Phinney Jenson ML is a font with deep historical roots firmly planted in the fertile soil of the Italian Renaissance. Twenty years after Lorenzo Ghiberti finished his famous East Doors, the Gates of Paradise, of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and about fifteen years before Sandro Botticelli painted his “Birth of Venus,” a French printer by the name of Nicolas Jenson set up a small print shop in the powerful city-state of Venice. The fifteenth century marked the end of the plague and the rise of Venetian power, as the merchants of Venice controlled the lucrative trade of the eastern Mediterranean and sent their ships as far as London and even the Baltic. In 1470, Jenson introduced his Roman type with the printing of De Praeparatio Evangelica by Eusebuis. He continued to use his type for over 150 editions until he died in 1480. In 1890 a leader of the Arts & Crafts movement in England named William Morris founded Kelmscott Press. He was an admirer of Jenson’s Roman and drew his own somewhat darker version called GOLDEN, which he used for the hand-printing of limited editions on homemade paper, initiating the revival of fine printing in England. Morris' efforts came to the attention of Joseph Warren Phinney, manager of the Dickinson Type Foundry of Boston. Phinney requested permission to issue a commercial version, but Morris was philosophically opposed and flatly refused. So Phinney designed a commercial variation of Golden type and released it in 1893 as Jenson Oldstyle. Phinney Jenson is our version of Phinney’s version of Morris' version of Nicolas Jenson’s Roman. We selected a view of the Piazza San Marco in Venice for our gallery illustration of Phinney Jenson ML because most of the principal buildings on the Piazza were already standing when Jenson arrived in Vienna in 1470. The original Campanile was completed in 1173 (the 1912 replacement is partially visible on the left). The Basilica di San Marco was substantially complete by 1300. The Doge’s Palace (not in the photo, but next to the Basilica) was substantially complete by 1450. Even the Torre dell'Orologio (Clock Tower) may have been completed by 1470—certainly by 1500. Phinney Jenson ML has a "rough-and-ready" strength, suitable for headlines and short blocks of text. We have sought to preserve some of the crudeness of the nineteenth-century original. For comparison, see the more refined Centaur, Bruce Rogers's interpretation of Jenson Roman. Phinney Jenson ML has a strong presence that will help your documents stand out from the Times New Roman blizzard that threatens to cover us all. Phinney Jenson ML Features: 1. Glyphs for the 1252 Western Europe, 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Accented glyphs for Cornish and Old Gaelic. Total of 393 glyphs. 400 kerning pairs. 2. OpenType GSUB layout features: onum, pnum, salt, liga, dlig, hisy and ornm. 3. Tabular (std), proportional (opt) & old-style numbers (opt). 5. CcNnOoSsZz-kreska available (salt).

ROARRR! THE STYLES -Pantera Pro is the most complete style, and although its default look is mono-rhythmic it gets really playful and crazy like the examples of the posters by just activating the Decorative Ligatures button in the Open-type Panel of Adobe Illustrator. However, I recommend using also the Glyphs Panel because there you'll find much more variants per letter. Pantera Pro is in fact, coded in a way the combination of thicknesses will always look fantastic. -Pantera Black Left, and Pantera Black Right are actually “lite” versions of Pantera Pro: They have very little Open-Type code, so what you see here is what you get. Pantera Black Left has its left strokes thick, while Pantera Black Right has its right strokes thick. -Pantera White is a lovely member in this family that looks lighter and airy, hence its name. With the feature Standard Ligatures activated (liga) the font gets very playful. -Pantera Caps is based on sign painters lettering and since it follows the same pointed brush rules as the other styles, it matches perfectly. -Pantera Claws like its name suggests, is a set of icons that were done by our dear panther. THE STORY It is said that typography can never be as expressive as calligraphy, but sometimes it can get close enough. I tend to think that calligraphic trials, in order to work well as potential fonts, need first to go through very strict filters before going digital: While calligraphy is synonym of freedom (once its rules are mastered), type-design, in the other hand, has its battlefield a little tighter and tougher. When I practice pointed brush lettering, there are so many things happening on the paper. And most of them are delicious. The ones who know my work may see that although many of my fonts are very expressive, my handmade brush trials are much more lively than them. With that in mind, this time I tried to go further and rescue more of those things that are lost in the process of thinking type when first sketches are calligraphic. I wondered if I could create something wild, hence its name Panther, by understanding the randomness that sometimes calligraphy conveys and turning it to something systemic: With Pantera, I created an ordered disorder. Like it happens a lot in many kinds of lettering styles, in order to enrich the written word the scribe mixes the thickness of the strokes and the width of the letters. Like one of my favorite mentors say (1), they make thoughtful gestures Some lively strokes go down with a thick, while some do that with a thin. Some letters are very narrow, meaning some of them will need to be very wide to compensate. Why not?. The calligrapher is always thinking on the following letters, and he/she designs in his head the combination of thicks and thins before he/she executes them. He/she knows the playful rhythm the words will have before writing them. It takes time and skill to master this and achieve graceful results. Going back to the font, in Pantera, this combination of varying thicknesses and widths of letters were Open-Type coded so the user will see satisfactory results by just enabling or disabling some buttons on the glyphs panel. I'm very pleased with the result since it’s not very easy to find fonts which play with the words' rhythm like Pantera does, following of course, a strong calligraphic base. I believe that if you were on the prowl for innovative fonts, this is your chance to go wild and get Pantera! NOTES (1) Phrase by Yves Leterme. In fact, it’s the title of a book by him. EPILOGUE Esta fuente está dedicada a mi panterita