I spend a lot of time following two obsessions: packaging and hand lettering. Alongside a few other minor obsessions, those two have been my major ones for so many years now, I've finally reached the point where I can actually claim them as “obsessions” without getting a dramatic reaction from the little voice in the back of my head. When you spend so much time researching and studying a subject, you become very focused, directionally and objectively. But of course some of the research material you run into turns out to be tangential to whatever your focus happens to be at the time, so you absorb what you can from it, then shelf it — like the celebrity bobblehead that amused you for a while, but is now an almost invisible ornament eating dust and feathers somewhere in your environment. And just like the bobblehead may fall off the shelf one day to remind you of its existence, some of my lettering research material unveiled itself in my head one day for no particular reason. Hand lettering is now mostly perceived as an American art. Someone with my historical knowledge about lettering may be snooty enough to go as far as pointing out the British origins of almost everything American, including lettering — but for the most part, the contemporary perspective associates great lettering with America. The same perspective also associates blackletter, gothics and sans serifs with Germany. So you can imagine my simultaneous surprise and impatience when, in my research for one of my American lettering-based fonts, I ran into a German lettering book from 1953, by an artist called Bentele. It was no use for me because it didn't propel my focus at that particular time, but a few months ago I was marveling at what we take for granted — the sky is blue, blackletter is German, lettering is American — and found myself flipping through the pages of that book again. The lettering in that book is upbeat and casual sign making stuff, but it has a slightly strange and youthful experimentation at its heart. I suppose I find it strange because it deviates a lot from the American stuff I'm used to working with for so long now. To make a long story short, what’s inside that German book served as the semilla, which is Spanish for seed, for the typeface you see all over these pages. With Semilla, my normal routine went out the window. My life for a while was all Bezier all the time. No special analog or digital brushes or pens were used in drawing these forms. They're the product of a true Bezier process, all starting with a point creating a curve to another point, which draws a curve to another point, and so on. It’s a very time-consuming process, but at the end I am satisfied that it can get to pretty much the same results easier and more traditional methods accomplish. And as usual with my fonts, the OpenType is plenty and a lot of fun. Experimenting with substitution and automation is still a great pleasure for me. It is the OpenType that always saves me from the seemingly endless work hours every type designer must inevitably have to face at one point in his career. The artful photos used in this booklet are by French photographer and designer Stéphane Giner. He is very deserving of your patronage, so please keep an eye out for his marvelous work. I hope you like Semilla and enjoy using it. I have a feeling that it marks a transition to a more curious and flexible period in my career, but only time will tell.

Xavier Dupre’s Molto font family is a tonal master, creating tenderness in a slab serif and tempering toughness with flourishes. Slab serifs created their original niche by their ability to grab attention and overwhelm, which caused them to be seen as strong, dominant, and desired fonts, especially in advertising. Slab serifs are the result of placing defined edges on something meant to take up an inordinate amount of space, rather than meant to be graceful. Molto updates this concept to allow a greater, and gentler, range in the lighter weights. Molto’s nine weights are defined by their intended use. The two extreme weights (Hair and Fat) act as display partners for magazines, titles, and posters. The Hair weight is runway ready with its sturdy serifs, breathy internal space, and stable lettershapes that were designed both to perform and impress. Molto’s Fat weight packs maximum punch in a believable way. Its wide and deliberate curves contrast against thin connections and landing strip stems. Molto can be put to perfect use in a fashion magazine using swashy Hair headlines set against its darkest weight. Molto’s seven intermediate weights, with their classic and legible shapes, are meant for texts of all sizes. The notches on diagonals, distinct numerals, and acute terminals grant benefits from caption sizes up to headings. Molto’s refined light weights and punchy heavy weights set the stage for a swashy surprise — alternate capital letters act as refined garments laid atop its concrete skeleton. The Molto font family rejects saving space in favour of intensifying shapes, placing maximum weight on the edges for better legibility and impact. Latin-based digital and printed designs will benefit from Molto’s design voice and breadth. This means UI, video, and online text, and print materials like dictionaries, packaging, advertising, and branding can all put Molto’s robust forms to multipurpose use. Molto successfully creates balance in a slab serif design: an opinionated and striking type family, stalwart in captions and exuberant in display, thanks to swashes which add some originality to the slab category.

Introducing Debusen—the perfect typeface for those who want to add a little doughy goodness to their designs! With its rounded, soft edges, Debusen is the ideal choice for anyone who wants to make their words feel safe and harmless. Whether you’re designing a fun, playful logo or creating a warm and welcoming message, Debusen’s fluffy softness will help you convey your ideas with a gentle touch. With its soft, rounded curves and gentle letterforms, Debusen is the perfect choice for a wide range of applications. Whether you’re designing a cute and cuddly children’s book or creating a warm and inviting brand identity, Debusen’s tender expressiveness will help you connect with your audience in a meaningful way. So why wait? Whether you’re a professional designer or just starting out, Debusen is the perfect choice for anyone who wants to add a little extra sweetness to their designs. Try it today and see for yourself just how delicious your designs can be! Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Malabar is a type family for extensive text. Its design was developed with a nod toward newspapers. Malabar's characters are seriffed and of the Old Style genre. A strong diagonal axis is apparent within the curves. Sturdy serifs help strengthen the line of text in small point sizes, as well as define the overall feeling of the face. Malabar's x-height is very high, a deliberate choice that makes the most important parts of lowercase letters visibly larger in tiny settings. The height of the capital letters is also rather diminutive, allowing for better character fit, as well as eliminating a bit of clumsiness in German, which often includes quite a few uppercase letters. Diacritical marks and additional alphabetic forms required by many Western, Central, and Eastern European languages are naturally a part of the character set, including those needed in the Baltic states, for Romanian, and for Turkish. Malabar's accents are bold and direct, sitting well with their base glyphs. The family includes three weights, each with a companion Italic. Malabar Regular is equipped with small caps, and both it and Malabar Italic include oldstyle figures. All members of the family have both proportional and tabular-width lining figures, as well as special variants of certain punctuation marks vertically adjusted for all-caps text setting. Malabar is informed both by contemporary ideas of typeface design (sheared terminals, the wider-drawn s) as well as by 16th-century masters. Malabar Heavy and Heavy Italic are very loud; their blackness almost shouts out from the page. The Regular's wedge serifs become more slab-ish in nature as the letters' weight increases. Malabar Heavy and Heavy Italic are best relegated to headline use only. Malabar Bold and Bold Italic may be used for text emphasis, a job for which the Heavy is to dark. Malabar received a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design at the Type Directors Club of New York TDC2 competition in 2009.

"Relation Between Typology and Type Design" 'PRISTINE'; this font is—neither beautiful nor ugly, neither vigorous nor weak, neither traditional nor modern, neither serif nor sans serif, neither script nor printable, neither a text font nor a display font—it is rather all of the above, which makes it a more versatile typographic tool—[handwritten] characters that are well-suited for a wide variety of applications—from editorial design, [friendly] greeting cards... to branding, advertising, publicity and digital. Each glyph design combines its unique shapes and stylish ink-traps with parabolic curves. Each glyph design has been treated as an 'individual character'—the way I would treat a breathing, living, vulnerable and courteous human being; looking after each and every character as if it was my only child — bringing to light the authenticity and uniqueness of each individual, as well as my objective to bring about peace and harmony between them all as a whole. Designed with the intention of harmonizing between four scripts — Latin, Cyrillic, Greek and Hebrew; the whole family has a comprehensive set of characters—in addition to the Latin letters, the Phone typeface also has a full set of characters for Vietnamese, partially extended Cyrillic, Greek and Hebrew (sold separately). The t_t ligature is something unique to Phone, as well as the t_z ligature, among others and extras. A distinctive trait of the Phone typeface, is a high x-height combined with relatively short ascenders. The Phone typeface is in a way evoking the feeling of some Gaelic font and of the [Egyptian] Papyrus font (by Chris Costello, though, not being based on neither of those), having an exotic and an exquisite look, under the category of "Soft Fonts & Friendly Faces". Copyright Tamar Fonts/Hillel Glueck 2021 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!