Compendium is a sequel to my Burgues font from 2007. Actually it is more like a prequel to Burgues. Before Louis Madarasz awed the American Southeast with his disciplined corners and wild hairlines, Platt Rogers Spencer, up in Ohio, had laid down a style all his own, a style that would eventually become the groundwork for the veering calligraphic method that was later defined and developed by Madarasz. After I wrote the above paragraph, I was so surprised by it, particularly by the first two sentences, that I stopped and had to think about it for a week. Why a sequel/prequel? Am I subconsciously joining the ranks of typeface-as-brand designers? Are the tools I build finally taking control of me? Am I having to resort to “milking it” now? Not exactly. Even though the current trend of extending older popular typefaces can play tricks with a type designer’s mind, and maybe even send him into strange directions of planning, my purpose is not the extension of something popular. My purpose is presenting a more comprehensive picture as I keep coming to terms with my obsession with 19th century American penmanship. Those who already know my work probably have an idea about how obsessive I can be about presenting a complete and detailed image of the past through today’s eyes. So it is not hard to understand my need to expand on the Burgues concept in order to reach a fuller picture of how American calligraphy evolved in the 19th century. Burgues was really all about Madarasz, so much so that it bypasses the genius of those who came before him. Compendium seeks to put Madarasz’s work in a better chronological perspective, to show the rounds that led to the sharps, so to speak. And it is nearly criminal to ignore Spencer’s work, simply because it had a much wider influence on the scope of calligraphy in general. While Madarasz’s work managed to survive only through a handful of his students, Spencer’s work was disseminated throughout America by his children after he died in 1867. The Spencer sons were taught by their father and were great calligraphers themselves. They would pass the elegant Spencerian method on to thousands of American penmen and sign painters. Though Compendium has a naturally more normalized, Spencerian flow, its elegance, expressiveness, movement and precision are no less adventurous than Burgues. Nearing 700 glyphs, its character set contains plenty of variation in each letter, and many ornaments for letter beginnings, endings, and some that can even serve to envelope entire words with swashy calligraphic wonder. Those who love to explore typefaces in detail will be rewarded, thanks to OpenType. I am so in love with the technology now that it’s becoming harder for me to let go of a typeface and call it finished. You probably have noticed by now that my fascination with old calligraphy has not excluded my being influenced by modern design trends. This booklet is an example of this fusion of influences. I am living 150 years after the Spencers, so different contextualization and usage perspectives are inevitable. Here the photography of Gonzalo Aguilar join the digital branchings of Compendium to form visuals that dance and wave like the arms of humanity have been doing since time eternal. I hope you like Compendium and find it useful. I'm all Spencered out for now, but at one point, for history’s sake, I will make this a trilogy. When the hairline-and-swash bug visits me again, you will be the first to know. The PDF specimen was designed with the wonderful photography of Gonzalo Aguilar from Mexico. Please download it here http://new.myfonts.com/artwork?id=47049&subdir=original

Over the past couple of years I received quite a number of unusual and surprising requests to modify my type designs to suit projects of personal nature, but none top the ones that asked me to typeset and modify tattoos using Burgues Script or Adios. At first the whole idea was amusing to me, kind of like an inside joke. I had worked in corporate branding for a few years before becoming a type designer, and suddenly I was being asked to get involved in personal branding, as literally “personal” and “branding” as the expression can get. After a few such requests I began pondering the whole thing from a professional perspective. It was typography, after all, no matter how unusual the method or medium. A very personal kind of typography, too. The messages being typeset were commemorating friends, family, births, deaths, loves, principles, and things that influenced people in a deep and direct way, so much so that they chose to etch that influence on their bodies and wear it forever. And when you decide to wear something forever, style is of the essence. After digging into the tattooing scene, I have a whole new respect for tattoo artists. Wielding that machine is not easy, and driving pigment into people’s skin is an enormous responsibility. Not to mention that they're some of the very few who still use a crafty, hands-on process that is all but obsolete in other ornamentation methods. Some artists go the extra mile and take the time to develop their own lettering for tattooing purposes, and some are inventive enough to create letters based on the tattoo’s concept. But they are not the norm. Generally speaking, most tattoo artists use generic type designs to typeset words. Even the popular blackletter designs have become quite generic over the past few decades. I still cringe when I see something like Bank Script embedded into people’s skin, turning them into breathing, walking shareholder invitations or government bonds. There’s been quite a few attempts at making fonts out of whatever original tattoo designer typefaces can be found out there - wavy pseudo-comical letters, or rough thick brush scripts, but as far as I could tell a stylish skin script was never attempted in the digital age. And that’s why I decided to design Piel Script. Piel is Spanish for skin. In a way, Piel Script is a removed cousin of Burgues Script. Although the initial sketches were infused with some 1930s showcard lettering ideas (particularly those of B. Boley, whose amazing work was shown in Sign of the Times magazine), most of the important decisions about letter shapes and connectivity were reached by observing whatever strengths and weaknesses can be seen in tattoos using Burgues. Tattoos using Adios also provided some minor input. In retrospect, I suppose Affair exercised some influence as well, albeit in a minor way. I guess what I'm trying to say is there is as much of me in Piel Script as there is in any of the other major scripts I designed, even though the driving vision for it is entirely different from anything else I have ever done. I hope you like Piel Script. If you decide it to use it on your skin, I'll be very flattered. If you decide to use it on your skateboard or book cover, I'll be just as happy. Scripts can't get any more personal than this. Piel Script received the Letter2 award, where they selected the best 53 typefaces of the last decade, organised by ATypI.

While researching the history of Onitsuka Tiger's branding and graphic design, I came across an odd, yet highly appealing piece of custom lettering on the company's ONICK ski boots from the 1970s. Reminiscent of aspects of the typeface Black-Out by Eli Carrico (released by my type foundry Wordshape), yet vertically compressed with razor-sliced counters and odd stencil element that makes up one of the legs of the "K", the ONICK lettering is a potential source for an intriguing modular font. I immediately thought of Ryoichi Tsunekawa as a potential collaborator to bring this piece of lettering to full-fledged life in the contemporary context. Based in Nagoya, Tsunekawa runs an independent type foundry called Dharma Type, including three specialized foundry sub-labels: Flat-It, devoted to display lettering; Prop-A-Ganda, a series of fonts inspired by and based on retro propaganda posters, movie posters, retail sign lettering & advertisements in the early 20th century; and Holiday Type, a series of decorative and retro scripts for holiday use. The past year has seen a flurry of notice of his work abroad, having been featured in both MyFonts' "Creative Characters" and YouWorkForThem's newsletter. As the work of most Japanese type designers is almost wholly unnoticed abroad, for Tsunekawa to be interviewed by two of the most popular type distribution companies in the world is definitely something beyond the norm. Perhaps it is because he works independently, or perhaps it is due to the charm and friendliness with which his typefaces are infused. Either way, this attention is both welcome and appreciated. Beyond mere charm, Tsunekawa's work is nuanced, detailed, and accessible due to its high level of finish. His fonts stand apart from his contemporaries in Latin typeface design in Japan due to his fascination with pop, vernacular and historical lettering from "non-pure" sources- whereas type designers like Kunihiko Okano and Akira Kobayashi have spent years analyzing the essence of Western letterform construction and unlocking the essence of Latin forms, Tsunekawa views surface and the awkward nature of his sources as being of value, as well. His irreverence for the formal doctrines of history imbue his typeface designs with a rugged inventiveness that would be missed by most- glyphs without source designs are guessed at and approximated, often in a manner wildly divergent from what Western eyes would assume. It is in these moments that I find sheer delight in Tsunekawa’s work and what make me most pleased to invite him aboard Neojaponisme and Onitsuka Tiger’s type development project. His assorted typefaces show an eclecticism in finish and as holistic systems- Tsunekawa's return email to me about the proposed type project showed a digital sketch of how a completed typeface family from the source lettering might look, rendered with an effortlessness and dedication to detail that belies a skilled craftsperson. Further development showed Tsunekawa’s rigor- the typeface in development rapidly featured glyphs ignored by many: a full set of fractions, Eastern European diacritics and accents, superior and inferior numerals, alternate characters, and custom ligatures - all designed with regulated, detailed spacing. ONICK is a typeface Tsunekawa should be proud of- an homage to a moment in history rendered in the absolute best fashion. We are proud to present it to the world! --Ian Lynam

Adagio Pro, that sounds like music, elegance and classic quality. That's exactly how Adagio Pro carries the message to the reader. Adagio Pro is a rather formal script with very beautiful, generous and swashy upper case that was redesigned, digitized, completed and expanded as OpenType in the profonts type studio.Adagio Pro comes with more than 1.100 characters covering the complete Latin glyph set for West and East including Baltic and Turkish. Additionally, there is a large selection of ligatures, character combinations and alternates to make this beautiful script design a perfect font for OTF-savvy applications like e.g. InDesign or Quark Xpress 7.Adagio Pro is a very distinguished, elegant and versatile script font well-suited for anything in the area of classical music, art, ballet etc. Also, it is good for certificates, reports, documents and alike.

Symphony Pro… sounds like music, elegance and classic quality. That's exactly how Symphony Pro carries the message to the reader. Symphony Pro is a rather formal script with very beautiful, generous and swashy upper case that was redesigned, digitized, completed and expanded as OpenType in the profonts type studio. Symphony Pro comes with more than 800 characters covering the complete Latin glyph set for West and East including Baltic and Turkish. Addionally, there is a large selection of ligatures, character combinations and alternates to make this beautiful script design a perfect font for OTF-savvy applications like e.g. InDesign or Quark Xpress 7. Symphony Pro is a very distinguished, elegant and versatile script font well-suited for anything in the area of classical music, art, ballet etc. Also, it is good for certificates, reports, documents and alike.

Introducing All Americans Font Duo, a classy, contemporary pair of brush and sans fonts. With a stylish didot-style serif font and a free-flowing, expressive script companion, All Americans offers beautiful typographic harmony for a diversity of design projects, including logos & branding, wedding designs, social media posts, advertisements & product designs.

Break Age is an awesome display font with a graffiti style and break characters with bandages to make your design look awesome! It will elevate a wide range of design projects to the highest levels, be it branding, headings, wedding designs, invitations, signatures, logotypes, wall art illustrations, apparel, labels, and more!

Spiky Frog is a spectacular decorative font with a graffiti style and included some swash for your design look awesome. It will elevate a wide range of design projects to the highest level, be it branding, headings, wedding designs, invitations, signatures, logotype, wall art illustration, apparel, labels, and much more!

Blue Monsta is a spectacular decorative font with a graffiti style and included some swash for your design look awesome. It will elevate a wide range of design projects to the highest level, be it branding, headings, wedding designs, invitations, signatures, logotype, wall art illustration, apparel, labels, and much more!

Forged to be as imposing as a Norse horde ready to stampede into battle, Works great in all caps which it was initially designed to. I designed the lowercase characters to match really well with each other and the uppercase, so it works well in title case. Designed by Jon Swinn.

Niguella is a serif while elegance still maintained. It will boost your design stand out! Niguella is the perfect typeface for any kind of your project, such as advertisements, branding, graphic design, quotes, wedding design, logo for online or offline business, photography, and others. Make your business more elegant beautiful!

Primitive Icons is a set of 52 simple icons included in a font in place of the letters A-Z and a-z. You can quickly and easily use it in your web design, GUI design, stationery design or any other graphic work. You can download the instruction PDF here.

Sweet Candy Pink Script a beautiful modern calligraphy font with Extrude Shadow Style. Comes with 2 layered font handwritten, sophisticated flows. Sweet Candy Pink Script offers beautiful typographic harmony for a diversity of design projects, signature, stationery, logo, typography quotes, including logos & branding, wedding designs, social media posts, advertisements & product designs.

Kolesom is bold display font that inspired from classic rusty stuff like old signage and poster. This typeface has various styles of font that includes Clean, Alt, Texture, and Western. I found it perfect for poster design, t-shirt design, and other display design needs. Works best in 100pt and above.

Amoure Brides Couple Font is a pairing font between sans serif and handwritten script, These two couple lovely fonts would be perfect to combine in your design. This combination creates an elegant and romantic impression. Suitable for digital invitation, wedding design, fashion design, logo, business cards, branding materials, quotes, etc.

Sakaboom is a high contrast font with strong and clean shapes. designed to support those of you who have an interest in the design of posters, magazines, invitations and various other designs. also supported for multilingual languages. If you have a problem with our product, just take a DM free updates

Hardiness is an amazing hand lettered font. Every single letter have been carefully crafted to make your text looks beautiful. This font is suitable for invitations, branding, advertising, classic design, poster design, and more. This font is PUA encoded so you can access extras from character map in most design software.

Contury is an elegant handwritten font with a unique feel and a stunning impact. It will add a luxury spark to any design project that you wish to create. Is perfect for many different project such as logos & branding, invitation, wedding designs, advertisements, product packaging, product designs, label and much more!

Snake head is a script font with a graffiti look. cool to be use in various types of designs, with several choices of characters and various kinds of swashes, so that your design looks powerful, this font is sutable for branding, clothing, logotype, packaging, advertising, crafting, and various other designs.

Lutz Baar was born in Berlin, now living in Gothenburg, Sweden. He is an art director at his own advertising and Web design studio Miraculus. Among his typeface designs you find the award winning Linotype Pisa, the hand tooled looking Linotype Atlantis, and the strictly Linotype Ordinar, designed for Web usage.

Aryzena is handwritten, textured, artistic brush script. This font also has swash characters that make your design more attractive and natural, giving your text an authentic and laid-back characteristic. This font works well in designs for clothing, tittle books, quotes, branding, logos, packaging designs, posters, invitation, mural and more!

ITC Lennox is the work of German designer Alexander Ruehl. Ruehl had long digitized typefaces for other designers and decided to give design a try himself. ITC Lennox is suitable for a wide variety of headlines uses, a sans serif display face with a modern feel yet based on classical elements.

Fest is a highly detailed, ornamental unicase typeface for display use. Designed by Novo Typo - (typo)graphic designers from Amsterdam - The Netherlands. Fest is perfect for designing sophisticated logos, fashionable headings or other beautiful display typography. The glyph set of Fest contains a lot of extra elegant glyphs, swooshes and ligatures.

Introducing, Gollder Vintage Font Duo is an excellent choice for logo design, branding, packaging, business cards, and adventure-themed designs. Its combination of script and sans serif styles, along with the textured and solid options, provides ample creative opportunities for designers to explore and create stunning visual identities and marketing materials.

Stockly is a modern and awesome bold font with a strong and fun charm. This will change any design idea to be great and perfect! Stockly can be used for logos, branding, product labels, poster design, banner design, company names, product promotion, and much more. It has multi-lingual support.

If there s a back-story about the design inspiration for Modern Appliances JNL, it's lost to time. An unfinished design for quite a while, this clean sans with an Art Deco flair was recently completed, and the design quality should speak more for its appeal than any promotional blurb.

Halloween Monoline is a Script Monoline font by Letterafa Studio. It has flowing letters that will give your designs a unique and sweet look. Halloween Monoline font is perfect; logos, greeting cards, a package design, a brand identity, craft design, any DIY project, book title, wedding invitation, packaging, and more.

Gobln is a decorative font. Designed for use in posters, outdoor advertisements, branding, packaging and web sites. Gobln is also perfect for use in the design of invitations and greeting cards. Gobln contains basic and alternative stylistic sets, decorative swash initials & final forms, and standart ligatures that will decorate your design.

Bankai Street - Realistic Monoline Handwritten Graffiti Font This font designed so that users can use it more easily and make graffiti designs easier. Bankai Street is very suitable for use in various media such as; packaging, logos, labels, posters, shirt designs, bulletins, typography, and many other media, especially with graffiti look.

Benang Merah is designed by Zainul Faozi, the idea concept is from a thread, each letter is connected that is the uniqueness of this font. You can use this font for your poster design, heading, social media, lettering design, and more. This font can be paired well with serif fonts.

Bokarms slab is a condensed font with a distinct look. Created for the design of martial arts clubs and boxing galas. Perfect for promotional projects of all sports disciplines, giving an academic character. It will also work as a universal typeface for promotional poster designs, branding, logo design, and clothing branding.

Pink Blue is a modern handdrawn font, this font looks elegant, classy, readable, stylish, catchy and easy to use. Pink Blue Font is the best choice for your professional design projects, including : quotes, album cover, business card, logo, branding, magazines, social media, advertisements, product designs, and many other design project.

Classy Melody is a lovely duo mix of a monoline script and slab serif font. Combining these two fonts on your next design will give a modern feel. It is perfect for many different projects such as logos & branding, invitation, stationery, wedding designs, signature, product designs, labels, photography, and much more!

Hello, this is Bormbardies modern Graffiti Font! This font was designed so that users can use it more easily and make graffiti designs easier. Bombardies is very suitable for use in various media such as; packaging, logos, labels, posters, shirt designs, bulletins, typography, and many other media, especially with graffiti look.

Nathallia is a bold serif while elegance still maintained. It will boost your design stand out! Nathallia is the perfect typeface for any kind of your project, such as advertisements, branding, graphic design, quotes, wedding design, logo for online or offline business, photography, and others. Make your business more elegant beautiful!

Vandals Puppies is a spectacular decorative font with a graffiti style and included some swash for your design look awesome. It will elevate a wide range of design projects to the highest level, be it branding, headings, wedding designs, invitations, signatures, logotype, wall art illustration, apparel, labels, and much more!