Compendium is a sequel to my Burgues font from 2007. Actually it is more like a prequel to Burgues. Before Louis Madarasz awed the American Southeast with his disciplined corners and wild hairlines, Platt Rogers Spencer, up in Ohio, had laid down a style all his own, a style that would eventually become the groundwork for the veering calligraphic method that was later defined and developed by Madarasz. After I wrote the above paragraph, I was so surprised by it, particularly by the first two sentences, that I stopped and had to think about it for a week. Why a sequel/prequel? Am I subconsciously joining the ranks of typeface-as-brand designers? Are the tools I build finally taking control of me? Am I having to resort to “milking it” now? Not exactly. Even though the current trend of extending older popular typefaces can play tricks with a type designer’s mind, and maybe even send him into strange directions of planning, my purpose is not the extension of something popular. My purpose is presenting a more comprehensive picture as I keep coming to terms with my obsession with 19th century American penmanship. Those who already know my work probably have an idea about how obsessive I can be about presenting a complete and detailed image of the past through today’s eyes. So it is not hard to understand my need to expand on the Burgues concept in order to reach a fuller picture of how American calligraphy evolved in the 19th century. Burgues was really all about Madarasz, so much so that it bypasses the genius of those who came before him. Compendium seeks to put Madarasz’s work in a better chronological perspective, to show the rounds that led to the sharps, so to speak. And it is nearly criminal to ignore Spencer’s work, simply because it had a much wider influence on the scope of calligraphy in general. While Madarasz’s work managed to survive only through a handful of his students, Spencer’s work was disseminated throughout America by his children after he died in 1867. The Spencer sons were taught by their father and were great calligraphers themselves. They would pass the elegant Spencerian method on to thousands of American penmen and sign painters. Though Compendium has a naturally more normalized, Spencerian flow, its elegance, expressiveness, movement and precision are no less adventurous than Burgues. Nearing 700 glyphs, its character set contains plenty of variation in each letter, and many ornaments for letter beginnings, endings, and some that can even serve to envelope entire words with swashy calligraphic wonder. Those who love to explore typefaces in detail will be rewarded, thanks to OpenType. I am so in love with the technology now that it’s becoming harder for me to let go of a typeface and call it finished. You probably have noticed by now that my fascination with old calligraphy has not excluded my being influenced by modern design trends. This booklet is an example of this fusion of influences. I am living 150 years after the Spencers, so different contextualization and usage perspectives are inevitable. Here the photography of Gonzalo Aguilar join the digital branchings of Compendium to form visuals that dance and wave like the arms of humanity have been doing since time eternal. I hope you like Compendium and find it useful. I'm all Spencered out for now, but at one point, for history’s sake, I will make this a trilogy. When the hairline-and-swash bug visits me again, you will be the first to know. The PDF specimen was designed with the wonderful photography of Gonzalo Aguilar from Mexico. Please download it here http://new.myfonts.com/artwork?id=47049&subdir=original

“When you push the stage props of the life aside, there will remain the truth ...” Ambient is a deconstructed sans-serif font, which captures the essence of basic Roman letterforms... with a few twists. Gabor Kothay was born July 19th, 1962. He works as a graphic designer and teaches second-form art students. Typeface design was a hobby for many years but it has become an everyday routine with Fontmunkasok and Fontana Type Foundry. He lives with his wife and two daughters in a suburb of Szeged, a sunny southern Hungary town that lies on the banks of the Tisza river.

Timothy Donaldson creates letterforms anywhere using anything: he is just as happy making letters with pens and brushes, many of which he makes himself. Applying his personal commitment to the beauty of hand-drawn letterforms to modern type design methods has ensured that his fonts frequently reveal the presence of a joyful creativity behind the design. Airstreams alphabet is composed of consciously irregular handwriting characters and the overall tone is set by the emphasized vertical strokes. The erratic Airstream with its cheerful, unconventional character is intended for shorter texts and headlines and should be used in point sizes 10 and larger.

Berlin Sans is based on a brilliant alphabet from the late ’20s, originally released by Bauer with the name Negro, the very first sans that Lucian Bernhard ever designed. Assisted by Matthew Butterick, David Berlow expanded this single font into a series of four weights, all complete with expert character sets, plus a dingbat font. Imaginative & little-known, it promises enticing opportunities to the adventurous typographer; FB 1994

A serif font with shadow - done with a steady, but yet shaky hand. Make some catchy headlines with Tied To A Stick. Throw in some different colors for the stroke, the letters and the shadow and make it really look like something homemade! I would use this font for for my next handmade craft project - and I advice you to do the same! :) Comes with ligatures which substitutes double letters!

The quest for an identity in the 1980s world of personal computers is the best way to describe Technerd JNL, a retro-style monoline font with clinically mechanical letter structure and a personality only a dot matrix could love. Picture if you will columned reports, interoffice memos and other paper ephemera of the day with this perfect form-and-function typeface, simply reeking of early 80s know-how!

P22 Cigno is a new digitization of the 1950s Italian typeface by Aldo Novarese for the Nebiolo foundry. This semi-formal script has a definite mid-century European flavor suitable for menus, invitations and poster work. Along with the accurate rendition of the regular weight, designer Colin Kahn has added a lighter companion font for another variation on Cigno. Both fonts feature a full Western European character set.

Didot LP is a very elegant rendition of the 18th-century French typeface -- Didot. This design took the earlier Italian neo-classical model (Bodoni) to a new level of refinement, with fully rationalized shapes and delicate hairlines. Didot LP accentuates these qualities, providing a classical text face with a clear and modern voice. The companion face -- Didot LP Display -- optimizes the proportions, spacing and hairlines for use at very large sizes.

RHESON is the ideal font for any project that requires a small amount of gothic flair. Its various lovely and harmonious shapes let you select the perfect word for your project. The best part is that this font is of a high caliber, so you can be sure that your logo, label, badge, the newest music or movie videos, old-fashioned posters, and other items will all look their best.

JetJaneMono is a large family of sans-serif faces which are monospaced. It is very plain (plain=plane=jet). The font family has two widths and three weights, with each upright style paired with an italics style. These twelve fonts are then duplicated with another set in which small caps replace the lower-case letters. The typeface was created in 1994 and in 2021 the condensed widths were added.

Frederic Goudy designed this blackletter face based on Gutenberg's 42-line Bible. The Lombardic Caps were designed as an accompaniment to Goudy Text and are offered paired with the lower case as an alternate option. The Goudy Text Shaded is an inline variant that was added later by Lanston Monotype. Both varieties of capitals, as well as an expanded Central European character set, are offered in the Opentype set versions.

Introducing Gango, the ultimate Variable Font that combines sleek modernity with a playful pop style. This versatile typeface is designed to meet all your creative needs with its ten unique weights, ranging from the delicate Thin and Extra Light to the bold and heavy Extra Bold Heavy. Gango offers you complete control over your typography, allowing you to adjust the font's weight and width seamlessly, all in one font file.

Bebas Neue SemiRounded is the Bebas Neue with rounded corners. As you know, Bebas Neue is the most widely used free font recently. This semi-rounded version is the new style for more widely use. The basic theory and proportion are same as Bebas Neue but rounded shape gives a warm, soft and natural impression. A bit more rigid than Bebas Neue Rounded. Available at an affordable price.

I was watching a nice series the other day, which I quite enjoyed, but then I realised that the episode I was watching was in fact the last one. That kinda upset me, as I was just getting into the story. Last Episode is a handmade, all caps font - great for titling, book covers and posters. It comes with a set of alternates and some really interesting discretional ligatures.

RealFat is a typeface that has been started with the intention to create a very squared bold font with a futuristic look and feel. The squared shapes also refer to the architecture of big city buildings with small windows. This font fits perfect on modern posters, flyers and other artwork or pixel based work. Most characters have the same width and height and are perfect 'building-blocks' for typographic compositions.

Rock Concert JNL is a playful free form type design inspired by the opening title and credits for the 1964 motion picture comedy “Send Me No Flowers” starring Rock Hudson, Doris Day, and Tony Randall. Strongly resembling hippie movement poster lettering of the mid-1960s, this fonts fits well with any retro project emulating the “Peace and Love” movement or (as its name implies) re-creating period piece rock concert posters.

Bubblegum Sans Pro is upbeat, flavor-loaded, brushalicious letters for the sunny side of the street. It bounces with joy and tells a great story. Designed by Angel Koziupa and produced by Ale Paul, this typeface is a loud 21st century shoutout to the kind of the 1930s lettering that sold everything to everyone through every medium. Bubblegum Sans Pro version covers all Latin-based languages and includes some alternates.

Darkloard is inspired by the old-fashioned era. The Darkloard font is a heavy-weight semi-serif font from the vintage style. Four varieties are available: Regular, Stamp, Spurs, and Spurs Stamp. The use of this font results in carefully-crafted styles. Darkloard font is ideal for branding projects, posters, or packaging that need a vintage feel. Features: Uppercase & Lowercase Numerals & Punctuation Multilanguage Supports 60+ Latin based languages Alternates and Ligatures

Quintana is a font that reflects urgency. Suitable for logos and packaging statements. Invoking the Opentype / CONTEXTUAL variant produces the word terminals for all lower-case letterforms as well as diacritic letters. This can be done individually for each letter as well. (Check out the pdf in the Gallery section for details.) Quintana also contain alternative Swashes and OldStyle numerals. (Opentype-Variants may only be accessible via Opentype-aware applications.

Schmallfette Binder-Style, designed by Joseph Binder and released by D. Stempel AG in 1959 provided the template for this upright, set-tight display face. Its rather unconventional placement of the crossbars on the f and t is a subtle attention-grabber, and true to Binder's original design. Both versions include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, as well as localization for Moldovan and Romanian.

On occasion, when seeking retro source material for font designs, one can unearth interesting examples of typography that bridges decades with its ahead-of-its-time style. The songwriter credits on one particular piece of vintage sheet music had both the Art Deco influence but took on more of a techno look that was popularized in the 1980s. This hybrid of generations is the basis for Deco of Tomorrow JNL.

Stephen Chick, of In Your Typeface Productions (IYTP) foundry, has created this rather prickly type design. Although for display, it is surprisingly legible at smaller point sizes. There is an Inline version, and also an Inline Extra version, which has only the inner contours of the Inline itself, which can be combined with the Regular to create cool two-color effects. The extended glyph set supports Central Europe.

Hairline fonts are very clean, shining, elegant and even luxurious. They look great in fashion magazines, in the expansive world of beauty and glory. Messner is an extra-light all-caps face, especially suitable for larger sizes. Simplicity, purity and readability of its classic forms were on the first place in the creation process. Messner was a resource for designing the Kammerlander family and their combination looks very natural.

In 1903, the typeface family Alternate Gothic was developed for ATF (American Type Foundry) by Morris Fuller Benton. It was Benton’s intent to solve many diverse layout problems with the development of a narrow Sans with different width values. The Alternate Gothic enjoys great popularity to this day. Therefore, Elsner+Flake re-worked the typeface family, added all European fixed accents and complemented it with an Antique version.

This version of Goudy Text is based on drawings from which Frederic Goudy based his Goudy Text typeface. However, there is a big difference between his original drawings (in The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering) and the subsequent metal type version, and my version maintains the greater warmth (and irregularities) of the original drawings. Goudy's Lombardy caps look especially nice when used as initial capitals with Goudy Text.

The casual characters of Allura Regular are simple and clean and very legible, with an almost handwritten calligraphic appeal. The script and formal sets offer a softer, more formal look. This exceptionally diverse font was designed with advertising, display and package design in mind. The OpenType Pro version of Allura combines all three styles along with extra alternate glyphs and flourished graphics to give the professional designer maximum flexibility.

Makeads, a typeface exuding subtle authority, brings a touch of seriousness to the creative palette. Rooted in the foundations of Bauhaus aesthetics, this font effortlessly balances boldness and sophistication. The supertight kerning and unique texture contrast strike an air of balance between formal and casual, making it an ideal choice for projects that demand a touch of gravitas. Makeads is the silent powerhouse that commands attention without raising its voice.

Although wood types were at their peak of use during the letterpress era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there is a growing revival movement of "boutique" print shops who have embraced the look and texture of this form of printing. More modern in design that many of its counterparts, Pleasantwood JNL is still a nice addition to the wood type library re-drawn digitally by Jeff Levine Fonts.

Inspired by the work of Hendrik van den Keere, Tobias Frere-Jones and David Berlow designed a family of typefaces focused on the challenges of newsprint publishing. This version of the family is part of the Reading Edge series of fonts specifically designed for small text onscreen, having been adjusted to provide more generous proportions and roomier spacing, and having been hinted in TrueType for optimal rendering in low resolution environments.

Inspired by the splatters that come from a heavily inked architectural ruling pen gliding along the surface of a highly textured watercolor page—Splash. Just as droplets of water splash the ocean’s shore, little control can be predicted and no two splashes are exactly alike. The result is wonderfully organic and natural surprises. This display font touts flowing design potential. All glyphs are PUA encoded for ease of use.

Uchrony is a condensed proportion slab serif typeface. The font family is made up of 3 styles, Roman, Small Caps & Italics, with 6 weights each. The lowercase letter "o" has guided the basic proportions and curves, in an exercise in minimalist construction, providing morphological coherence and maximum legibility, for this multi-purpose typeface family. The typography includes alternative letters, several sets of numbers, and advanced OpenType features. • View specimen in PDF

Unicore is a large family of geometric sans serif fonts. Design wise, it is inspired by classic 20th-century typefaces like Futura, Gill Sans, and Avenir. It fuses their aura with contemporary elements, like a unique harmonisation of width and height. You can see this in the lowercase letters especially and it helps support the fonts’ legibility. The regular weights in the family are optimised for body text.

Horror Korpus is an artistic rebellion, a statement against the clean and the pristine, evoking the gritty scenes of a horror movie into your design. With flames burning in its strokes and a wild, untamed demeanor, this rough font wears a garment of distress, with eroded and destroyed textures that screams an extreme temperament. It stands defiant, bearing a resemblance to edgy tattoo designs that adorn the bravest of souls.

In 1903, the typeface family Alternate Gothic was developed for ATF (American Type Foundry) by Morris Fuller Benton. It was Benton’s intent to solve many diverse layout problems with the development of a narrow Sans with different width values. The Alternate Gothic enjoys great popularity to this day. Therefore, Elsner+Flake re-worked the typeface family, added all European fixed accents and complemented it with an Antique version.

Sultan Nahia, designed by Sultan Maktari in 2005, is a modern Kufi and a winner in Linotype’s first Arabic Typeface Design Competition. The design is very geometric and bold. This makes it suitable for large display sizes, especially in the area of advertising. The font includes a matching Latin design and support for Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. It also includes proportional and tabular numerals for the supported languages.

Colonna is an inline roman typeface with some very elegant letterforms, based on artwork obtained by Stanley Morison during 1926 as part of a program to increase the range of display faces in the Monotype library. The letters of the Colonna font have an inscriptional feel about them, figures are non-ranging. Originally developed as an advertising face, Colonna is at its best when used in large sizes.

Natalya Monoline is the rounded monolinear companion to Natalya. Like its predecessor, Natalya Monoline has a smooth rhythm and flows fluidly, due in no small part to its reliance on the golden spiral for its ornate swirls. This makes for an especially harmonious script with timeless appeal. The typeface family includes five weights with three alternate variations of the ascenders and descenders and includes OpenType ligatures, oldstyle figures and ending swashes.

Benton Modern was first prepared as a text face by Font Bureau for the Boston Globe and the Detroit Free Press. Design and proportions were taken from Morris Fuller Benton’s turn-of-the-century Century Expanded, drawn for ATF, faithfully reviving this epoch-making magazine and news text roman. The italic was based on Century Schoolbook. These display cuttings were prepared by Dyana Weissman and Richard Lipton; FB 2008

Garcog : The Ultimate Typeface for Mechanical Aesthetics. Inspired by the intricate design of gears and cogs, Garcog features upper shapes cut like precision engineering. This unique font adds a touch of industrial sophistication to your projects, making it the perfect choice for conveying precision, innovation, and mechanical excellence. Ideal for engineering, manufacturing, and tech-related designs, Garcog is the font that propels your message into a new dimension of creativity.

The main problem with handwritten fonts is the limited use in body text. Bodyhand is specifically designed to remedy this, for example when designing children's books with a larger amount of text or in similar contexts. Bodyhand is especially adapted to read comfortably even when used in small font size and requires approximately the same space as the fonts we usually use in body text, such as Times or Helvetica.