This vintage, iconic typeface of original Czech letter-founding has been faithfully revised, extended and newly rendered in 2012. The majority of Vojtěch Preissig’s type faces have been, from their very creation, subject to controversial evaluations which might perhaps fill more pages than have been set in these type faces so far. The considerable technological backwardness of Czech typography between the world wars intensified the author’s creative effort even more. He had been devoting thought to his Antikva type face from 1912 onwards and dozens of hardly perceptible nuances of the same design have been preserved in his drawings. It was his only book type face, but it shows no signs of any hard struggle in creating it. Its extraordinary vividness and elegance are really surprising. It may be still indebted to the forms of Art Nouveau, which was withering away at that time, but its proportions, colour and expression inspire other Czech type designers. Preissig’s Antikva, Menhart’s Figural (and also Růžička’s Fairfield) and Týfa’s Antikva represent a clear line of development, very far away from the soft aesthetics of Tusar, Dyrynk or Brunner. The co-author of the modification for computer composition is Otakar Karlas. Without his experience the work would remain only a shadow of Preissig’s design. Our aim was to produce a large family of type faces for the setting of both books and jobbing works. The digital transcription of Preissig’s Antikva came into existence from summer till winter 1998. The direct model for this type face is the most successful, two-cicero (24 pt.) design dating from 1925. The designs of other sizes (12 pt., 14 pt., 16 pt. and then 36 pt. and 49 pt.) lack vividness and are the source of the widespread mistaken belief that Preissig’s Antikva consists of straight lines. That is, unfortunately, how even Muzika and Menhart describe it. Neither is it a Cubist type face as many of the semi-educated think today. Special attention had to be paid to italics. It is apparent that their design is not as perfect as that of Preissig’s Antikva. In contradistinction to the original we have deleted almost all lower serifs in the lower-case letters, enlarged the angle of inclination and completely redesigned the letters a, e, g, s, k, x, ... All crotches have been lightened by marked incisions. In other words, none of the italic letters corresponds to Preissig’s model. The signs which were missing have been supplemented with regard to the overall character of the alphabet. Preissig did not deal with bold designs, but the crystal-clear logic of his “chopping-off” of the round strokes enabled us to complete the type face family without any greater doubts. An excessively fragile type face, however, cannot be used for setting in smaller sizes; that is why we have prepared a separate family of text designs which has shortened ascenders, normal accents, slightly thickened strokes, and is, in general, optically more quiet and robust. We recommend it for sizes under 12 points. By contrast, the elegance of the basic design will be appreciated most in the sizes used for headlines and posters. Preissig’s Antikva is suitable not only for art books and festive prints, but also for poetry and shorter texts.

“The Emperor Has Clothes” Like in music — the Allegro Sonata form consists of three main sections—the Exposition (section), the Development, and the Recapitulation — so in regard to this Allegro Sonata font family — there is an Exposition (font), a Development, and a Recapitulation—in which each theme is restated alongside its development material. While the Recapitulation font is perfect for titling and branding, the Exposition is perfect for branding {as demonstrated in the Inspiration Gallery pertaining this font} as well as being a comfortable read in long runs of text. The Exposition rounded, mono-line, with great x height, contemporary—A Synthesis Between Geometric & Hand-drawn—font, is at times geometric and at times hand drawn; in the end it all came down to finding the balance in a typeface between the robustness needed to function as a text face and enough refinement to look good as a display font. Following the Exposition, comes the Development (section), decorative, botanic-like, exuberant and playful font, signifying ABUNDANCE [of possibilities] & BENEVOLENCE—in regard to each theme/character, and to demonstrate—that 'structures' in music, are solid structures—like architecture {contrary to the words of J. W. von Goethe, who said: “Music is liquid architecture; Architecture is frozen music”}, just in some spiritual domain that is far beyond one's physical senses to grasp. Like in my art and music works in which I consider its 'Texture' element of vital importance, so is the case when it comes to type, as apparent in my previous Phone Pro/Polyphony font, as well as in this current Sonata Allegro/Development font. Each glyph has its own uniqueness, and when meeting with others, will provide dynamic and pleasing proximity. And due to the [individualistic] nature of this Development font, just a minimal amount of kerning/pairing were necessary... The development font is an extravagant design that looks best when used at large sizes—perfect for titling, logo, product packaging, branding project, wedding, or just used to express words against some [light or dark] background. Finally, “The (Exposition Font) Emperor Has (the Development Font) Clothes!” As said, there are three fonts/styles altogether in this Sonata Allegro type family, designed with the intention of harmonizing between Latin and Hebrew, which makes it an ideal font for the side-by-side use of Latin and Hebrew characters. However, they are being sold separately (kindly search for “Sonata Allegro Hebrew” on this MyFonts site), so they are economical for those interested just in either one of them. My aim is to shake up the type-design world with a range of distinctive fonts which break away from the generic letterforms, to make your design projects stand out—as a graphic designer, add this font to your most creative ideas for projects. This typeface has [lots of ligatures /] OpenType features, to enhance your designs even more — happy designing! Sonata Allegro Features: · 3 Weights/Styles · Multilingual Support · Proportional Figures & Ligatures While using this product, if you encounter any problem or spot something we may have missed, please don't hesitate to write to us; we would love to hear your feedback—in order to further fine-tune our products. Copyright Tamar Fonts/Hillel Glueck 2022 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Any unauthorized distribution of my work is strictly prohibited, and will be prosecuted; do the right thing, and do not participate in the piracy of my typefaces; if you appreciate my work, then please pay for it and help me prosper — thank you!

“The Emperor Has Clothes” Like in music — the Allegro Sonata form consists of three main sections—the Exposition (section), the Development, and the Recapitulation — so in regard to this Allegro Sonata font family — there is an Exposition (font), a Development, and a Recapitulation—in which each theme is restated alongside its development material. While the Recapitulation font is perfect for titling and branding, the Exposition is perfect for branding {as demonstrated in the Inspiration Gallery pertaining this font} as well as being a comfortable read in long runs of text. The Exposition rounded, mono-line, with great x height, contemporary—A Synthesis Between Geometric & Hand-drawn—font, is at times geometric and at times hand drawn; in the end it all came down to finding the balance in a typeface between the robustness needed to function as a text face and enough refinement to look good as a display font. Following the Exposition, comes the Development (section), decorative, botanic-like, exuberant and playful font, signifying ABUNDANCE [of possibilities] & BENEVOLENCE—in regard to each theme/character, and to demonstrate—that 'structures' in music, are solid structures—like architecture {contrary to the words of J. W. von Goethe, who said: “Music is liquid architecture; Architecture is frozen music”}, just in some spiritual domain that is far beyond one's physical senses to grasp. Like in my art and music works in which I consider its 'Texture' element of vital importance, so is the case when it comes to type, as apparent in my previous Phone Pro/Polyphony font, as well as in this current Sonata Allegro/Development font. Each glyph has its own uniqueness, and when meeting with others, will provide dynamic and pleasing proximity. And due to the [individualistic] nature of this Development font, just a minimal amount of kerning/pairing were necessary... The development font is an extravagant design that looks best when used at large sizes—perfect for titling, logo, product packaging, branding project, wedding, or just used to express words against some [light or dark] background. Finally, “The (Exposition Font) Emperor Has (the Development Font) Clothes!” As said, there are three fonts/styles altogether in this Sonata Allegro type family, designed with the intention of harmonizing between Latin and Hebrew, which makes it an ideal font for the side-by-side use of Latin and Hebrew characters. However, they are being sold separately (kindly search for “Sonata Allegro Hebrew” on this MyFonts site), so they are economical for those interested just in either one of them. My aim is to shake up the type-design world with a range of distinctive fonts which break away from the generic letterforms, to make your design projects stand out—as a graphic designer, add this font to your most creative ideas for projects. This typeface has [lots of ligatures /] OpenType features, to enhance your designs even more — happy designing! Sonata Allegro Features: · 3 Weights/Styles · Multilingual Support · Proportional Figures & Ligatures While using this product, if you encounter any problem or spot something we may have missed, please don't hesitate to write to us; we would love to hear your feedback—in order to further fine-tune our products. Copyright Tamar Fonts/Hillel Glueck 2022 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Any unauthorized distribution of my work is strictly prohibited, and will be prosecuted; do the right thing, and do not participate in the piracy of my typefaces; if you appreciate my work, then please pay for it and help me prosper — thank you!

Over the past few years, every designer has seen the surprising outbreak of blackletter types in marketing campaigns for major sports clothing manufacturers, a few phone companies, soft drink makers, and more recently on entertainment and music products. In such campaigns, blackletter type combined with photos of usual daily activity simply adds a level of strength and mystique to things we see and do on a regular basis. But we couldn't help noticing that the typography was very odd in such campaigns, where the type overpowers all the other design elements. This is because almost all blackletter fonts ever made express too much strength and time-stamp themselves in a definite manner, thereby eliminating themselves as possible type choices for a variety of common contemporary design approaches, such as minimal, geometric, modular, etc. So extending the idea of using blackletter in modern design was a bit of a wild goose chase for us. But we finally found the face that completes the equation no other blackletter could fit into: Leather is a digitization and major expansion of Imre Reiner's forgotten but excellent 1933 Gotika design, which was very much ahead of its time. In its own time this design saw very little use because it caused problems to printers, where the thin serifs and inner bars were too fragile and broke off too easily when used in metal. But now, more than seventy years later, it seems like it was made for current technologies, and it is nothing short of being the perfect candidate for using blackletter in grid-based settings. Leather has three features usually not found in other blackletter fonts: - Grid-based geometric strokes and curves: In the early 1930s, blackletter design had already begun interacting back with the modern sans serif it birthed at the turn of the century. This design is one of the very few manifestations of such interaction. - Fragile, Boboni-like serifs, sprout from mostly expected places in the minuscules, but are sprinkled very aesthetically on some of the majuscules. The overall result is magnificently modern. - The usual complexity of blackletter uppercase's inner bars is rendered simple, geometric and very visually appealing. The contrast between the inner bars and thick outer strokes creates a surprising circuitry-like effect on some of the letters (D, O, Q), wonderfully plays with the idea of fragile balances on some others (M, N and P), and boldly introduces new concepts on others (B, F, K, L, R). Our research seems to suggest that the original numerals used with this design in the 1930s were adopted from a previous Imre Reiner typeface. They didn't really fit with the idea of this font, so we created brand new numerals for Leather. We also expanded the character set to cover all Western Latin-based languages, and scattered plenty of alternates and ligatures throughout the map. The name, Leather, was derived from a humorous attempt at naming a font. Initially we wanted to call it Black Leather (blackletter...blackleather), but the closer we came to finishing it, the more respect we developed for its attempt to introduce a plausible convergence between two entirely different type categories. Sadly for the art, this idea of convergence didn't go much further back then, due to technological limitations and the eventual war a few years later. We're hoping this revival would encourage people to look at blackletter under a new light in these modern times of multiple design influences.

Burgues Script is an ode to the late 19th century American calligrapher Louis Madarasz, whose legendary pen has inspired schools of penmanship for over 100 years. His talent has caused some people to call him “the most skillful penman the world has ever known.” I use the word ‘ode’ in a colloquially ambitious manner. If I was an actual poet, my words would be about things I desire but cannot attain, objects of utter beauty that make me wallow in humility, or people of enormous talent who look down at me from the clouds of genius. But I don’t write poems. My work consists of letters drawn to fit together, that become an element of someone’s visual poetry. I am the poet’s assistant, so to speak. Once in a while, the assistant persists on what the subject of the poem will be. And occasionally, the poet gives in to the persistence. I hope you, visual poet, find my persistence justified in this case. The two main sources for Burgues were the calligraphy examples shown in Zaner Bloser’s The Secret of the Skill of Madarasz: His Philosophy and Penmanship Masterpieces, and C. W. Jones’s Lessons in Advanced Engraver’s Script Penmanship by L. Madarasz. These two references were the cornerstone for the concept I was trying to work with. I did have to change many of the letters in order to be able to produce digital calligraphy that can flow flexibly and offered the user a variety of options, while maintaining its attractive appearance. To this end, many ligatures and swashes were made, as well as full flourished sets of letters for use at the beginnings or endings of words and sentences. All of this has been tied together with OpenType and tested thoroughly within today’s standard design and desktop publishing software. After working with digital scripts for so long, at one point I thought that Burgues Script would become a bit of a chore to complete. I also thought that, like with most other scripts, the process would regularize itself after a while and be reduced to a mechanical habit. Surprisingly, and fortunately for me, this did not happen. The past holds as many surprises as the future. Madarasz’s method of penmanship was fascinating and challenging to translate into the strict, mathematically oriented language of the computer. It seems that the extremely high contrast of the forms, coupled with the required flow and connectivity of such lettering, will always be hard work for any visual artist to produce, even with the aide of a powerful machine. I can only imagine what steady nerves and discipline Madarasz must have had to be able to produce fully flourished and sublimely connected words and sentences on a whim. When I think of Madarasz producing a flourished calligraphic logotype in a few seconds, and try to reconcile that with the timelines of my or my colleagues’ work in identity and packaging design, the mind reels. Such blinding talent from over a hundred years ago. Burgues is the Spanish word for Bourgeois. In the end, I hope Burgues Script will serve you well when a flourished word or sentence is required for a design project. One of the wonders of the computer age is the ability to visually conjure up the past, serving both the present and the future. With Burgues, you have a piece of “the most skillful penman the world has ever known,” at your service. Burgues received important awards such as a Certificate of Excellence TDC2 2008 and a Certificate of Excellence at the Bienal Tipos Latinos 2008.