Pontifica is based on ‘protogothic’ calligraphy, a style developed at the monastery of St. Gall in the 12th century to replace Carolingian minuscule with a more efficient and compact system of lettering. Ultimately it became the progenitor of the gothic lettering styles of the late Medieval period. Also available to go with this font is a special swash version with a very different style, but compatible overall appearance.

Bill Rigney, an old job printer in my home town, established his shop in 1896, closed it in 1900 to take a steady job, stored the equipment in a large shed, and reopened for business upon his retirement in 1950. What a find! A bonanza of old type! We became good friends and upon his death I bought the type. Bless you Bill.

Adrenalina was created in 2003-2007. In 2014 the project was revised and became a font family. The character set was drawn through digital manipulation from photos of pichações taken in São Paulo - Brazil. Pixação is a form of tagging that comes from Brazilian graffiti writers. This style of pichação (or pixação) is also known as tag reto (straight tag).

Old Town No. 536 is a homage to the old woodtypes. These became especially popular through their use on wanted posters in Wild West films. Adrian Frutiger also designed his typeface Westside in this style. Due to its robust figures, Old Town No. 536 is particularly effective when used in headlines. It belongs stylistically to the Italienne typefaces, whose serifs are thicker than the strokes.

The hand lettered title on the sheet music for "Gee, But I'd Like to Make You Happy" (from the 1930 MGM motion picture "Good News") presented a conundrum. Some of the lettering was a classic Art Deco "thick and thin" design while the others resembled comic book title lettering. Leaning toward the comic book style, the conflicting letters were revised and the finished result became Funny Business JNL; available in both regular and oblique versions.

The 1939 sheet music for “Sea Dreams” had its title hand lettered in an unusual Art Deco style that employed many unusual character shapes and widths within the font design. A teardrop-shaped ‘D’, a slightly off-kilter ‘S’ and a number of other interesting variations became the model for Seahawk JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. The term “Seahawk” is another name for an Osprey.

Goudy Two Shoes is a digitization and expansion of a 1970s type called Goudy Fancy, which originated with Lettergraphics as a film type, then was released into the dry transfer (rub-on) arena, where it became really popular. This digital expansion of the original design contains many additional characters, including "plain" variants on the caps, as well as extra alternates and swashes, and even a few curly ornaments. Goudy Two Shoes comes in all popular font formats. The Postscript and True Type versions ship as 2 fonts, while the OpenType version is a single font programmed with features for OT-savvy applications.

A 1964 piece of sheet music entitled “Old Soldiers Never Die (They Just Fade Away)” was based on the farewell speech General Douglas MacArthur gave to Congress on April 19, 1951. This particular edition of the song sheet had part of his speech (as well as its title) hand lettered in a free-form sans serif reminiscent of the lettering done by such noted lettering artists as Paul Coker and Saul Bass. The casual and playful style of this type design became the inspiration for Swing Vote JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

This typeface is named after Sarah Eaves, the woman who became John Baskerville’s wife. As Baskerville was setting up his printing and type business, Mrs. Eaves moved in with him as a live-in housekeeper, eventually becoming his wife after the death of her first husband, Mr. Eaves. Like the widows of Caslon, Bodoni, and the daughters of Fournier, Sarah similarly completed the printing of the unfinished volumes that John Baskerville left upon his death.

With initial thoughts of creating something tubular, I had in the back of my mind the kind of contemporary chrome furniture that became ubiquitous throughout the 60s and that concept remained with me throughout the development process. The font-styling idea worked out very well in this case, resulting in plenty of optional character variations for my chosen theme, most of which are included in both styles of light and bold character sets.

Comic books based on popular characters have been around pretty much since the advent of comic books themselves. An edition of the "Car 54 Where Are You?" series published by Dell (and based on the hit TV show created by Nat Hiken) displayed "Car 54" in a bold hand lettered stencil design on the cover. These few characters became the inspiration for Patrol Car Stencil JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Doria was developed from my handwritten script Xan that has a definite Japanese touch. By making Doria really slick it became a font that is perfect to be used on labels and for many packaging jobs.

Jeff Script is based on original handwriting of renowned Russian type designer Vladimir Yefimov. Vladimir designed a plenty of Cyrillic fonts that became the classical ones between contemporary Cyrillic type designs. Being extreme busy with type projects, he never had time to digitize his own script and this lacuna was filled by Gennady Fridman. The font was developed to the 60th anniversary of Maestro and released by ParaType in 2009.

THE NORWEGIAN RUNES The oldest runes discovered in Norway date from 400 AD. They were based upon the 24 - rune Elder Futhark of Germanic origin. Two of the runes in the Elder Futhark, Pertra and Eoh, have never been found in any Norwegian rune text. From 550 AD to 700 AD there was a transition period between the older 24-rune Futhark and the newer 16-rune Futharks. By the end of this period, the 24-rune Futhark went completely out of use and the 16-rune Futharks had prevailed. Then, about 900 AD, the Shorttwiggs-runes were introduced from Sweden. Shortly thereafter, from 1000 AD, Futharks with more than 16 runes became more prevalent, as these were more consistent with the Latin alphabet. These types of runes were used in Norway up to 1800 AD.

Hand Of Sean was created from the designer's own handwriting in 2008 for a personal project, but was made available to the public and quickly became very popular. The font was updated in 2013 with redrawn glyphs, improved spacing, better kerning and OpenType features. NEW OpenType features: if you type two of the same letter, the font will automatically substitute with two slightly different characters to make the font look more natural. This also happens with words containing the same vowel either side of a consonant, such as ‘solo’ or ‘data’. Please note that OpenType features are only available in programs that support them, such as Illustrator, Indesign, Quark or Photoshop.

A flower became crushed in the door frame of the studio (a fancy shed at the end of an overgrown garden)... pretty pale yellow stamens scattered on the floor... I sprinkled some on the scanner and arranged them into a light and airy font for springtime. There are two alphabets, both uppercase, but one with doubled uprights for variety, and to provide a hint of extra weight. I didn't want to distort the natural shapes, or make up any of my own, so some letterforms are pretty quirky, and some characters just weren't possible... but there's a hidden bunch of flowery and grassy ornaments.

According to Wiktionary, "the cat's pajamas" was a slang phrase coined by Thomas A. Dorgan, the well-known journalist, cartoonist and sportswriter of that era. The phrase became popular in the U.S. in the 1920s, as the word "cat" was used as a term to describe the unconventional flappers from the jazz era. This was combined with the word pyjamas (a relatively new women's fashion during that time) to form a phrase used to describe something that is the best at what it does, thus making it highly sought and desirable. Wikipedia adds that Dorgan was the first to use the terms "twenty-three, skidoo", and "yes, we have no bananas", "apple sauce" and "solid ivory", which also became part of the slang of the "Roaring Twenties". Katz Pajamas JNL is a condensed slab serif typeface based on the title lettering for the 1944 sheet music "Pretty Kitty Blue Eyes", hence the pun-laden font name paying homage to this bit of verbal Americana as well as making the pajamas a pair owned by Mr. Katz instead of the fashionable feline. Available in both regular and oblique versions.

When master letterer Hugh Gordon and his student, Ross F. George developed a set of lettering pens between June 16, 1913 and Sept. 1, 1914, they had no idea that their invention (which they named Speed-Ball®) would still be in use nearly a hundred years later. The C. Howard Hunt pen company [originally of Camden, New Jersey] became the original (and sole) distributor of these pens. By 1915 an instructional booklet entitled "Modern Pen Lettering" was produced, and it was copiously illustrated with examples of layouts, lettering techniques and an assortment of alphabets for the user to learn. Nouveau Poster JNL is Jeff Levine's interpretation of a sanserif design found within the pages of this vintage publication.

In 1903, faced with the welter of sanserif typefaces offered by ATF, Morris Fuller Benton designed News Gothic, which became a 20th-century standard. In 1995 Tobias Frere-Jones studied drawings in the Smithsonian and started a redesign. Cyrus Highsmith reviewed News Gothic, and with the Font Bureau studio expanded it into Benton Sans, a far-reaching new series, with matched weights and widths, offering performance well beyond the limits of the original; FB 1995-2012

The Eagle series realizes the ideas behind Morris Fuller Benton’s famous titling face, Eagle Bold, which was drawn in 1933 for the National Recovery Administration and became the symbol of American recovery. Font Bureau’s Eagle was started in 1989 for Publish magazine. David Berlow designed a lowercase, finished the character set, and in 1990 added Eagle Book for setting text. In 1994, Jonathan Corum added Eagle Light and Eagle Black to form a full series; FB 1989–94

After visiting Milan, I stumbled upon the Sforza castle, and found some interesting type on the inner courtyard castle walls. I became inspired by what I found, and decided to design a typeface based off of the limited quirky letterforms. Thus Sforza was born, with ligatures galore, alternates, pictograms, and swooshes. Sforza is a roman style typeface with a quirky flair. It has loads of ligatures, nested letterforms, and tails and swooshes for endless combinations.

Since the release of Wood Bonnet Grotesque No.4 the font became popular for packaging and adverts. But the font styles were limited to one worn and one clean font in a medium weight only. Bonnet Grotesque Nr [Narrow] will fill this gap. It’s based on Wood Bonnet Grotesque No.4 but slightly modernized with sharp corners. Some letters need more space now – so tracking is not the same. The Medium family style shares the same weight as the wood font version.

Toward the end of the 1920s, Art Deco influences were starting to creep into modern design. The hand lettered title on the cover of the1928 sheet music for “Fascinatin’ Vamp” not only embraced the new Deco movement, but sent it on a wild typographic ride. Letters of mixed thicknesses and stylings made up the two word title, and this unusual group of letter shapes became the inspiration for Free Form Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The Raphael of Flowers is what they called Pierre-Joseph Redouté a couple hundred years ago. The Belgian native became famous in France, where he painted floral watercolors for both Marie Antoinnette and Empress Josephine. But what cemented his legacy was his perfection of a stipple engraving technique that brought his art to the masses. Botanical Scribe is modeled after the neat, cursive hand-inscribed legends on these antique prints. Because it simulates handlettering, the font retains a warm, organic quality not seen in fancy modern scripts while remaining both elegant and legible. (Its many ligatures lends to this authenticity.) Good for formal invitations or historical simulations.

Haettenschweiler™ is a very condensed, very bold alphabet. Haettenschweiler was derived from a more condensed typeface, called Schmalfette Grotesk, first shown in the early 1960s in a splendid book called Lettera by Walter Haettenschweiler and Armin Haab. Haettenschweiler became popularized by the Paris Match magazine. Use this distinguished face in large sizes for headlines. Character Set: Latin-1, WGL Pan-European (Eastern Europe, Cyrillic, Greek and Turkish).

Bhilligod is inspired by the flow of fine art, which seeks to present beautiful and fantastical paintings that are romantic in nature, such as history and tragedy. This style was popular worldwide in the 18th and 19th centuries and became an important part of European and Western culture. Therefore, we are very enthusiastic to show our best work in romantic artwork, which we apply in blackletter-style font work.

The 1920 song “Noah’s Wife Lived a Wonderful Life (‘Cause Noah Had to Stay Home)” is another example of one of those overly-worded song titles from early 20th Century composers. What’s more important for type enthusiasts is that the title was hand lettered with a round nib pen in a slightly ragged Art Nouveau style. Cleaning up the ragged design, the end result became Nouveau Showcard JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Antea is named after "Antaeus" the giant of Libya in Greek mythology, son of Poseidon and Gaia (mother earth), whose wife was Tinjis. He was extremely strong if he stayed in contact with the earth, but once lifted into the air he became weak and liquid. So is this font, strong if grounded and weak if floating in the air. I will in due course add different weights for different purposes. Your designer of very mysterious fonts, Gert Wiescher

Early 1900s songwriters had a penchant for devising lengthy titles for their compositions. A perfect example from 1909, "It Is Hard to Kiss Your Sweetheart When the Last Kiss Means 'Good Bye'" is a whopping fourteen words long. The sheet music for this piece has a hand lettered, Art Nouveau sans serif design which became the working model for La Vie Nouveau JNL [which translates to "the new life"], and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Palatino is the work of Hermann Zapf and became available in the late 1950s from D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt am Main. Zapf optimized Palatino’s design for legibility, producing a typeface which remained legible even on the inferior paper of the post World War II period. Zapf named the font after Giambattista Palatino, a master of scripts from the time of Leonardo da Vinci. Palatino is an Old Face font which proves that classic forms can still be used to create new typefaces.

Hieronymus Andreae or latter in life Hieronymus Formenschneider as he proudly took a new surname to proclaim his success in the printing industry as the man who introduced the Fraktur script to the world of print. This project was undertaken at the orders of Emperor Maximilian I. One of Fraktur’s first appearances was in a joint venture with the great Albrecht Dürer. This font was based on a later work, Andreae’s magnus opus in the music field, the Coralis Constantini by Henry Isaac. Andreae worked as woodblock cutter and then became a publisher in the city of Nuremberg until his death in 1565. We at PLTF are proud to revive this enormously influential typeface.

This font family is an arranged and extended version of PAG Revolucion released from Prop-A-Ganda type foundry in 2008. The original font is inspired by retro propaganda posters and wallpainting in Cuba from the 60s to 80s. And the original PAG Revolucion is the most popular font from Prop-A-Ganda. In redesigning this font, their detail and spacing was modified and new weights with matching slanted and also lowercase in each style were added to fit contemporary design needs. Then, Revolution Gothic became big family containing 10 styles and will be perfect family for your retrospective project. Be sure to check out distress version Revolution Gothic P.

Open, outline or inline faces became very popular in the 1940's. By removing the usual weight, a clear-cut letterform is achieved. In Caslon Open Face, the right-hand strokes are accentuated, providing a slightly three-dimensional effect. The ascenders of Caslon Open Face are large and the overall design of this version does not relate to Caslon 3 Roman. This Caslon Open Face font is good for personal stationery, or sentences where a decorative but distinguished result is sought.

Steve Jackaman. In the early 1980's, Steve worked at Typographic House in Boston, Massachusetts. At the time, 'Typo' House, as it was affectionately known, was the largest type house in New England. This font was designed and produced during his tenure. The design was so popular that it became available commercially through VGC, and was known as TH Alphabet Soup. Completely redrawn and remastered, Alphabet Soup Pro contains all the high-end features expected in a quality OpenType Pro font.

A retro-style can be regarded as lack of original contemporary ideas. But also as passion for nostalgic time-traveling. Everyone wants to return to their youth at least for a moment. Inicia was one of my first designs (hence the name) from the mid-eighties. The original drawing was never finished because there were too many similar typefaces around. After three decades the shapes of the old designs suddenly became tempting to finish. Now restored and completed at Storm Type Foundry.

Open, outline or inline faces became very popular in the 1940's. By removing the usual weight, a clear-cut letterform is achieved. In Caslon Open Face, the right-hand strokes are accentuated, providing a slightly three-dimensional effect. The ascenders of Caslon Open Face are large and the overall design of this version does not relate to Caslon 3 Roman. This Caslon Open Face font is good for personal stationery, or sentences where a decorative but distinguished result is sought.

Inspired by some handwritten letter forms originally made by Hermann Zapf for his 1949 book "Pen and Graver", the drawings and designs finally became an entire font. It is an ideal companion to create diplomas, certificates and any other vintage projects. Take advantage of the long s which can be reached when you change the round s by the historical OpenType feature or when you simply type the integral sign [ ∫]. This font contains also swash forms of d, g, and v.

Ever since I first designed Ellida in 2005, that elaborate script in the tradition of the 18th-century English calligrapher George Bickham and the 19th-century American calligrapher Platt Rogers Spencer, I wanted to add a very high contrast cut to the family. I finally did so. But the result looks so much different to Ellida that I had to give it another name, hence "Eloise". Eloise should actually be written with a 'i' that has double dots, but that would be difficult for international use. Eloise is a beautiful first name not only for French girls. Pronounce: Ay-low-eese. If I would have had a daughter, I would have called her "Eloise" (with double dots!). But instead I have two phantastic sons, so I never got the chance to use it. Actually one of my sons discovered it on his little boys sand shovel, it was called Eloise. Your decorative designer with a heart for sand shovels Gert Wiescher

Fido Pro is the official font of dog owners everywhere. Woof! When the original Fido font was published in 2009, it became an instant hit with cartoon channels, comic book artists, toy makers, cereal packagers and game developers. Now, more than a decade later, we decided to pick it up and give it the Pro treatment. This new version boasts more than 800 glyphs, including 117 interlocking ligatures, plenty of alternate glyphs, and and Pan-European language support.

The Shinokai is a sans serif of two weights that is both dynamic and consequent. Originally concepted as a font for application letters by Lukas Schiltknecht it quickly became a more sophisticated piece of work. This Typeface is inspired by some of his favorite fonts the FF DIN and the ITC Officina. It is made to suit a variety of uses like advertising and packaging, film and tv, editorial and publishing as well as posters and billboards.