Who haven't heard the phrase that ‘any past time was better’?. Although I sometimes find this phrase a little too pessimistic (because I try to think that the best is yet to come), it may be true regarding my passion, typography. I'm too young (29) unfortunately, and this means I did not have the pleasure of being contemporary with maybe the man who has influenced my work the most (1). The man that showed that letters are more than just letters to be read. Herb Lubalin (1918-1981), also called sometimes as ‘the rule basher’ (2), smashed the taboos and sacred rules of type design and gave it personality. He rejected the functionalist philosophy of europeans in favor of an eclectic and exuberant style. To him, letters were not merely vessels of form, they were objects of meaning. (3). Nowadays, when looking at his portfolio, who dares to deny that the term ‘typography’ and ‘beauty’ may go hand-in-hand without any problem? Ed Benguiat, one of Herb’s partners, still likes making jokes with the phrase “screw legibility, type should be beautiful” and what I understand of this is not to forget the rules, but to know and break them carefully. In an era of pure eclecticism, we, the lovers of flourishes and swashes, can't do nothing but admire all the legacy that Lubalin, this wonderful type-guru, left. My font Lubaline read as “the line of Lubalin” is my humble tribute to him. Those who know his work, may see the influences easily like in his ‘Beards’ (1976) and ‘The Sound of Music’ (1965) posters; the art-deco forms in many of his amazing logos and practically in all his creations where letters seem to be alive just like you and me. I really hope that the future finds me still learning more and more about type-design and letterforms, and like him, always willing to make innovations in my field: Because letters are not just letters to be read. NOTES (1) These are some of my fonts in which some of Lubalin’s influences can be seen (in order of creation): Reina, Aire, Erotica, String, Beatle, Heroe, Selfie, Model, Seventies, and many others that are still in progress. (2) (3) Steven Heller. Herb Lubalin: Rule Basher. U&lc (1998) http://www.printmag.com/imprint/my-favorite-lubalin/

Gravtrac is a slab serif headliner designed to deliver solid punches while taking up as little horizontal space as possible. Inspiration comes from mid twentieth century classics: Univers 59 Ultra-Condensed, Helvetica Inserat and Compacta. It’s all about flat sides, a steady rhythm and tight, precision curves. The widest style of Gravtac is Condensed—compact, yet a comfortable read, available in 7 weights from Ultra-Light to Heavy. Gravtrac Compressed is probably the width where most typefaces would quit. It's narrow enough for most...but not for you. That’s why we have Gravtrac Crammed. It’s audaciously narrow—perfect for times where you want the reader to slow down and truly pay attention to the message. Gravtrac Crushed is devilishly slender. Try it with wide tracking for a stark, opulent look. All styles are also available in obliques varying from 7 to 10 degrees—58 styles in total. Gravtrac includes Opentype fractions, numeric ordinals, a breadth of currency symbols and old-style (lowercase) numerals. Every skilled designer already has slab serif typefaces in their stockpile but some of us have the need to squeeze. Most Latin-based European, Vietnamese, Greek, and most Cyrillic-based writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Buryat, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dungan, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Gikuyu, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaingang, Khalkha, Kalmyk, Kanuri, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kazakh, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Komi-Permyak, Kurdish, Kurdish (Latin), Kyrgyz, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Macedonian, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Nahuatl, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Russian, Rusyn, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tajik, Tatar, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Uzbek (Latin), Venda, Venetian, Vepsian, Vietnamese, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xavante, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec, Zarma, Zazaki, Zulu and Zuni.

Bunyan Pro is the synthesis of Bunyan, the last face Eric Gill designed for hand setting in 1934 and Pilgrim, the machine face based on it, issued by British Linotype in the early 1950s — the most popular Gill text face in Britain from its release until well into the 1980s. Gill’s last face doesn't date itself anywhere near as obviously as Gill’s other serif faces, which were all really products of their time, heavily influenced by the richly ornamental and constantly changing aesthetic trends of the interwar period. When compared to Gill’s previous work, Bunyan seems like a revolution in the way he thought and drew. It’s as if he was shrugging off all heavy burden of what was popular, and going back to the basics of older standards. Bunyan had no bells and whistles, doesn't risk functionality with contrasts that are too high or too low, and didn't venture far outside the comfortable oldstyle rhythm Gill grew up with. By interbellum standards, this was utter austerity, a veritable denial of deco excess. Surprisingly, even without all the cloying trivialities, Bunyan still stood indisputably as an aesthetically pleasing, space saving design that could have been made only by Eric Gill. Bunyan Pro comes in three weights and their italics. The main font is intended for use between 8 and 14 points. The medium and the bold are great for emphasis but also have good merit in larger sizes, so can make effective display types as well. All six fonts include small caps, ligatures, alternates, six sets of figures, and three original Gill manicules. We tried to keep the best features of the handset (Bunyan) and machine (Pilgrim) versions while building a text face that can function in today’s immersive reading media. Deciding on which useful letterpress features to preserve for aesthetic importance was hell on our eyeballs — which lead to complex and painstaking ways of ironing out irregularities and inconsistencies related to metal technologies, in order to provide something with authenticity. The result is a unique typeface based on a Gill design that, to a much greater extent than any of his other faces, works well as a text face that can be used for entire books and magazines. For more information on Bunyan Pro’s character set, features, development process and some print tests, please consult the PDF in the gallery section of this page.

The Brazilian illustrator, Flavio Morais, devised this amusing display alphabet to have his own font for his former website. We helped to digitalize it and encouraged him to complete it with a series of “chiringuito” drawings. More about his work here.

This circa 1910 European face was introduced into the United States by a German type foundry traveling salesman during the great depression of the 1930s. We have used it quite successfuly in sizes as small as 10 and 12 point.

Namex is a handwritten font with serifs. It tends to be a slab serif style while maintaining the hand-drawn shape, making it look original and non-standard. We recommend you use this font for retro and warm decoration designs.

Dolce Caffe was a handwritten font designed in the 2011 inspired in some berliner menu. Now we developed a 3D, 3D Rough and a Shadow version. They are very legible and high in style and carefully constructed all-uppercase letters.

Frequen is a futuristic font, inspired by sci-fi and technology, so we designed the font with modern feel to achieve the theme. It is also well suited for branding, magazine, marketing design, technology, sci-fi design, bag, any much more.

Hola Delight serif font was a very unique retro style-obsessed in the past, but now we are giving this font a unique touch by providing 100+ alternative characters, which can be combined at your command for your best designs.

If you look into the past to see what was expected of us in the future, Amoeba is where we wanted to be by now. Amoeba is a constrained but quirky future font, designed on a computer by a human.

Many similar fonts existed in Europe around 1900 and a bit before. This one was made at the Wollmer Foundry in Germany and, except for adding the requisite modern monetary symbols and other such niceties, we preserved it quite faithfully.

Yue Han is a font created as a form of gratitude for all the feelings and love that has been given, this font symbolizes the willingness to let go of someone we love and move on to a better place.

Tenison is a semi-formal script which echoes the way the designer was taught to write in school. It is not overly decorative and it is highly legible. All lowercase characters link with each other, just as we were taught.

An industrial, mechanical font, strongly influenced by the British steel industry and heavy machinery. StealWerks was forged to give a solid impact. We recommend its usage on skateboards, BMXs, mountain bikes, snowboards or any object that is subject to harsh treatment.

Introducing Rollo Classic Sans Serif Font Rollo Classic Sans Serif Font is a handmade Modern Victorian handlettering, which is combining modern and classic typography with some awesome alternates. Yes we back to early 1800s, bring classic touch on this decade.

SpeedSwash is a stylised oblique script-fraktur hybrid. That description could should bizarre - lets face it, it does - but the result is actually rather splendid we think. Lovely for poster work where a sense of life and motion is required.

In our early days of type hunting, we considered this to be the prize of our collection. Fonts of this late Victorian period seem to have less ruffles and flourishes than the earlier ones, which makes them easier to read.

ZarHand began as my "speedball" showcard lettering font, used when the boss brought in a pile of urgent work at the end of the day. We would get out our "4 o'clock brushes" hoping to finish at a reasonable hour.

Lettering artist Alf Becker suggested that this typeface was suitable for postcard work, and we agree (although it's suitable for a great many other uses, as well). It packs a lot of information in a limited amount of horizontal space.

Issued from the Haddon Foundry in England. Most of their original faces had names beginning with H, like their own name. Some of their types were designed by Phil May, but we cannot guarantee that this is one of them.

Need a semi-formal yet unique font? Thinkerbery is the answer! The look of Thinkerbery is like a digital typing style but still has its uniqueness. We bring a strong looks for your text. Enjoy in creating unique arts using Thinkerbery! :)

Kitra 77 was one of the studies to Hamuel Nine Five. Though at first glance we can find several similarities, a closer look will reveal a completely different font in color and proportion. Kitra 77 is an OpenType/TTF Unicode font.

This started out to be a font with an Egyptian hieroglyphic look, but took a detour just beyond the first pyramid. A young lady we know said many of the letters reminded her of the hooks on a bra strap. Whatever.

From an old wood type owned by a San Francisco printer. Wood types were customarily given somewhat generic names (Antique Tuscan) or, more frequently, numbers to identify them. Our clients liked colorful, easily-remembered names better, and so did we.

Like many of the Victorian decorative fonts, this one had caps only when Barnhart Bros. and Spindler brought it out. In 1990, we decided to draw a lowercase for it, making it more versatile. A good font for period typography.

Here's a wide, very light version of the widely known font P. T. Barnum (or French Clarendon, if you prefer). We have used this to good effect as secondary lines on old fashioned stationery. Reads well in very small sizes.

A fun trendy font with a monoline calligraphy style. This is a display sans-serif font that we recommend using in the following types of work; magazines (titles and layouts), logos and branding, invitations, quotes, blog headers, posters and advertising.

Infidel is based upon letterforms from the Lindisfarne Gospels and other manuscripts and bibles from across the Middle Ages. These are wonderfully idiosyncratic forms; some beautiful, others unsightly, but all far away from what we recognise as legible letterforms, today.

Perfect Sketch is a classic Grotesk Typeface drawn with care by hand to imitate the way we used to sketch headlines before the ascent of computer based design. I sell 4 for the price of less than three. Yours Gert Wiescher

NOMAD is a vintage vibes font are produced with modern style and ready for historical projects. Based on our experience as a graphic designer who works for a lot of companies, we often are requested to design a graphic with a vintage feels and modern style. So, we try to brainstorming and create this font to make the idea is going out. This is perfect for show off in historical style and vintage vibes. You will get vintage, modern, and certainly unique style with this font. NOMAD font is also included full set of: All Uppercase letters Multilingual characters Numerals Punctuations Wish you enjoy our font. :)

A Fashion Modern serif font that we created special for elegant branding needs, with extra alternates in unique shape will be ready to add value of your brand. It so nice to leverage designer or product owner that need solutions to make their design look more classy and modern. And specially for Gingka font, We prepared any alternate characters to help you create unlimited variations for your creative needs. Rikale Condensed Fashion Modern Font ready with: Any options to get creative variations (combination of Alternate characters) Preview as a inspirations that you can do with Rikale font Ready with Lowercase and Uppercase characters Wish you enjoy our font. :)

The first version of the Zapanese font has been published since 2019 under the name Zapan Script, and can be downloaded for free on the dafont website. At first this font was just a learning project from the 3rd type font and because we saw the enthusiasm of the downloaders, we developed it into a duo font with extra japanese elements. 2 versions Support Glyphs Basic Hiragana & Basic Katakana PUA Encode Characters, fully accessible without additional design software. Includes a range of multilingual characters. Zapanese is suitable typeface for various purposes like logotype, signage, label, poster, dropcap, titles, letterhead, book cover and etc. Thank you!

Waltery is a hand-lettered cute font for brand, logo and quotes design. Based on our experience as a graphic designer who works for a lot of companies, we often are requested to design a logo in a unique style but with an cute hand-drawn shape. So, we try to brainstorming and create this font to make the idea is going out. This is perfect for BRANDING and LOGO DESIGN. You will get outstanding, cute, and certainly unique logos with this font. Waltery is also included full set of: uppercase and lowercase letters multilingual characters numerals punctuation What will you get? Waltery-Regular Waltery-Italic Wish you enjoy our font. :)

An Refina Feminine Beauty Serif font that we created special for elegant branding needs, with extra alternates in unique shape will be ready to add value of your brand. It so nice to leverage designer or product owner that need solutions to make their design look more classy and modern. And specially for Refina font, We prepared any alternate characters to help you create unlimited variations for your creative needs. Refina Feminine Beauty Serif ready with: Any options to get creative variations (combination of Alternate characters) Preview as a inspirations that you can do with Refina font Ready with Lowercase and Uppercase characters Wish you enjoy our font. :)

A Sans serif that we created special for unique branding needs, with extra ligatures in unique shape will be ready to add value of your brand. It so nice to leverage designer or product owner that need solutions to make their design look more unique and modern. And specially for this font, We prepared any ligatures characters to help you create unlimited variations for your creative needs. Anteros Modern Unique Stylish Font ready with: Any options to get creative variations (combination of Ligatures) Preview as a inspirations that you can do with Anteros font Ready with Lowercase and Uppercase characters Wish you enjoy our font. :)