“Hey, look at me!” cried the new advertising typefaces. With the nineteenth century and the industrial revolution came an esthetic revolution in type design. Brash, loud, fat display faces elbowed their way into the crowd of book faces, demanding attention. Those who admired traditional book types harumphed and complained. Robert Thorne had fired the opening round with his Fatface. With the cutting of Figgins Antique, the battle was well and truly joined. Job printing came into its own and it seemed like everything changed. The world of printing had been turned upside down and the gentile book-type aficionados recoiled in horror much as the rural landed gentry recoiled at the upstart middle class shopkeepers and manufacturers. William Savage, approvingly quoted by Daniel Berkeley Updike over a hundred years later, described the new display faces as “a barbarous extreme.” These were exciting times. According to Geoffrey Dowding in his An Introduction To The History Of Printing Types, “The types which we know by the name of Egyptian were first shown by Vincent Figgins in his specimen book of 1815, under the name Antique.” Of course, dating the design is not quite as simple as that. Nicolete Gray points out that Figgins used the same “1815” title page on his specimen books from 1815 to 1821, adding pages as needed without regard to archival issues. As a result, there are different versions of the 1815 specimen book. In those copies that include the new Antique, that specific specimen is printed on paper with an 1817 watermark. The design is dated by the 1817 watermark rather than the 1815 title page. Figgins Antique ML is an all-cap font. This typeface is for bold statements. Don't waste it on wimpy whispers of hesitant whimsies. And please don't use it for extended text -- it will only give someone a headache. Think boldly. Use it boldly. Set it tight. Go ahead and run the serifs together. Solid and stolid, this face is very, very English. FIGGINS ANTIQIE ML represents a major extension of the original release, with the following changes: 1. Added glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Added glyphs to complete standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page. Special glyphs relocated and assigned Unicode codepoints, some in Private Use area. Total of 331 glyphs. 2. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: liga and pnum. 3. Added 86 kerning pairs. 4. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. 5. Redesigned mathamatical operators. 6. Included of both tabular (standard) & proportional numbers (optional). 7. Refined various glyph outlines.

William Morris (1834-1896) was probably the most influential figure in the decorative arts and private press movements of the late 19th and early 20th century. In reaction to the increasing lack of quality that the industrial revolution brought on, Morris sought a return to the ideals of the medieval craftsman. Dissatisfied with the commercially available typefaces of the day, he undertook the design of the fonts for his books himself. The P22 Morris font set features new versions of Morris's famous type designs for his Kelmscott Press. The two main fonts include full international character sets for Western European languages. P22 created MORRIS GOLDEN with a rough edge to simulate the look of printing on handmade paper. There is a more "refined" recent version of Golden, but its sterile digitization does not approach the effect that Morris achieved in his Kelmscott books. You'll notice the handmade effect less in the smaller sizes but will find it quite decorative in the larger sizes. (Morris cut his Golden type in only one size for the Kelmscott Press, approximately equal to 14 points.) P22's version of MORRIS TROY is more smooth than Morris Golden and is true to the original Morris design. It is based on the Kelmscott Troy type (an 18 point font) and its smaller counterpart, the Chaucer type (a 12 point font). American Type Founders made an unauthorized version of Troy, "Satanick," 189?, contrary to Morris's wish that it not be made available commercially.(Legend has it that the naming of Satanick comes from William Morris telling the agent inquiring about making copies of his fonts available to go to hell) Several digital versions of Troy (and Satanick) have appeared over the years. The P22 version offers a much more accurate rendering than any previous version. Morris designed the original Troy font to be spaced very tightly; our version reflects and honors his intention. The MORRIS ORNAMENTS are based on those Morris designed and used in his Kelmscott Press books. Characters in the positions of the letters A to Z are decorative drop cap initials. Characters in the number key positions reproduce other Morris embellishments. (See the accompanying key chart.) As with all headline fonts and complex dingbats characters, this font is best used at larger point sizes (e.g., 48, 72, 120). Use in body text or at small point sizes on-screen may not achieve desired results. P22 is grateful to William S. Peterson, Steven O. Saxe and the Lightsey-Offutt Library who gave invaluable research assistance to this project.

Norwich Aldine ML is a all-cap typeface with enlarged serifs, designed and produced in wood by William Hamilton Page of Norwich, Connecticut in 1872. Norwich Aldine ML is a fine example of the strength of decorative wood types: large, simple type forms that provide the visual boldness sought by advertisers of the Victorian period. While our marketing has gotten so very sophisticated, there is always a place for a simple, visually strong typeface. Although about 14 miles inland, Norwich, Connecticut lies at the head of the Thames River. The river is both wide and deep, and therefore was not bridged in the early 20th century. Until then, if you wanted to get from Groton on the west bank to the whaling port of New London on the east bank by land, you had to go by way of Norwich. Because of its size, the Thames is navigable all the way from Norwich to New London. Docks were built in Norwich around 1685 and the city became Connecticut’s 2nd largest port by 1800. With the construction of the Norwich & Worcester Railroad in 1835, Page could easily ship his wood type north by rail or south by coastal schooner. Included with our font, Norwich Aldine ML, are two 19th century printer’s ornaments of sailing ships similar to those that sailed up the Thames to Norwich. Reference: Moon’s Handbooks, Connecticut 2nd Edition (Emeryville CA 2004) The family has expanded from one to four fonts: 1. Norwich Aldine ML: the concept font, computer-sharp corners and smooth curves, as we imagine it was designed. 336 Glyphs including some reduced-width alternatives for better letter spacing. 2. Norwich Aldine Worn ML: the way actual wooden type would look after have been used for a while. 332 Glyphs 3. Norwich Aldine Distressed ML: the way the wooden type would look after it had really been used, perhaps abused. Alternatives to the more popular letters reflect the damage that typically occurs on a well-wormn font, with nicks, cuts and scratches and the overall wear that reduces the overall height and leads to uneven inking due to varying heights in the chase. A couple of bullets look like bullet holes. 345 glyphs. 4. Norwich Aldine Cyrillic: Cyrillic includes alll English and Cyrillic letters for MS Windows Code Page 1251, ISO 8859-5 and MacOS Cyrillic. 235 glyphs. We did Cyrillic because is was fun and we felt the basic design cried out for Cyrillic. While obviously subjective, we hope you will agree.

Allegro Sans is a joyful, bright, cheerful and minimal font inspired by the vibrant speed and gentle movements of the Allegro tempo.