It all started with a simple idea back in 1998: do a digital version of a "lost" 70's typeface, and make up the missing letters that were not present in the only available example Jeff Levine had to work with. Jeff wasn't yet doing his own digital font creation, so he hooked up with Brad Nelson who owns a small foundry called Brain Eaters Fonts. Together, they collaborated on "Action Is"- a freeware font named after the source of the type example. This was a title page for a commemorative photo album of images from the 60's TV music show "Where the Action Is", formerly hosted by Jeff's employer at the time, singer-writer-producer Steve Alaimo. The free font took off like a rocket, being released just at the peak of the 60’s/70’s retro craze in the late 1990’s, and it was EVERYWHERE! It showed up on TV shows, packaging and web design -- and was even spotted on signage used on the side of a major amusement resort’s retro-themed hotel. From that point on, Jeff kept getting requests for a version with a lower case. Although they shared the copyright in the freeware version, Brad Nelson gave Jeff his blessing to re-work and take Action Is into the realm of commercial type. Newly improved and re-released as Groovy Happening JNL, it became one of Jeff's better selling type designs. A simplified, yet similar font was issued called Groovy Summer JNL. Now, after about a decade, Jeff had decided to clean up the 3-D (drop shadow) version that was originally freeware with many minute design flaws and re-release it commercially. Groovy 3D Caps JNL is an all-caps, limited character set font which ties in well with the previous releases, yet retains itís 1960s-1970s era charm. The font flag art is courtesy of Barbara D. Berney and is used by permission.

Freaky Prickle script was written using ink and various wooden sticks and digitized/ Autor’s target was to create the spontaneous, light, flying script with dynamics and energy at the same time. Upright and cursive styles are available. The type was planned for use as headline in fiction and display matter.

Lockon Velline wass inspired from a biker and tattoo style with progressive edge and sharp tips, to make the fonts more bold and dynamic. Equipped with Open Type features to activate the stylistic alternates to play with as desired for your individual taste.

It’s time for Primal. It’s time to Rock! Primal is a polygonal typeface created with primeval times in mind. All forms have been created using few lines, angles and points. This typeface will enable you to create type that will almost scream off the page. Raaawwhrrr! Very useful for concert posters, techno parties or caveman signs. Whichever you prefer! Primal contains uppercase, smallcaps and underscored lowercase letters. By turning on standard ligatures the underscored letters will automatically connect, resulting in one single underscored line. Primal also contains a number of opentype ordinals and catchwords. The latter can be unlocked by using discretionary ligatures. This typeface is created by illustrative designer Zeptonn.

When type historians look back on Jim Rimmer, they will consider him the last type designer who just couldn't let go of metal type, even though he was just as proficient in digital type. Lancelot is one definite case in point: A face designed and produced in digital as late in the game as 1999, only to spring onto the new millenium a couple of years later as a metal type cast in three sizes. That was Jim, a time traveler constantly reminding the craft of its origins. This particular time machine was originally designed as a simple set of attractive caps that emphasize the beauty of the variable conventional dialogue between the drawing tool and the intended final form, and the one exchanged within the totality of the forms themselves. Jim designed two weights, with contrast and counterspace being the main difference between them. In 2013, the Lancelot family was remastered and greatly expanded. Lancelot Pro is now a wonder of over 840 glyphs per font, including smaller versions of the caps in the minuscule slots, and alternates and ligatures that can transform the historic spirit of the original design into anything from half-uncial to outright gothic. Language support goes beyond the extended Latin stuff, to cover Cyrillic and Greek as well. 20% of the Lancelot Pro family's revenues will be donated to the Canada Type Scholarship Fund, supporting higher typography education in Canada.

ITC Merss proves that sometimes accidents work out just fine. Late one evening Eduardo Manso, an Argentinean graphic and type designer, spilled coffee on his desk. When he began to wipe up the mess, he noticed that one of the splashes looked like a roman letter 'l' - complete with serifs. This triggered his imagination. “What if a complete alphabet was created with this same irregular flow to the character designs?” ITC Merss was the result of Manso's experiments with “fluid” letter shapes. The oddly handsome design looks aged and spontaneous at the same time. Its irregular texture is striking-the result of careful modeling of character shapes. While Manso wanted to maintain the free-form character of spilled liquid, he also knew the individual letters had to work together with an underlying harmony. When not experimenting with typefaces - or spilled coffee - Manso creates award-winning graphic and publication designs. A contributor to the design magazine el Huevo (the Egg), he also writes articles on type and typography and is part of the publication's design team.

'1812' type family is a revival and further development of the typeface '1812' by Lehmann Type Foundry (St. Petersburg). It was created for the centenary of the French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 along the lines of decorative engraved inscriptions and ornamented typefaces of that time, presumably by the artist Alexandre Benois. It was used mainly for the decoration of luxurious elegant publications. Later, in 1917, this typeface was used on the Russian Provisional Government banknotes. In the Soviet period of time '1812' appeared to be one of the few typefaces included in the first Soviet type standard OST 1337. It was produced for manual typesetting until the early 1990s. This typeface could be seen on Soviet letterheads, forms, posters and even air tickets. The digital version development was launched in 2010. The original version was supplemented with lowercase letters and alternative symbols, the extended Latin and Cyrillic alphabets were fully supported. The font was evolved into a family of 14 decorative styles which can refine any design giving it a festive and elegant but at the same time strict and nostalgic look. Despite its decorative nature, '1812' is perfectly readable in small emphasized text blocks due to its classic shape and careful spacing.

Zart is a heavy yet delicately sensitive display typeface filled with character, a free interpretation of the classical French styles from the late eighteenth century, reimagined for modern use. While it’s vertical strokes carry the typical weight of this style, the thinness of the horizontal strokes is further extended into the characters with the introduction of large vertical ink traps. This allowed us to design slightly narrower letters which, coupled with shorter serifs, result in a overall darker expression, creating really impactful headlines. Zart is available in three versions: Regular, Italic and Script.

Carnas, a new monoline sans with a light, slender and informal appearance. It is however forceful and strong enough for headlines and signage. Despite the reduction in its shapes, it is pleasantly readable for both shorter and longer text applications. The Carnas family consists of 16 styles and is well suited for ambitious typography. It comes in OpenType format with extended language support. All weights contain ligatures, superior characters, proportional lining figures, tabular lining figures, proportional old style figures, lining old style figures, matching currency symbols, fraction- and scientific numerals and matching arrows.

Rundfunk Grotesk was produced together with Rundfunk Antiqua by the Linotype Design Studio in 1933-1935. The combination was originally intended for small point sizes and shorter texts. Unfortunately, this typeface was never completed and consists only of Antiqua roman and Grotesk bold. This unusual combination was chosen because small newspaper ads often use a semi bold for the headlines and a regular antique for the text. Rundfunk Grotesk is intended to be used exclusively in headlines and reflects in its unique character the spirit of the 1930s.

Ragnar can be called a typeface for compact typography. It is loosely related to the Saga typeface in many ways, even including its name. During discussing on what Saga should be called, the name "Ragnarök" (Twilight of the Gods) was humorously suggested. "Ragnarök" would of course have been unsuitable, since it uses a letter with a diacritic sign, and in many computer systems, that is a deadly sin. But the shorter form, Ragnar, was kept in mind, and later used for this typeface. Additionally, Ragnar is a common male Scandinavian name.

Koala was originally designed in 1999 by Eric de Berranger with an individual, independent character. A distinguishing characteristic of this sans serif font is its marked stroke contrast, typical of Modern Face fonts. The open, airy forms are reminiscent of ancient Roman capitals. The lower case letters display traits similar to those often seen on posters and in advertisements of the 1930s and 1940s. The lively Koala is particularly good for shorter texts and headlines in larger point sizes and combines well with fonts with little stroke contrast.

A display fontface for titles inspired on Latin America, Ethnic, Native, Tribal, Mysthical, Handmade, Aboriginal, Pre-Hispanic, Pre-Columbian, Textured. By mid-1997 I was developed the early type edition was called «Muisca Sans» as my work for the degree in Graphic Design (Universidad Nacional de Colombia), based on the concept of pre-Columbian figures characteristics within some of the very few visual elements recovered from the Muisca culture, ancient pre-Columbian tribe disappeared before the arrival of the Spaniards in what is now central Colombia. In fact, the name of the capital Bogotá (the capital of Colombia) goes back to Bacatá as primary or village downtown of what was once the imperial capital of tribe Muisca. Although this unfinished early typographic project has not yet been published, Tequendama is the evolution of the first one. Tequendama reminds the myth of Muisca culture and religion of this tribe. The god Bochica, a wise old man with a white beard heard the cries of his tribe suffered against flooding of their land losing harvests before the divine punishment resulted by the offended god Chibchacun. However Bochica appeared wearing a white robe sitting on a huge rainbow and he broken the mountain towards the southwest wise old man with a golden staff broke the mountain to drain the flooded savanna. This emblematic and iconic place would later be called as «Salto de Tequendama». Tequendama name also been adopted to a nearby province to Bogotá.

Team Tribox Design created the font to improve the old font print of Doctrina Christiana. Each letter is designed for better readability even in small sizes, particularly for books, and is designed for poets, writers, and anyone who needs a font used in publishing. The font is personally designed and is intended for use by publishers and those seeking publication. Regine Ylaya: Art Director, Research Inu Catapusan: Font/Typeface Designer, Creative Director, Copywriter Faye Penetrante: Copy Editor

Aberfoyle is an elegant and ornate modern condensed serif. It’s a great choice for unique branding and banners of anything from gourmet food packaging, to high-end accessories and cosmetics, to winter holiday headline vibes. With its old-world flair, it features a wealth of eye-catching details and a whimsical variety in its approach to letter width and shape. Aberfoyle straddles two worlds, referencing historical embellishment traditions, but squarely looking forward into the future of typographic design.

Snow Job JNL was inspired by the hand lettered titles for the 1964 Rankin-Bass animated holiday classic "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". Because of the variable heights of the characters they float about the baseline in a free-form design. Available in both regular and oblique versions, the typeface gets its name from both the winter theme of the TV special along with the old term for deceiving someone with compliments while hiding one's true intent.

HWT Artz is the newest wood type to be cut at Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum. It was designed by venerable type designer Erik Spiekermann exclusively for his own print studio (P98a in Berlin), specifically to be cut into large size wood type. The digital version is being offered to the general public with proceeds of sales to benefit the museum's ongoing operations. HWT Artz evokes bold early 20th century European poster lettering. The design itself is intended to minimize hand-finishing and thus production time with rounded corners rather than sharp interior corners that would normally have to be hand-finished. In keeping with the tradition of naming new Hamilton designs after key figures from the living history of Hamilton (and following Spiekermann's tradition of four letter font names), Artz is named after Dave Artz- Hamilton Manufacturing retiree and master type trimmer.

A bold but nevertheless pleasant black-letter font which was released for the first time about 1840 by the Haenel'sche Printshop and Letterfoundery in Berlin. Haenel Fraktur contains a bunch of useful ligatures, and by typing 'N', 'o' and period you get an old style number sign by activating the Ordinals feature.

The type family New Hotinok 2D continues Ukrainian tradition and in the same time connects it with Art Deco style. It is good for presentation, literary, arts and foods, especially sweets and coffee. Connection of geometry and ornamental effect can help in logo design. Includes four styles, Latin diacritics for many languages.

Rough and ready artisanal lettering for your fair trade coffee shop, whiskey microbrewery or Victorian bill-poster — or, alternatively, distressed type for the cover of a hard-hitting novel set in a war zone. Fairtrade uses opentype technology to cycle through three versions of each character, giving an authentically uneven time-worn appearance.

Talbot Type Keymer Thug is a display face available in three weights, it is a distressed variation of Keymer Radius . Its textured look brings a characterful, time-worn quality. Keymer Thug features an extended character set to include old style numerals, accented characters for Central European languages and bespoke characters in the italic.

Lichtspielhaus is an ultra condensed Lichtspiele spin-Off with 8 weights. It still transports you back to a time where neon lights and marquee letters decorated cinema facades. There are 8 styles: Hairline, Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Black and Heavy. "Lichtspielhaus" is the first part of a new Type Noir Quadrilogy.

Unchain My Heart is Font that renders hearts on a string with a capital letter in the middle. All hearts are designed to align to a perfect string by remaining the handmade look. Lowercase letters produce a heart with outline. Uppercase letters produce a filled heart. Type in a parenthesis and a loose string end will be rendered either on the right or left side. Look in the full character set to find out more about the special decoration. Ideal for individualized mailings and greeting cards. Unchain My Heart is a part of the Light Hearted Font Collection that is inspired by a recording of Jean Baudrillard with the title, "Die Macht der Verführung" (The Power of Seduction) from 2006. Further inspiration came from the article, "The shape of the heart: I'm all yours". The heart represents sacred and secular love: a bloodless sacrifice. by British writer Louisa Young printed in EYE magazine (#43) London, 2002.

RoyalBavarian was comissioned by King Ludwig the First of Bavaria about 1834. He was probably the greatest king Bavaria ever had, but he fell in disgrace for a short affair with the infamous Lola Montez and subsequently had to resign. He died in 1868, peaceful and happy in Nice on the French Riviera. I happened on an original etching of his type-guidelines for official writers of those days about 20 years ago. I always thought it was a very nice Fraktur (Blackletter), not a sturdy militaristic one as most of them are. Being me, I started with first tests immediately and then just forgot the font on my computer. When I was sorting out old stuff a couple of months ago I happened on the etchings once again and kept on working intermittently on the letters. The Plain cut is pretty much like the king wanted it. The Fancy cut is more to my liking and very decorative. Yours in a royal mood, Gert Wiescher.

“Miau” is a display typeface designed by “Cuchi, ¡qué Tipo”! (Hey, what a type!”). Its name comes from the onomatopoeia of "Meow" in Spanish, and it is only to be used for letters or single words. It is built from the basic skeleton of cursive script letters, and its origin and main concept is based on experimenting with shapes that play the limit of readability. Being a variable format typeface, we have from the thinnest and lightest version ("Hiss"), to the thickest, dense and compact ("Purr"), passing through the average ("meow"). The final result of this experimentation is defined into a very contemporary typeface with a geometric, modular and “no-terrestrial” flavour. It aims to be a representation of the times we live about typographic design, a whole explosion of implausible experiments and formals researches.

Introducing the Bouquet List - an ultimate handwriting script font. Inspired by the beauty of flower bouquets and the aesthetic of handwriting when you write some bucket list or itinerary on your journal while you travel. The Bouquet List is a handwritten font featuring 70+ ligatures that gives you beautiful typographic in organic, authentic, and natural handwriting style. Perfect for magazines, social media posts, travel blog, travel vlog, signatures, sticky notes, journal, quotes, restaurant menus, websites, women products, calendar marks, book covers, advertisements, wedding designs, even for a logo and branding! Its OpenType Features provides you an easy swash and magic underline (please see the instruction in the last two preview images). • How to add swash easily: type space three times after the word. • How to add underline: type underscore 2 or 3 or 4 times.

Claudium started as an attempt to create a sans serif version of Garamond. As time went on it gradually became a meditation on the nature of French typography from Garamond to Excoffon. It was especially influenced by Cassandre's type for the Orly airport which seems to epitomize certain aspects of the French character�at least in typography. Attempts to create an italic met with disaster. Gradually, after lots of Cotes du Rhone, a cursive, based on Garamond�s Greek forms, emerged. It came at a time when I was looking at lot at Victor Hammer�s uncial and Andromaque cursive. So Claudium Cursive was developed as a lower case only and mated to the Claudium Regular caps ala Griffo�s original italic type. In keeping with the cursive lowercase there are cursive oldstyle numbers.

Das Riese, a type specimen by the most productive Brazilian type foundry, Intellecta Design, is a mix of victorian and art deco influences. A beautiful display type for tiling with uppercases only. It's shadows and volumes refer to pre-modern age whereas its surface to last century 20's. This heavy sans serif strokes characters have a particular appearance, a parallel line texture that reminds Bifur, typeface created in 1929 by A. M. Cassandre. The sideways absence of volume at some leaning letters right side in addition to the patchy darkness of shadows support its handmade design. A type full of historical references designed to small titles printed in big sizes. It's impossible not to think about posters when you look at Das Riese strong face. - (source Slanted Magazine #8)

Alf Becker graced many issues of “Signs of the Times” (a trade magazine for the sign industry) with his innovative hand lettered alphabets for others to use as design inspirations. His 134th submission was titled “Post Card Type”, a condensed thick-and-thin stylized Art Deco design. This served as the inspiration for Tourist Postcard JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. Thanks to Tod Swormstedt of S.T. Media Group and the American Sign Museum for providing the work image for this type revival.

Valenteena is in the spirit of the 19th century, but there are no other typefaces quite like it. It is geometric, using distorted hearts to form the letters. The lower-case letters are smaller versions of the upper-case letters. The overlay variant is derived by breaking ValentinaContour into its parts: the inner letter, the white inner border, and the black outer border. To use them one must have a program that allows layers of letters. Type in and format the inside variant to get the message you want. Also select the color you want this layer to have. Copy this layer twice, formatting one to the medium and and the other to outside. Color each of them in the colors you want and them combine the three layers, placing them so the letters exactly align. You will get letters with three colors.

Stefan Claudius developed this font while he was sitting in a small chalet in Denmark with a hot wood-oven and nothing but snow outside. Probably the amount of white led him to make it so thin and to have as much space between the lines as possible. If you have that in mind, it looks best in large sizes.

Turn on the mirrored ball, and haul out the gold chains and white suits! This Disco dazzler is a new take on Bass Rainbow, designed by Saul Bass in the 1970s. Hip, hot and heavy, this typeface is ready to get down. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Thrillers is a typeface that evoques the visual landscape of Crime Novel Titles. This high contrast super condensed semi-serif design comprises 6 weights that provide you with a ton of options for your Headlines, Titles and Branding. Because of its minimal white space it is very punchy and its unusual texture captures our attention. End the suspense and go test it out!

Soylent Blu is an original wedge serif, single font designed by Steve Zafarana. Its high contrast character style and bouncy baseline create a visual impact that makes it a good candidate for Signs, headlines, logos and advertisements. The full lowercase set with balanced white space also functions quite well in text. Soylent Blu, with OpenType features, is clearly an attention-getter!

A sugarloaf was a conical lump in which refined sugar was sold until the late 19th century. In Fryslân you can buy sûkerbôle - a yeasty white bread containing large chunks of sugar. I must have been dreaming about the latter when I named this font! Sugarloaf is a versatile, happy, handmade display font. It comes in an inline and a black style.

According to the dictionary, the way a letter is formed or shaped within a writing system is an allograph... and Allograph JNL from Jeff Levine takes on unusual shapes. Using characters from Jeff's Printing Set JNL font, they were printed out white-on-black, and the paper was torn into abstract pieces and then scanned in order to create this edgy looking font.

Impact As its name suggests, Impact, a bold sans serif, is designed to make an impression on the reader. Obviously a display font, Impact makes use of its thick strokes and blocked style, to catch and hold the eye. Because Impact is so striking, it is best placed in plenty of white space so that it does not overwhelm any accompanying text.

A Braille font designed with the look of the Go Game. Lowercase glyphs use black stones while uppercase use white stones. To make the text more like within a Goban, Corner and border glyphs are provided. Also the font allows a "new kind of ASCII Art" by providing the missing glyphs (black stones) which enable this usage (see "drawille" project on Github).

Metropolis Bold was commissioned by Publish magazine for their 1990 redesign. Although other digital versions exist, I think this was the first one and is characterized by extremely pointy serifs. It is well to remember in laying out copy for Metropolis to allow plenty of white space in the layout. Metropolis is based on the 1932 Stempel cut as designed by W. Schwerdtner.