Originally commissioned in 1979 as a new corporate typeface for Volkswagen AG, the VAG Rounded™ family’s geometric sans letterforms feature distinct rounded terminals, imparting the design with a friendly, approachable demeanor. With its design led by Gerry Barney, the VAG Rounded family remained in use for Volkswagen AG’s unified, worldwide automobile marketing for over a decade. The design was released for public use in 1989, and was bundled with many desktop publishing software titles available at the time. This opened the door for millions of computer users to work with the VAG Rounded type family. Available in four weights—from thin to black the VAG Rounded family is an apt choice for logo design, identity systems, or any application where a typographic warmth is desired. For contrast in voice, consider pairing the design with a more reserved serif typeface, or a sans serif with narrow styles, such as those found in the Alternate Gothic, Trade Gothic, or FF DIN type families.

After researching the type styles contemporary graphic designers have been using over the past few years, I noticed a consistent use of Copperplate Gothic, and its derivative designs, for various corporate advertising campaigns. That level of usage gave me the inspiration to design a display font possessing subtle characteristics of Copperplate Gothic, and various Latin Condensed designs. The font I ended up designing was semi-condensed, with more contrast between thicks and thins than in Copperplate. Baltra also has a subtle flair in its otherwise traditional lowercase, while possessing a larger than average lowercase x-height. Copperplate Gothic, on the other hand, has minimal contrast and uses small capitals for its lowercase. After examining extensive type specimens from wood type, metal type, phototype and digital type, I was not able to find a single design possessing a majority of Baltra's characteristics. Consequently, I consider Baltra to be a truly unique design, sharing with Copperplate Gothic only its flairs on stems, and having only subtle characteristics in common with traditional Latin designs.

Franklin Stencil JNL is based on the classic and perennial workhorse design of Franklin Gothic Condensed and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Based on Bank Gothic designed by Morris Fuller Benton in the 30th, Bank Sans Caps from Elsner+Flake offers a wide variety of weights from Light to Bold with Compressed, Semi Condensed and Condensed widths. All weights are also available with Cyrillic character sets.

Franklin Ave. is a condensed sans serif in the style of the classics Franklin Gothic and News Gothic. Nostalgic and gives a great vintage feel. It's bold and comes in two styles: Regular and Oblique. Franklin Ave. is best used in headlines and large formats or in logos or branding.