In 1955 the Czech State Department of Culture, which was then in charge of all the publishing houses, organised a competition amongst printing houses and generally all book businesses for the design of a newspaper typeface. The motivation for this contest was obvious: the situation in the printing presses was appalling, with very little quality fonts existing and financial resources being too scarce to permit the purchase of type abroad. The conditions to be met by the typeface were strictly defined, and far more constrained than the ones applied to regular typefaces designed for books. A number of parameters needed to be considered, including the pressure of the printing presses and the quality of the thin newspaper ink that would have smothered any delicate strokes. Rough drafts of type designs for the competition were submitted by Vratislav Hejzl, Stanislav Marso, Frantisek Novak, Frantisek Panek, Jiri Petr, Jindrich Posekany, and the team of Stanislav Duda, Karel Misek and Josef Tyfa. The committee published its comments and corrections of the designs, and asked the designers to draw the final drafts. The winner was unambiguous — the members of the committee unanimously agreed to award Stanislav Marso’s design the first prize. His typeface was cast by Grafotechna (a state-owned enterprise) for setting with line-composing machines and also in larger sizes for hand-setting. Regular, bold, and bold condensed cuts were produced, and the face was named Public. In 2003 we decided to digitise the typeface. Drawings of the regular and italic cuts at the size of approximatively 3,5 cicero (43 pt) were used as templates for scanning. Those originals covered the complete set of caps except for the U, the lowercase, numerals, and sloped ampersand. The bold and condensed bold cuts were found in an original specimen book of the Rude Pravo newspaper printing press. These specimens included a dot, acute, colon, semicolon, hyphens, exclamation and question marks, asterisk, parentheses, square brackets, cross, section sign, and ampersand. After the regular cut was drafted, we began to modify it. All the uppercase letters were fine-tuned, the crossbar of the A was raised, E, F, and H were narrowed, L and R were significantly broadened, and the angle of the leg and arm of the K were adjusted. The vertex of the M now rests on the baseline, making the glyph broader. The apex of the N is narrower, resulting in a more regular glyph. The tail of Q was made more decorative; the uppercase S lost its implied serifs. The lowercase ascenders and descenders were slightly extended. Corrections on the lower case a were more significant, its waist being lowered in order to improve its colour and light. The top of the f was redrawn, the loop of lowercase g now has a squarer character. The diagonals of the lowercase k were harmonised with the uppercase K. The t has a more open and longer terminal, and the tail of the y matches its overall construction. Numerals are generally better proportioned. Italics have been thoroughly redrawn, and in general their slope is lessened by approximatively 2–3 degrees. The italic upper case is more consistent with the regular cut. Unlike the original, the tail of the K is not curved, and the Z is not calligraphic. The italic lower case is even further removed from the original. This concerns specifically the bottom finials of the c and e, the top of the f, the descender of the j, the serif of the k, a heavier ear on the r, a more open t, a broader v and w, a different x, and, again, a non-calligraphic z. Originally the bold cut conformed even more to the superellipse shape than the regular one, since all the glyphs had to be fitted to the same width. We have redrawn the bold cut to provide a better match with the regular. This means its shapes have become generally broader, also noticeably darker. Medium and Semibold weights were also interpolated, with a colour similar to the original bold cut. The condensed variants’ width is 85 percent of the original. The design of the Bold Condensed weights was optimised for the setting of headlines, while the lighter ones are suited for normal condensed settings. All the OpenType fonts include small caps, numerals, fractions, ligatures, and expert glyphs, conforming to the Suitcase Standard set. Over half a century of consistent quality ensures perfect legibility even in adverse printing conditions and on poor quality paper. RePublic is an exquisite newspaper and magazine type, which is equally well suited as a contemporary book face.

TT Fors useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options TT Fors is a modern geometric sans serif with characters and shapes contrasting in width, as close as possible to the basic geometric shapes (circle, square, triangle). TT Fors is a great addition to TypeType's line of functional sans serifs, which already includes such fonts as TT Norms Pro, TT Commons, TT Hoves and TT Interphases. The main inspiration for the creation of TT Fors was the study of geometric grotesques of the early to mid-20th century (Futura, Neuzeit Grotesk, Twentieth Century, Avantgarde Gothic, etc.), and the analysis of the contribution they made to the visual environment of that time. We gave ourselves the task to create the most versatile functional typeface that draws inspiration from the visual environment of the early to mid-20th century, but at the same time is aimed at uninterrupted use in all modern media, from branding and packaging design to work in interfaces and applications. This versatility is reflected in the title TT Fors (for), a typeface for a wide range of uses. The rounded characters in the font family tend to be shaped as the correct circle as much as possible, while the rest of the characters have narrower proportions. For more functionality, the typeface has rather high lowercase characters. Thanks to the correct and precisely selected geometric shapes and uniform construction rules, TT Fors works great both in the format of large headings and in very small text sizes used in book printing and in web design. In addition, the TT Fors family has a display subfamily TT Fors Display, which is a trendy pair for the text fonts. The main feature of the display subfamily is high contrast in horizontal or vertical strokes. When choosing a contrasting stroke, we paid attention that the shape of the letter would not go into reverse contrast and become a stressed sans serif. The subtle strokes in TT Fors Display have added sufficient display vibe to give the font a vibrant character, while remaining intelligent and serious. In total, TT Fors family includes 34 fonts: 9 weights and 9 italic styles in the text subfamily, 6 weights and 6 italic styles in the display subfamily, 2 outline styles and 2 variable fonts for both subfamilies. TT Fors has stylistic alternatives, ligatures, small caps (text family only), numbers in circles, arrows and a set of alternative round full stops and punctuation marks (text family only), slashed zero, and other useful features. More details about all OpenType features can be found in the font specimen. And, by good tradition, TT Fors has two variable fonts, for each of the subfamilies. Each variable font supports two axes of variability—thickness and slant. An important clarification—not all programs support variable technologies yet, you can check the support status here: https://v-fonts.com/support/. To use the variable font with two variable axes on Mac you will need MacOS 10.14 or higher. TT Fors supports more than 180+ languages, such as: Acehnese, Afar, Albanian+, Aleut (lat), Alsatian, Aragonese, Arumanian+, Asu, Aymara, Azerbaijani+, Banjar, Basque+, Belarusian (lat), Bemba, Bena, Betawi, Bislama+, Boholano+, Bosnian (lat), Breton+, Catalan+, Cebuano+, Chamorro+, Chichewa, Chiga, Colognian+, Cornish, Corsican+, Cree, Croatian, Czech+, Danish, Dutch+, Embu, English+, Esperanto, Estonian+, Faroese+, Fijian, Filipino+, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian+, Gaelic, Gagauz (lat), Galician+, Ganda, German+, Gusii, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiri Motu, Hungarian+, Icelandic+, Ilocano, Indonesian+, Innu-aimun, Interlingua, Irish, Italian+, Javanese, Jola-Fonyi, Judaeo-Spanish, Kabuverdianu, Kalenjin, Karachay-Balkar (lat), Karaim (lat), Karakalpak (lat), Karelian, Kashubian, Kazakh (lat), Khasi, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kongo, Kurdish (lat), Ladin, Latvian, Leonese, Lithuanian, Livvi-Karelian, Luba-Kasai, Ludic, Luganda+, Luo, Luxembourgish+, Luyia, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malagasy, Malay+, Maltese, Manx, Maori, Marshallese, Mauritian Creole, Minangkabau+, Moldavian (lat), Montenegrin (lat), Morisyen, Nahuatl, Nauruan, Ndebele, Nias, Norwegian, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Palauan, Polish+, Portuguese+, Quechua+, Rheto-Romance, Rohingya, Romanian +, Romansh+, Rombo, Rundi, Rwa, Salar, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Sasak, Scots, Sena, Serbian (lat)+, Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Shona, Silesian, Slovak+, Slovenian+, Soga, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho+, Spanish+, Sundanese, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish+, Swiss German+, Tagalog+, Tahitian, Taita, Talysh (lat), Tatar+, Teso, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tongan+, Tsakhur (Azerbaijan), Tsonga, Tswana+, Turkish+, Turkmen (lat), Uyghur, Valencian+, Vastese, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Walloon, Welsh+, Wolof, Xhosa, Zaza, Zulu+, Belarusian (cyr), Bosnian (cyr), Bulgarian (not localization), Erzya, Karachay-Balkar (cyr), Khvarshi, Kumyk, Macedonian, Montenegrin (cyr), Mordvin-moksha, Nogai, Russian+, Rusyn, Serbian (cyr)+, Ukrainian

Rian Hughes’ 15th collection of fonts, “112 Hours”, is entirely dedicated to numbers. Culled from a myriad of sources – clock faces, tickets, watches house numbers – it is an eclectic and wide-ranging set. Each font contains only numerals and related punctuation – no letters. A new book has been designed by Hughes to show the collection, and includes sample settings, complete character sets, source material and an introduction. This is available print-to-order on Blurb in paperback and hardback: http://www.blurb.com/b/5539073-112-hours-hardback http://www.blurb.com/b/5539045-112-hours-paperback From the introduction: The idea for this, the fifteenth Device Fonts collection, began when I came across an online auction site dedicated to antique clocks. I was mesmerized by the inventive and bizarre numerals on their faces. Shorn of the need to extend the internal logic of a typeface through the entire alphabet, the designers of these treasures were free to explore interesting forms and shapes that would otherwise be denied them. Given this horological starting point, I decided to produce 12 fonts, each featuring just the numbers from 1 to 12 and, where appropriate, a small set of supporting characters — in most cases, the international currency symbols, a colon, full stop, hyphen, slash and the number sign. 10, 11 and 12 I opted to place in the capital A, B and C slots. Each font is shown in its entirety here. I soon passed 12, so the next logical finish line was 24. Like a typographic Jack Bauer, I soon passed that too -— the more I researched, the more I came across interesting and unique examples that insisted on digitization, or that inspired me to explore some new design direction. The sources broadened to include tickets, numbering machines, ecclesiastical brass plates and more. Though not derived from clock faces, I opted to keep the 1-12 conceit for consistency, which allowed me to design what are effectively numerical ligatures. I finally concluded one hundred fonts over my original estimate at 112. Even though it’s not strictly divisible by 12, the number has a certain symmetry, I reasoned, and was as good a place as any to round off the project. An overview reveals a broad range that nonetheless fall into several loose categories. There are fairly faithful revivals, only diverging from their source material to even out inconsistencies and regularize weighting or shape to make them more functional in a modern context; designs taken directly from the source material, preserving all the inky grit and character of the original; designs that are loosely based on a couple of numbers from the source material but diverge dramatically for reasons of improved aesthetics or mere whim; and entirely new designs with no historical precedent. As projects like this evolve (and, to be frank, get out of hand), they can take you in directions and to places you didn’t envisage when you first set out. Along the way, I corresponded with experts in railway livery, and now know about the history of cab side and smokebox plates; I travelled to the Musée de l’imprimerie in Nantes, France, to examine their numbering machines; I photographed house numbers in Paris, Florence, Venice, Amsterdam and here in the UK; I delved into my collection of tickets, passes and printed ephemera; I visited the Science Museum in London, the Royal Signals Museum in Dorset, and the Museum of London to source early adding machines, war-time telegraphs and post-war ration books. I photographed watches at Worthing Museum, weighing scales large enough to stand on in a Brick Lane pub, and digital station clocks at Baker Street tube station. I went to the London Under-ground archive at Acton Depot, where you can see all manner of vintage enamel signs and woodblock type; I photographed grocer’s stalls in East End street markets; I dug out old clocks I recalled from childhood at my parents’ place, examined old manual typewriters and cash tills, and crouched down with a torch to look at my electricity meter. I found out that Jane Fonda kicked a policeman, and unusually for someone with a lifelong aversion to sport, picked up some horse-racing jargon. I share some of that research here. In many cases I have not been slavish about staying close to the source material if I didn’t think it warranted it, so a close comparison will reveal differences. These changes could be made for aesthetic reasons, functional reasons (the originals didn’t need to be set in any combination, for example), or just reasons of personal taste. Where reference for the additional characters were not available — which was always the case with fonts derived from clock faces — I have endeavored to design them in a sympathetic style. I may even extend some of these to the full alphabet in the future. If I do, these number-only fonts could be considered as experimental design exercises: forays into form to probe interesting new graphic possibilities.

Sacred letter is a font that follows the rules of calligraphy writing, but the difference is there is a natural emphasis on handwriting. The Thick and thin are not smooth to describe the flow of natural ink. The pure calligraphy tends to the classic style with nuances of the grandeur of the past. This font is more open and appears as-is. The flexibility of the style makes it can survive in the classic style and modern style. Sacred Letter is a flowing and classic handwritten font, described by an elegant touch, perfect for your dearest projects. Fall in love with its incredibly distinct and timeless style and use it to create spectacular designs! This font is PUA encoded which means you can access all of the glyphs and swashes with ease! It features a varying baseline, smooth lines, gorgeous glyphs and stunning alternates.

Chord Symbols is a font for musicians. With this font, you can quickly write beautiful chords, using only simple keyboard characters as input. Musicians tend to write chords with regular characters. They use # instead of a genuine sharp, b instead of a genuine flat, dim instead of a small circle, etc. With Chord Symbols, your chords will be better looking, more easily readable and more efficiently notated. Chord Symbols helps you to write the chords the way you like it. Whether you prefer ‘maj7’ or ‘m7’ or a small triangle for a major seventh, whether you want ‘m’, ‘mi’, ‘min’ or a horizontal line for a minor chord, this font will suit you. Chord Symbols is originally created out of the need to write chords above pop song lyrics. It is designed to also work smoothly in music notation software, like Sibelius, Finale and Encore.

'Snatched' is a spontaneous handwriting. This name is taken from the slang term in the 2022 era to describe someone or something in a positive manner. This font consists of the same uppercase and lowercase, often referred to as 'all capital letterform', complete with numerals and punctuation. Composed in tends to widen form which is more like the typical handwriting of architects. This font looks like it was written with a marker or technical pen, very bold stylish and legible. For designers this is an interesting thing, the design looks very natural and rhythmic to beautify presentations and blue prints. Can be installed for CAD programs, Sekthup and other applications. This font is very suitable for various media related to handmade, craft businesses, logos, quotes, prints, social media posts, indie business, outdoor sports and other applications to strengthen the impression of handwriting and demand attention.

Packing more copy in a narrow space is the main reason for using a condensed type. Characters with a more ovular shape tend to be less wide than their circular counterparts and will allow for more letters per line. In narrow columns for example, this typeface can provide up to 25% more copy than the regular typeface in the same space. Another reason is when a larger type size is called for — used sparingly it is useful for headings or headlines. For emphasis, narrower letters can provide a stark contrast in the flow of reading, creating impact while retaining typographic character. Condensed types can specially useful in tables and charts because typically both use few words in each block. If space now allows, you may think about the luxury of a larger point size. This optimizes space while keeping your typography more easily legible.

Sunshine is the unlikely alphabet collision of Gobbler and Liquorstore. Chank's napkin scrawl smashed into the letters commonly found on signage at the neighborhood liquor store. Gobbler's blotchy textures fragmented Liquorstore's uniform stroke. It began as a hideous lumpy thing with random vector points everywhere. Chank came to the rescue with his Alphabetician's first aid kit. He smoothed the blunt corners with a few hammer blows. He wrapped the font in extra strokes, in a sans serif Roman style, to increase its contrast. His industrial influence helped stabilize Gobbler's gloppy qualities and his grunge aesthetic softened Liquor store's checkerboard rigidity. The end result is a font with a solid structure and a painterly wiggle that creates a dirty display or a slightly clumsy text face. Because of its many detailed strokes, it tends to look a little better in print than on the web. All organic. Earthy.