Richard Lipton designed Meno in 1994 as a modest yet elegant workhorse serif family in seven styles. In 2016, he expanded this spirited oldstyle into a 78–style superfamily. The romans gain their energy from French baroque forms cut late in the 16th century by Robert Granjon, the italics from Dirk Voskens’ work in 17th-century Amsterdam. Meno consists of three carefully drawn optical sizes—Text, Display, and Banner, with Condensed and Extra Condensed widths added to the latter two cuts. Steadfast in text settings, Meno is replete with alternate forms, swashes, and other enhancements that showcase Lipton’s masterful calligraphic hand. The series offers a complete solution for achieving high-end editorial typography.

Bikini is a display-font that offers designers a variety of opportunities to create a lively and sophisticated typography. The font contains swash-capitals and roman capitals as well as two different forms of lowercase letters for endless combinations. Furthermore, a set of more than 60 ligatures is included. Bikini gets its charm by mixing up constructivist and handmade origination concepts. Although the letters show partially very expressive and overhanging details, the creation is strictly based on a matrix of circles and arcs (see drawing). In spite of its static and geometric basic elements Bikini seems to come to life and to break the rules of the grid, thus it looks somewhat psychedelic.

Duck! There’s a cream pie headed your way! This wild and wacky face is based on the title card lettering for the original Soupy Sales TV show, a lasting testament to my misspent youth. Both versions of this font contain the complete Unicode Latin A character complement, with support for the Afrikaans, Albanian, Basque, Bosnian, Breton, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Finnish, Flemish, French, Frisian, German, Greenlandic, Hawaiian, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Maltese, Maori, Moldavan, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Provençal, Rhaeto-Romanic, Romanian, Romany, Sámi, Samoan, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Turkish and Welsh languages, as well as discretionary ligatures and extended fractions.

The Halis Rounded Font Family from Ahmet Altun comes in eight weights. In addition, all weights have small caps for romans. Halis Rounded is the smoother version of the Halis Grotesque family. With rounded corners, this new font seems much softer and eye-pleasing even though it still has geometric and straight borders. Halis Rounded is legible from very small size to very large ones and also suitable for letterpress. Thanks to small caps accommodation, this font family makes their use in web typography even easier. As with the small caps, all fonts can be used to create great works on the web as logos, texts, presentations etc. and in prints as posters, t-shirts, magazines, and notices.

A Roman typeface with emphasized triangular serifs. A font like this one could have been designed in 18th century France. To some extent, Auxerre is a precursor of “Etienne,” which later became popular as an advertising typeface of the 19th century. Auxerre is available in five font weights: light, regular, semibold, bold and black. Auxerre supports Western and Central European languages including Scandinavian languages. Plus, the font includes lots of ligatures, tabular figures as well as a “Capital German Double S.” Auxerre fits perfectly with any topic related to the past two centuries. It also works amazingly well on technical issues. And of course it fits very well with topics of fine art and art history.

Mermer font family is a contemporary take on Roman capitals in six weights. The font name is the Serbian word for marble, and the inspiration for its creation comes from chiseled street signs in Istria. With lowercase and Cyrillic added, it gets a broader range of usages. Mermer is bold and versatile, can be both sporty and high fashion, looking sharp in more than 40 languages. Thin is thorny and Heavy feels like a block of concrete. Make it LOUD by setting it in large sizes and choosing Mermer Heavy for posters, magazine headings or logos, or you can make it cosy and friendly setting it smaller in Mermer Regular for menus, book covers, invitations or business cards.

Hey, friends! I’m here for you with my new colored font Roque. All the letters in this font were colored brightly and vividly with colors overlay. You can use it in your corporate identity, in magazines, posters, clothes design, and others. --- *You can use color fonts in PS since CC 2017, AI since CC 2018, ID since CC 2019, QuarkXPress since 2018, Pixelmator, Sketch, Affinity Designer Since macOS 10.14 Mojave, Paint.NET Windows only.* *Please note that the Canva doesn't support color fonts!* --- What's included? * Colored and regular B&W styles * Numbers * Symbols * Punctuation * All symbols in one AI file If you have any questions or issues, please contact me: kaer.pro@gmail.com Best, Roman.

Mecanica is an original design by Alex Kaczun. It is a display font not intended for text use. It was designed specifically for display headlines, logotype, branding and similar applications. The entire font has an original look which is strong, dynamic, machine generated and can be widely used in publications and advertising. Mecanica is a futuristic, techno-looking and expressive typeface with an appearance of metal-like parts with some very sharp edges. This attractive display comes in roman with lower case and lining figures. The font also is available with true-drawn slant italics. Other design style variations include Swash as well as Ornamental Italic Capitals along with a few Ornamental Symbols to embellish and enhance the possibilities.

Auster, A Sans with Flair! Auster packs sensational personality in its fine-tuned forms. Confident and quirky, yet comfortable to read, this distinctive san serif family stands out from the crowd. The curves cinch and strokes flair in unconventional places making Auster an unashamed rebel sure to turn heads. Originally designed during the TipoBrda Workshop in Slovenia. Resistenza spent 3 years developing this 2 style (roman & Italic), 20 weight family. The subtle reverse contrast characters were first painted with a flat brush, then polished in pencil on tracing paper before being carefully digitized, to include language support and all the opentype features you expect in a quality contemporary font. More About Opentype Features: https://bit.ly/opentype-rsz

The ITC Blair™ typeface is a revival and reimaging of an early 20th century metal typeface of the same name. Even though only available as single weights of extended and condensed proportions, metal fonts of the face were sold well into the 1950s. In 1997, Jim Spiece resurrected the original extended design for digital imaging and, in the process, added two new weights. Almost 20 years later, he collaborated with Monotype type designers to extend the basic family again. The result was a new suite of three condensed designs and italic complements for all the roman weights. The family also benefits from a large set of alternative glyphs and many OpenType® features.

A bit of happenstance and accident are always full of possibility — Richard Lipton’s Dunhill Script is based on observations of the work of his left-handed calligraphy students and then from a small detail generated by his own freehand sketching. Like his other script typefaces, Dunhill was born from the desire to achieve a certain visual drama. Many details show the pen at work, like the terminal shapes and the caps and ascenders. Dunhill also has a range of alternate stylistic glyphs and contextual features that can transform it into a connected script. It’s a great choice for editorial display or advertising and branding settings on its own or paired with a Roman sans or serif.

First place in a spelling-bee competition, a Harvard University diploma or the Nobel Peace Prize? You can't go wrong with this classic Swedish calligraphy font, created by veteran designer Bo Berndal. He named Gertrud after his better half, but was also inspired by old handwritten documents: "Gertrud is a calligraphic letter design from the 16th century. I used it when I engrossed diplomas with a flat-nibbed pen in the 1980's. When I got my Mac I generated the typeface in Fontographer." Gertrud (the typeface) comes in three weights, with roman and italic. It is an OpenType creation, for both PC and Mac. Swedish type foundry T4 premieres new fonts every month. Gertrud is our sixth introduction.

Wood Bonnet Antique No.7 is based on real vintage wood type blocks from Switzerland. The very distressed letters give a warm analogue vintage charm on printing. These kind of wood type letters were very common and often named by generic names like Roman, French or Antique followed by a catalog number. But these letters have some very quirky details hard to find else were. » pdf specimen « The font offers up to five glyph variations of all the Latin base letters, figures and some additional letters. An OpenType glyph-rotator is programmed to emulate the randomness of old school printing on live typing. All dingbats of the specimen file are included in the font data too.

Arlon makes it easy to give any brand or advertising a cool & futuristic look. Thanks to its spurless letterforms and some uncommonly shaped letters, this typeface creates a strong visual impact even in small sizes. Having generously rounded angles and terminals, Arlon also spreads warmth and friendliness. To sum up, Arlon communicates an affinity for technology – in a friendly way. The family contains a really wide span from thin to black and has many Opentype features as well as many numerical variations to offer, making it a versatile font. From Afrikaans via romanized Chinese through to Zulu: Arlon comes with 631 glyphs per font, covering more than 200 languages. Designed by Marc Lohner in 2018.

Hey, friends! I’m here for you with my new colored font Paint Splashes Color Font. All the letters in this font are colored brightly and vividly with colors overlay. Multicolor icon with glow and gradients. Perfect for positive art, children design, vibrant advertising, juice packaging, colorful identity. *You can use color fonts in PS since CC 2017, AI since CC 2018, ID since CC 2019, QuarkXPress since 2018, Pixelmator, Sketch, Affinity Designer Since macOS 10.14 Mojave, Paint.NET Windows only.* *Please note that the Canva doesn't support color fonts!* What's included? * 3 Colored and B&W styles * Numbers * Symbols * Punctuation If you have any questions or issues, please contact me: kaer.pro@gmail.com Best, Roman.

Modérnica is a sans serif type including roman & oblique styles in 9 weights. Originally published in 2014, then in 2020 we released version 2.0, in which we expanded the language coverage and character set, adding a new Fat weight, tabular figures, smart fractions & arrows. We’ve improved the OpenType features adding new Stylistic Sets. Besides this, we have retuned the letters spacing in the whole family. Seeking for the best performance, we added a bit of spacing between letters in the text versions (middle weights from Book to Bold), while as for the display variants (extreme weights from Thin to Fat) we made them gain space in the light versions and loose it in the blacks.

A unique design accurately revived by Steve Matteson in 2021. Frederic Goudy designed Companion Old Style for Women’s Home Companion in 1928. In his own words: “I believe the new letter I showed him, both in roman and italic, is one of the most distinctive types I have ever made. It incorporates features which deliberately violate tradition as to stress and curves, but which are so handled that attention is not specifically drawn to the innovations introduced.” Companion Old Style exudes the style of pre-World War 2 Americana. The unique characteristics are wonderful for greeting cards, wedding announcements and holiday invitations. Companion’s nostalgic letterforms are light hearted and quirky yet highly readable.

Egon is a contemporary Slab-Serif typeface family built in ten styles—extra-light, light, regular, bold and black weights in roman and italic respectably. This is a refreshed (second) edition of Egon Serif, originally designed in 2008. The typeface has been updated—four new styles in ExtraLight and Black weights were added to the family and minor adjustments to glyph shapes (mostly italics) have been made.The typeface is designed with industrial and architectural flavor, as homage to Egon Eiermann, one of Germany’s great architects of 20th century. Egon is ideal as text and display font for publication use. Egon is released as OpenType single master with a Western CP1252 character set.

Axion RND is an original design by Alex Kaczun. Axion RND is a style variation based on his original Axion typeface family of fonts. It is a display font not intended for text use. It was designed specifically for display headlines, logotype, branding and similar applications. The entire font has an original look which has rounded corners throughout and is strong, dynamic, machine generated and can be widely used in publications and advertising. Axion RND is a futuristic, techno-looking and expressive typeface with an appearance of machined parts and rounded edges. This attractive display comes in roman with lower case and lining figures. The large Pro font character set supports most Central European and many Eastern European languages.

The inspiration for this typeface family came from my childhood experiences at West Monkton, amidst an historic part of the South West of England. Studies of the original incised capitals of the Trajan column in Rome were analysed and polished for this modern version. The lower case letterforms and numerals were then created in sympathy, taking their proportions from the incised letters of local gravestones. Its name honours not only the area where the original alphabet was conceived and drawn, but also the people responsible for fostering my initial interest in letters. These stylized incised typefaces give a depth to the letterforms that can be exploited in your typography - evoking the carved monumental inscriptions of the Roman era.

Richard Lipton designed Meno in 1994 as a modest yet elegant workhorse serif family in seven styles. In 2016, he expanded this spirited oldstyle into a 78–style superfamily. The romans gain their energy from French baroque forms cut late in the 16th century by Robert Granjon, the italics from Dirk Voskens’ work in 17th-century Amsterdam. Meno consists of three carefully drawn optical sizes—Text, Display, and Banner, with Condensed and Extra Condensed widths added to the latter two cuts. Steadfast in text settings, Meno is replete with alternate forms, swashes, and other enhancements that showcase Lipton’s masterful calligraphic hand. The series offers a complete solution for achieving high-end editorial typography.

Horst More is a retro soft serif typeface comprising 18 fonts. It can handle most typographic applications from branding to body copy with its range of weights and inherent legibility. Whatever you type will have a friendly message, but it really comes into its own when you start applying some of the additional ligatures and alternates that are built into this type family. You’ll soon be creating distinctive typographic compositions that are pleasing to the eye. There are 18 fonts, 9 weights altogether. It has an extensive character set that covers all Latin European languages. Key features: 9 weights in Roman and Italic Alternates Ligatures Thanks for visiting and purchasing my font! Ekayasa Mix.Jpg

Minimal Nahidha is a minimalist sans serif typeface with a casual and trendy outlook. Minimal Nahidha was built to balance the geometric qualities of a san-serif typeface with all the benefits of traditional serif fonts, like readability and personality. Minimal Nahidha comes in Regular and Slant version, each with its own unique set of characters & it has ligatures and stylistic alternates that make it easy to customize your 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 : - Minimal Nahidha Family Font - Ligatures - Stylistic Alternates - Multilingual, US Roman, Latin 1 Support Hope you enjoy with our font! Attype Studio

Step into the beauty of Belda’s elegant form and discover the richness flowing from both its historic influence and its strong elements. At its heart, Belda's graceful style embodies the classical calligraphy of the Roman capital, best known from such Roman monuments as Trajan's Column. To lessen the possibility for error, the builders of these defining structures brushed their templates onto the marble before taking their first cuts from the expensive stone. These simple strokes now mark a simple but wonderful path full of life and mystery. Beyond a copy of the past, Belda has grown from its roots to offer a brave, new world of potential through its still-simple structure. The new design strongly contrasts thickness and stroke. Its delicate shape, curves and sharp serifs provide a unique style of harmony and beauty. The resulting balance? The lighter weight design remains subtle and elegant, while the combination in its bolder counterparts provides an intense luster and sparkle, pulling the reader’s eye to the font’s captivating features. A quick look beyond its surface of standard forms also reveals Belda has more layers to discover with OpenType small capitals, titling capitals and more. With a wealth of weights and many widths beside, the font is capable of serving as both text and titling. While especially strong as a movie title or poster font, it’s also great for book jackets, advertising, and packaging. So start your journey with Belda. The possibilities to explore on this path are practically endless. Production assistance from Lucas Azevedo and ikern.

This type face fills one of the gaps between the world of Roman alphabets and that of linear alphabets. The first to be designed was the set of upper-case letters. The expression of these characters cannot conceal that they were originally intended only for the sculptor's use, as a type face for three-dimensional inscriptions. Their width proportions reflect a dialogue between the contemporary feeling and the legacy of classical Roman inscriptions. The type face was later complemented with a set of lower-case letters and elaborated into further designs. Its clear, concise letter forms end with small serifs which not only make the type face more refined, but above all anchor the individual letter signs visually to the horizontal of the text line. The austere construction of the majority of the letters is balanced by the more exuberant, humanizing forms of the most frequently used letters "a"; "e". (The three variants of the lower-case "e" enable to create rhythmically differentiated texts.) The letters in which a straight stroke is connected with an arch are designed in two ways. That means that the letters "n", "h","m" and the group of letters "b","d","p","q" are conceived in a different way. Thus an interesting tension is created in the structure of the text, which, however, does not endanger legibility. The economizing, slightly narrowed design of this type face predetermines its use for the setting of usual texts. In larger sizes, however, it produces a rather serious, even solemn, impression.

DESCRIPTION Now my feelings about didones are more than evident. After some years of roman-abstinence (1) I present Heroe, an interesting combination of elegance and sensuality. Heroe, spanish for hero, takes some aspects of roman typefaces to the extreme like my main inspiration, the great Herb Lubalin, did in the majority of his works: Thins turned into hairlines, altered proportions (for display purposes), unique ball terminals, poetic curves and a graceful way of placing them together on a layout. Its classy style makes the font perfect for a wide range of uses. Imagine Heroe Inline (my favorite) dancing over a bottle of perfume; printed on the cover of a fashion magazine; lighting wedding invitations up. Its partner, Heroe Monoline, may help you to make more elaborated pieces of design. Just combine it with Heroe, or Heroe Inline and see how perfect they match. TECHNICAL The difference between Pro and Std styles is the quantity of glyphs. While Pro styles have all the decorative characters available, Standard ones have only the basic set of them. Heroe Monoline Big and Heroe Monoline Small were made for better printing purposes. If you need to print the font in small sizes, then your choice should be Small. Heroe Monoline has the same alternates (and open-type code) as Heroe Pro and Inline, plus some decorative ligatures. NOTES (1) After fonts like Breathe , Aire , and the award winning Reina , I started experimenting with scripts a little more. Erotica , Bird Script and Dream Script are examples of that.

Elido (Odile in reverse) is the sans counterpart to the Odile type. Together they form a sans/serif superfamily with a wide range of variations for editorial use. Elido follows Odile’s proportions and matches the weight and typographic color of its serif twin. Elido is a sans with classical proportions. A slight geometric hint and open counters convey an airy feel. Elido’s family structure and relations within echo the conceptual approach of Odile. The arched stroke low off the stem reveals a script characteristic most pronounced in the Elido Upright Italic. This particular interpretation is gradually diminished in the Italic and becomes even less emphasized in the Regular. Six balanced weights, from an elegant Light to a pronounced Black, are in tune with three display solutions and a set of beautiful Ornaments. These variants allow for a diverse and multifaceted typography for the discerning type user. Sans serif initials amount to a rare finding. The charming monolinear Elido Initials come in two flavors, elaborate and rational, designed to hold their own in editorial and headline sizes. This type design boasts an extensive character set, many OpenType features including roman and italic Small Caps, five sets of numerals, beautiful ligatures, and many more. OT stylistic variants (with accents) offer a one-story “a” for the roman weights, alternate “g” and “s” designs for the italics, and a variant glyph “s” for the Upright Italic. These distinct qualities with its versatile and sincere traits make Elido an excellent choice for text and display use.

Wedding Regular was originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF and released as Wedding Text in 1901. It is a lighter version of his ENGRAVER'S OLD ENGLISH of the same period. Wedding Regular is based on the Textura style of blackletter that continued in popularity in England into the 16th century, long after the Dutch, French and Italians had moved to a Roman model that expressed the Renaissance humanism of the period. Wedding Headline is a still lighter version of the regular text face, suitable for setting larger sizes while still preserving the delicacy of the decorative hairlines. Textura continues in use in England and the United States for newspaper mastheads, gift shop signs, wedding invitations and programs and other applications where a feeling of tradition is desired. I recently saw an 1980ish photo of a “Tubby Isaac” sign in London using textura. I believe Benton’s design captures that feeling without being heavy-handed and still remaining quite readable for eyes accustomed to Roman lettering. Both Wedding Regular and Wedding Headline convey a comfortable familiarity. These two fonts may be purchased together at an attractive discount or they may be purchased separately. The full character set may be found in the pdf file that you can download from the gallery section. The two monks (alt-0172 and alt-0177) are from a set of sixteenth century decorative initial letters by Gering and Renbolt. Please note that there are two different eszetts, the blackletter style at alt-0126 and the antiqua style at the alt-0223.

Circolino is calligraphic script typeface set that is inspired by the letterforms taught in Italian schools. Each letter combination is designed to tie in perfectly within the word. In this regard, many contextual alternatives and letter variants have been designed, especially to make a more calligraphic feel. The Circolino character set consists of two families: Circolino Classic and Circolino Sport. The Classic Family has an almost vertical tilt axis, while Sport Family has a much more pronounced tilt axis that gives it more dynamism and movement.

We're excited to unveil our new beautiful script font, "Adora Bella." "Adora Bella" was inspired by clean handwriting with a natural flow and works well for various designs, including wedding stationery, Instagram quotes, modern logos, packaging, websites, and many more. "Adora Bella" features fabulous beginning and ending lowercase swashes as well as lowercase heart swashes. A connecting heart swash may be used to tie two words or letters together; however, it is important to remember that this is intended to be used for joining lowercase words.

Iwan Stencil is a new revival of an old display typeface. Based on type originally designed by Jan Tschichold in 1929, the style was revived by Klaus Sutter in 2008. The letterforms in this peculiar design are very high contrast; all of the thin bits are much thinner than the thick parts. They have a modern, upright axis. All in all, the creation has a bit of a Bodoni-gone-crazy touch. The thin elements are the unique part of the design that binds this face together. They almost naturally fade away in the stencil gaps (or pylons), making you wonder if you are really looking at a stencil face at all. These thins contribute greatly to the typeface's overall serif-style, making the design at least a semi serif typeface, if not a full serif one. The lowercase n, for instance, has no serifs of its own, but many of the other letters have clear ones, or serif-like terminals. A serif stencil face is a peculiar variety, especially in this day and age, but in the past they were much more common, if not the norm, The Iwan Stencil typeface has only one weight. Naturally, this is just for display. Use Iwan Stencil to cut real stencils, or only to create the effect of stenciled type in your design work. Ivan Stencil includes all of the characters that you have come to expect in a font. Just because this design was originally made in 1929 does not mean that is has a 1929 character set. Instead, it includes a 21st century, with extended European language support Jan Tschichold, who we have to thank for today's Iwan Stencil inspiration, was a man of many faces. A trained calligrapher who went on to codify the New Typography, would go on to become a teacher, a classical book designer, and the creator of the Sabon typeface. Like all young designers, he was occasionally in need of money. Before his emigration from Germany in 1933, he took on many kinds of commissions. In the late 1920s, a time full of waves of economic turmoil within Germany and across the world, he began designing a typefaces for different European companies, mostly display things like this. For a time during the mid-1920s, Jan Tschichold went by the name Iwan" "

The name of this font brings back memories of an old fried chicken restaurant in Willow Springs Illinois circa 1960’s and 1970’s, my family would all get in the car and take a long drive down to an old country road Illionis Rt 171 through a forest preserve where we’d come upon the old Willowbrook motel with a bar and restaurant next door. The restaurant was called Kegal’s, when you entered the building you had to walk through the smoky bar first to get to the restaurant, I can still see the hard wood floors with all the finish worn off from decades of foot traffic. Up until the mid 1960’s Kegal’s used to raise their own chickens behind the restaurant, back then fried chicken in the Midwest was either coated in flour or bread crumbs, Kegal’s was covered in a beautiful layer of golden bread crumbs. Before your meal arrived they’d bring a basket of dinner rolls along with crackers, bread sticks and country butter, on the side they’d serve coleslaw with a vinegar sauce, which is very common in the Midwest, the first time you try it your face puckers up like you just sucked on a lemon but you get used it over time. After waiting for what seemed like forever to a child the waitress comes out of the kitchen with a huge tray of that golden deliciousness and your mouth begins to water, in her other hand was another tray filled to overflowing with crinkle cut french fries all made by hand, I’d eat a hole handful of those french fries first then take a bite of that tender juicy farm raised chicken. Today a fine Italian restaurant occupies the old Kegal’s building and the motel is long gone, only my fond memories remain. Fast forward to 2020 and FontMesa has just made some Fried Chicken as an eight weight type font family with alternates. With the Fried Chicken slab serif font family we’ve broken some rules by removing a few of the slabs on certain letters for a unique homemade look. Fried Chicken is perfect for your next product label, t-shirt design, logo, headline or cookbook cover. Treat yourself to some good ol’ Fried Chicken today.

A friend once jokingly told me that what I really do is mine extinct arts for parts to use in modern things, like going to the scrapyard to pick up bumpers, quarter-panels and dashboards off of Datsuns and Ponies to build a shiny new Ferrari. I still kind of grin at that, but I certainly do spend a lot of time looking at old things and imagining ways they would work today. This shiny new Ferrari here is called Bibliophile, and it contains scrap heap parts from various pages by Louis Prang, the Prussian-American printer and publisher who inspired my Prangs fonts. This is my second engagement with the late 19th century man, and it’s quite a bit more intricate than just an italic Didone with a connected lowercase. Bibliophile marries Round Hand calligraphy with Italian capitals, two styles not often relayed in the same alphabet, but work together beautifully when combined well. When you combine them well with a few long-practised tricks of the trade, then mix in a few trusted features from my previous work over the years, you get my usual crazy exuberance, like 17 different shapes for the d, 21 different forms for the y, endings, beginnings, swashes, ornaments, and so on. It’s no secret that I can get carried away when I’m so consumed by an idea. — Bibliophile comes in 2 weights, each of them with over 900 glyphs covering all the latin languages. Bibliophile also comes with a bold weight, something I’m always reluctant to do with something as adventurous and complex as the structure of this historical mashup. But I couldn’t chase away the idea of increasing the contrast while maintaining the hairlines in a lowercase this narrow. Part of it was the curiosity about the outcome, and part was the sheer challenge of it. I think it turned out OK. Words set in either weight will show delicateness and elegance, and the more time you spend inside the font and micro-manage the setting, the more ways you will find to magnify either. Bibliophile can be as muted or luxurious as you want it to be. This is the kind of alphabet that fits well in fashion marketing and high-end packaging, from the very subdued to the super-exquisite. Enjoy the gleaming new vehicle made with freshly polished old parts.

In the late 1930s, old Egyptiennes (or Italiennes) returned to the collective consciousness of European printers and type houses — perhaps because political news were front a centre, especially in France where Le Figaro newspaper was seeing record circulation numbers. In 1939 both Monotype and Lettergieterij Amsterdam thought of the same idea: Make a new typeface similar to the reverse stress slab shapes that make up the titles of newspapers like Le Figaro and Le Frondeur. Both foundries intended to call their new type Figaro. Monotype finished theirs first, so they ended up with the name, and their type was already published when Stefan Schlesinger finished his take for the Amsterdam foundry. Schlesinger’s type was renamed Hidalgo (Spanish for a lower nobleman, ‘son of something’) and published in 1940 as ‘a very happy variation on an old motif’. Although it wasn’t a commercial success at the time, it was well received and considered subtler and more refined than the similar types available, Figaro and Playbill. In the Second World War, the Germans banned the use of the type, and Hidalgo never really recovered. Upon closer inspection, Schlesinger’s work on Hidalgo was much more Euro-sophisticated and ahead of its time than the too-wooden cut of Figaro and the thick tightness of Playbill. It has a modern high contrast, a squarer skeleton, contour cuts that work similarly outside and inside, and airy and minimal solutions to the more complicated shapes like G, K, M, N, Q and W. It is also much more aware of, and more accommodating to, the picket-fence effect the thick top slabs create in setting. Basilio (named after the signing teacher in Mozart’s Figaro) is the digital revival and major expansion of Hidalgo. With nearly 600 glyphs, it boasts Pan-European language support (most Latin languages, as well as Cyrillic and Greek), and a few OpenType tricks that gel it all together to make a very useful design tool. Stefan Schlesigner was born in Vienna in 1896. He moved to the Netherlands in 1925, where he worked for Van Houten’s chocolate, Metz department store, printing firm Trio and many other clients. He died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1944. Digital revivals and expansions of two of his other designs, Minuet and Serena, have also been published by Canada Type.