Minimal, modular, modern—at first glance, Materia shows a contemporary flair, combining pure, strong geometrical form with a subtle, distinct appearance. Actually, the design was inspired by lettering from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century that still can be found in the East of France. While its formal origins date back as far as this, revived e. g. by the constructivists into the nineteen twenties and later on by Dutch information designer Wim Crouwel in the nineteen-sixties, the visual language of Materia still speaks of the »future«. Following a minimalistic concept the font is formally built on a grid. Wherever optical curves are needed for a smoother, more comfortable shape of letters than a simple rectangular block, diagonals cut off the egdes – like a diamond is cut to achieve more beauty. Thus headlines and texts set in Materia are given a certain »egdy« feeling, whereas their tonality is still kept well-balanced, keeping concentation all on information in a nonconfomist way. Materia comes in eight styles, from elegant Thin to attention-forcing Ultra. Even a regular Italic is available, following the classic type-set-principle. Two of the styles are explicitly designed for display use, Shadow and Code. Both are ready for combinations with Bold or each other respectively, the layering of Shadow and Code e. g. allows astonishing effects or highlighting within the letters. For OpenType-users Materia is a real Pro, containing accented Latin letters for over 70 languages, small caps, old style, tabular and lining figures and special condensed titling all caps for cases in which space is all that counts. How useful all of the above mentioned is may be seen in the book David Lynch – Lithos, designed by Koma Amok, published in 2010 by item éditions, Paris, and Hatje Cantz, Germany, which was typeset completely in Materia.

Gerard Unger’s new typeface Alverata is a twenty-first-century type-face inspired by the shapes of Romanesque capitals in inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, without being a close imitation of them. It is additionally based on the early twentieth-century model, but tweaked so as to prevent blandness and monotony. Alverata performs beautifully in both screen and on paper, delivering excellent legibility. Its letters are open and friendly in small sizes and lively and attractive in large sizes. They are robust, and show refinement in their detail. Unger’s Alverata is an extensive type family, with versions for both formal and informal applications, and with Greek and Cyrillic relatives. Alverata consists of three different fonts: Alverata, Alverata Irregular and Alverata Informal, that vary in form and width, but maintain the same spirit. The Irregular version is particularly inspired by the Insular letterforms, the uncials, and their constantly changing positioning. Alverata strikes a balance among Europe’s diversity of languages, combining contemporary typographical practices with features of medieval letterforms, from the time when Europe came into being. Visually, some written languages, such as Czech and Maltese, differ quite strongly from languages like English and German, notably because of their many accented characters. While other typefaces will show this difference, Alverata removes it. As a result, Alverata enables harmonious convergence of languages.  For the development of the Greek letterforms, Unger collaborated with Gerry Leonidas (University of Reading) and Irene Vlachou (Athens), and with Tom Grace on the Cyrillic letterforms.

Plumage is somewhat unusual in that it has elements of calligraphy as well as script in a semi-loose form that gives it a pleasing appearance for both large and small sizes, and interesting flare finish strokes add to its unique character. As I read a dictionary description of "plumage", I realized that in many ways there is a parallel between a bird's plumage and how it is utilized in the context of writing: Plumage varies in pattern and arrangement for different purposes; what it expresses can of course be even more interesting. Plumage is disposable after a season, as new ones become available... imagine, a self-sustaining quill! - I guess that's equivalent to a refill or disposable pen. Historically, quill pens were made from feathers of a variety of birds, each chosen for its special characteristics. The sturdiest and most reliable feathers, however, come from turkeys, swans and geese. Feathers used to make pens are the stiff-spined flight feathers on the leading edge of the bird's wing. Pens for right-handed writers come from the left wing, and pens for left-handers, from the right! Each bird yields 10-12 good quills, and sometimes only 2 or 3 - so small a yield that the geese reared in England could not furnish nearly enough for local demand, and quills were imported from the Continent in large quantities. At one point St Petersburg in Russia was sending 27 million quills a year to the UK. It is said that geese were specially bred by US President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) to supply his own vast need for quills - in his lifetime he wrote almost 20,000 letters. The name "Plumage" was selected to pay homage to the noble birds that supplied countless quills for centuries of literary works. Plumage is recommended for any formal or informal invitation, decorations, awards, poetry, plaques, etc. We hope you will have the pleasure of using Plumage.

Futura is the fully developed prototype of the twentieth century Geometric Sanserif. The form is ancient, Greek capitals being inscribed by the Cretans twenty-five hundred years ago at the time of Pythagoras in the Gortyn Code, by the Imperial Romans, notably in the tomb of the Scipios, by classical revival architects in eighteenth century London, which formed the basis for Caslon’s first sanserif typeface in 1817. Some aspects of the Geometric sanserif survived in the flood of Gothics that followed, particularly in the work of Vincent Figgins. In 1927, stimulated by the Bauhaus experiments in geometric form and the Ludwig & Mayer typeface Erbar, Paul Renner sketched a set of Bauhaus forms; working from these, the professional letter design office at Bauer reinvented the sanserif based on strokes of even weight, perfect circles and isosceles triangles and brought the Universal Alphabet and Erbar to their definitive typographic form. Futura became the most popular sanserif of the middle years of the twentieth century. Ironically, given its generic past, Futura is the only typeface to have been granted registration under copyright as an original work of art, and, further irony, given the key part played by the Bauer letter design office, the full copyright belongs to Renner and his heirs. This decision in a Frankfurt court implies that a further small group of older typefaces may also be covered by copyright in Germany, particularly those designed for Stempel by Hermann Zapf. This situation appears to be limited to this small group of faces in this one country, although protection of designers’ rights in newer typefaces is now possible in France and Germany through legislation deriving from the 1973 Vienna Treaty for the protection of typefaces. Mergenthaler’s Spartan is a close copy of Futura; Ludlow’s Tempo is less close. Functional yet friendly, logical yet not overintellectual, German yet anti-Nazi... with hindsight the choice of Futura as Volkswagen’s ad font since the 1960s looks inevitable.

Western Americana is a unique collection of signatures of 72 famous American frontiersmen, gunslingers, Wild West personalities, outlaws, and Indians in a high-quality font. A must-have for autograph collectors, desktop publishers, lovers of history, or anyone who has ever dreamed of sending a letter, card, or e-mail "signed" as if by one of these famous Western celebrities. This font includes signatures from the following American West personalities: William Frederick Cody ("Buffalo Bill"), George Armstrong Custer, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Kit Carson, Joseph Brant, David Crockett, Wyatt Earp, Geronimo, James Bowie, Daniel Boone, Sam Houston, Calamity Jane, Sitting Bull, William H. Bonney ("Billy the Kid"), Cole Younger, Bob Younger, Jim Younger, Pat Floyd Garrett, James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, Squire Boone, Samuel Colt, Gordon William Lillie ("Pawnee Bill"), Annie Oakley, William Barret Travis, Allan Pinkerton, Jose de Galvez, George Rogers Clark, George Crook, John Charles Fremont, George Croghan, Simon Kenton, Maj. Frederick Benteen, James Wilkinson, Nelson Appleton Miles, Philip Kearny, Chief G.H.M. Johnson, William George Fargo, William Barclay "Bat" Masterson, King Philip, Frank James, Eleazer Williams, Henry Wells, Junipero Serra, John Sevier, John Ross, Joseph Virgo, Chief Joseph, Red Jacket, Manuel Lisa, Julian Dubuque, John Augustus Sutter, Manuel Lisa, Jesse James, Jesse James alias Thomas Howard, Manasseh Cutler, Robert Newton Ford, Emmett Dalton, Henry McCarty alias Greenville Mellen Dodge, Edward Zane Carroll Judson ("Ned Buntline"), Rain-in-the-Face, James Robertson, Zebulon Pike, Chief Two Guns White Calf, Pierre Chouteau Jr., Frank Butler, Isaac Shelby, Moses Austin, Moses Cleveland, Rufus Putnam, Pierre Chouteau Sr., Father Pierre Jean De Smet, and Auguste Chouteau. This font behaves exactly like any other font. Each signature is mapped to a regular character on your keyboard. Open any Windows application, select the installed font, and type a letter, and the signature will appear at that point on the page. Painstaking craftsmanship and an incredible collection of hard-to-find signatures go into this one-of-a-kind font. Comes with a character map.

The Brass Family has a lineage that extends into English history. About five hundred years ago a devout, but anonymous Englishman gave glory to the God he worshipped by designing the capital letters and decorations of these two fonts. Originally recorded in The History Of Mediaeval Alphabets And Devices by Henry Shaw (London 1853), they are described by Alexander Nesbitt in his Decorative Alphabets And Initials (Mineola, NY 1959) as “Initials and stop ornaments from brasses in Westminster Abbey.” I wish I could say I remember seeing them when I was there, but that was forty-two years ago and all I remember was seeing the tomb of Edward the Confessor. One definition of “stop” as a noun is a point of punctuation. I have heard people from the British Isles speak of a “full stop” when referring to a period. Some may remember a 19th century form of communication called a telegram being read aloud in an old movie, with the use of the word “stop” to indicate the end of a sentence or fragment. A full dozen of these stop ornaments are provided. They occupy positions 060, 062, 094, 123, 125, 126, 135, 137, 167, 172, 177 & 190. The Brass Family consists of two fonts: Brass and Brass Too. Both fonts have an identical upper case and ornaments, but paired with different lower cases. Although the typefaces from which the lower cases were drawn are both of modern design, both are interpretations of the textura style of blackletter in use in England when the upper case and ornaments were fashioned for the Abbey. Brass is paired with Morris Gothic, which matches the color of the upper case quite well. Brass Too is paired with Wedding Regular, which is distinctly lighter than the upper case. I find it very interesting how each connects differently. The resulting fonts are unusual and most useful for evoking an historic atmosphere.

The silent film »The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari« (1920) is undoubtedly one of the breathtaking milestones within the German Expressionist Movement, a time of extraordinarily creative works of art as a reaction to a world in rapid change. The original intertitles of Caligari were worked out by the set designers (and painters) Walter Reimann, Walter Röhrig, and Hermann Warm, using a unique expressionistic language of form for dramatic and iconic lettering. When in 2010 KOMA AMOK’s Joerg Ewald Meißner and Gerd Sebastian Jakob were commissioned by the Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt and publisher Hatje Cantz to design the catalog for the exhibition »The Total Artwork in Expressionism«—showing works of art, architecture, film, literature, theater, and dance—it was soon perfectly clear that a new typeface, inspired by the Caligari intertitles, should speak for all the expressionistic arts. An intense process of research and analysis began. The original letters of the Caligari intertitles were individuals on their own. Furthermore, each of the three title designers had added his specific approach to the basic Caligari type style. From hundreds of different As to Zs a choice had to be made, which should be THE characteristic Caligari letter for a digital typesetting font. Finally the chosen letters were cut and drawn again, missing letters were added according to the formal priniciples, all-in-all 1000 glyphs were digitised to complete a usefull OpenType font ready for use. When in the autumn of 2010 the exhibition started successfully with great media interest, the posters all over Darmstadt announced »You must become Caligari!« – set in the brandnew typeface. The font Caligari Pro offers alternative forms for every letter and a whole bunch of ligatures, thus creating an expressive, individual image of headlines and text. By using included Stylistic Alternates the image will get even more vivid. Caligari comes with a complete set of expressionist ornaments and true old style figures—thus the heyday of the Expressionist Movement and the era of the silent films can be revived typographically by the means of today: »Express Yourself!«.

The Verdana typeface family was designed specifically to address the challenges of on-screen display. Verdana was originally designed by world-renowned type designer Matthew Carter, and tuned for screen display by the leading TrueType hinting expert, Tom Rickner. The Verdana fonts are unique examples of type designed specifically for the computer screen.The Verdana family received a major update in 2011 as a collaboration between The Font Bureau, Monotype Imaging and Matthew Carter. The original Verdana family included only four fonts: regular, italic, bold and bold italic. The new and expanded Verdana Pro family contains 20 fonts in total. The Verdana Pro and Verdana Pro Condensed families each contain 10 fonts: Light, Regular, Semibold, Bold and Black (each with matching italic styles).Verdana exhibits characteristics derived from the pixel rather than the pen, the brush or the chisel. The balance between straight, curve and diagonal were meticulously tuned to ensure that the pixel patterns at small sizes are pleasing, clear and legible. Commonly confused characters, such as the lowercase i j l, the uppercase I J L and the number 1, have been carefully drawn for maximum individuality - an important characteristic of fonts designed for on-screen use. Another reason for the legibility of the Verdana fonts on the screen is their generous width and spacing.Designed by David Berlow and David Johnathan Ross of the Font Bureau, with typographic consultation by Matthew Carter, the new Verdana Pro includes a variety of advanced typographic features including true small capitals, ligatures, fractions, old style figures, lining tabular figures and lining proportional figures. An OpenType-savvy application is required to access these typographic features. The expanded weights and completely new condensed range of fonts provide designers with an expanded palette of typographic options for use in print and on-screen, in both small text sizes and headlines.

Introducing The Loud & Proud Bobby Jones Font Collection Inside you'll find 16 quirky handcrafted fonts, oozing with personality, ripe and ready to take center stage within a variety of creative and fun design projects. If you're looking to grab eyeballs with an ad campaign, a logo design, apparel, printed stationery, and all that other good stuff, then worry not. Bobby has you covered. We all come with imperfections and Bobby is no exception! His outlines are slightly off, his corners are irregular, his straights aren't straight, but he's cool with it. In fact, he's too busy strutting his stuff. - What's Inside? Each of the fonts listed below boast multilingual glyph ranges and their own individually handcrafted outline style! (16 fonts in total!) - Bobby Jones - The original Bobby.J - Bobby Jones Soft - A rounded version of the above - Bobby Jones Condensed - The thinner and leaner sibling to Bobby Jones - Bobby Jones Condensed Soft - A rounded version of the above - Bobby Rough - A high-res textured version of the original - Bobby Rough Soft - A textured version of Bobby Jones Soft - Bobby Rough Condensed - A textured version of Bobby Jones Condensed - Bobby Rough Condensed Soft - A textured version of Bobby Jones Condensed Soft Designed a little over five years ago, the original Bobby Jones Font was my first ever product. This new and improved version has been entirely redesigned from bottom to top. Holding dearly to the punch that the original had, while adding a whole lot of extra power. I hope you enjoy the Bobby Jones Family as much as I do and have, and as always if you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to get in touch. I'd love to hear from you. (tom[at]tomchalky.com)

After doing this for so many years, one would think my fascination with the old history of writing would have mellowed out by now. The truth is that alongside being a calligraphy history buff, I'm a pop technology freak. Maybe even keener on the tech thing, since I just can't seem to get enough new gadgets. And after working with type technologies for so many years, I'm starting to think that writing and design technologies as we now know them, being about 2.5 post-computer generations, keep becoming more and more detached from what the very old humanity arts/tasks they essentially want to facilitate. In a world where command-z is a frequently used key combination, it’s difficult to justify expecting a Morris-made book or a Zaner-drawn sentence, but accidental artistic “mutations” become welcome, marketable features. When fluid pens were introduced, their liquid saturation influenced type design to a great extent almost overnight an influence professional designers tend to play down. Now round stroke endings are a common sight, and the saturation is so clean and measured, unlike any liquid-paper relationship possible in reality. Some designers even illustrate their work by overlaying perfect circles at stroke ends, in order to illustrate how “geometric” their work was. Because if it’s measured with precise geometry, it’s got to be meaningful design. And once in a while, by a total freak accident, the now-cherished mutations prove to have existed long before the technology that caused them. Rolling Pen was cued by just such a thing: A rounded, circular, roll-flowing calligraphy from the late nineteenth century seemingly one of those experimental takes on what inspired Business Penmanship, another font of mine. Looking at it now it certainly seems to be friendlier, more legible, and maybe even more practical and easier to execute than the standard business penmanship of those days, but I guess friendliness and simplicity were at odds with the stiff manner business liked to present itself back then, so that kind of thing remained buried in the professional penman’s oddities drawer. It would be quite a few years before all this curviness and rounding were thought of as symbolic of graceful movement, which brought such a flow closer to the idea of fine art. Even though in this case the accidental mutation just happens to not be a mutation after all, the whole technology-transforms-application argument still applies here. I'm almost sure “business” will be the last thing on people’s minds when they use this font today. One extreme example of that level of disconnect between origin and current application is shown here, with the so-called business penmanship strutting around in gloss and neon. Rolling Pen is another cup of mine that runneth over with alternates, swashes, ligatures, and other techy perks. To explore its full potential, please use it in a program that supports OpenType features for advanced typography. Enjoy the new Rolling Pen designed by Ale Paul with Neon’s visual poetry by Tomás García.

The Garamond family tree has many branches. There are probably more different typefaces bearing the name Garamond than the name of any other type designer. Not only did the punchcutter Claude Garamond set a standard for elegance and excellence in type founding in 16th-century Paris, but a successor, Jean Jannon, some eighty years later, cut typefaces inspired by Garamond that later came to bear Garamond’s name. Revivals of both designs have been popular and various over the course of the last 100 years. When ATF Garamond was designed in 1917, it was one of the first revivals of a truly classic typeface. Based on Jannon’s types, which had been preserved in the French Imprimerie Nationale as the “caractères de l’Université,” ATF Garamond brought distinctive elegance and liveliness to text type for books and display type for advertising. It was both the inspiration and the model for many of the later “Garamond” revivals, notably Linotype’s very popular Garamond No. 3. ATF Garamond was released ca. 1918, first in Roman and Italic, drawn by Morris Fuller Benton, the head of the American Type Founders design department. In 1922, Thomas M. Cleland designed a set of swash italics and ornaments for the typeface. The Bold and Bold Italic were released in 1920 and 1923, respectively. The new digital ATF Garamond expands upon this legacy, while bringing back some of the robustness of metal type and letterpress printing that is sometimes lost in digital adaptations. The graceful, almost lacy form of some of the letters is complemented by a solid, sturdy outline that holds up in text even at small sizes. The 18 fonts comprise three optical sizes (Subhead, Text, Micro) and three weights, including a new Medium weight that did not exist in metal. ATF Garamond also includes unusual alternates and swash characters from the original metal typeface. The character of ATF Garamond is lively, reflecting the spirit of the French Renaissance as interpreted in the 1920s. Its Roman has more verve than later old-style faces like Caslon, and its Italic is outright sprightly, yet remarkably readable.

Dr. Gerard Unger expands the concept of Sanserata to a sans type family with Sanserata, adding specific characteristics which improve reading. Sanserata’s originality does not overtly present itself at text sizes. Rather, at those sizes, it draws upon its enormous x-height, short extenders, and articulated terminals to improve readability, especially on screens. Having articulated terminals means characters flare as they near their end, but readers likely won’t notice. What they would notice is that their ability to take in more content in a line of text is improved because the lettershapes are more defined. Articulation also makes clearer text from digital sources, where rectangular endings tend to get rounded by the emission of light from the screen. Lately there seems a whispered discontent with the lack of progress in the sans serif category. Designs can either stretch too far beyond what is accepted or be too bland to be considered new. Sanserata’s strength is in being vivid and unique without being off-putting. This bodes well for designers of paragraphs and of branding schemes since, with Sanserata’s two flavors, it is well able to capture attention or simply set the tone. Sanserata’s first voice is a generous, friendly, and even cheerful sans serif. But when using the alternate letterforms its voice becomes more businesslike, though still with nice curves, generous proportions, and a pleasant character. Sanserata comes in seven weights with matching italics, covers the Latin Extended character set, and is loaded with extras. Its OpenType features allow for the implementation of typographic niceties such as small caps, both tabular and proportional lining and oldstyle figures, ligatures, alternate characters, case-sensitive variants, and fractions. The complete Sanserata family, along with our entire catalogue, has been optimised for today’s varied screen uses. Dr Unger worked with Tom Grace on the production of Sanserata. For extended branding use with Sanserata, check out Sanserata, the contemporary, eclectic typeface drawn from roots in Romanesque Europe.

There is plenty of lyric and literature about looking over one's shoulder in contemplation. What would you have done differently if you knew then what you know now? This is the kind of question that comes out of nowhere. When it does and whether its context is personal or professional make very little difference. It's a question that can cause emotions to rise and passions to run hot. It can trigger priority shifts and identity crises. It's never easy to answer. Three years ago, I published a font called Semilla. My aim with that was to distill the work of Bentele, a lettering artist from early 1950s Germany. Picking such an obscure figure back then was my way of pondering the meaning and efficiency of objectivity in a world where real human events and existences are inevitably filtered through decades of unavoidably subjective written, printed and oral history. And maybe to pat myself on the back for surviving surprises mild and pleasant. Having been fortunate enough to follow my professional whims for quite some time now, I took another, longer look at my idea of distilling Bentele's work again. I suppose the concepts of established history and objectivity can become quite malleable when personal experience is added to the mix. I say that because there I was, three years later, second-guessing myself and opining that Bentele's work can be distilled differently, in a manner more suited to current cultural angles. So I embarked on that mission, and Bowling Script is the result. I realize that it's difficult to reconcile this soft and happy calligraphic outcome with the introspection I've blathered about so far, but it is what is. I guess even self-created first world problems need to be resolved somehow, and the resolution can happen in mysterious ways. Bowling Script is what people who like my work would expect from me. It's yet another script loaded with all kinds of alternation, swashing and over-the-top stuff. All of that is in here. These days I think I just do all that stuff without even blinking. But there are two additional twists. The more noticeable one is ornamental: The stroke endings in the main font are of the typical sharp and curly variety found in sign painting, while the other font complements that with ball endings, sometimes with an added-on-afterwards impression rather than an extension of the actual stroke. In the philosophical terms I was mumbling earlier, this is the equivalent of alternate realities in a world of historical reduxes that by their very nature can never properly translate original fact. The second twist has to do with the disruption of angular rhythm in calligraphic alphabets. Of course, this is the kind of lettering where the very concept of rhythm can be quite flexible, but it still counts for something, and experimenting with angular white space in a project of a very dense footprint was irresistible. After playing for a bit, I decided that it would interesting to include the option of using optically back-slanted forms in the fonts. Most scripts out there, including mine, have a rhythm sonically comparable to four-to-the-floor club beats. So the weirdly angled stuff here is your chance to do the occasional drumroll. Everyone knows we need one of those sometimes. Bowling Script and Bowling Script Balls fonts comes with 1600 characters and features extended Latin-based language support. There are also a basic version of both fonts without all the alternates and extra OpenType features. Bowling family ships in cross-platform OpenType format. We also want to present “Mute”, a visual essay narated by Tomás García and Valentín Muro, about digital life created specially to introduce Bowling Script.

Now even more design possibilities with the popular DIN Next. With its technical and neutral character, DIN Next has earned a permanent place in contemporary typography. Now, DIN Next Slab expands the font family further, offering new design potential. Now comes the next step, DIN Next Slab, also produced under the direction of Akira Kobayashi. On a team with Sandra Winter and Tom Grace, Kobayashi is creating the new font variant based on the optimized shapes of DIN Next. The expansion will make the popular font all the more flexible and versatile. Apart from that, the geometric slab serifs underline the technical and formal nature of the font and emphasize a central design element of DIN Next. However, the team did have some challenges to overcome. While it is relatively easy to imagine DIN Next Light with slab serifs, the amount of available space quickly disappears when it comes to the Black styles. Winter explains that many tests and trials were necessary to find a compromise between space, letters and the serif shapes. Experiments with modified contrast in the weight or only one-sided serifs were quickly abandoned. The central, technical and powerful character of the font changed too much. Nevertheless, it was necessary to simplify slightly the shape of some letters, such as the ‘k’ or ‘x’, for example. These changes, first developed in the Black styles, were applied to all weights in order to lend the font a consistent appearance. Like DIN Next, DIN Next Slab also has seven weights, which cover the range from Ultralight to Black, each with matching italic. There are various character sets in all of the styles and the four middle weights have small capitals available. DIN Next Slab harmonizes perfectly with the styles of DIN Next: the basic letterforms and weights are identical. Both versions of the font can work together perfectly, not just in headlines and body text, but also within a text; they complement each other very well as design variations. With the new DIN Next Slab, Monotype expands the DIN Next super family consistently. With DIN Next Slab, you can underscore the technical and formal nature of the understated font not only in headlines, but in texts, as well. In this way, you have new and diverse potential for application, thanks to the way the different styles of DIN Next combine perfectly.

Fioritura is a floral display typeface inspired by Sandro Botticelli's "Primavera" ("Spring") and Guiseppe Arcimboldo's "The Four Seasons" paintings. Fioritura means flowering in Italian, and the character composition consists of stems, leaves, flowers, and flying pollen. Scripts: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic. Language count: 480+. Glyph count: 1103. Kerning: 936 class pairs. Hinting: Not applied. Contextual Alternates: AA BB CC DD EE FF GG LL MM NN OO PP RR SS TT ZZ aa bb cc dd ee ff gg ll mm nn oo pp rr ss tt zz. To keep the writing natural, every second of two frequently repeated letters is automatically replaced by its alternative version. Turned on by default. Contextual Alternates: ΆΈΉΊΌΎΏ. Greek uppercase accented characters lose their tonos accent and retain only dieresis in All Caps mode. Turned on by default. If you need tonos accents in All Caps then turn off Contextual Alternates (calt) feature. Stylistic Alternates: ABCDEFGLMNOPRSTZ abcdefglmnoprstz. Supported languages: Abenaki, Abron, Acheron, Achinese, Achuar-Shiwiar, Adamawa Fulfulde, Adangme, Afar, Afrikaans (Latin), Aghem, Aguaruna, Aja, Akan, Albanian, Alsatian, Amahuaca, Amarakaeri, Amis, Andaandi (Dongolawi), Anuta, Ao Naga, Apinayé, Arabela, Aragonese, Aranese, Aromanian, Arrernte, Arvanitic (Latin), Asháninka, Asturian, Asu, Atayal, Awa-Cuaiquer, Awetí, Aymara, Azerbaijani (Latin, Cyrillic), Baatonum, Bafia, Bagirmi Fulfulde, Balinese, Balkan Romani, Bambara (Latin), Baoulé, Bari, Basaa, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Batak (Latin), Belarusian (Latin, Cyrillic), Bemba, Bena, Biali, Bikol, Bini, Bislama, Boko, Bora, Borgu Fulfulde, Bouna Kulango, Bosnian, Breton, Buginese (Latin), Bulgarian, Buryat, Bushi, Candoshi-Shapra, Cape Verdean Creole, Caquinte, Caribbean Hindustani, Cashibo-Cacataibo, Cashinahua, Catalan, Cebuano, Chachi, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chayahuita, Chechen, Chewa (Latin), Chickasaw, Chiga, Chiltepec Chinantec, Chokwe, Chuukese, Cimbrian, Cofán, Colognian, Cornish, Corsican, Creek (Muscogee), Croatian, Czech, Dagaare, Dagbani, Danish, Dawan, Dehu, Delaware, Dendi, Dholuo, Dimli, Dinka, Ditammari, Drehu, Duala, Dutch, Dungan, Dyula, Embu, English, Erzya, Ese Ejja, Esperanto, Estonian, Ewe, Ewondo, Falam Chin, Fanti, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, Folkspraak, Fon, French, Friulian, Frisian, Fula, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ga’anda, Garifuna, Gen, Genoese, German, Gikuyu, Gilbertese, Gonja, Gooniyandi, Greek, Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), Guadeloupean Creole, Guarani, Gusii (Latin), Gwich’in, Haitian, Hakha Chin (Latin), Hän, Hani, Hausa (Latin), Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Ho-Chunk, Hopi, Hotcąk (Latin), Huastec, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ido, Igbo (Latin), Ilocano, Indonesian, Interglossa, Interlingua, Irish, Istro-Romanian, Italian, Ixcatlán Mazatec, Jamaican, Javanese (Latin), Jèrriais, Jola, Kabuverdianu, Kabiyè, Kabuverdianu, Kabyle (Latin), Kaingang, Kako, Kala Lagaw Ya, Kalaallisut, Kalenjin, Kalmyk (Cyrillic), Kamba, Kanuri, Kaonde, Kapampangan (Latin), Kaqchikel, Karachay (Cyrillic), Karakalpak (Latin), Karelian, Kashubian, Kazakh, Kekchí, Kenzi, Khalkha (Cyrillic), Khasi, Khoekhoe, K’iche’, Kikuyu, Kimbundu, Kinyarwanda (Ruanda), Kiribati, Kirmanjki, Kirundi (Rundi), Kissi, Kituba, Klingon, Kölsch, Kongo, Konzo, Koyra Chiini, Koyraboro Senni, Kpelle, Krio, Kuanyama, Kumyk, Kurdish, Kven Finnish, Kwasio, Kyrgyz (Cyrillic), Ladin, Ladino, Lakota, Lamnso’, Langi, Latgalian, Latin, Latino sine Flexione, Latvian, Ligurian, Limba, Lingala, Lithuanian, Lobi, Lojban, Lombard, Low German, Lozi, Luba-Katanga, Luba-Lulua, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Maasai, Maasina Fulfulde, Macedonian, Machame, Madurese (Latin), Makhuwa, Makonde, Makwe, Malagasy (Latin), Malaysian Malay (Latin), Maltese, Mam, Maninkakan, Manx, Maore Comorian, Māori, Mapudungun, Marquesan, Marshallese, Masai, Matsés, Mauritian Creole, Mbelime, Megleno-Romanian, Mende, Meriam Mir, Meru, Meta’ (Latin), Metlatónoc Mixtec, Mezquital Otomi, Mi’kmaq, Minangkabau, 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Southern, Pite, Skolt, Ume), Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Secoya, Sena, Serbian, Seri, Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Sharanahua, Shawnee, Shilluk, Shipibo-Conibo, Shona, Shuar, Sicilian, Silesian, Siona, Slovak, Slovene (Slovenian), Slovio (Latin), Soga, Somali, Soninke, Sorbian (Lower, Upper), Sotho (Nothern, Southern), Spanish, Sranan, Sukuma, Sundanese (Latin), Susu, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Swiss German, Tachelhit (Latin), Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Tajik (Cyrillic), Talysh, Tasawaq, Tatar (Cyrillic, Latin), Tedim Chin, Teso, Tetum, Ticuna, Timne, Tiv, Toba, Tojolabal, Tok Pisin, Tokelauan, Tonga, Tongan, Tosk, Totontepec Mixe, Tsafiki, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin, Cyrillic), Tuvaluan, Tuvan, Twi, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Uab Meto, Ukrainian, Ulithian, Umbundu, Urarina, Uyghur (Cyrillic), Uzbek (Latin, Cyrillic), Vai, Venda, Venetian, Veps, Vietnamese, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Waama, Waci Gbe, Wallisian, Walloon, Walser, 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The promo images used photos of Cottonbro, Maria Lindsey from Pexels, and Andreea Popa, Wyron A from Unsplash.

“A picture is worth a thousand words” and here, that’s more than true. Take a look at Erotica’s Booklet; Erotica’s Poster Design and Erotica’s User’s Guide before reading below. THE STYLES The difference between Pro and Std styles is the quantity of glyphs. Therefore, Pro styles include all the decorative alternates and ligatures while Std styles are a reduced version of Pro ones. Big and Small styles were thought for better printing results. While Big is recommended to be printed in big sizes, Small may be printed in tiny sizes and will still show its hairlines well. INTRODUCTION I have always wondered if the circle could ever be considered as an imperfect shape. Thousands of years have passed and we still consider circles as synonyms of infinite beauty. Some believe that there is something intrinsically “divine” that could be found in them. Sensuality is many times related to perfectly shaped strong curves, exuberant forms and a big contrasts. Erotica is a font created with this in mind. THE PROCESS This story begins one fine day of March in 2012. I was looking for something new. Something which would express the deep love I feel regarding calligraphy in a new way. At that time, I was practicing a lot of roundhand, testing and feeling different kinds of nibs; hearing the sometimes sharp, sometimes soft, sound of them sliding on the paper. This kind of calligraphy has some really strict rules: An even pattern of repetition is required, so you have to be absolutely aware of the pressure of the flexible pen; and of the distance between characters. Also, learning copperplate can be really useful to understand about proportion in letters and how a minimum change of it can drastically affect the look of the word and text. Many times I would forget about type-design and I would let myself go(1): Nothing like making the pen dance when adding some accolades above and below the written word. Once something is mastered, you are able to break some rules. At least, that’s my philosophy. (2) After some research, I found that the world was in need of a really sexy yet formal copperplate. (3) I started Erotica with the idea of taking some rules of this style to the extreme. Some characters were drawn with a pencil first because what I had in mind was impossible to be made with a pen. (4) Finding a graceful way to combine really thick thicks with really thin hairlines with satisfactory results demanded months of tough work: The embryo of Erotica was a lot more bolder than now and had a shorter x-height. Changing proportions of Erotica was crucial for its final look. The taller it became the sexier it looked. Like women again? The result is a font filled with tons of alternates which can make the user think he/she is the actual designer of the word/phrase due to the huge amount of possibilities when choosing glyphs. To make Erotica work well in small sizes too, I designed Erotica Small which can be printed in tiny sizes without any problems. For a more elegant purpose, I designed Erotica Inline, with exactly the same features you can find in the other styles. After finishing these styles, I needed a partner for Erotica. Inspired again in some old calligraphic books I found that Bickham used to accompany his wonderful scripts with some ornated roman caps. Erotica Capitals follows the essentials of those capitals and can be used with or without its alternates to accompany Erotica. In 2013, Erotica received a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design in the 59th TDC Type Directors Club Typeface Design Competition. Meet Erotica, beauty and elegance guaranteed. Notes (1) It is supossed that I'm a typographer rather than a calligrapher, but the truth is that I'm in the middle. Being a graphic designer makes me a little stubborn sometimes. But, I found that the more you don't think of type rules, the more graceful and lively pieces of calligraphy can be done. (2) “Know the forms well before you attempt to make them” used to say E. A. Lupfer, a master of this kind of script a century ago. And I would add “And once you know them, it’s time to fly...” (3) Some script fonts by my compatriots Sabrina Lopez, Ramiro Espinoza and Alejandro Paul deserve a mention here because of their undeniable beauty. The fact that many great copperplate fonts come from Argentina makes me feel really proud. Take a look at: Parfumerie, Medusa, Burgues, Poem and Bellisima. (4) Some calligraphers, graphic and type designer experimented in this field in the mid-to-late 20th century and made a really playful style out of it: Letters show a lot of personality and sometimes they seem drawn rather than written. I want to express my sincere admiration to the fantastic Herb Lubalin, and his friends Tony DiSpigna, Tom Carnase, and of course my fellow countryman Ricardo Rousselot. All of them, amazing.

Type designers are crazy people. Not crazy in the sense that they think we are Napoleon, but in the sense that the sky can be falling, wars tearing the world apart, disasters splitting the very ground we walk on, plagues circling continents to pick victims randomly, yet we will still perform our ever optimistic task of making some little spot of the world more appealing to the human eye. We ought to be proud of ourselves, I believe. Optimism is hard to come by these days. Regardless of our own personal reasons for doing what we do, the very thing we do is in itself an act of optimism and belief in the inherent beauty that exists within humanity. As recently as ten years ago, I wouldn't have been able to choose the amazing obscure profession I now have, wouldn't have been able to be humbled by the history that falls into my hands and slides in front of my eyes every day, wouldn't have been able to live and work across previously impenetrable cultural lines as I do now, and wouldn't have been able to raise my glass of Malbeck wine to toast every type designer who was before me, is with me, and will be after me. As recently as ten years ago, I wouldn't have been able to mean these words as I wrote them: It’s a small world. Yes, it is a small world, and a wonderfully complex one too. With so much information drowning our senses by the minute, it has become difficult to find clear meaning in almost anything. Something throughout the day is bound to make us feel even smaller in this small world. Most of us find comfort in a routine. Some of us find extended families. But in the end we are all Eleanor Rigbys, lonely on the inside and waiting for a miracle to come. If a miracle can make the world small, another one can perhaps give us meaning. And sometimes a miracle happens for a split second, then gets buried until a crazy type designer finds it. I was on my honeymoon in New York City when I first stumbled upon the letters that eventually started this Affair. A simple, content tourist walking down the streets formerly unknown to me except through pop music and film references. Browsing the shops of the city that made Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, and a thousand other artists. Trying to chase away the tourist mentality, wondering what it would be like to actually live in the city of a billion tiny lights. Tourists don't go to libraries in foreign cities. So I walked into one. Two hours later I wasn't in New York anymore. I wasn't anywhere substantial. I was the crazy type designer at the apex of insanity. La La Land, alphabet heaven, curves and twirls and loops and swashes, ribbons and bows and naked letters. I'm probably not the very first person on this planet to be seduced into starting an Affair while on his honeymoon, but it is something to tease my better half about once in a while. To this day I can't decide if I actually found the worn book, or if the book itself called for me. Its spine was nothing special, sitting on a shelf, tightly flanked by similar spines on either side. Yet it was the only one I picked off that shelf. And I looked at only one page in it before walking to the photocopier and cheating it with an Argentine coin, since I didn't have the American quarter it wanted. That was the beginning. I am now writing this after the Affair is over. And it was an Affair to remember, to pull a phrase. Right now, long after I have drawn and digitized and tested this alphabet, and long after I saw what some of this generation’s type designers saw in it, I have the luxury to speculate on what Affair really is, what made me begin and finish it, what cultural expressions it has, and so on. But in all honesty it wasn't like that. Much like in my Ministry Script experience, I was a driven man, a lover walking the ledge, an infatuated student following the instructions of his teacher while seeing her as a perfect angel. I am not exaggerating when I say that the letters themselves told me how to extend them. I was exploited by an alphabet, and it felt great. Unlike my experience with Ministry Script, where the objective was to push the technology to its limits, this Affair felt like the most natural and casual sequence of processions in the world – my hand following the grid, the grid following what my hand had already done – a circle of creation contained in one square computer cell, then doing it all over again. By contrast, it was the lousiest feeling in the world when I finally reached the conclusion that the Affair was done. What would I do now? Would any commitment I make from now on constitute a betrayal of these past precious months? I'm largely over all that now, of course. I like to think I'm a better man now because of the experience. Affair is an enormous, intricately calligraphic OpenType font based on a 9x9 photocopy of a page from a 1950s lettering book. In any calligraphic font, the global parameters for developing the characters are usually quite volatile and hard to pin down, but in this case it was particularly difficult because the photocopy was too gray and the letters were of different sizes, very intertwined and scan-impossible. So finishing the first few characters in order to establish the global rhythm was quite a long process, after which the work became a unique soothing, numbing routine by which I will always remember this Affair. The result of all the work, at least to the eyes of this crazy designer, is 1950s American lettering with a very Argentine wrapper. My Affair is infused with the spirit of filete, dulce de leche, yerba mate, and Carlos Gardel. Upon finishing the font I was fortunate enough that a few of my colleagues, great type designers and probably much saner than I am, agreed to show me how they envision my Affair in action. The beauty they showed me makes me feel small and yearn for the world to be even smaller now – at least small enough so that my international colleagues and I can meet and exchange stories over a good parrilla. These people, whose kindness is very deserving of my gratitude, and whose beautiful art is very deserving of your appreciation, are in no particular order: Corey Holms, Mariano Lopez Hiriart, Xavier Dupré, Alejandro Ros, Rebecca Alaccari, Laura Meseguer, Neil Summerour, Eduardo Manso, and the Doma group. You can see how they envisioned using Affair in the section of this booklet entitled A Foreign Affair. The rest of this booklet contains all the obligatory technical details that should come with a font this massive. I hope this Affair can bring you as much peace and satisfaction as it brought me, and I hope it can help your imagination soar like mine did when I was doing my duty for beauty.