A flare-serif socialite. Elegant and affable at once. Leifa is a flare-serif typeface that strikes a balance between elegant and affable. It’s pleasant to read in text sizes yet takes center stage in headlines and display applications. With its higher-than-usual contrast, Leifa might evoke Didone typefaces at first. However, it differs from strictly Didone designs in the details: flattened serifs and deeply incised, tapered spurs provide an organic effect. These humanist elements are restrained and almost inconspicuous in body copy. It’s in display sizes that they realize their full potential. Set your message in Leifa, set it large, and it will get noticed. A true socialite, Leifa is a most welcome guest on any party. With its dual character and a range of weights that allow for fine-tuning the desired visual voice, it’s a brilliant choice for branding and editorial design. Its good-natured yet sophisticated character makes Leifa the perfect typeface for fashion, sports, lifestyle, social media, food and cooking, health, beauty, architecture, interior design, art, literature, theater, and travel. (And any other topic that you’d love to talk about at a dinner in good company.) The entire font family consists of eight weights. Each comes with an italic counterpart, totaling 16 styles. Leifa’s italics are oblique, optically corrected versions of the upright styles. Each style comprises a character set of 883 glyphs that includes small caps, a set of ligatures, tabular and old-style figures, case-sensitive forms, fractions, symbols, and many other features. Four stylistic sets allow you to adjust the appearance of the Leifa fonts: a single-story a (SS01), a simple f (SS02), a triple-story g (SS03), and thin punctuation marks (SS04) are at your disposal. If you’re looking for a typeface with some debonair spirit, look no further than Leifa.

Aramus is a new serif font in my continuing objective of designing book fonts that I can really use. In many ways, Aramus is a very different direction for me. It comes from a scan of an old display face that has been radically modified to a much smaller x-height than I have been using lately, plus taller ascenders. Many of the characters needed a lot of correction to bring them into my taste. In general, I have decided that many of my fonts create a type color that is too dense. Aramus is an attempt to get away from that look. Although Amitale has been a very successful book family and excellent to work with, I find I still need something more open with a lighter color. Aramus is the first look at the new direction. The original hand-cut serifs vary a lot, different for almost every character. This gives a little looseness and helps the lightness I am looking for. It will be interesting to see where this all goes. This is a normal serif for me in that it has caps, lowercase, small caps with the appropriate figures for each case. This font has all the OpenType features in the set for 2009. I didn't bother with the CE accents (though I can add them upon request. They will be in the final new book family). There are several ligatures for your fun and enjoyment: bb gg ff fi fl ffi ffl ffy fj ft tt ty Wh Th and more. Like all of my fonts, there are: caps, lowercase, small caps, proportional lining figures, proportional oldstyle figures, & small cap figures, plus numerators, denominators, superiors, inferiors, and a complete set of ordinals 1st through infinity. Enjoy!

The Geometry Pro family has been designed to be the final word in purely geometric fonts, and this rounded “Soft” sub-family is the ultimate web 2.0 style font collection. Even though it is strictly geometric (as drawn with a compass and a ruler fixed to 90 and 45 degree angles) it is not slavishly modular: letters have differing widths, and the sidebearings, spacing and kerning has been finely adjusted to create smooth text. The Soft family contains three weights each with 6 variants: A is the basic form and the starting point B has more dynamic and modern shapes C has open and swirly shapes X is the serious text version Y has a very horizontal look Z is a collection of all the remaining more funky shapes Mix and match to your heart’s desire! Please enjoy the free “Bold N” version - this “notched” variant lets you test out the quality of the outlines and the language support. ALL fonts from CheapProFonts have very extensive language support: They contain some unusual diacritic letters (some of which are contained in the Latin Extended-B Unicode block) supporting: Cornish, Filipino (Tagalog), Guarani, Luxembourgian, Malagasy, Romanian, Ulithian and Welsh. They also contain all glyphs in the Latin Extended-A Unicode block (which among others cover the Central European and Baltic areas) supporting: Afrikaans, Belarusian (Lacinka), Bosnian, Catalan, Chichewa, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Kashubian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Maori, Polish, Saami (Inari), Saami (North), Serbian (latin), Slovak(ian), Slovene, Sorbian (Lower), Sorbian (Upper), Turkish and Turkmen. And they of course contain all the usual “western” glyphs supporting: Albanian, Basque, Breton, Chamorro, Danish, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galican, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish (Gaelic), Italian, Northern Sotho, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romance, Sami (Lule), Sami (South), Scots (Gaelic), Spanish, Swedish, Tswana, Walloon and Yapese.

The idea for the Generis type system came to Erik Faulhaber while he was traveling in the USA. Seeing typefaces mixed together in a business district motivated him to create a new type system with interrelated forms. The first design scheme came about in 1997, following the space saving model of these American Gothics. Faulhaber then examined the demands of legibility and various communications media before finally developing the plan behind this type system. Generis’s design includes two individually designed styles; each of with is available with and without serifs, giving the type system four separate families. Each includes at least four basic weights: Light, Regular, Medium, and Bold. Further weights, small caps, old style figures, and true italics were added to each family where needed. The Generis type system is designed to meet both optical criteria and the highest possible measure of technical precision. Harmony, rhythm, legibility, and formal restraint make up the foreground. Generis combines aesthetic, technical, and economic advantages, which purposefully and efficiently cover the whole range of corporate communication needs. The unified basic form and the individual peculiarity of the styles lead to Generis’ systematic, total-package concept. The clear formal language of the Generis type system resides beneath the information, bringing appropriate typographic expression to high-level corporate identity systems, both in print and on screen. The condensed and aspiring nature of the letterforms allows for the efficient setting of body copy, and the economic use of the page. A range of accented characters allows text to be set in 48 Latin-based languages, offering maximal typographic free range. This previously unknown level of technical and design execution helps create higher quality typography in all areas of corporate communication. Optimal combinations within the type system: Generis Serif or Generis Slab with Generis Sans or Generis Simple.

Eksja is a modern slab serif available in four weights, each with a corresponding italic. All the fonts in the family have small caps, the extended latin character set, diacritical f-ligatures, enclosed numerals (numbers in circles) and case-sensitive punctuation. The general design of the typeface has been with a strong human touch in mind. The ends of the serifs have been given a subtle rounding, just enough to take the edge off which, when coupled with the largely humanist structure of the design, creates an open, friendly and approachable design, abandoning the usual geometric severity commonly associated with slab serif typefaces. Eksja contains quite a comprehensive numerals system. Obviously, each font has the standard proportionally and tabularly spaced lining and old-style figures but, crucially, the tabular numerals share the exact same width in each font variant. That means that you can choose to use the thin, regular, bold, black and their italic forms all in the same setting and they will always line up. In addition to the 'normal' numerals there are super-script and sub-script numerals and OpenType fractions that can be automatically composed as you type. There are also the enclosed numerals, numbers inside a circle, that are useful for numerically listing items and, thanks to the wizardry of OpenType, they can contain any number of digits (typically, enclosed numerals are precomposed single digits, only encompassing the 0–9 range, the enclosed numerals in Eksja can go to double digits, triple digits or, in fact, any number of digits*). *The automation of the enclosed numerals is accessed via either "Stylistic Set #1" or "Stylistic Alternates" which requires the use of an application that supports OpenType stylistic sets or stylistic alternates, such as Adobe's InDesign or Photoshop.

PB Capitalis Rustica IVc is a font face designed for imitate latin writing style found in manuscripts from 1st to 9th century. All characters are handwritten by use ink and reed pen (calamus), scanned, digitized and optimized for best quality without lost its handwritten visual appearance. Character set support codepages: 1250 Central (Eastern) European, 1252 Western (ANSI), 1254 Turkish, 1257 Baltic. Include also additional characters for Cornish, Danish, Dutch and Welsh language, spaces (M/1, M/2, M/3, M/4, M/6, thin, hair, zero width space etc.) and historical characters (overlined Roman numerals, I-longa, historical ligatures for "nomina sacra" and "notae communes"). OpenType TrueType TTF (.ttf) font file include installed OpenType features: Access All Alternates, Localized Forms, Fractions, Ordinals, Superscript, Tabular Figures, Proportional Figures, Stylistic Alternates, Stylistic Set 1, Historical Forms, Historical Ligatures. Include also kerning as single 'kern' table for maximum possible backwards compatibility with older software. Historical ligatures for "nomina sacra" and "notae communes" are mapped to Private Use Area codepoints. Use of OpenType features to get historical characters: ïTo get "I-longa" use Stylistic Alternates for: "I"(U+0049), "i"(U+0069), "dotless i"(U+0131). ïTo get "nomina sacra" use Historical Ligatures and write uppercase letters: DS for: "Deus", DMS or DNS for: "Dominus" EPS for: "Episcopus", IHS for: "Iesus", PBR for: "Presbiter", SCS for: "Sanctus", SPS for: "Spiritus", XPS for: "Christus". ïTo get "notae communes" use Historical Ligatures and write: B(U+0042) + "middle dot"(U+00B7) for: "-BUS", Q(U+0051) + "middle dot"(U+00B7) for: "-QUE". ïTo get "scriptio continua" (writing without words separation) use Historical Forms (regular spaces are replaced by zero width spaces between words). ïTo get "middle dot" for separate words use Stylistic Set 1 (regular spaces are replaced by middle dot between words).

The Bauer Typefoundry first released the Beton family of types in 1936. Created by the German type designer Heinrich Jost, the present digital version of the Beton family consists of six slab serif typefaces. First developed during the early 1800s, by the 1930s slab serif faces had become one of many stock styles of type developed by foundries all over the world. Because of their distance from pen-drawn forms and their industrial appearance, they were seen as “modern” typefaces. (Their serifs kept them from being too modern.) The first slab serif typefaces were outgrowths of didone style text faces (e.g., Walbaum). As newspapers and advertising grew in importance in the western world (especially in “Wild West” America), type founders and printers began to create bigger, bolder typefaces, which would set large headlines apart from text, and each other. Through display tactics, businesses and industry could begin to visually differentiate their products from one another. This craze eventually led to the development of monster sized wood type, among other things. By the 20th Century, the typographic establishment had begun to tame, categorize, and codify 19th Century type styles. It was in the wake of this environment that Jost developed Beton. The Beton family is a type “family” in a pre-1950s sense of the word. Although six styles of type are available, only four of them fit in logical progression with each other (Beton Light, Beton Demi Bold, Beton Bold, and Beton Extra Bold). The other two members of the family, Beton Bold Condensed and Beton Bold Compressed, are more like distant cousins. They function better as single headlines to text set in Beton Light or Beton Demi Bold, of as companions to totally separate typefaces.

HWT Konop is a monospaced (fixed-width) typeface that is also square! Designed by Mark Simonson (Proxima Nova) as square characters that can be arranged vertically or horizontally and in any orientation. To a traditional letterpress job printer, a font like this wouldn’t make much sense. But to a modern letterpress printer it is an unusual and creative design toolkit. The bold gothic style is reminiscent of gothic wood types but more geometric. Since the characters are meant to be used in any orientation, the usual optical adjustments, such as making verticals thicker than horizontals and making tops smaller than bottoms are set aside. This results in a quirky but charming design. To provide more design options, Simonson came up with a modular system consisting of three sizes: 12-line, 8-line, and 6-line. These three sizes can be used together like Lego® bricks, with endless arrangements possible. And the sidebearing match so that characters always align when different sizes are used together. The digital version of Konop replicates the wood type version as much as possible, including the three different size designs. It includes OpenType stylistic sets that allow most characters to be rotated in place, 90° left, 90° right, or 180°, just like the wood type version. Extra characters not available in the wood type version are included with the digital fonts. The set of 3 is priced just $5 more than one single font, so order via "Package Options" HWT Konop is named for Don Konop, a retired Hamilton Manufacturing employee, who worked from 1959 to 2003. In addition to serving on the Two Rivers Historical Society Board from 2004 to present-day, he was also instrumental as a volunteer in helping with the museum’s move to its current home in 2013.

Looking for something new for setting powerful headlines? Need a font that can create logos with ease? How about something masculine, a design with authority and panache? Then ITC’s newest typeface, ITC Sportbet™, may be the perfect choice. ITC Sportbet is a design that should be set tight, creating an arresting graphic image as well as words. Although a capital-only typeface, it benefits from a large suite of alternate characters that enable individual words and headlines to be customized with a distinctive personality. In addition to the obvious power of ITC Sportbet’s square-jawed character shapes, it’s fun to use. Exchange one or two letters with their alternative designs and a brand new headline or logo appears. ITC Sportbet was designed by Dane Wilson, the principal of the London-based design firm of Dane Design. Although this is his first commercial typeface design, Wilson has ample experience creating logos and custom typefaces for corporate branding. In fact, Sportbet grew out of such a project. “The idea initially came from wanting to provide a client with a stylish, modern and graphically impactful corporate identity logo font,” recalls Wilson. “Although the first sketches looked promising as a typeface, because of time and budget constraints, developing an entire alphabet would be overambitious.” Not to be deterred, Wilson continued to work on the design when time permitted. He eventually completed the font and started final application tests. The results looked good to Wilson, but he felt that the design was missing something. “I hit upon the idea of breaking out the left side of all the closed counters,” Wilson wrote about the design. “This simple device gave Sportbet the kick it needed.” Although one weight and a capital-only typeface, Wilson’s ITC Sportbet should prove to be a powerful and versatile communicator.

The idea for the Generis type system came to Erik Faulhaber while he was traveling in the USA. Seeing typefaces mixed together in a business district motivated him to create a new type system with interrelated forms. The first design scheme came about in 1997, following the space saving model of these American Gothics. Faulhaber then examined the demands of legibility and various communications media before finally developing the plan behind this type system. Generis’s design includes two individually designed styles; each of with is available with and without serifs, giving the type system four separate families. Each includes at least four basic weights: Light, Regular, Medium, and Bold. Further weights, small caps, old style figures, and true italics were added to each family where needed. The Generis type system is designed to meet both optical criteria and the highest possible measure of technical precision. Harmony, rhythm, legibility, and formal restraint make up the foreground. Generis combines aesthetic, technical, and economic advantages, which purposefully and efficiently cover the whole range of corporate communication needs. The unified basic form and the individual peculiarity of the styles lead to Generis’ systematic, total-package concept. The clear formal language of the Generis type system resides beneath the information, bringing appropriate typographic expression to high-level corporate identity systems, both in print and on screen. The condensed and aspiring nature of the letterforms allows for the efficient setting of body copy, and the economic use of the page. A range of accented characters allows text to be set in 48 Latin-based languages, offering maximal typographic free range. This previously unknown level of technical and design execution helps create higher quality typography in all areas of corporate communication. Optimal combinations within the type system: Generis Serif or Generis Slab with Generis Sans or Generis Simple.

It started in 2007 with Chennai, the first of a three-part series of sans that I envisioned with slab serif counterparts. Each font would differ from the others in how the stem terminals were expressed. The initial font was extremely well received, and a revitalized and remastered Chennai made its appearance two years later, complete with new weights and new, novel OpenType features. Then came Madurai, a variation of Chennai based on the same core, only without the rounded stems. Chennai’s rounded stems made it distinctive and great for headlines but left it lacking appeal as copy--a problem that Madurai easily solved. And now comes Sangli, the final iteration of my original 2007 vision. Sangli is a happy medium. Like Chennai, it’s great for headlines--but not too distinct for copy. Sangli keeps the same core structure as the other two, but new less sharp forms give this latest font a friendlier look that’s more versatile than the original Chennai and less formal than Madurai. The font includes a whole range of six weights from light to black, along with condensed and extended options as well for a total of 54 fonts. There are plenty of OpenType features, including small caps. Alternates include normalized capitals and lowercase letters that include stems for when you want a more traditional look or when you’re writing copy. Sangli also supports over 70 languages that use the extended Latin script. Use Chennai, Madurai, and their slab serif variants interchangeably with Sangli, too, for even more options in your work. All three complement one another well. So when you need a balanced font that stands boldly on the page and commands your reader’s attention, look within and find your Sangli.

ZapfinoExtra is an OpenType format typeface available in two versions. The Contextual version contains a treasure-trove of extra contextual features. When created in 2004, this was the most advanced OpenType font released to date. By purchasing the Contextual version, users of OpenType-supporting applications, such as Adobe InDesign, may access all of the features available in the entire Zapfino family through just two fonts, Zapfino Extra LT Pro (Contextual), and Zapfino Forte LT Pro! Unfortunately, most non-Adobe applications currently do not support the contextual features made possible by recent OpenType developments. Users of Quark XPress and Microsoft Office should instead purchase all of the non-contextual fonts of Zapfino Extra Pro family, in order to access all of the Zapfino family's 1676 glyphs. The Zapfino family's character set supports 48 western and central European languages. More Zapfino History: Today's digital font technology allowed the world-renowned typeface designer/calligrapher Hermann Zapf to finally realize a vision he first had more than fifty years ago: creating a typeface that could capture the freedom and liveliness of beautiful handwriting. The basic Zapfino™ font family, released in 1998, consists of four alphabets with many additional stylistic alternates that can be freely mixed together to emulate the variations in handwritten text. In 2003, Herman Zapf completely reworked the Zapfino design, creating Zapfino™ Extra. This large expansion of the Zapfino family was designed in close collaboration with Akira Kobayashi. Zapfino™ Extra includes a cornucopia of new characters. It features exuberant hyper-flourishes, elegant small caps, dozens of ornaments, more alternates and ligatures, index characters, and a very useful bold version-named Zapfino™ Forte. Use Zapfino to produce unusual and graceful advertisements, packaging, and invitations. Zapfino Extra is so joyously abundant that it's tempting to over-indulge, so be sure to check out the tips for working well with the possibilities!"

Reminiscent of circuitry and wrought iron, Anachrony constructs the forms of an Old English Blackletter with the strokes of a Modern Geometric Sans, and lands in the vicinity of Art Deco. For such an unusual chimera, the Anachrony family is legible and versatile. Its glyphs cover pan-European Latin, Greek, and a wealth of symbols including arrows, zodiac, planets, chess, suits, and circled numbers. It is also packed with Opentype features: Small Capitals: Of similar proportions to the default numerals, tall enough to be a suitable choice in place of regular capitals. All Caps Forms: In addition to the four usual types of numerals, there are numerals and currency symbols that match the capitals. Swash: A leading curly swash on capitals, and fancy looped ascenders in the lowercase that are handled by over a hundred standard ligatures where they would collide. Style Set 01: Romanized forms. Especially recommended for all caps. Plainer A/M/T/V/W/Y, J/Q reined in to the baseline, and alternate g. Style Set 02: Masthead forms. Old-fashioned capitals with descenders and that lower left dealy. Also f/x/z/ß in a more traditional fraktur mode. Style Set 03: Mild embellishments. Tall bifurcated ascenders and descenders. Style Set 04: Extravagant swash descenders. Style Set 05: Final swashes for the end of a word. Style Set 06: Converts capital letters into the corresponding connected Roman numerals. Seemed like it could be useful sometime. Easy swooshes: Standard ligatures allow you to type two to seven commas in a row to append an assortment of sweeping or ending swashes. Catchwords: In Anachrony Royale, turn on Discretionary Ligatures for a variety of decorative articles and prepositions.

Kaytek™ Sans is a fresh take on the correspondence typefaces of the 90s - which were originally designed for the demands of office environments. Just like its predecessors, this text typeface is robust and hard-working - meaning it works well in challenging design or printing environments - but it’s not without personality. Look closer at the lowercase g and a, especially in the italic, and you can see some unexpected elements of subversiveness within the design. This blend of sturdiness and quirkiness means it’s just as relevant for information-heavy projects, such as annual reports, as it is in more expressive environments. Although first and foremost designed for text, Kaytek Sans’ details shine through in its heavier weights and larger sizes, meaning it also has display potential. Every style of the typeface takes up exactly the same amount of space, thanks to the way Radek Łukasiewicz created the design. He based the entire typeface on a single, master set of proportions. This means designers can switch between styles without the text being reflowed, making it particularly useful in magazines, where space might be limited, and also on the internet, where hover links appear in a different style. As well as its roots in the office, Kaytek Sans draws on a little bit more 90s nostalgia. It’s named for the first and only Polish walkman, and embodies the same solid, no-nonsense shapes that made the analogue technology of the era so charming. Just like these early personal music devices, Kaytek Sans is practical, but not clinical, able to work hard while still exuding warmth and personality. It pairs effortlessly with Kaytek Slab, which is a sturdier and more expressive take on the design. Kaytek Sans comes in 12 weights, from Thin to Black Italic, and offers multi-language support. Kaytek Slab, Kaytek Headline and Kaytek Rounded are also available.

Mutable is as flamboyant and changeable as its name suggests. These characterful fonts were designed specifically for display purposes. It’s an exuberant type family that’s jam-packed with alternates and bestowed with a loud personality. This typeface is defined by its barbed serifs and elegantly curved terminals, or “foxtails” as they are sometimes known. An extremely large x-height amplifies the friendliness and buoyancy of the lowercase glyphs. These qualities give Mutable a unique aesthetic that will undoubtedly give your logotypes, headlines, and titles a distinctive appeal. Mutable has a strong Art Nouveau influence and was mainly inspired by Ed Benguiat’s Tiffany and the mysterious Pretorian typeface accredited to P.M. Shanks and Sons of London. Special OpenType features include 523 alternates that will make each word resonate beautifully when used in titling and branding situations. With so many alternates available, you may find it difficult to stop playing and settle on a selection... but that’s a good thing, right? Small Caps are also included (along with their matching diacritics and alternates) – these are designed to harmonise with regular lowercase forms making unicase-style typography a cinch. Mutable has a total glyph count of over 2,400 characters. There are 9 weights across 2 widths, ranging from a delicate and wispy Narrow Thin to a chunky and imposing Ultra. And... it’s variable! This allows you to select any width or weight in between, making Mutable even more... erm... mutable! This type family has an extensive character set that covers all Latin European languages. Finally, you can test drive Mutable immediately as the Regular weight is offered as a free download. Key features: 9 Weights 2 Widths Variable Small Caps 500+ Alternates Old Style Figures European Language Support (Latin) 2400+ Glyphs per font

›Hi! Please note you are visiting Old Supernett. We decided to upgrade it: more styles, more glyphs, more features, more everything! View New Supernett here: Supernett 2019› Georg from FaceType Supernett – a versatile hand drawn/handmade/handwritten font – is tailored for large font sizes but also impresses with an astounding legibility in small typesettings. Supernett is fairly condensed for space-saving headlines. The extensive character set supports Central and Eastern European as well as Western European languages. Each style contains more than 4700 glyphs to let the font look real hand-made. Three OpenType features are specially created to enhance this impression, with a maximum effect when applied to big type: Alternating Letters For a truly hand-drawn look, letters and numerics alternate randomly between three different variants → activate Contextual Alternates Rotating letters All glyphs rotate randomly and slightly around their own axis → activate OpenType Swashes Varying Baseline Shift Each single glyph moves individually up or down → activate OpenType Titling Alternates More OpenType Features: Case Sensitive Forms This feature shifts various punctuation marks to a position that works better with all caps typography → It is deployed when an app’s all-caps styling is applied Slashed Zero The problem with the numeral 0 is that it can look too much like O in some typefaces. This feature replaces every zero with a slashed zero → activate Zero with a Slash Fractions Substitutes figures separated by a slash by proper fraction glyphs. A date however, written like 10/12/2013 will remain unchanged → activate Fractions Stylistic Set 03 Choose between two different styles of bullet (•) → activate Stylistic Set 03 Stylistic Set 04 Choose between two different styles of Y → activate Stylistic Set 04 View other fonts from Georg Herold-Wildfellner: Sofa Serif | Sofa Sans | Mila Script Pro | Pinto | Supernett | Mr Moustache | Aeronaut | Ivory | Weingut

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

I spend a lot of time following two obsessions: packaging and hand lettering. Alongside a few other minor obsessions, those two have been my major ones for so many years now, I've finally reached the point where I can actually claim them as “obsessions” without getting a dramatic reaction from the little voice in the back of my head. When you spend so much time researching and studying a subject, you become very focused, directionally and objectively. But of course some of the research material you run into turns out to be tangential to whatever your focus happens to be at the time, so you absorb what you can from it, then shelf it — like the celebrity bobblehead that amused you for a while, but is now an almost invisible ornament eating dust and feathers somewhere in your environment. And just like the bobblehead may fall off the shelf one day to remind you of its existence, some of my lettering research material unveiled itself in my head one day for no particular reason. Hand lettering is now mostly perceived as an American art. Someone with my historical knowledge about lettering may be snooty enough to go as far as pointing out the British origins of almost everything American, including lettering — but for the most part, the contemporary perspective associates great lettering with America. The same perspective also associates blackletter, gothics and sans serifs with Germany. So you can imagine my simultaneous surprise and impatience when, in my research for one of my American lettering-based fonts, I ran into a German lettering book from 1953, by an artist called Bentele. It was no use for me because it didn't propel my focus at that particular time, but a few months ago I was marveling at what we take for granted — the sky is blue, blackletter is German, lettering is American — and found myself flipping through the pages of that book again. The lettering in that book is upbeat and casual sign making stuff, but it has a slightly strange and youthful experimentation at its heart. I suppose I find it strange because it deviates a lot from the American stuff I'm used to working with for so long now. To make a long story short, what’s inside that German book served as the semilla, which is Spanish for seed, for the typeface you see all over these pages. With Semilla, my normal routine went out the window. My life for a while was all Bezier all the time. No special analog or digital brushes or pens were used in drawing these forms. They're the product of a true Bezier process, all starting with a point creating a curve to another point, which draws a curve to another point, and so on. It’s a very time-consuming process, but at the end I am satisfied that it can get to pretty much the same results easier and more traditional methods accomplish. And as usual with my fonts, the OpenType is plenty and a lot of fun. Experimenting with substitution and automation is still a great pleasure for me. It is the OpenType that always saves me from the seemingly endless work hours every type designer must inevitably have to face at one point in his career. The artful photos used in this booklet are by French photographer and designer Stéphane Giner. He is very deserving of your patronage, so please keep an eye out for his marvelous work. I hope you like Semilla and enjoy using it. I have a feeling that it marks a transition to a more curious and flexible period in my career, but only time will tell.

Sterling Script was initially meant to a be digitization/reinterpretation of a copperplate script widely used during what effectively became the last decade of metal type: Stephenson Blake's Youthline, from 1952. The years from 1945 to 1960 saw a heightened demand for copperplate faces, due to post-war market optimism, as well as the banking and insurance industries booming like never before, which triggered the need for design elements that express formal elegance and luxury. The name Sterling Script is a tip of our hat to England, the Stephenson Blake foundry's country of origin. It is also a historical hint about copperplate scripts having been used mainly for banking and bonds in the 19th century. Originally we just wanted to resurrect a gorgeous metal type from the ashes of forgotten history. But after the main font was done we saw that the original s really needed an alternate. We made one. But we felt sorry for the original s and didn't want to see it dropped from use altogether, so we saved it by building a set of ligatures that solve the minor connection problem with the s at large sizes. Before the completion of the ligatures, a few different alternates were also drawn, and we were faced by the fact that the single font we set out to do was now a much larger set than we anticipated. While thinking about how to split up our unexpected bundle of large characters, we drew a few more alternates and some swashes. This abundance "problem" reached a certain point where there was no looking back, so we just decided to go all the way with this font. We added many more alternates, swashes, ligatures, and two full sets of each beginning and ending lowercase letter. The result is over 750 characters of sheer elegance. Sterling Script has many features that set it above and beyond other copperplate scripts: - It has 2 beginning and 2 ending alternates for every single lowercase character. The beginning and ending variants on the vowels are also available in accented form in the appropriate cells of the character map. - Sterling Script is the ultimate elegant font choice for luxury design. Very elegant, but not too soft. Its strong and confident shapes convey a message that is real, comforting and assuring. - One of the eventual purposes of expanding Sterling Script this extensively was to create a script that finds the middle ground between formal and informal without compromising either trait, a script where the degree of formality can be gauged, tweaked, cranked up or toned down depending on the layout's needs. Aside from beginnings and endings, there are multiple variations for the majority of the basic characters. This is a formal script on steroids, where twirls and swashes can be set to come out unexpectedly from any place in the word, which is great for reducing the inherent rigidity of words set in copperplate scripts and "humanizing" them whenever needed. This is especially useful for wedding, postcard and invitation design, where not every viewer of the collateral material has something to do with banking or insurance. - With such an extensive character set, a designer can easily set a word or a sentence in 10 or more different ways, and choose the perfect one for the task at hand. This is particularly useful for work where details are of utmost importance, like logos, slogans, or elegant engravings that consist of one to three words. Let those swashes and twirls intertwine for maximum elegance. The Sterling Script complete package consists of 7 fonts: Sterling Script, Alternates, Beginnings, Endings, Swashes, Swash Alternates, and Ligatures. Sterling Script is available in five different purchase options and price ranges. But with such a massive offering of variation, the Sterling Script complete package is definitely the most value-laden set in its class. Once you use Sterling Script, you will never want to go back to other copperplates.

Varidox, a variable typeface design, allows users to connect with specific design combinations with slightly varied differences in style. These variations in design enable the user to reach a wider scope of audiences. As the name suggests, Varidox is a paradox of sorts--that is, a combination of two disparate forms with two major driving influences. In the case of type design, the conflict lies in the age-old conundrum of artistic expression versus marketplace demand. Should the focus center primarily on functionality for the customer or err on the side of advancing creativity? If both are required, where does the proper balance lie? Viewed as an art, type design selections are often guided by the pulse of the industry, usually emphasizing unique and contemporary shapes. Critics are often leading indicators of where the marketplace will move. Currently, many design mavens have an eye favoring reverse stress. However, these forms have largely failed to penetrate the marketplace, another major driving factor influencing the font world. Clients now (as well as presumably for the foreseeable future) demand the more conservative forms of monoline sans serifs. Typeface designers are left with a predicament. Variable typefaces hand a great deal of creative control to the consumers of type. The demands of type design critics, personal influences of the typeface designer and the demands of the marketplace can all now be inserted into a single font and adjusted to best suit the end user. Varidox tries to blend the extremes of critical feature demands and the bleeding edge of fashionable type with perceptive usability on a scalable spectrum. The consumer of the typeface can choose a number between one and one-thousand. Using a more conservative style would mean staying between zero and five hundred, while gradually moving higher toward one thousand at the high end of the spectrum would produce increasingly contemporary results. Essentially, variable fonts offer the ability to satisfy the needs of the many versus the needs of the few along an axis with a thousand articulations, stabilizing this delicate balance with a single number that represents a specific form between the two masters, a form specifically targeted towards the end user. Practically, a user in some cases may wish to use more conservative slab form of Varidox for a more conservative clientele. Alternatively, the same user may then choose an intermediate instance much closer to the other extreme in order to make a more emphatic statement with a non-traditional form. Parametric type offers a new options for both designers and the end users of type. In the future, type will be able to morph to target the reader, based on factors including demographics, mood or cultural influences. In the future, the ability to adjust parameters will be common. With Varidox, the level of experimentality can be gauged and then entered into the typeface. In the future, machine learning, for example, could determine the mood of an individual, their level of experimentality or their interest and then adjust the typeface to meet these calculated parameters. This ability to customize and tailor the experience exists for both for the designer and the reader. With the advent of new marketing technologies, typefaces could adjust themselves on web pages to target consumers and their desires. A large conglomerate brand could shift and adapt to appeal to a specific target customer. A typeface facing a consumer would be more friendly and approachable, whereas a typeface facing a business to business (B2B) customer would be more businesslike in its appearance. Through both experience, however, the type would still be recognizable as belonging to the conglomerate brand. The font industry has only begun to realize such potential of variable fonts beyond simple visual appearance. As variable font continues to target the user, the technology will continue to reveal new capabilities, which allow identities and layouts to adjust to the ultimate user of type: the reader.

The font superfamily Vianova contains each 12 weights of Sans and Slab and 8 weights of the Serif style. The design from Jürgen Adolph dates back into the 1990s, when he studied Communication Design with Werner Schneider as a professor at the Fachhochschule Stuttgart. Adolph started his carrier 1995 at Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett. He was responsible for trade marks as Adidas, BMW, Germanwings and Merz. He has been honored as a member of the Art Directors Club (ADC) with more than 100 awards. On February 26, 2014, Jürgen Adolph wrote the following: “I was already interested in typography, even when I could not yet read. Letterforms, for instance, above storefronts downtown, had an irresistible appeal for me. Therefore, it is probably not a coincidence that, after finishing high school, I began an apprenticeship with a provider of signage and neon-advertising in Saarbrücken, and – in the late 1980s – I placed highest in my field in my state. When I continued my studies in communications design in Wiesbaden, I was introduced to the highest standards in calligraphy and type design. “Typography begins with writing” my revered teacher, Professor Werner Schneider, taught me. Indefatigably, he supported me during the development of my typeface “Vianova” – which began as part of a studies program – and accompanied me on my journey even when its more austere letterforms did not necessarily conform to his own aesthetic ideals. The completely analogue development of the types – designed entirely with ink and opaque white on cardboard – covered several academic semesters. In order to find its appropriate form, writing with a flat nib was used. Once, when I showed some intermediate designs to Günter Gerhard Lange, who occasionally honored our school with a visit, he commented in his own inimitable manner: “Not bad what you are doing there. But if you want to make a living with this, you might as well order your coffin now.” At that time, I was concentrating mainly on the serif version. But things reached a different level of complexity when, during a meeting with Günther Flake which had been arranged by Professor Schneider, he suggested that I enlarge the offering with a sans and slab version of the typeface. So – a few more months went by, but at the same time, Elsner+Flake already began with the digitilization process. In order to avoid the fate predicted by Günter Gerhard Lange, I went into “servitude” in the advertising industry (Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett) and design field (Rempen& Partner, SchömanCorporate, Claus Koch) and worked for several years as the Creative Director at KW43 in Düsseldorf concerned with corporate design development and expansion (among others for A. Lange & Söhne, Deichmann, Germanwings, Langenscheidt, Montblanc.”

The font superfamily Vianova contains each 12 weights of Sans and Slab and 8 weights of the Serif style. The design from Jürgen Adolph dates back into the 1990s, when he studied Communication Design with Werner Schneider as a professor at the Fachhochschule Stuttgart. Adolph started his carrier 1995 at Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett. He was responsible for trade marks as Adidas, BMW, Germanwings and Merz. He has been honored as a member of the Art Directors Club (ADC) with more than 100 awards. On February 26, 2014, Jürgen Adolph wrote the following: “I was already interested in typography, even when I could not yet read. Letterforms, for instance, above storefronts downtown, had an irresistible appeal for me. Therefore, it is probably not a coincidence that, after finishing high school, I began an apprenticeship with a provider of signage and neon-advertising in Saarbrücken, and – in the late 1980s – I placed highest in my field in my state. When I continued my studies in communications design in Wiesbaden, I was introduced to the highest standards in calligraphy and type design. “Typography begins with writing” my revered teacher, Professor Werner Schneider, taught me. Indefatigably, he supported me during the development of my typeface “Vianova” – which began as part of a studies program – and accompanied me on my journey even when its more austere letterforms did not necessarily conform to his own aesthetic ideals. The completely analogue development of the types – designed entirely with ink and opaque white on cardboard – covered several academic semesters. In order to find its appropriate form, writing with a flat nib was used. Once, when I showed some intermediate designs to Günter Gerhard Lange, who occasionally honored our school with a visit, he commented in his own inimitable manner: “Not bad what you are doing there. But if you want to make a living with this, you might as well order your coffin now.” At that time, I was concentrating mainly on the serif version. But things reached a different level of complexity when, during a meeting with Günther Flake which had been arranged by Professor Schneider, he suggested that I enlarge the offering with a sans and slab version of the typeface. So – a few more months went by, but at the same time, Elsner+Flake already began with the digitilization process. In order to avoid the fate predicted by Günter Gerhard Lange, I went into “servitude” in the advertising industry (Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett) and design field (Rempen& Partner, SchömanCorporate, Claus Koch) and worked for several years as the Creative Director at KW43 in Düsseldorf concerned with corporate design development and expansion (among others for A. Lange & Söhne, Deichmann, Germanwings, Langenscheidt, Montblanc.”

Refinery is the newest font in the Evanston Collection of square typefaces. With a similar capital structure to Tavern and Alehouse, Refinery includes both lowercase and small caps, making it an ideal typeface for paragraph text settings. It also comes in a wide array of weights and widths, with 85 font files in total. DESIGN Refinery has it’s roots in early 20th century signage and saloon typography, but has been modernized - even future-ized - to fit the 21st century digital landscape. The design was aimed at providing a type family that could work in many modern design fields, from sports, tech and military to gaming, HUD, virtual reality and augmented reality. ENGINEERING Essentially. Refinery is a simple mono-linear square design has been expertly refined into an easy-reading sans serif typeface. It was designed to be used in both display and text settings. From hairline to black in ultra-narrow or extended, the wide array of weight and width options makes it easy to find the right font for each text need. SPECS Refinery not only includes 85 font files, but each one include a wide array of Opentype Extras that allow even further customization. • Stylistic Alternatives: Letters A W Y have a styling variation that rounds the pointed apex into a square curve. The S and 2 variation straightens the spine, making all curves in the alphabet read as 90º angles. • Small Capitals: A shortened version of the capitals for alternate header settings. • Titling Alternatives: In this typeface, this feature turns on lifted small caps. Take the small capitals, raise them to level with capitals and underline at the baseline. When multiple lowercase or small capital letters are typed in a row, the underlines connect, creating unique ligatures. • Figures: There are different figure styles for different text needs. Options include, proportional lining, tabular lining (for math), old style and small capitals. • Discretionary Ligatures: A little funk to this otherwise serious typeface. Letters with a long baseline or cap height stem - F, L, T - get elongated to hug a small capital vowel. Other ligatures include Co. and No. • Catchwords: These are common words that bring emphasis to a design. In English these words include ‘and’ ‘as’ ‘by’ ‘in’ ‘of’ ‘the’ ‘to’ ‘when’, among others. Refinery also includes multilingual catchwords of ‘el’ ‘la’ ‘oder’ ‘go’ ‘para’ ‘pour’ ‘und’ ‘y’, among others. For the full list, please check out the specimen images. EXTRAS To round the typeface off, a set of over 150 ornaments, icons, arrows, patterns and line breaks is included to provide complimentary graphics. These can be found in the Ornaments labelled font, it is recommended to use the Glyphs panel to select which text glyph is needed.

The font superfamily Vianova contains each 12 weights of Sans and Slab and 8 weights of the Serif style. The design from Jürgen Adolph dates back into the 90th, when he studied Communication Design with Werner Schneider as a professor at the Fachhochschule Stuttgart. Adolph started his carrier 1995 at Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett. He was responsible for trade marks as Adidas, BMW, Germanwings and Merz. He has been honoured as a member of the Art Director Club (ADC) with more than 100 awards. On February 26, 2014, Jürgen Adolph wrote the following: “I was already interested in typography, even when I could not yet read. Letterforms, for instance, above storefronts downtown, had an irresistible appeal for me. Therefore, it is probably not a coincidence that, after finishing high school, I began an apprenticeship with a provider of signage and neon-advertising in Saarbrücken, and – in the late 1980s – I placed highest in my field in my state. When I continued my studies in communications design in Wiesbaden, I was introduced to the highest standards in calligraphy and type design. “Typography begins with writing” my revered teacher, Professor Werner Schneider, taught me. Indefatigably, he supported me during the development of my typeface “Vianova” – which began as part of a studies program – and accompanied me on my journey even when its more austere letterforms did not necessarily conform to his own aesthetic ideals. The completely analogue development of the types – designed entirely with ink and opaque white on cardboard – covered several academic semesters. In order to find its appropriate form, writing with a flat nib was used. Once, when I showed some intermediate designs to Günter Gerhard Lange, who occasionally honored our school with a visit, he commented in his own inimitable manner: “Not bad what you are doing there. But if you want to make a living with this, you might as well order your coffin now.” At that time, I was concentrating mainly on the serif version. But things reached a different level of complexity when, during a meeting with Günther Flake which had been arranged by Professor Schneider, he suggested that I enlarge the offering with a sans and slab version of the typeface. So – a few more months went by, but at the same time, Elsner+Flake already began with the digitilization process. In order to avoid the fate predicted by Günter Gerhard Lange, I went into “servitude” in the advertising industry (Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett) and design field (Rempen& Partner, SchömanCorporate, Claus Koch) and worked for several years as the Creative Director at KW43 in Düsseldorf concerned with corporate design development and expansion (among others for A. Lange & Söhne, Deichmann, Germanwings, Langenscheidt, Montblanc.”

The Eskapade font family is the result of Alisa Nowak’s research into Roman and German blackletter forms, mainly Fraktur letters. The idea was to adapt these broken forms into a contemporary family instead of creating a faithful revival of a historical typeface. On one hand, the ten normal Eskapade styles are conceived for continuous text in books and magazines with good legibility in smaller sizes. On the other hand, the six angled Eskapade Fraktur styles capture the reader’s attention in headlines with its mixture of round and straight forms as seen in ‘e’, ‘g’, and ‘o’. Eskapade works exceptionally well for branding, logotypes, and visual identities, for editorials like magazines, fanzines, or posters, and for packaging. Eskapade roman adopts a humanist structure, but is more condensed than other oldstyle serifs. The reason behind this stems from the goal of closely resembling the Fraktur style to create harmony in mixed text settings. Legibility is enhanced by its low contrast between thick and thin strokes and its tall x-height. Eskapade offers an airy and light typographic colour with its smooth design. Eskapade italic is based on the Cancellaresca script and shows some particularities in its condensed and round forms. This structure also provided the base for Eskapade Fraktur italic. Eskapade Fraktur is more contrasted and slightly bolder than the usual darkness of a regular weight. The innovative Eskapade Fraktur italic, equally based on the Cancellaresca script previously mentioned, is secondarily influenced by the Sütterlin forms — an unique script practiced in Germany in the vanishingly short period between 1915 and 1941. The new ornaments are also hybrid Sütterlin forms to fit with the smooth roman styles. Although there are many Fraktur-style typefaces available today, they usually lack italics, and their italics are usually slanted uprights rather than proper italics. This motivated extensive experimentation with the italic Fraktur shapes and resulted in Eskapade Fraktur’s unusual and interesting solutions. In addition to standard capitals, it offers a second set of more decorative capitals with double-stroke lines to intensify creative application and encourage experimental use. The Thin and Black Fraktur styles are meant for display sizes (headlines, posters, branding, and signage). A typeface with this much tension needs to keep a good harmony between strokes and counters, so Eskapade Black has amplified inktraps and a more dynamic structure seen in the contrast between straight and round forms. These qualities make the family bolder and more enticing, especially with the included uppercase alternates. The Fraktur’s black weights are strident, refusing to let the white of the paper win the tug-of-war. It also won’t give away its secrets: Is it modern or historic, edgy or amicable, beguiling ornamentation or brutish presentation? That all depends on how the radically expanded Eskapade family is used, but its 16 fonts certainly aren’t tame.

TT Backwards useful links: Specimen | Graphic presentation | Customization options About TT Backwards: TT Backwards is an experimental font project inspired by the USSR typography and fonts of the late 70s and early 80s. Shop signs, posters, and book design—this is where we drew the inspiration for our project. TT Backwards consists of two complementary font subfamilies, a Script and a Grotesque, each of them includes 5 typefaces in 5 different weights (Thin, Light, Regular, Bold, Black). TT Backwards Script is a noncontrast almost monolinear solid script inspired by shop signs, poster and book design of the USSR. TT Backwards Script features a large number of Latin and Cyrillic ligatures (more than 70 items), which allows to make the script versatile and sophisticated to the max. And thanks to the implementation of a huge number of context alternates, all lowercase letters are joined softly and without breaks, and they meet the uppercase letters beautifully and correctly. TT Backwards Script supports the following OpenType features: liga, case, ordn, frac, sups, sinf, numr, dnom, tnum, onum, pnum. TT Backwards Sans is a narrow grotesque, which takes us back to the book design of late 70s and early 80s with its ductile characters. It is created considering its use in the small text size. TT Backwards Sans has a number of pronounced peculiarities: high x-height, exaggerated extenders, and big visual compensators and ink traps. Apart from the basic visual solution, TT Backwards Sans contains two experimental stylistic sets, which markedly change the overall visual perception of the text. SS01 alters high-frequency symbols of the Cyrillic alphabet, and SS02 significantly changes the high-frequency symbols of the Latin alphabet. FOLLOW US: Instagram | Facebook | Website TT Backwards OpenType features: case, ordn, frac, sups, sinf, numr, dnom, tnum, pnum, liga, zero, salt, ss01, ss02. TT Backwards language support: Acehnese, Afar, Albanian, Alsatian, Aragonese, Arumanian, Asu, Aymara, Banjar, Basque, Belarusian (cyr), Bemba, Bena, Betawi, Bislama, Boholano, Bosnian (cyr), Bosnian (lat), Breton, Bulgarian (cyr), Cebuano, Chamorro, Chiga, Colognian, Cornish, Corsican, Cree, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Embu, English, Erzya, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Gaelic, Gagauz (lat), Galician, German, Gusii, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiri Motu, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Innu-aimun, Interlingua, Irish, Italian, Javanese, Judaeo-Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish, Kalenjin, Karachay-Balkar (lat), Karaim (lat), Karakalpak (lat), Kashubian, Khasi, Khvarshi, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kongo, Kumyk, Kurdish (lat), Ladin, Latvian, Laz, Leonese, Lithuanian, Luganda, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Macedonian, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malay, Manx, Maori, Mauritian Creole, Minangkabau, Moldavian (lat), Montenegrin (lat), Mordvin-moksha, Morisyen, Nahuatl, Nauruan, Ndebele, Nias, Nogai, Norwegian, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Palauan, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rheto-Romance, Rohingya, Romanian, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Russian, Rusyn, Rwa, Salar, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu, Scots, Sena, Serbian (cyr), Serbian (lat), Seychellois Creole, Shambala, Shona, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Swiss German, Swiss German, Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Tatar, Tetum, Tok Pisin, Tongan, Tsonga, Tswana, Turkish, Turkmen (lat), Ukrainian, Uyghur, Vepsian, Volapük, Võro, Vunjo, Xhosa, Zaza, Zulu.

❧ Useful links: Luther’s Manuscripts at the UNESCO Memory of the World at Google Arts and Culture Martin Luther font on Kickstarter (with Film about the creation) Each letter of the Martin Luther font is strictly based on original samples found in Martin Luther’s 500 year old handwritten manuscripts. Letters that occur more often for example vowels have two or more different versions stored in the font. (➶ Figure 4) These alternative forms are exchanged automatically by the font as you type, and create a vivid look that comes close to actual handwriting. The font avoids that two identical letters are placed next to each other like, for example the two “o” in the word “look”. ➸ What Historic Sources is the Font based on? Two historic documents were used to base the font on. The notes Luther took before giving his speech in Worms in 1521 and a 6 page letter he wrote immediately after to Emperor Charles V., summarising his speech (➶ Figure 2). Both documents have been added to the UNESCO “Memory of the World” and can be seen at the Google Arts and Culture website. ➸ The Creation of a Handwriting Font The creation of a handwriting font is very different from the creation of a regular font. Harald Geisler has specialised in recreating handwriting in preceding projects with Albert Einstein’s, Sigmund Freud’s and his own handwriting. His experience working with Archives and Museums has gone into this project. First Geisler analyses the movement in the writing to understand how each letter is drawn. This involves partially learning how to write like a person. In this process not the outlines of the sample are reproduced but the original movement path of the handwriting (➶ Figure 3). In a second step width and contrast is added to reproduce Martin Luther’s characteristic impetus and the writing tools used at the time. (Link: Youtube Playlist showcasing the creation of individual letters) How about signs that can’t be found in archives? Some Glyphs can not be found in 500 year old manuscripts, for example the @-sign. Towards the end of the creation one collects a profund amount of details about how a writer moves on paper and addresses certain tasks moving the pen. Keeping this knowledge in mind an improvisation can be based on similar letter forms. For example the @ sign is based on of the movement of a lowercase a and parenthesis. ➸ Features of the Martin Luther font ❶ Extensive Documentation of the creation of the font, including high quality reproduction of the used manuscripts. ❷ Additional texts from Historian Dr. Henning Jürgens and Palaeographer (and Luther handwriting expert) Prof. Ulrich Bubenheimer ❸ Alternating Letters - in handwriting every word looks a bit different. To avoid that two identical letterforms are placed next to each other (for example in the word look) the font actively changes between different versions of letters as you type. ❹ Ligatures - characteristic writing forms when two letters are combined (for example “ct”) (➶ Figure 5) ❺ Terminal Letterforms - renders a special letterform when letter is at the end of a word. (➶ Figure 8) ❻ ‘’’Initial and Medial Letterforms''' - some letterforms are different when placed in the beginning or middle of a word, for example the lowercase s. ❼ Luther Rose - is a seal Luther used to authorise his correspondence. Today it is a widely recognized symbol for Luther. When you enter the numbers of Luthers year of birth and death 14831546 using the Martin Luther PRO font, it will render a stylised version of the Luther Rose. (➶ Figure 7) ❽ Historic letter-forms - letter-forms that are specific to medieval writing around 1500. For example the long-s or h with a loop at the bottom. (➶ Figure 6) ⚑ Multi language support - see the technical information tab for a full list of supported languages. (➶ Figure 11) ➸ The different Styles explained ❋ Martin Luther PRO - this includes all features listed above and is geared towards writing texts that are more readable today. It features alternating letters to create a natural handwriting look as well as two stylistic sets accessible through the OpenType menu. Historic forms are available through the glyph picker. ❋ Martin Luther Historic - this font creates a historically correct reproduction (i.e. with long-s) of Luther’s medieval latin handwriting. It features alternating letters to create a natural handwriting look as well as two stylistic sets accessible through the OpenType menu. ❋ Martin Luther Expert-1 - Dedicated access to the first set of letters only. ❋ Martin Luther Expert-2 - Dedicated access to the second set of letters only. ❈❈❈ Family Pack - recieve all fonts at a discounted price. ❈❈❈ ➸ Kickstarter The creation and development of the Martin Luther font was financed by 500 supporters on ➸Kickstarter.