Mantika Book was originally conceived and drawn parallel to the first Agilita drawings. *[images: pencil drawings] It took several years before having a chance looking at these designs again. But then, my first impulse was to turn this alphabet into a new sanserif, which was to become Mantika Sans. This was the starting point to conceive a super family consisting of different design styles and corresponding weights. The initial drawings of Mantika Book were refined and an Italic was developed to go with it. The aim was to create a modern serif typeface which is reminiscent of humanistic Renaissance typefaces, yet without following a particular historic model. Its large x-height for one is far away from original Renaissance models. Mantika Book was designed as a companion serif typeface to Mantika Sans that can be set for lengthy texts as in books, hence its name. It shares the same x-height with Mantika Sans but has longer ascenders and descenders, making for better word shapes in long, continuous reading. The approach of an ›old-style‹ looking typeface with large minuscules makes Mantika Book also a choice for magazine text settings where one often needs smaller point sizes to fit in a multiple columns layout. The unique details of Mantika Book are the asymetric bracketed serifs in the upright font and its higher stroke contrast than usual in a Renaissance style. The stems are slightly curved inwards. Also, the Italics have a low degree of inclination, which makes longer passages of text set in Italic rather pleasing to read. Another feature Mantika Book shares with Mantika Sans is that all four weights take up the same line length. It covers all European languages plus Cyrillic and Greek, is equipped with lots of useful scientific symbols [double square brackets, angle brackets, empty set, arrows] and the regular weight has small caps. There is a kind of an old-style feeling to Mantika Book, yet these citations were turned into a contemporary serif typeface with a soft but sturdy character.

Based on a specimen of an obscure and uncredited old face called Kitterland, Hamlet is one of those curiosities hardly ever noticed in the world of modern fonts, the kind that infuses a variety of historic Blackletter and calligraphy traits in an otherwise Roman alphabet. Such typefaces, what few of them exist, are almost always classified by typophiles as traditional decorative Roman alphabets. We beg to differ. We think such hybrids are fascinating enough to deserve a classification of their own. And we think today's aspiring letterers and type designers would benefit from paying special attention to this kind of hybrid alphabet, not only because it has much more hand than machine in it, but also because it is a prime example of how to succeed in mixing different lettering techniques into one self-contained and distinctly functional alphabet. As in any efficient mixture of lettering methods, Hamlet ended up with characters that are uniquely its own, such as the cupped A, M, V, W and Y, the very luscious and inviting curves on the arms of E, F, L and T, both single- and double-story forms of the a, and the humblest, friendliest g and y ever. A dozen alternate characters are sprinkled throughout the character set, so check out the map for a few pleasant surprises. We also made the Handtooled and Headstone styles because we thought these friendly forms were just crying out for such treatments. The Handtooled version turned out quite lovely, if we may say so ourselves, perhaps even better than the main font. The Headstone version is available as a free bonus to those who purchase the complete Hamlet package. All Hamlet styles come with lining figures as well as old style ones. Hamlet comes in all popular font formats. The OpenType fonts contain push-button swapping alternates and figures, which come in handy in software programs that support this kind of thing.

Levato, the first font designed by Felix Bonge, is an Antiqua that is full of character and is refined but by no means sterile. This typeface provides for a wide range of options for creating individual designs. It was not really Felix Bonge's intention to create a whole font family when, as a second year student, he began several exercises in contrast and proportion as part of the typeface design course of Professor Veljovi? at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. However, these initial studies developed into a project that Bonge persisted with over the following years while working towards his degree. He continually had new insights and ideas that he was able to exploit for his font. Of particular importance, he claims, was a calligraphy seminar, which prompted him to completely rework his concept. It took him several years before his extensive font Levato™ was ready. Although the forms of Levato are ultimately derived from Renaissance Antiqua, Bonge has slightly increased the relative contrast in his version. This gives the font a graceful appearance that is further emphasized by the reduced x-height and the associated prominence of the ascenders. And, in addition, the relatively fine serifs, which are almost linear at their ends, infuse Levato with a hint of classical Antiqua á la Bodoni. At the same time, Bonge cleverly compensates for the sterilising tendency of this font form. Soft and rounded serif attachments and rounded line apexes offset the severe nature of the font and provide it with an aura of vivacity. This effect is promoted by the calligraphic-like foot of the lowercase h, n and m and the not quite horizontal bars of the uppercase E and F. Overall, Bonge has succeeded in creating a refined and yet very dynamic typeface. Levato is available in five weights; Light, Regular, Medium, Bold and Black, in each case with the corresponding italic versions. Bonge treats Levato Italic as a genuine cursive typeface. Its letters are thus slightly narrower than the analogous upright letters and their forms are considerably more curvilinear. All the versions of Levato boast an enormous range of characters to meet all possible requirements. In addition to four sets of minuscule and majuscule numerals for tabular and proportional typesetting, there are also small caps, numerous ligatures, ornamental characters and even swash variants of letters. With their generous, sweeping curves, the swash variants (available as OpenType versions) can be used for striking titling effects or as initials.

A very bold, rounded sans font with Open and Outline versions

A version of Futura, but very bold, ideal for modern advertising.