The vertical cut-offs bend round characters (b, c, o, etc) into a squarish, high-shouldered shape, suggesting Roger Excoffon’s Antique Olive. In mid-weights, the typeface mixes Antique Olive with typefaces such as Gill or Johnston, for example the shape of the t, the l borrowing Johnston’s flick. Vertical has the same minimal difference in weight between verticals and horizontals as Gill and Johnston, and the same sharp connection point where curves meet straight lines. Like Antique Olive, Vertical has a narrow connection point here, adding contrast and definition. The overall effect feels austere at lighter weights and strident and graphic at bolder weights, and sharp and incised throughout. In the Bold and Black weights, the squarish and top heavy shape of Antique Olive is most noticeable. For example the wide uppercase, with the B having almost-even width between top and bottom curves, and the almost-overhang of the top curve of the G. But Vertical does not have as extreme an aesthetic or square shape as Antique Olive. As well as its wide design, the upper case is given extra authority by being a slightly heavier weight than the lower case. This is a device borrowed from Gill, and other ‘old’ typefaces, where the upper case is presented as a titling design. Modern sensibilities are more focussed on an even colour between upper and lower case. Vertical was originally intended as a sister typeface to Ano, like AnoAngular or AnoStencil. Vertical developed into a similar but separate design. Ano was designed for use in Another Man — in its modular, circle-base design, and the way there aren’t the amendments usually made in bolder weights to ensure letter clarity. This is for layouts where different weights are used together in different sizes so that the overall letter weight is the same, a feature of the magazine. Where Ano is simple and graphic, Vertical has nuance and texture. It is a pragmatic, utility design. In the balance between graphic and typographic, its focus is the latter.

Zuzana Licko's goal for Fairplex was to create a text face which would achieve legibility by avoiding contrast, especially in the Book weight. As a result of its low contrast, the Fairplex Book weight is somewhat reminiscent of a sans serif, yet the slight serifs preserve the recognition of serif letterforms. When creating the accompanying weights, the challenge was to balance the contrast and stem weight with the serifs. To provide a comprehensive family, Licko wanted the boldest weight to be quite heavy. This meant that the "Black" weight would need more contrast than the Book weight in order to avoid clogging up. But harmonizing the serifs proved difficult. The initial serif treatments she tried didn't stand up to the robust character of the Black weight. Several months passed without much progress, and then one evening she attended a talk by Alastair Johnston on his book "Alphabets to Order," a survey of nineteenth century type specimens. Johnston pointed out that slab serifs (also known as "Egyptians") are really more of a variation on sans serifs than on serif designs. In other words, slab serif type is more akin to sans-serif type with serifs added on than it is to a version of serif type. This sparked the idea that the solution to her serif problem for Fairplex Black might be a slab serif treatment. After all, the Book weight already shared features of sans-serif types. Shortly after this came the idea to angle the serifs. This was suggested by her husband, and was probably conjured up from his years of subconscious assimilation of the S. F. Giants logo while watching baseball, and reinforced by a similar serif treatment in John Downer's recent Council typeface design. The angled serifs added visual interest to the otherwise austere slab serifs. The intermediate weights were then derived by interpolating the Book and Black, with the exception of several characters, such as the "n," which required specially designed features to avoid collisions of serifs, and to yield a pleasing weight balance. A range of weights was interpolated before deciding on the Medium and Bold weights.

The Garamond family tree has many branches. There are probably more different typefaces bearing the name Garamond than the name of any other type designer. Not only did the punchcutter Claude Garamond set a standard for elegance and excellence in type founding in 16th-century Paris, but a successor, Jean Jannon, some eighty years later, cut typefaces inspired by Garamond that later came to bear Garamond’s name. Revivals of both designs have been popular and various over the course of the last 100 years. When ATF Garamond was designed in 1917, it was one of the first revivals of a truly classic typeface. Based on Jannon’s types, which had been preserved in the French Imprimerie Nationale as the “caractères de l’Université,” ATF Garamond brought distinctive elegance and liveliness to text type for books and display type for advertising. It was both the inspiration and the model for many of the later “Garamond” revivals, notably Linotype’s very popular Garamond No. 3. ATF Garamond was released ca. 1918, first in Roman and Italic, drawn by Morris Fuller Benton, the head of the American Type Founders design department. In 1922, Thomas M. Cleland designed a set of swash italics and ornaments for the typeface. The Bold and Bold Italic were released in 1920 and 1923, respectively. The new digital ATF Garamond expands upon this legacy, while bringing back some of the robustness of metal type and letterpress printing that is sometimes lost in digital adaptations. The graceful, almost lacy form of some of the letters is complemented by a solid, sturdy outline that holds up in text even at small sizes. The 18 fonts comprise three optical sizes (Subhead, Text, Micro) and three weights, including a new Medium weight that did not exist in metal. ATF Garamond also includes unusual alternates and swash characters from the original metal typeface. The character of ATF Garamond is lively, reflecting the spirit of the French Renaissance as interpreted in the 1920s. Its Roman has more verve than later old-style faces like Caslon, and its Italic is outright sprightly, yet remarkably readable.

Milan-based Leftloft studio has produced a third leg to its hit Etica font family: LFT Etica Mono. Meant to be a coder’s go-to font for everyday use as much as a designer’s way to invoke a certain genre, it is part of a broader and more versatile family that already contains almost 80 sans and serif fonts. LFT Etica Mono’s ten weights carry the same modern, recognisable DNA of the Etica family while hewing to the defined requirements of a coding typeface: space, density, distinct forms, and clarity. It uses the same instroke on the ‘c’ and open form of the ‘a’ for which the Etica family is famous, but adds something new in the form of an additional italic style. Monospaced fonts usually incorporate slanted letters as italics, as does LFT Etica Mono, but its default italics have warmer, cursive shapes while the alternate italics are simply slanted. The default ‘a’ is a simplified bowl and stem instead of a two storey shape; the ‘d, f, i, l, t, y’ and others gain an outstroke tail; the ‘e’ is one smooth stroke; and the default ‘k’ is looped. These characters have basic, slanted alternates if the cursive look isn’t desired, and includes a set of arrows and geometric shapes. The monospaced design, by nature, makes the typeface useful in coding and in low readability situations. And how does LFT Etica Mono work from the designer’s perspective? The starting point was the need for a monospaced Etica companion intended for technical applications: captions in graphic layouts, small text, confined or predefined space, and overall tone. Flat terminals and counters maintain the colour and versatility of the original typeface, but choosing between the organic cursive or blunt slanted alphabet will give every layout its own character. Of particular aesthetic interest may be the & and % symbols. Designed to be applied to the common visual environment, the new LFT Etica Mono font family completes a more complex system. One benefit is to give an expressive tone — less serious and more friendly — to something inherently technical, to bytes and bots, to encode the beautiful life.