Dear Gray – Modern Wedding Fonts Dear Gray is a beautiful, feminine, and modern calligraphy script for your wedding designs. Dear Gray includes a full set of uppercase and lowercase letters, numerals, punctuation, and common ligatures for a more harmonious look. With Opentype features and stylistic alternatives, Dear Gray gives you a lot of possibilities to make your design even more special. Following the trend of modern hand-drawn typography, Dear Gray is a friendly choice to convey your loving words. Dear Gray features: A full set of upper & lowercase characters Numbers & punctuation Ligatures Lowercase beginning swashes Lowercase ending swashes A ton of stylistic alternatives PUA Encoded Characters – Fully accessible without additional design software. Feel free to give me a message if you have a problem or question. Thank you so much for taking the time to look at one of our products.

Dear Dolores has had its name from the latin word dolorem, meaning sorrow or grief. When I started working on this display font I found myself trying it out using the latin requiem texts. The capitals somehow sat well with the monumental and solemn words of mourning. The broken hairlines suggested stone cuttings where the fine details had been worn down and obliterated over time and it felt at home in a churchyard or in a monument park. Adding lowercase gave the font a more personal and friendly appearance and opened up new possibilities for use. The name itself is a fictional message to someone long missed or perhaps lost too soon. Dear Dolores comes in a cut and an uncut version where the fine details are left intact. Both are excellent for headlines or memorable quotes.

The Rosella™ family, by Sabina Chipară, is an elegant and playful suite of typefaces that are ideal for book covers, social announcements, packaging and posters. Inspired by late 19th century engravers typefaces that mimic the delicate and ornate hairlines of steel and copperplate engraving, the family’s foundation is built on the dramatic Solid design and then expands to Deco, Engraved, Flourish, Hatched and Inline styles. Rosella also takes to color like the beautiful Australian parrot it is named after. Words set in the typeface come alive when vibrant colors, or tinted backgrounds become part of their plumage. While modern as today, the design also has a quiet antique vibe that brings an understated refinement to a variety of hardcopy projects. Rosella is a typeface for those times you need a design that stands out from the crowd – but with grace and composure.

MotionBats are a sort of movable type otherwise. It is a symbol font type family integrated by 9 styles. The idea behind designs is to give to typographic pictograms –static for definition– the dimension of motion. In pursue of this spirit, each font shows a complete motion sequence. MotionBats are inspired on the photographic work of Eadweard J. Muybridge [1830-1904] –a talented multi-faceted Englishman– who worked in USA by the second half of the 19th century. In those early times of photography, he started –almost by chance– taking a comprehensive and impressive photographic sequential series of human and animal locomotion. This way, he placed himself more than a decade ahead from the beginning of cinematography. This type design family points to pay a humble and certainly incomplete homage to such a pioneering and amazing Muybridge's work.

Waite Park JNL is based on the smallest of the die-cut letters and numbers contained in the Webway Sign Cabinet - once manufactured by the Holes-Webway Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The largest of the set's sizes (2 inch) was the model for Sign Kit JNL, the medium size (1-1/8 inch) was used to make Sign Production JNL and this font is a version from the 3/4 inch size. Each size of alphabet and numerals have their own unique characteristics, although they all follow the same basic font style, which is reminiscent of classic Art Deco-era sanserif typefaces. The name Waite Park JNL was derived from a division of Holes-Webway that (for some reason lost to time) distributed their sign kits under the name Waite Park Sign Company, located in the Minnesota city of the same name.

My name is Teruyoshi Matsui. I am a Brush Art Designer. My foundry ‘Brush Art Design Office’ is situated at the foot of an active volcano ‘ Mt. Aso ’ in the Kumamoto Prefecture, the southern part of Japan. I design the letters of the alphabet with a Japanese brush. I have created the brush font named ‘ Lethal Fake ’ in my unique brush style. At the beginning of making the font I was going to name it ‘BrushType Lethal’ and tell you, “ Be careful using it. That’s because it ’s Lethal ”. But actually I was very disappointed when it was finished. I tried to make it lethal, but it was not. So I changed the font name into ‘ Lethal Fake ’. This time I have to say to you, “ Be careful using it. That’s because it’s not Lethal ”. Thank you.

The 1990s was a time of creativity, experimentation and exploration into the world of digital typography by amateur and professional alike. Ray Larabie [through his Larabie Fonts] offered dozens upon dozens of wide-ranging (and often most unusual) freeware fonts. Ray was the driving force of encouragement and a behind-the-scenes “mentor” who helped Jeff Levine Fonts get underway in January of 2006. As his focus changed to high-quality commercial type with the launch of Typodermic, Inc., many of Ray’s “less than perfect” font experiments were withdrawn. He eventually turned those typefaces into a bundled zip archive released into the public domain through Creative Commons. “Webster World” resembles a fusion of Techno and Western styles. With Ray's permission, the original characters have been cleaned up and re-made as Space Traveler JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The font is based on an alphabet from a mid1920s art deco book. The original seemed to have tapering strokes but it was too small to be sure; I made all strokes parallel & orthogonal and slightly modified the original in a number of other ways to bring it into the 21st Century. The designers of the original were Paul Carlyle and Guy Oring. Nocturne has all the elegance of the Deco fonts of the 1930s. It recalls the romantic, sophisticated Zeitgeist of the early 20th century, that nostalgic time "between the wars". Nocturne comes in two styles: Nocturne Regular, which uses the Art Deco convention of small x height, and long ascenders. This style is perfect for headers, posters, labels etc. Nocturne Book, which, with its higher x height and slightly wider characters, is extremely legible and suitable for small size text.

Welcome to a world of design full of character and creativity! Lathier is a unique display font, combining bold and fat elements into an unforgettable letterform. If you're looking for a truly powerful look for your various visual design projects, Lathier is the perfect choice. What sets Lathier apart? The unique shape of the letters is strong and full of character. With regular, shadow, and slant families, as well as complete ligature and alternate features, Lathier gives you the flexibility to create typographic designs that are striking and different from the rest. Lathier supports multiple languages. With Lathier fonts, your message will penetrate the world, without language barriers. It's time to create a truly extraordinary design. Get Lathier now and watch how this font will transform any of your projects into powerful and unique works of typographic art.

Information displays have an aesthetic of their own. Functional design where transmission of information is key — and best in real time. The Realtime typeface is not meant to recreate the appearance of those applications, instead it takes inspiration from them. The result is a technical yet friendly design with details that serve function and visual impact alike. As a monospaced typeface it lends itself to tabular designs, sturdy columns and tidy layouts. Nevertheless Realtime comes with a feature for setting continuous text — a proportional design employable through OpenType — it further comes in five weights, from light to black, and with a character set that covers over 200 latin languages. Please see the Realtime Type Specimen PDF in the gallery. A soft version of Realtime is available separately: Realtime Rounded. Its soft edges apply warmth to the otherwise rather technical appearance. Thanks for visiting!

Opinion varies regarding the role of Claude Garamond (ca. 1480–1561) in the development of the Old Face font Garamond. What is accepted is the influence this font had on other typeface developments from the time of its creation to the present. Garamond, or Garamont, is related to the alphabet of Claude Garamond (1480–1561) as well as to the work of Jean Jannon (1580–1635 or 1658), much of which was attributed to Garamond. In comparison to the earlier Italian font forms, Garamond has finer serifs and a generally more elegant image. The Garamond of Jean Jannon was introduced at the Paris World’s Fair in 1900 as Original Garamond, whereafter many font foundries began to cast similar types. Garamond Classico is based on the forms of Jean Jannon, which already displayed characteristics of the Transitional style.

It is 1984 and Ridley Scott’s commercial for Apple tells us, “You’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984’.” The first Mac comes on the market. The Mac interface includes a font for use in small sizes called Chicago. The first version was designed by Susan Kare. The font’s modern grid-like character was also used for the first iPod screens, which is why this font is also associated with music. Today’s font upgrade, Little Micro Sans, is suited for small-point texts, product labels, lists of ingredients, and small captions in books, magazines, websites or applications. For online use, a variable format is particularly handy as it offers all font styles in a single file, has a faster display time and takes up less memory. Little Micro Sans is a revolution for small sizes. Specimen: http://carontwice.com/files/specimen_Little_Micro_Sans.pdf

Worthe Numerals come out of a time-tested development cycle where House Industries employees ask “What if this could be just a little more…”. After pushing traditional didot forms to the limit, these digits were originally applied to a set of wood blocks. But, who says replenishable Michigan-grown basswood should have all the fun? So we added everything one needs to stylishly set their current currency and credit default swap hedges, while also being able to set the appropriate fractional take from their blog’s micropayment structure. Made to be large, attract attention, and —when needed— drop a shadow, Worthe Numerals brighten the daily drumbeat of numerical gloom. Like all good subversives, House Industries hides in plain sight while amplifying the look, feel and style of the world’s most interesting brands, products and people. Based in Delaware, visually influencing the world.

For decades, cereal companies have included premiums [promotional gifts] inside their packages, printed on the cartons or to send for with a special coupon and redemption instructions. During the 1940s, Pep cereal [a long-discontinued Kellogg's brand] offered a series of water-applied decals within its boxes. Most likely made by the Meyercord Company (one of America's largest transfer decal manufacturers at the time), one decal in particular had an alphabet in gold letters with black outlines. (One can only presume the marketing strategy was to have kids bug their parents to buy more Pep cereal if the child needed more than one letter of the alphabet for his or her initials!) Those decal letters have inspired a digital version as the outline character font Toy Decals JNL, which is available in regular oblique, solid and solid oblique styles.

The old Norse legend of Thorben Odinson is a cautionary tale. And this typeface, like the nebulous kingdom he ruled, is something of a cloudy concoction. Thorben the typeface is something of an inspiration-hybrid, pulling aspects from multiple sources and combining them into a typeface that strangely seems to work (or not – depending on your point of view). What started as a redrawing of some old carvings (on a castle wall in deepest, darkest Suffolk), is now something entirely different. Part Nouveau curves and Celtic script, topped with a few sprinkles of modernism, darkness and some quirky ideas – Thorben absorbs it all, creating a display face that feels antiquated and current at the same time. Each style also comes pre-loaded with a handful of pictograms and icons perfect for adorning your designs with extra Thorben-ness.

BLOCK CAPITALS is a square, geometric, small caps display face that avoids fashionable foibles and exudes the neutral, unpretentious functionality of time-honoured block lettering. The family has three widths (Narrow, Normal and Wide), and the Bold weights are loosely based on well-used squared nets – 3x5, 4x5 and 5x5. However, the typeface escapes its grid origins whenever necessary with slightly modulated stroke weights, sensitive spacing and careful kerning. The aim is to retain the strength and simplicity of strictly geometric characters while introducing barely perceptible refinements that add elegance and usability. That said, letters and numbers line up horizontally without overlapping the capline or baseline, even the tail of the Q does not descend below the Baseline. Diacritics are modesty proportioned, accented characters extending no farther than necessary, allowing the leading on multiple lines of text to be kept to a minimum.

Avallon is a wild and playful paintbrush font. With each letter authentically hand painted, Avallon maintains a wonderfully messy texture and realistic strokes. It's the perfect choice for lively & loud display typography. Avallon also contains a full set of alternate lowercase characters in the 'Alt' version. If you wanted to avoid letters looking the same each time to recreate a custom-made style, or try a different word shape, simply switch to this font for an additional layout option. Not only that, Avallon contains a third variation - Avallon All Caps. This is a brand new set of capital letters, designed to pair perfectly with the regular version, and provide you with even more layout options for your text composition. Language Support; English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Norweigen, Danish, Dutch, Turkish, Polish, Finnish, Romanian, Hungarian, Estonian, Filipino, Indonesian, Icelandic, Romansh.

Police JNL was modeled from one of the many fonts created by the late Alf Becker exclusively for Signs of the Times magazine during the 1930s through the 1950s. This was a bit of a difficult design to translate into a digital font file, because the individual characters did not follow a formal structure as to the width and length of the cast shadows or the letter shapes—such is the way of the hand-lettered alphabet. Special thanks to Tod Swormstedt of ST Publications (and curator of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati) for providing the archival material to work from in creating this font. Police JNL has a limited character set. The basic A-Z character is on the upper and lower case keys, along with numbers, some punctuation and the dollar and cents signs.

I set out to design a contemporary font that is condensed with thick and thin strokes. The highly structured forms of this condensed font was made more interesting and softer by giving it a slightly calligraphic tone and by adding round corners. Atto's express purpose is to be both utilitarian, compact and technical but with a friendly face. The name "atto" was adopted since it refers to the measurement of "smallness" or detail. You will no doubt discover all the many pleasant nuances within Atto. Adopted in 1964, "atto" comes from the Danish "atten", meaning eighteen. Atto - (symbol a) a SI prefix to an unit and means that it is 10 to the power- 18 times this unit. Examples are one attosecond or one attometer/attometre. Atto is available in for Mac and Windows in Postscript, Truetype and Opentype.

When drawing a new font, there is a time when the final form is found – almost – but the curves are not slick and clean yet, that's what I call the "raw" form. Raw – no sweeteners added! In this family I tried to redefine this moment in type development for the eternally beautiful "Franklin Gothic". I call the design "Franklin Gothic Raw", not to be confounded with "rough". The family can be used like any good normal typeface, you hardly see any difference to a conventionally cut "Franklin Gothic" in small sizes. The charm of the design becomes obvious the bigger it becomes, then it enhances your design with its imperfections in the outline. "Franklin Gothic Raw" is therefore an extremely versatile family. I created the cuts, that I considered necessary for the seasoned designer who knows what he's doing. Enjoy!

Are you tired of stiff, uptight typefaces cramping your creative style? Introducing Rinse—the vintage t-shirt typeface that’s all about taking it easy. With its rough and ready look, Rinse is based on the classic Goudy Heavyface Italic, but with a far-out twist that’s perfect for all your laid-back messaging needs. The letter pair ligatures add some extra funk to break up the monotony of repeating letters, giving your text a natural and mellow feel. So why settle for boring, uptight fonts when you can let Rinse infuse your message with some classic retro style and fun-loving personality? Whether you’re designing a t-shirt, a poster, or just want to add a little vintage flair to your next project, Rinse is the typeface that will keep it cool. 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.

Chevalon is a versatile serif font consisting of 7 styles. Inspired by medieval roman letter, the Chevalon is like a glorious horse that has a strong yet elegant appearance. Each Chevalon letter is carefully crafted. Chevalon fonts can help you complete various projects such as luxury brand logos, journals, business cards, headlines, products, social media posts, web and much more. If you are involved in a project that requires strong, elegant and professional writing, Chevalon font is perfect to help you get it done.

Bonaventure is a Roman display family full of the spirit of the Art Nouveau era, and joins our popular related group of families which also includes Bonning, Bonnington and BonaVia. Three weights are offered, including a shadowed black form, in a choice of three widths: regular, condensed and Expanded. It's the ideal family for signage with a period feel, as well as for posters, headings and certificates. A combination of Bonaventure with Bonning and its other related faces will bring a harmonious design ethos to any project.

A 1918 lettering instruction book by William Hugh Gordon presented a number of lettering styles that were geared toward sign and show card painters along with tips and tricks regarding the correct construction of such signs for maximum effect. One pen lettered Roman alphabet with a beautiful set of numerals has been recreated digitally as Pen Elegant JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. To note, Gordon was the co-inventor of the Speedball lettering pen with Ross F. George in 1915.

The box cover of “Drawing Stencils No. 3 for Use on Slate or Paper” [a children’s drawing set produced by Montgomery, Ward & Company of Chicago circa the 1890s] had its title in an elegant spurred Roman type face. Working from the few letters available, a complete character set was created that resulted in Antique Packaging JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. To note, this is the 1500th font release from Jeff Levine Fonts since its inception in January of 2006.

The inspiration source for MFC Sansome Monogram is a decorative serif lettering style that comes from the book Henderson's Sign Painter from 1906. Known as "Rustic Roman" and originally designed by John F. Irwin, this fantastic typeface has been digitally revived and expanded for monogram designs. While the original lettering did not include numerals and was never originally intended for monograms, its ornate nature lends itself so wonderfully to the craft. A PDF guidebook for MFC Sansome Monogram is available under the Gallery tab.

New Clear Era is part of a large ongoing project investigating classicism and legibility. The regular version is the base font. Numerous permutations will be performed on this underlying skeleton. Also investigated are the ideas of an extended type family, and trying to understand what makes a contemporary legible, serif typeface. The Mix versions combine characters from the Roman and Display to make quirky fonts that can be comfortably used for setting text. Mix One is the most quirky; Mix Three is the least.

Bastardre Hand is a beautiful calligraphic face based on medieval miniscule script. With characters closer together yet still recognizable and easy to read, this font works well for illuminated text designs and wherever the look of a scribe's hand is desired. Bastardre Hand has punctuation and diacritics for: Afrikaans, Albanian, Bassa, Cebuano, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faeroese, Finnish, Flemish, French, Frisian, Gaelic, German, Haitian Creole, Hiligaynon, Hmong, Indonesian, Italian, Iloko, Kurmanji Kurdish (Roman script), Marshallese, Norwegian, Papiamento, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Trukese, Wolof, Xhosa, Zulu.

JY Décennie Express was developed as a sans serif workhorse complement to JY Décennie. The basic roman design shares characteristics, and in some cases, characters (e, o, and others) with the serif version, making JY Décennie Express work particularly well with its progenitor. The design is friendly and approachable, as opposed to stark (the effect one usually has with Helvetica and other over-used typefaces). On closer inspection, straight lines blend into curves on the outlines: the characters are in fact complex but appear simple.

Chinese Prodigy is a Chinese style serif font, with a modern twist. It has 2 styles: regular and slant. Chinese Prodigy is perfect for branding and promotional material for Asian-themed designs The fonts works best as display typefaces or as beautiful headline fonts, but can also be used in other ways to create stunning designs. Features : - Chinese Prodigy Font Family - Multilingual, US Roman, Latin 1 Support If you have any question, don’t hesitate to contact us. --- Hope you enjoy with our font! Attype Studio

Whittington is a revival of a congenial ‘modern’ typeface of the mid nineteenth century, unassuming and businesslike with an even colour that reads comfortably over long stretches. It is intended primarily for use in running text. Whittington provides wide support for west, central, and east European languages that use the roman alphabet. Among its OpenType features are ligatures, small caps, several sets of numerals, contextual alternates, intelligent implementation of long ‘s’, and fractions. For more detail, please see the pdf available in the Gallery.

Clean, elegant & flexible… Gerard Display is a beautiful rational typeface, a Scotch Roman dressed up as a high-contrasted Didot for this optical size. Its 6 weights and 6 widths made it adaptable and versatile with 36 fonts, from a solid “Compressed Regular” to a broader “ExtraExpanded Heavy” without losing a bit of grace. Gerard Display counts on an extended character set that covers a wide range of Latin languages and a lot of features (as stylistic sets, local forms, or a complete set of figures).

ASV Codar is a modern Arabic text typeface with two weights: ASV Codar Light and ASV Codar Bold. Both of the fonts include Latin glyphs (Palatino Roman and Palatino Bold), allowing a single font to set text in both most Western European and Arabic languages. The two ASV Codar fonts include the Basic Latin character set and the Arabic character set, which supports Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. They include tabular and proportional Arabic, Persian, and Urdu numerals, as well as a set of tabular European (Latin) numerals.

Hachura is a sketchy typeface designed by Ricardo Esteves. Its general proportions are based on the garalde models, with traditional roman serifs. It was initially made by hand using a drawing technique to create a font that simulates the unfinished aspect of a work in constant progress. This textured face is useful for display sizes, making a very visible presence. Because of its basic dimensions and careful distribution of black and white, it still also very readable in text sizes like 10 or 8 points.

Our Marcellus Pro was inspired by classic Roman inscription letterforms. Clarity and beauty are embodied in the standard lowercase, while this historically influenced typeface also nods to the powerful presence of the Trajan titling style with its SmallCaps set. When combined together, Marcellus is a gorgeous flare-serif typeface, rich with presence and usability. Opentype features include: - SmallCaps. - Full set of Inferiors and Superiors for limitless fractions. - Tabular, Proportional, and Oldstyle figure sets (along with SmallCaps versions of the figures). - Stylistic Alternates for Caps to SmallCaps conversion.

Worldly Even though it’s a new arrival, FS Brabo has seen the world. Designed by a Brazilian working in London and studying in Belgium under a Dutchman, it’s certainly well-travelled. And it was inspired by the extraordinary archive of early book typefaces at the world-renowned Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, while Fernando Mello was attending Frank Blokland’s Expert class Type Design course at the Plantin Institute of Typography. It was there that Fernando became engrossed in the collection of early metal type, matrices, punches and type samples by figures such as Garamond and Granjon. So much so that he took on the mighty task of developing ‘a beautiful, functional, serifed text font’ of his own. Heroic FS Brabo’s journey from sketch to font family took an epic three years, starting in Antwerp, continuing at Fontsmith in London, and reaching its conclusion back in Fernando’s home city of São Paulo. No wonder Fernando was reminded of another titanic face-off: that of Antwerp’s Roman hero of legend, Silvius Brabo, and the evil ogre, Antigoon. Brabo came to the town’s rescue after the tyrannical giant had been charging ships’ captains extortionate taxes and chopping off the hands of those who refused to pay up. Having finally downed Antigoon after a long and terrible duel, Brabo cut off the giant’s own hand and threw it into the river Scheldt, unwittingly giving the town its name: the Dutch for ‘hand-throw’ is hand werpen. What better way for Fernando to name his literary typeface than after the hero of Antwerp’s oldest tale? The garalde factor FS Brabo is not a revival, but a very much a contemporary, personal interpretation of a garalde – a class of typeface originating in the 16th century that includes Bembo, Garamond and Plantin, with characteristically rounded serifs and moderate contrast between strokes. Brabo’s ‘ct’ and ‘st’ ligatures, upper-case italic swashes and contextual ending ligatures – ‘as’, ‘is’, ‘us’ – all preserve the beauty and character of traditional typefaces, but its serifs are chunkier than a garalde. Their sharp cuts and squared edges give them a crispness at text sizes, helping to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. A workhorse with pedigree It may give the appearance of a simple, four-weight typeface, but FS Brabo has hidden depths beneath its simplicity and beauty. OpenType features such as cap italic swashes, contextual ending swashes – programmed only to appear at the end of words – and stylistic alternatives make this a complete and well-equipped typeface. Comprehensive testing was carried out at text and display sizes, too, to prevent counters from filling in. All of which makes FS Brabo a very modern take on a traditional workhorse serif typeface: colourful and versatile enough to adorn not just editorial projects but also signage, advertising and logotypes.

Worldly Even though it’s a new arrival, FS Brabo has seen the world. Designed by a Brazilian working in London and studying in Belgium under a Dutchman, it’s certainly well-travelled. And it was inspired by the extraordinary archive of early book typefaces at the world-renowned Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, while Fernando Mello was attending Frank Blokland’s Expert class Type Design course at the Plantin Institute of Typography. It was there that Fernando became engrossed in the collection of early metal type, matrices, punches and type samples by figures such as Garamond and Granjon. So much so that he took on the mighty task of developing ‘a beautiful, functional, serifed text font’ of his own. Heroic FS Brabo’s journey from sketch to font family took an epic three years, starting in Antwerp, continuing at Fontsmith in London, and reaching its conclusion back in Fernando’s home city of São Paulo. No wonder Fernando was reminded of another titanic face-off: that of Antwerp’s Roman hero of legend, Silvius Brabo, and the evil ogre, Antigoon. Brabo came to the town’s rescue after the tyrannical giant had been charging ships’ captains extortionate taxes and chopping off the hands of those who refused to pay up. Having finally downed Antigoon after a long and terrible duel, Brabo cut off the giant’s own hand and threw it into the river Scheldt, unwittingly giving the town its name: the Dutch for ‘hand-throw’ is hand werpen. What better way for Fernando to name his literary typeface than after the hero of Antwerp’s oldest tale? The garalde factor FS Brabo is not a revival, but a very much a contemporary, personal interpretation of a garalde – a class of typeface originating in the 16th century that includes Bembo, Garamond and Plantin, with characteristically rounded serifs and moderate contrast between strokes. Brabo’s ‘ct’ and ‘st’ ligatures, upper-case italic swashes and contextual ending ligatures – ‘as’, ‘is’, ‘us’ – all preserve the beauty and character of traditional typefaces, but its serifs are chunkier than a garalde. Their sharp cuts and squared edges give them a crispness at text sizes, helping to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. A workhorse with pedigree It may give the appearance of a simple, four-weight typeface, but FS Brabo has hidden depths beneath its simplicity and beauty. OpenType features such as cap italic swashes, contextual ending swashes – programmed only to appear at the end of words – and stylistic alternatives make this a complete and well-equipped typeface. Comprehensive testing was carried out at text and display sizes, too, to prevent counters from filling in. All of which makes FS Brabo a very modern take on a traditional workhorse serif typeface: colourful and versatile enough to adorn not just editorial projects but also signage, advertising and logotypes.