Here is another design by jewelry designer Max Joseph Gradl. Zier is a verb, meaning to decorate, adorn or ornament; zierlich means decorative, elegant, fine, neat. Schrift means type. Zierschrift, therefore, means decorative type. Gradl Zierschriften is a decorative type in the Art Nouveau style, rather than the more ornate Victorian style. Very modern, very young, with an elegant simplicity of form. Maria Makela, in her book The Munich Secession (Princeton 1990) suggests that the frequent use of simple, flowing, organic forms that was so characteristic of Art Nouveau was a reaction against the growing complexity and rapid urbanization that resulted from 19th century industrialization. In keeping with that reaction is the hand-drawn quality that intentionally rejects a mechanistic mathematic precision of line rendering. Gradl Zierschriften preserves that hand-drawn quality. Designed with upper case only, this face was obviously intended for short headlines only and is best set at 18 points or larger. However, I don't think you really get to experience the grace of this design until you get to 36 points or more. In the larger sizes, it is simply stunning. Please note that while most of the uppercase letterforms are repeated in the lower case for convenience, the ‘F’,‘L’ and ‘T’ are rendered a little narrower than in the uppercase to provide for visual variety. The font also includes a generous supply of ligatures for just the right fit ... and just for the fun of using them. Three common ways of inserting a ligature, accented letter or other special character are: 1) Key in “ALT”+“0”+[ascii #]; for example ALT+0233 for the e-acute, 2) From within your application program, go to the INSERT menu and look for something like “Insert Symbol,” (this function is NOT available in all application programs) & 3) Cut & Paste from the CHARACTER MAP display that has been supplied by every generation of Windows Operating System that I can recall (All Programs>Accessories>System Tools). Isn't it amazing what you can do? Don't be afraid to experiment. If you back up your work, you have very little to lose and a lot to gain. Not only do you acquire a new tool, but by the very process you have learned how to continually expand your knowledge and skill base.

Henri Abraham Chatelain was a cartographer and publisher of the famous Atlas Historique, ou Nouvelle Introduction a L'Histoire, a world atlas released between 1705 and 1732 in Amsterdam. A few years ago, at an antique book shop in London, I bought a page from Chatelain's atlas—a page covering the Near East, India, the Indian Ocean—that had a particularly alluring, oblique handlettering style. The text is in French, which gave me plenty of samples of diacritics and accented characters. The overall effect is neat and legible, with a distinctly historical flair.

The Farfa fonts were designed for institutional use, commissioned by the City of Fara in Sabina, Italy. This project started from the study of the manuscripts found in the Abbey of Farfa, penned in a variant of the lower case of “Carolingian” typical style of that area. The Capital, ligatures and Small Caps, however, are based on the uncial writing that often appears in those codes and manuscripts. Farfa Abbey is a territorial abbey in northern Lazio, central Italy. It is one of the most famous abbeys of Europe. It belongs to the Benedictine Order and is located about 60 km from Rome, in the commune of Fara Sabina The origin of the Abbey is still unknown. Archaeological discoveries seem to prove that the first monastic establishment was built on the ruins of a pagan temple. The Vandals destroyed the first monastery in the fifth century. Only a few documents from the sixth-century prove the early presence of the monastic community. It had the heritage of Charlemagne (S VIII), the Lombard chiefs, and later the Carolingians, succeeded in withdrawing Farfa from obedience to the Bishops of Rieti, and in securing many immunities and privileges for the monastery. Farfa was at this period the most important monastery in Italy both from the point of view of worldly possession and ecclesiastical dignity.

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.

Guillotine is inspired by an uncredited early 1970s film face called Rhythm Bold. While the original film type had plenty of round forms that were uneven and somewhat badly drawn to fit within the overwhelming pop wave of the time, this digital incarnation disposes of all curves, relies on a much sharper grid, and adheres to specific parameters of stroke widths and angles. Guillotine is a thick poster classic, mechanically constructed yet clearly exhibiting the idiosyncratic traits of hand drawing. Its forms embody the amalgamation of a multitude of influences, such as woodcut letters, punch card forms, and the unique art nouveau concepts that were popular in the 1960s and 1970s. The totality of the font is a strong display aesthetic that plays very well anywhere the eye is meant to see a strong but casual, sharp but hand crafted message. This font comes in all popular formats for all common platforms, and includes expanded language support to cover Western, Eastern and Central European Latin languages, as well as Baltic, Celtic/Welsh, Esperanto, Maltese, and Turkish. A few alternate characters are sprinkled throughout the character map.

Klein PDF Specimen Klein is Zetafonts love letter to the grandmother of all geometric sans typefaces, Futura. Starting from a dialogue with Paul Renner’s iconic letterforms and proportions, Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli decided to depart from its distinctive modernist shapes with slight humanist touches and grotesque solutions - with some design choices evoking the softness of humanist sans serifs like Gill Sans. The end result is a workhorse superfamily of 54 fonts with full multilingual capabilities and coverage of over two hundred languages using latin, cyrillic and greek alphabets. The original display-oriented family, developed in nine weights with matching italics (from the hairline thin to the sturdy black), has been paired with a text version (with slightly higher x-height, better readability and maximum legibility at small point size) and with a condensed version, to be used for space-saving display solutions in editorial and advertising formats. With a name that is both a nod to its humble functionality and an homage to french nouveau realiste artist Yves Klein, this typeface aims to become your next trusted companion in all your adventures in print, digital and motion design.

Opa-locka JNL is named for a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida and is based on an Art Nouveau-era bit of hand lettering found on vintage sheet music. Legendary aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss (who successfully developed the city of Miami Springs and the city of Hialeah with James Bright) began the development of Opa-locka around 1925 as a planned community with a "1001 Arabian Nights" theme. Plans for this exclusive community included a country club and a small private airfield, but the hurricane of 1926 derailed Curtiss' original vision of the city. Opa-locka gradually took shape as a residential area for middle-class families, but the closing of a long-established Marine base, changing demographics and a reputation for being a hot-spot for crime, drug abuse and corruption tarnished this once-grand community (which boasts the largest collection of Moorish Revival architecture in the Western hemisphere). Old-time Miamians bristle when the city's name (an abbreviation of a Seminole place name, spelled Opa-tisha-wocka-locka) is mis-spelled as "Opa-Locka", "Opa Locka" or "Opalocka". The correct name is hyphenated, and the second part is in lower case.

Salome is a revival, normalization and elaborate expansion of a 1972 film face called Cantini. The original film type, released by a tiny independent outfit called Letter Graphics, looked like it was hand drawn with little consideration for consistency in essential lettering flow measurements, like angles, stroke widths, and vertical metrics. All these issues have been resolved in this digital version, and the original character set, including the whole lot of alternates, was entirely redrawn and expanded to include even more alternates and many useful ligatures, as well as extended support for Latin-based languages. Combining elements of early 20th century art nouveau with common 1960s and 1970s signage and poster lettering flair, Salome uses curls and curves to wave its fantastic shapes in a most hypnotic dance. Salome simply cannot be unseen. Just like its namesake, the female seduction icon, it does not hesitate to put all of its natural beauty and energy on display in order to get what it wants. Salome comes in all popular font formats. The OpenType version, Salome Pro, combines the main font with the alternates one, and contains convenient features for push-button alternation and ligature substitution in supporting software programs.

With Behrens Ornaments SIAS presents a historic revival font for the very first time. Peter Behrens (1868–1940) was a German designer and architect rooted in the style of the Art nouveau era but later became one of the most prolific exponents of the modernist movement in the 1920ies and 1930ies. The design of typographic ornaments was one of many fields of his activities. The “Behrens Schmuck” set of adornment types layed dormant for many decades, known only to letterpress freaks and specialists. After 100 years, with this release SIAS celebrates one of the creative masterminds in German design history, unearthing a treasury of 80 unique ornaments and embellishment pieces for nowaday’s use. In order to attain a faithful remake as authentic as possible, the Behrens ornaments have been photographically reproduced from a 1914 specimen book. The outlines have been edited carefully to minimize accidental visual disturbances, yet the main goal was to keep the “smell” of the original letterpress printing as good as possible. If you like fine ornaments you should also have a look at Arthur Ornaments, Andron Ornaments and Leipziger Ornamente.

Looking to add a little Arts & Crafts flavor to your next project? Perhaps you just need a distinctive, new sans serif design? And one with a large international character set. In either case, ITC New Rennie Mackintosh™ may be the typeface for you. Its narrow proportions saves space, and the design shines at large sizes. While it can be an excellent typeface for Art Nouveau flavored labels, name tags and chapter call-outs, this is a suite of fonts that you can also turn to for a bevy of print and on screen uses. Games and apps, as well as print headlines and menus all benefit from ITC New Rennie Mackintosh’s vintage vibe. Based on Phill Grimshaw’s original 1996 design, Monotype Studio designers reimagined the iconic family, added lowercase characters, a new weight structure of light, regular and a more robust bold design; each with an italic counterpart. In addition, a large international character set that include support for many Western and Eastern European languages – including Cyrillic and Greek – give the family a deep typographic bench. An added benefit: the new designs can also be combined with Grimshaw’s original ornament and initial character fonts.

Hortensia, designed around 1900 by Emil Gursch for his own Berlin foundry, is a typeface most expressive of the post-Victorian aesthetic that was all the rage in both Europe and America during the second half of the 19th century and up until the Great War. It is a reduced aesthetic of sharp points and natural curves that almost want to apologize for their own elegance, but clearly embody the simple excitement about the blossoming of industry and crafts during the period. This deco script trend would get a re-run for about a decade on either side of the second World War — especially in the entertainment and financial industries — before giving way to art nouveau and big brush faces. Hortensia was Gursch's most popular typeface, used extensively and prominently in many beautiful type catalogs, and a commonly seen design element in Germany for quite a while after its release. This digital version brings plenty of fixes and additions to the original metal Hortensia design, including many alternates sprinkled throughout the character set, and support for a wide range of Latin-based languages (including Central European, Baltic, Turkish and Welsh).

Soprani is a unique typeface inspired by a plaque found in New Zealand dating from the 1920s. The design was contemporized and brought 100 years into the future. The serifs are dramatically flared at the end of the stems, while in the middle, they contract. This leads to a unique shimmering effect that draws the eye and catches your user's attention. This typeface meets the demand for unique serif types that are both eye-catching and delicate. It’s a display face that's ideal for very contemporary work. This typeface has plenty of alternates and has a full complement of OpenType features. The 1920s inspire the design, with a bit of art nouveau and arts and crafts, yet the typeface is designed to meet contemporary design requirements. It has a unique elegance and the letterforms are condensed more than most. Soprani is suggested for table books, menus, and various promotional materials, newspapers, television, motion pictures and other media. There is a wide range of widths and weights available, from the thin, which is delicate and graceful, to a bold and robust black. Production assistance by Lucas Azevedo and ikern.

The Augsburger Family is a product of the Art Nouveau period in Germany and Austria, reflecting the darker, heavier Jugendstil approach typical of the Secession movement in these two countries. Originally released by H. Berthold AG of Berlin and Bauer & Co. of Stuttgart in 1902, Augsburger has been attributed to the designer Peter Schnorr. This current version represents a year-long revision of the Augsburger Family. All three fonts have been updated to eliminate duel encoding, harmonize metrics, and review all glyphs. In addition, the following features have been included in the individual fonts: Augsburger Schrift: a total of 249 glyphs have been added, for a total of 467 and an increase of 114%. New are Tabular Numbers, Small Caps, a variety of Ligatures and the refinement of all accents. Augsburger Initials: complete redesign of upper case, inclusion of upper case from Schrift instead of lower case, plus inclusion of small caps and a selection of appropriate ligature. Augsburger Ornamente: includes some additional glyphs. Augsburger may be purchased as a complete family or as individual fonts. Each font package includes both TTF and OTF versions to allow you to select what is most useful to you.

A Monogram is a lettering character made up of the main letters of a name and sometimes all of them. It is a kind of design which dates from the earliest times of our history. It is a distinctive mark that everyone could have themselves, to apply to documents and many purposes. The signatures of ancient Kings were Monograms. Today this brand, for the people of taste, must have the cachet of this era or the evocative feelings of ancient times. Our predecessors knew how to create it by using the capital that preceded Gothic and the other characters. The Vintage Monograms collection contain hundreds of ready to use in alarge of shape of the letters, with styles from Victorian, to Art Nouveau and to mediaeval like in the old manuscripts. Ready to use fonts, Vintage Monograms collection is a classic that features elegant and intricate monograms perfect for branding and personalization. Its ornate designs evoke the timeless style of vintage logos and can be used to add a touch of sophistication to invitations, stationery, and packaging. Monogram brings an air of refinement and exclusivity to any project.

In January of 2006, Jeff Levine fonts debuted with ten releases. Many of those first fonts were based on vintage lettering stencils, which were the "school years" catalyst for Jeff's interest in lettering and type design. Eight years later, his collection of fonts has become a giant catalog of display type ranging from Wood Type revivals to Art Nouveau, Art Deco to stencil, reinterpretations of old favorites, experimental fonts, dingbat fonts and typefaces reflecting a particular decade's styles of cultural popularity. Designs from old lettering books, type catalogs and advertising have also been fodder for many alphabets not previously available in a digital format. Along the way, many unusual lettering sources were also mined for type ideas. Vintage packaging, hand-lettered signage, sign making kits, rubber stamp type, water applied decals and at times just a singular letter example inspired many of the releases within this collection. It was a source of pride for Jeff Levine Fonts to reach 500 releases and a determined goal to grow the type library as far as possible. With this in mind, February 2014 brings forth many new releases. This one in particular, Ornery Polecat JNL, is the 800th typeface release from Jeff.

When designing a typeface, one has to be conscious of superfluous details. Although I am always tempted to add little personal touches, experience taught me that the phrase -less is more- is totally true. In Model, the letters (like models do) participated of a contest: An event in which models engage in competition against each other, often for a prize or similar incentive. The prize was staying in the font! yay! Tall, delicate, refined, the right amount of elegancy: These were some of the aspects to be chosen. Typographically speaking, these things were achieved thanks to a tall x-height (which leaded the font to be somehow condensed), a subtle contrast between thicks and thins, and just the right amount of decorative swirls. The result is a nice script that can be used in magazines, invitations, posters, book-covers and works very well when used over photographs. Get Model and let it be the star of the catwalk. STYLES Model Pro and Model Small Pro are the most complete styles of the font. Both have all the ligatures and decorative glyphs seen in posters above (OT programmed). Model Std One, Std Two and Std Three are reduced versions of Pro. This means they have less glyphs inside. TIP If you are planning to print the font in small sizes, it’s highly recommended to purchase Model Small Pro. Its thins are thicker so they will be better printed.

The idea that mathematical precision and the supposed "purity" of geometric forms are part of the discourse of us graphic designers is not new. Studying typography for some time now and learning about all the small alterations and adjustments that this geometry undergoes to better adapt to the imperfect human eye, I found myself with a new way of seeing things. Compasso is, in a way, a result of my growth as a designer. Established and recognized fonts like Futura, Avenir, and their predecessors (including Tempo - published by the Ludlow foundry in the early 20th century) informed the result of Compasso at some level. Others opened my mind to possibilities. Mallory, Azo Sans, the font designed for Audi by Bold Monday, and many other contemporary sans-serif fonts that left me speechless are also responsible for details present in this font. From the first sketch, the family grew on both sides, gaining condensed and extended counterparts. From there - and from a brilliant insight from designer Nicole Rauen - I learned that Compasso was not about geometry. Compasso is about rhythm. It's about the rhythmic movement that provides a foundation, supports, and also makes you dance and swing. My musical taste is too eclectic, I can go from classical to funk in less than two songs on Spotify. Compasso is also eclectic. It's a font to take your project anywhere, a record to listen to on any occasion.

Bulltoad is a set of 32 fonts with thematic icon counters. The icons include apple, boat steering wheel, classic bomb, bone, butterfly, maple leaf, car icon, crosshair, crucifix, skull, U.S.A. Democrat icon, female symbol, fish, medical cross, hemp leaf, Jesus fish, jet airliner, old-fashioned key, heart, shamrock, male symbol, crescent moon, peace sign, pistol, question mark, U.S.A. Republican icon, rose, star, smiley face, star of David, sun, and lightning bolt. 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, M?ori, 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.

This set of decorated initial letters was inspired by those used in 1510 in Nancy (France, Lorraine) for printing of "Recueil ou croniques des hystoires des royaulmes d'Austrasie ou France orientale[...]" Author Symphorien Champion, unknown printer. There were three sorts of initials family, but only one complete and clear, except a very few characters. The printer used some letters to represent others, as V, turned over to make a A, D to make a Q, M for E, So, the reconstruction was a little less difficult. Thorn, Eth, L slash and O slash were also added. The original font's letters was only drawn in white on a black background only, but it was tempting to propose a negative version in black on white. A few letters have multiple appearance, but only the A was clear enough to be reproduced. It can be used as variously as web-site titles, posters and flyer design, publishing texts looking like ancient ones, or greeting cards, all various sorts of presentations, as a very decorative, elegant and luxurious additional font... This font supports strong enlargements revealing its fine details and remaining very smart. Its original medieval height is about one inch equivalent to about three to four lines of characters. This font may be used with all our blackletter fonts, but as well with "1543 Humane Jenson", "1557 Italic" and "1742 Civilite", without any fear about anachronism.

A Belle Époque humanist serif in two styles: crisp, high-contrast Haut-Monde and soft, low-contrast Demimonde… When you design a lot of display pieces, you’re often in need of tall, slim type. Liaisons provides that, in a distinct fin-de-siècle style inspired by the great posters of the Gilded Age from Sweden, Denmark, France, and Scotland. (The ampersand alone is a bit of a love letter to Charles Rennie Mackintosh!) Both styles use the same slim skeleton, and are named after the stratum of society where one might find… a “dancing partner.” HAUT-MONDE is a high contrast face of the sort that says “High Society.” Elegant and sleek, it speaks to the refinement of the moneyed classes of a bygone era. Great for high-end products, too! DEMIMONDE is soft and low-contrast — more reminiscent of hand-lettering on Art Nouveau/Jugendstil/Wiener Werkstätte advertisements and posters. A comfortably chic display face all around! Both typefaces feature full Western and Eastern Latin character sets, as well as full Cyrillic/Slavic ones. And, perhaps best of all, both typefaces feature capitals with high, middle, and low waists, so you can change up the look as you see fit! Part of The Ampersand Forest's Sondheim Series

Meet Pamplemousse, a display font that's part fun, casual script and part elegant typeface! Pamplemousse is most decidedly a fellow who enjoys lazy Sunday mornings spent sipping mimosas or bloody marys over a plate of eggs benedict and the New York Times crossword puzzle. He enjoys dressing up for use in branding and headlines (he looks particularly dashing in all caps) and also sitting back and composing a casual note to a dear friend. Pamplemousse is mostly sweet and just a little sophisticated, and he likes being just as he is. Pamplemousse started out as a typeface based on the lettering of Gustav Klimt in his poster for the first exhibition of the Vienna Secession movement (Art Nouveau). This drifted into an homage to Rea Irvin's iconic masthead typeface for the New Yorker magazine. Finally, with the addition of a lowercase (absent from Irvin's typeface), a significant revision away from both Klimt and Irvin into a more casual space, Pamplemousse was born! Oh — why "pamplemousse?" "Pamplemousse" is French for grapefruit. What goes better in your Sunday gin and tonic than an aromatic slice of pamplemousse? Say it a few times. Preferably after a couple of those g & t's. You'll see how fun he can be...

We named this font Scholz Secession. Fin-de-siecle Vienna, Austria is the source of this Jugendstil design from Schriftgiesserei Eduard Scholz. The original release was under the name Reklameschrift Secession. Most of the curve strokes look like commas to me. The letters are as soft and plump as the comforter on the bed I slept on in a Salzburg B&B many years ago. I was traveling with a college buddy and our next stop was Vienna. There a kind, young student named Hanna and her boyfriend took us under their wing. One of the places Hanna proudly showed us was Otto Wagner’s Majolika Haus, built in 1898, and only about 8 blocks from Secession Hall. Hanna explained to us that the style was called Jugendstil and represented Art Nouveau as interpreted within the framework of their culture. I even took a picture. After all, memories are part of who we are. Figures are old-style for text use. This font would not be my first choice for a spread sheet. Included are German ligatures ch (alt-0123) & ck (125), two period ornaments (135, 175) and lower case o and u with Hungarian long umlaut (215, 247)). A very likeable and easy-to-use font.

Sudtipos is proud to announce the release of Clockmaker, an 8-weight family that takes initial inspiration from typography around the turn of the twentieth century. Clockmaker takes aesthetic references from Victorian, Art Nouveau and Art Deco advertising and typography, taking special influence from John F. Cummings’ all-caps – and never digitized – type design Elandkay.  Clockmaker is a robust multi-weight family that includes an array of ligatures as well as alternate characters and support for all latin languages. The design process began with developing and modernizing the uppercase letterforms, followed by designing the lowercase and additional weights. Creating a diverse and playful set of uppercase ligatures was an almost endlessly enjoyable task; they are one of Clockmaker’s most charming features. Clockmaker is an impeccable choice for designs requiring a vintage flair such as a luxury liquor labels, restaurant identities, lavish hotels and many other applications where elegance and grace are needed.   In addition to its historical references, Clockmaker is an homage to my grandfather who was a master craftsman, repairing antique clocks and fine watches with great skill and mathematical precision. Watching him work was fascinating and it has been a joy to remember those quiet and curious moments from my childhood while designing this font.

Hal Taylor's ITC Outpost was not the result of a detailed design brief, nor was there a methodical development of key concepts or characters. Outpost just seemed to emerge all at once during a brief sketching session," says Taylor. "I guess what I was thinking of was an antiquated Western perception of some sort of Middle Eastern hand lettering - a 'mysterious East' sort of thing." ITC Outpost's sense of the exotic has an almost Art Nouveau quality, with its sensuous curves and sweeping strokes. The open bowls and opposing weight bias in many of the characters add to the design's striking personality. A suite of alternate and swash letters enables the setting of distinctive display copy. ITC Outpost's family of roman, italic, and swash characters is compact but versatile. The caps have the grace and authority of a titling face. Add in the lowercase and swash letters and copy is transformed into something lighthearted and full of verve. ITC Outpost creates dramatic headlines and adds a flourish to invitations, menus, logos and packaging An accomplished designer, Taylor has spent most of his career in the lettering and typographic arts. He began as a photo-lettering typographer, setting headlines and creating custom lettering, and now works in the publishing industry. "

The building of the Northern Bank of St. Petersburg's Baku branch was built in 1903-1905. It was the first Art Nouveau-style building in Baku, Azerbaijan. Later the bank was transformed into the Russian-Asian Bank. After the oil boom in Baku in the 19th century, branches of many banks and new banks were opened in the city. The branch of the Northern Bank of St. Petersburg was among the first banks that was opened in Baku. N.Bayev was the architect of the building for the branch of the Northern Bank of St. Petersburg located at Gorchakovskaya 3 in 1903-1905. The building currently houses the Central Branch of the International Bank of Azerbaijan. My purpose in writing this is not to copy and paste the information from Wikipedia. What attracted me to the building was the word "Банкъ" (Bank) written in Cyrillic letters, which was also used in Azerbaijan during the Soviet era. The exact date of the writing is not known. Every time I pass by this building, I always thought of creating a font of this writing someday. I had taken a photo of the building and saved it on my phone. I did a lot of research on the font and asked a lot of people. However, some did not provide information at all and some said they did not have any information. I was interested in the history of this font but I do not know if this font really existed or it was created by the architect out of nowhere. If there was such a history of this font, I wanted to recreate this font and make it available. If not, I had to create it from scratch in the same way, using only existing letters on the building. Finally, I made up my mind and decided to develop the font with all letters I have got. It was difficult to create a font based on the word, Банкъ. Because in the appearance of the letters, the midline of the letters on A, H, K was very distinct, both in the form of inclination and in more precise degrees. The serif part of the letters, the height of the upper and lower sides, differed from each other. I don't know whether it was done this way when the building was constructed or it happened over time. I prepared and kept the initial version of the font. I took a break for a while. I started digging on the story of the font again. Meanwhile, I was researching and got inspired by similar fonts. Unfortunately, my research on the font's history did not yield any results. I decided to continue finishing up the font. After developing the demo, I created the font by keeping certain parts of these differences in the letters. In addition, I had to consider the development of letters in the Cyrillic, as well as the Latin alphabet, over the past period. Thus, I began to look at the appearance of slab-serif or serif fonts of that time. In general, as I gain more experience in developing fonts, I try to focus on the precision of the design for each font. In recent years, I specifically paid attention to this matter. YouTube channel and articles by Alexandra K.'s of ParaType, as well as, information and samples from TypeType and Fontfabric studios on the Cyrillic alphabet were quite useful. I gathered data regarding the Latin alphabet from various credible sources. I do not know if I could accomplish what I aimed at but I know one thing that I could develop the font. Maybe someday I'll have to revise this font. For now, I share it with you. I created the font in 10 styles. 7 weight from Thin to Extra Black, an Outline, Shadow, and Art Nouveau. The Art Nouveau style was inspired by the texture in the background used for the text on the building. The texture I applied to capital letters adds beauty to the font. If you like the font feel free to use it or simply let me know if your current alphabet doesn't support this font.

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.

Wakerobin takes its charming swagger from the hand-painted billboard, poster and signage lettering of the mid-19th century. These showy styles did everything they could to stand out from the background cacophony of advertising, with signwriters using sharp and high contrast serif letters, squared block shapes, or art nouveau forms to grab the attention of passersby. Wakerobin embraces the spirit of these letterforms, bringing these various styles together in one typeface - as if users had their own sign painter on hand. Just as lettering artists had to adapt to a variety of sizes - from wide streetcar lettering to compressed forms that squeezed into narrow Victorian windows - the variable version of Wakerobin scales up and down in width to fit whatever environment the user’s working in. The static fonts come in three widths and five weights. As well as its adaptability, Wakerobin is bursting with vintage flavour, making it hard to ignore. Its distinctive, spiky serifs would be right at home on food and drinks packaging, as well as shop windows, adverts, and any other place that calls for some typographic showmanship. It performs particularly well in busy environments, or anywhere with a lot of visual noise - just as its historic predecessors did. And while Wakerobin is first and foremost a display typeface, it’s surprisingly elegant when used at text size, or in the lighter end of the weight spectrum.

Ooh so soft, so curvaceous, so voluptuous and so swash-buckling. Hey, I'm talking ’bout Petals BF! Here’s a design inspired by the work of Dave West and infused with a plethora of pleasingly plump letterforms, with swashes reminiscent of 60s and 70s types. But here’s the twist: where you might typically expect to find ball terminals, you'll experience some sensuous curls; and some playful letterforms such as lowercase h, k, m, and n, may even call to mind that groovy look of ’60s bell-bottoms. Spread across its capitals and lowercase are swash variants for beginning, middle and ending letterforms —candy for your eyes. Petals BF is where Didone style happily marries the organic and curvaceous forms of Art Nouveau. Strange I know, but so is a duckbill platypus —and somehow they all seem to work surprisingly well. Among the many typographic niceties you'll discover, are such Opentype features as Contextual and Stylistic alternates, Ligatures, Case-sensitive forms and Fractions. Please note: these magical features demand the use of opentype-savvy applications such as Adobe Creative Suite, QuarkXPress and etc. Petals BF is multilingual, and speaks the languages of Western, Eastern and Central Europe, in addition to Turkish and Baltic. It gets around. So let your creativity blossom with Petals in projects that involve headlines, magazine layouts, product packaging, logos, signage, branding and etc.

Wakerobin takes its charming swagger from the hand-painted billboard, poster and signage lettering of the mid-19th century. These showy styles did everything they could to stand out from the background cacophony of advertising, with signwriters using sharp and high contrast serif letters, squared block shapes, or art nouveau forms to grab the attention of passersby. Wakerobin embraces the spirit of these letterforms, bringing these various styles together in one typeface - as if users had their own sign painter on hand. Just as lettering artists had to adapt to a variety of sizes - from wide streetcar lettering to compressed forms that squeezed into narrow Victorian windows - the variable version of Wakerobin scales up and down in width to fit whatever environment the user’s working in. The static fonts come in three widths and five weights. As well as its adaptability, Wakerobin is bursting with vintage flavour, making it hard to ignore. Its distinctive, spiky serifs would be right at home on food and drinks packaging, as well as shop windows, adverts, and any other place that calls for some typographic showmanship. It performs particularly well in busy environments, or anywhere with a lot of visual noise - just as its historic predecessors did. And while Wakerobin is first and foremost a display typeface, it’s surprisingly elegant when used at text size, or in the lighter end of the weight spectrum.

A handwritten ”font for technicians“ from ca. 1900. Very geometrical, rigid forms borrowed from the typical characteristics of Jugendstil / Art Nouveau. This script is found in a magazine from the Otto Maier publishing house, Ravensburg, which was issued sometime in the years shortly before WWI. The magazine is entitled ”Schriften-Sammlung für Techniker: Verkleinerte Schriften der wichtigsten Alphabete“ (Collection of scripts for technical specialists: reduced scripts of the most significant alphabets) and published by Karl O. Maier. The original copy, produced by means of a galvanized plate, is just 7 centimeters wide. It served as the model for technical professions in which, at that time, the captions of drawings were still done by hand. The characters have been scanned, digitized and greatly magnified. Special attention was given to ensure the ”uneven“ edges, typical of handwritten script, remained effectively noticeable even in the digitized form. As a result, this ”technical“ font retains a handmade touch. Especially worthy of note are the Jugendstil forms characteristic at the turn of the19th century. In comparison, many alleged ”ultramodern“ font types of today suddenly look quite old-fashioned. Maier’s Nr. 21 Pro is suitable for all European languages. It includes ”Latin Extended-A,“ for Central and Eastern Europe incl. Turkish, and even Cyrillic and Greek, too. The font includes several stylistic alternates as well as a number of ligatures.