Introducing Xenara—a typeface born from the mechanical precision of vintage calculators and electric typewriters of the 1970s. Designed with technical applications in mind, Xenara features stolid letterforms and rounded ends that communicate a cold, businesslike style with scientific precision. Xenara’s unique design elements include an alternate barless “A”, trident “M”, zigzag “E”, and square “S”, which are available when you use the OpenType alternates feature. These details add a level of technical sophistication to your work that is unmatched by other typefaces. Available in both Regular and Bold weights, Xenara is the perfect choice for projects that require a technical look and feel. Whether you’re creating data-heavy reports, technical manuals, or scientific publications, Xenara will ensure your message is delivered with the utmost precision. Choose Xenara for a typeface that speaks to the essence of science and technology with a timeless design that will endure for years to come. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

The x factor How do you make a font like FS Albert unique, distinctive? “When designing a font I try to question every letter,” says Jason Smith, “but all you need is a few that have an x factor. With FS Albert, they’re the lowercase ‘a’ and ‘g’ and the uppercase ‘I’ and ‘J’. “I remember a friend saying, ‘Why on earth have you designed the ‘a’ like that? Isn’t it too friendly for this kind of font?’ And, in a way, that’s what I wanted – honesty and warmth, because a lot of big brands at the time really needed to show a more human side.” Range of weights and styles FS Albert is a charismatic type: a warm, friendly sans serif face with a big personality. Open, strong and amenable, and available in a wide range of weights and styles, FS Albert suits almost every task you put it to. Fontsmith has crafted five finely-tuned upright Roman weights and four italic weights, as well as a special Narrow version to provide the best coverage and give headlines and text an easy-going character. The chunky kid “FS Albert was inspired by – and named after – my son, who was a bit of a chunky kid,” says Jason Smith. “I designed an extra bold weight because I always felt that the really big font heavy weights had the most personality. “I recently told Albert this story. He laughed, and forgave me for thinking he was a fat baby. He liked the big personality bit, though.” 1000s of glyphs Not content with a character set that covered Europe and the whole of the Western world, the studio decided to go further afield. There are now FS Albert character sets that cover western and eastern European languages, including those of Russia, as well as Cyrillic, Arabic and Greek scripts. In fact, the font now covers more than 100 languages, making it ideal for bringing a consistent typographic style to the communications of global brands.

The Englishman William Caslon punchcut many roman, italic, and non-Latin typefaces from 1720 until his death in 1766. At that time most types were being imported to England from Dutch sources, so Caslon was influenced by the characteristics of Dutch types. He did, however, achieve a level of craft that enabled his recognition as the first great English punchcutter. Caslon's roman became so popular that it was known as the script of kings, although on the other side of the political spectrum (and the ocean), the Americans used it for their Declaration of Independence in 1776. The original Caslon specimen sheets and punches have long provided a fertile source for the range of types bearing his name. Identifying characteristics of most Caslons include a cap A with a scooped-out apex; a cap C with two full serifs; and in the italic, a swashed lowercase v and w. Caslon's types have achieved legendary status among printers and typographers, and are considered safe, solid, and dependable. Caslon Antique was designed by Berne Nadall and brought out by the American type foundry Barnhart Bros & Spindler in 1896 to 1898. It doesn't bear any resemblance to Caslon, but has the quaint crudeness of what people imagine type looked like in the eighteenth century. Use Caslon Antique for that old-timey" effect in graphic designs. It looks best in large sizes for titles or initials. Caslon Black was designed by David Farey in the 1990s, and consists of one relatively narrow and very black weight. It is intended exclusively for titles or headlines. Caslon Black has a hint of the original Caslon lurking in the shadows of its shapes, but has taken on its own robust expression. Caslon Graphique was designed by Leslie Usherwood in the 1980s. The basic forms are close to the original Caslon, but this version has wide heavy forms with very high contrast between the hairline thin strokes and the fat main strokes. This precisely drawn and stylized Caslon has verve; it's ideal for headlines or initials in large sizes."

Paralucent is versatile all-purpose modern sans. Available in seven weights, from Thin to Heavy, and in two widths each with corresponding italics, it avoids some of the more eccentric calligraphic quirks of Akzidenz or Helvetica or the cool precision of Univers for an elegant, functional, yet warm design. There are two additions to the core 28-weight family: a three-weight stencil set, and a four weight text family. The text weights have been adjusted for use at small point sizes, and feature more open character shapes, looser inter-letter spacing for improved readability, and lining numerals for use in listings and tables. Several core ideas inform Paralucent’s design. Prime attention has given to the negative space between characters, giving a more even “colour”, especially in text. For example, the J, L and T have shorter arms than comparable sans typefaces, while the M and W are wider. The A has a lower bar, opening up the interior counter. An unusually high lower-case x-height again helps to give a more even colour and improve legibility. Care has been taken to rationalise repeated elements like the tails on lower-case letters, or the Q and the “ear” of the g. Typographic design solutions that are consistent across all these features add more stylistic cohesion. ‘Ink traps’ are exaggerated incisions used to open up a letter's narrower internal angles, which can become clogged with ink, especially in small point sizes. Now largely redundant due to the high quality of modern print, they are still sometimes used as a stylistic quirk or design feature. Now that digital fonts are often reversed or outlined, or enlarged to enormous sizes, these can also lead to unexpected or obtrusive results. Paralucent takes these inevitable digital manipulations into account, and adds optical corrections without resort to ink traps. The family has been picked up by many UK and US publishers, featuring heavily in magazines like Loaded, Heat and TV Quick, as well as high-end coffee-table photography books and gallery websites. A perennial Device bestseller.

Remember clear summer days as a kid? Remember open fields that you explored? Sun shining? Simple breezes sweeping past your face as you ran far and free? The feeling was uncomplicated and enjoyable. It was natural. That’s Verao, the simple spirit of summer. Alive and vibrant, Verao takes a turn away from the cold structure of today’s rigid creations and embraces the movement back to the value of things handmade. This artisan creation represents the rare, soul-invested fusion of the craftsman’s tools, materials, and hand movements, which shapes the solid--but beautifully defined--parts, pieces that, when put together, breathe a measure of life into everyday paragraphs and other bodies of text. Verao’s hand-written brush script, with its characters’ imperfect elegance and handmade quality, keeps your work looking organic. Write a word in more than a hundred different ways thanks to the large number of extra letters it offers. Two sets of lowercase alternative letters without connectors are included as is a set of swashed endings. Verao contains stylistic substitutions and ligatures, too, that you can combine however you like. Whichever way you design, the elements continue to appear balanced and separate and will undoubtedly add more personality to your design. So stop switching out cogs in your rigid set of fonts. Take time again to play with a natural face that’s both easy and energetic. Verao’s great temperament makes it a joy to design with. Let this spirit of summer take you away from the mundane. There’s a good chance Verao will lead you where you need to go. Production assistance from Lucas Azevedo.

FangsALot is a bizarre typeface family that was designed to alternate two character sets. These sets are alternated automatically in applications that support the OpenType feature Contextual Alternatives (calt). The template used to design characters is a distorted triangle that resembles a curved tooth or a fang. This shape can be flipped horizontally, vertically, and both horizontally and vertically to give four orientations. Two of these orientations are used in the regular style and two in what is called the italic style. I thought the fang motif did not come through clearly in the regular and italic styles. Rather the impression they give is more like graffiti lettering. To emphasize the fang motif I added two more members to the family by filling fang outlines with unadorned sans-serif characters. Then to allow more color in lettering, I added two more styles with letters on black. I then had six styles based on triangles skewed left and right. Why not fill the family out with three more styles based on an isosceles triangle? The end result is a family of nine. All members of the family are monospaced and are hard to read. The three graffiti-like styles have some alternative letters that can be accessed with the OpenType feature Stylistic Sets. Also, for each style it is possible to use only one set of characters by adding a space after each letter and then adjusting the character spacing. The graffiti-like styles can be useful in situations where the hard-to-read property is not important but where a menacing and vicious touch is needed, such as topics of sharks, teeth, biting, and vampires.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that these letter shapes are familiar. They have the unmistakable color and weight of Cooper Black, Oswald Cooper's most famous typeface from 1921. What should be a surprise is that these letters are actually from George Auriol's Robur Noir (or Robur Black), published in France circa 1909 by the Peignot foundry as a bolder, solid counterpart to its popular Auriol typeface (1901). This face precedes Cooper Black by a dozen of years and a whole Great War. Cooper Black has always been a bit of a strange typographical apparition to anyone who tried to explain its original purpose, instant popularity in the 1920s, and major revival in the late 1960s. BB&S and Oswald Cooper PR aside, it is quite evident that the majority of Cooper Black's forms did not evolve from Cooper Old Style, as its originators claimed. And the claim that it collected various Art Nouveau elements is of course too ambiguous to be questioned. But when compared with Robur Noir, the "elements" in question can hardly be debated. The chronology of this "machine age" ad face in metal is amusing and stands as somewhat of a general index of post-Great War global industrial competition: - 1901: Peignot releases Auriol, based on the handwriting of George Auriol (the "quintessential Art Nouveau designer," according to Steven Heller and Louise Fili), and it becomes very popular. - 1909-1912: Peignot releases the Robur family of faces. The eight styles released are Robur Noir and its italic, a condensed version called Robur Noir Allongée (Elongated) and its italic, an outline version called Clair De Lune and its condensed/elongated, a lined/striped version called Robur Tigre, and its condensed/elongated counterpart. - 1914 to 1918: World War One uses up economies on both sides of the Atlantic, claims Georges Peignot with a bullet to the forehead, and non-war industry stalls for 4 years. - 1921: BB&S releases Cooper Black with a lot of hype to hungry publishing, manufacturing and advertising industries. - 1924: Robert Middleton releases Ludlow Black. - 1924: The Stevens Shanks foundry, the British successor to the Figgins legacy, releases its own exact copies of Robur Noir and Robur Noir Allongée, alongside a lined version called Royal Lining. - 1925: Oswald Cooper releases his Cooper Black Condensed, with similar math to Robur Noir Allongée (20% reduction in width and vectical stroke). - 1925: Monotype releases Frederick Goudy's Goudy Heavy, an "answer to Cooper Black". Type historians gravely note it as the "teacher steals from his student" scandal. Goudy Heavy Condensed follows a few years later. - 1928: Linotype releases Chauncey Griffith's Pabst Extra Bold. The condensed counterpart is released in 1931. When type production technologies changed and it was time to retool the old faces for the Typositor age, Cooper Black was a frontrunning candidate, while Robur Noir was all but erased from history. This was mostly due to its commercial revival by flourishing and media-driven music and advertising industries. By the late 1960s variations and spinoffs of Cooper Black were in every typesetting catalog. In the early- to mid-1970s, VGC, wanting to capitalize on the Art Nouveau onslaught, published an uncredited exact copy of Robur Black under the name Skylark. But that also went with the dust of history and PR when digital tech came around, and Cooper Black was once again a prime retooling candidate. The "old fellows stole all of our best ideas" indeed. So almost a hundred years after its initial fizz, Robur is here in digital form, to reclaim its rightful position as the inspiration for, and the best alternative to, Cooper Black. Given that its forms date back to the turn of the century, a time when foundry output had a closer relationship to calligraphic and humanist craft, its shapes are truer to brush strokes and much more idiosyncratic than Cooper Black in their totality's construct. Robur and Robur Italic come in all popular font formats. Language support includes Western, Central and Eastern European character sets, as well as Baltic, Esperanto, Maltese, Turkish, and Celtic/Welsh languages. A range of complementary f-ligatures and a few alternates letters are included within the fonts.

Rizado Script is a classy one-weight script typeface, made with “dolce vita” in mind. Its high contrast and pointy tone are recalling the fine nib handwriting of a meticulous and decisive person that hasn’t got free time to spare but surely knows how to enjoy his life. No quick and dry strokes, but rather wide, elegant and strong-minded temper that will bring a long-lasting touch to your packaging layouts. Sure, if you are looking for a good fit for some more ephemeral design such as a weekend high-class cocktail promotion, or a wedding invitation – this handy display typeface won’t let you down for a second. If you happen to go to Venice and enjoy their popular Aperitivo, you’ll be asked to choose between three types of bitter-reddish base drink. Rizado will bring you the same amount of pleasure, authority and uniqueness while you pick out one of the three ampersands or other alternate characters. According to the concept of Fellini’s lifestyle, “la dolce vita” is a luxury lifestyle full of cheerful worldly pleasure. But don’t let yourself be fooled by this moto, because Italians are famous for their modesty and sagacity as well. That’s why you’re always supposed to turn on the Contextual Alternates (to activate extra positional forms — isolated, initial and final) and keep your voice down and never set this typeface in all Capital letters. There are 391 total glyphs made to support West European, Central European and South East European languages.

Originally designed in 1998 as a 3-font family, updated in 2016 by new italics, small caps and many OpenType functions, resulting in a set of highly visible poster typefaces. If a  text is set in a  good Egyptienne, we can observe a  kind of sparkle in the lines. Slab-serifs are cheerful typefaces, possibly due to the fact that they developed simultaneously with Grotesque typefaces. The design principle originating from the first half of the 19th century does not have such firm and long-established roots as for example, the Venetian Roman typefaces, hence it’s much more prone to a  “decline”. We know of Egyptiennes with uneven color, with letters falling backwards (this often happens in the case of “S”), and especially with slightly bizarre modeling of details. In the course of time, however, it was realized that such things could be quite pleasant and tempting. After a  century and a  half, we find that such Egyptiennes could refresh uniform computer typography. The forms of many twisted letters resemble the gestures of a  juggler: others, rectangularly static ones, reflect the profile of a  rail or a  steel girder – things which, in their times, were new and were observed by the first creators of Egyptiennes. These typefaces are ideal for circus posters and programs for theatre performances, just as for printing on cement sacks.

The Engraver’s Square Gothic—like its rounder cousin, the engraver’s sans serif, Sweet® Sans,has been one of the more widely used stationer’s lettering styles since about 1900. Its minimal forms, made without curves, were popularized long ago by bankers and others seeking a serious, established feel to their stationery. One might argue that the design is a possible precursor to Morris Fuller Benton’s Bank Gothic® typeface. Sweet® Square is based on antique engraver’s lettering templates called “masterplates.” Professional stationers use a pantograph to manually transfer letters from these masterplates to a piece of copper or steel that is then etched to serve as a plate or die. This demanding technique is rare today given that most engravers now use a photographic process to make plates, where just about any font will do. But the lettering styles engravers popularized during the first half of the twentieth century remain both familiar and appealing. Referencing various masterplates, Mark van Bronkhorst has drawn Sweet Square in nine weights. The sources offered just uppercase, small caps, and figures, yet similar, condensed examples had a lowercase, making it possible to interpret a full character set for Sweet Square. Italics were also added to give the family greater versatility. The fonts are available as basic, “Standard” character sets, and as “Pro” character sets offering special characters, a variety of typographic features, and full support for Western and Central European languages. Sweet Square gives new life to an uncommon class of typeface: an early twentieth-century commercial invention that brings a singular verve to modern design. Its unique style is as useful as it is novel. Bank Gothic is a registered trademark of Grosse Pointe Group LLC.

A girl’s handwriting written on the iPad Writing changes – throughout history over centuries, but also from generation to generation. Each new generation of students learns to write the basic forms of the letters a little differently than their predecessors. The role model is also changing. The cursive handwriting taught in school is getting closer and closer to printed type. The children no longer learn the forms of cursive handwriting required for connected writing, but first the “block letters”, only later should they develop their own individual handwriting from this, which many of them no longer do. And the writing tool is also changing. Of course, script looks different when children no longer learn to write on paper with a fountain pen, but on a tablet computer with the “pencil”. The writing experience is completely different, and the “material properties” are different too. There is practically no writing resistance that would make it difficult to move against the direction of writing. "Die Lara" was created based on the template by Lara Mörwald from the winter of 2023. The font version "Black" corresponds to the handwritten original, all thinner variants up to the wafer-thin "Hairline" are derived from it. In the variable font, the intermediate forms can be selected steplessly. In order to preserve the handwritten character of the font, "Die Lara" contains several alternates to most letters and numerals, so that different character forms alternate in the typeface. If the "ligatures" function is activated in the app (which is the default in most programs), these alternates appear automatically as you type. There is also an alternative "swashed" variant of some letters. So you can set somewhat livelier accents at the beginning or end of a word. "Die Lara" also contains fractions and tabular figures.

The engraver’s sans serif—strikingly similar to drafting alphabets of the early 1900s—has been one of the most widely used stationer’s lettering styles since about 1900. Its open, simple forms offer legibility at very small sizes. While there are digital fonts based on this style (such as Burin Sans™ and Sackers Gothic™, among others), few offer the range of styles and weights possible, with the versatility designers perhaps expect from digital type families. Sweet Sans fills that void. The family is based on antique engraver’s lettering templates called “masterplates.” Professional stationers use a pantograph to manually transfer letters from these masterplates to a piece of copper or steel that is then etched to serve as a plate or die. This demanding technique is rare today given that most engravers now use a photographic process to make plates, where just about any font will do. But the lettering styles engravers popularized during the first half of the twentieth century—especially the engraver’s sans—are still quite familiar and appealing. Referencing various masterplates—which typically offer the alphabet, figures, an ampersand, and little else—Mark van Bronkhorst has drawn a comprehensive toolkit of nine weights, each offering upper- and lowercase forms, small caps, true italics, arbitrary fractions, and various figure sets designed to harmonize with text, small caps, and all-caps. The fonts are available as basic, Standard character sets, and as Pro character sets offering a variety of typographic features and full support for Western and Central European languages. Though rich in history, Sweet Sans is made for contemporary use. It is a handsome and functional tribute to the spirit of unsung craftsmanship. Burin Sans and Sackers Gothic are trademarks of Monotype Imaging.