Classic Grotesque by Rod McDonald: a traditional font with a modern face. The growing popularity of grotesque typefaces meant that many new sans serif analogues were published in the early 20th century. Setting machines were not compatible with each other but all foundries wanted to offer up-to-date fonts, and as a result numerous different typeface families appeared that seem almost identical at first glance and yet go their separate ways with regard to details. One of the first fonts created with automatic typesetting in mind was Monotype Grotesque®. Although this typeface that was designed and published by Frank Hinman Pierpont in 1926 has since been digitalised, it has never achieved the status of other grotesque fonts of this period. But Monotype Grotesque was always one of designer Rod McDonald’s favourites, and he was overjoyed when he finally got the go-ahead from Monotype in 2008 to update this “hidden treasure”. The design process lasted four years, with regular interruptions due to the need to complete projects for other clients. In retrospect, McDonald admits that he had no idea at the beginning of just how challenging and complex a task it would be to create Classic Grotesque™. It took him considerable time before he found the right approach. In his initial drafts, he tried to develop Monotype Grotesque only to find that the result was almost identical with Arial®, a typeface that is also derived in many respects from Monotype Grotesque. It was only when he went back a stage, and incorporated elements of Bauer Font’s Venus™ and Ideal Grotesk by the Julius Klinkhardt foundry into the design process, that he found the way forward. Both these typefaces had served as the original inspiration for Monotype Grotesque. The name says it all: Classic Grotesque has all the attributes of the early grotesque fonts of the 20th century: The slightly artificial nature gives the characters a formal appearance. There are very few and only minor variations in line width. The tittles of the ‘i’ and ‘j’, the umlaut diacritic and other diacritic marks are rectangular. Interestingly, it is among the uppercase letters that certain variations from the standard pattern can be found, and it is these that enliven the typeface. Hence the horizontal bars of the “E”, “F” and “L” have bevelled terminals. The chamfered terminal of the bow of the “J” has a particular flamboyance, while the slightly curved descender of the “Q” provides for additional dynamism. The character alternatives available through the OpenType option provide the designer with a wealth of opportunities. These include a closed “a”, a double-counter “g” and an “e” in which the transverse bar deviates slightly from the horizontal. The seven different weights also extend the scope of uses of Classic Grotesque. These range from the delicate Light to the super thick Extrabold. There are genuine italic versions of each weight; these are not only slightly narrower than their counterparts, but also have variant shapes. The “a” is closed, the “f” has a semi-descender while the “e” is rounded. Its neutral appearance and excellent features mean that Classic Grotesque is suitable for use in nearly all imaginable applications. Even during the design phase, McDonald used his new font to set books and in promotional projects. However, he would be pleased to learn of possible applications that he himself has not yet considered. Classic Grotesque, which has its own individual character despite its neutral and restrained appearance, is the ideal partner for your print and web project.

A Barnhart Bros. & Spindler type from the late victorian period. We have been faithful to the spirit of the original buy "calmed down" a few of the lowercase letters to make the lines read more smoothly.

Nokian11 is a font inspired by an old Nokia phone display. It was created in 2001 and named Nokian. Nokian11 is a new, improved version with full set of glyphs and covers most of European languages.

IntellectaMonograms is an extensive collection of ancient intrincate monograms, of all kinds, mainly Victorian style. To better understand the recherché combinations in these fonts, please take a look at the pdf brochures in the Gallery section.

The 1912 publication "Essentials of Lettering" has an example of a hand lettered, condensed spurred serif design called "Compressed Roman". This is now available digitally as New Thin Roman JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

That's a special horrific font with an intricate pattern of bones. All letters are put together of nonrecurring elements drawn individually by hand. The classical forms as we see it sound afresh with the bones attire.

Spooky Strikes Halloween is a crafty and distinctive display font. With a combination of pixel-art and scary horror themes, this font has the potential to bring each of your creative ideas to the highest level!

Summer Strike is a simple, thin lettered and flowing handwritten font. This adaptable font will look great on a variety of design ideas. It will add a fun and friendly touch to each of your projects!

One of six fonts inspired by old stencil lettering guides, Jeff Levine has drawn a font which captures the feel of simpler times when signs and posters were stencilled by school children, teachers, librarians and shopkeepers.

Cute and adorable, they're...Onigiri! Designed to evoke the cuteness of Japanese mascots with the informality of script, these little riceballs o' text are sure to please! Comes in Latin alphabet, hiragana, katakana and onigiri dingbats!

Caleuche is a typeface family of 18 styles, from its standard version Light to UltraBold such as Rough and Inline, it is a display typeface that plays with the style of action, mythology, terror and suspense.

Wonsmith is a family of 3 handwritten script fonts, including latin and cyrillic alphabet and diacritic symbols, so the font can be used for most European languages. Ligatures of the most common letter pairs are included.

Jeff Levine's collection of stencil fonts based on original source material has grown by one with the addition of Term Paper JNL, a bold sans serif based on a stencil lettering guide from the 1950's.

The unusual type design that comprises Cold Case JNL was modeled from a 1950s set of letter and number stencils manufactured by the Huntington Oil Cured Stencil Company of Huntington, NY (later relocating to South Florida).

Sign Trade JNL is a reworking of Sign Crafter JNL. With a traditional M,N and W replacing the stylized versions of these letters in the previous font, Sign Trade JNL also offers an oblique version.

FM Birthday 1.0 consists of 26 birthday related words and phrases -- all custom made and handwritten. Add a personal touch to your greeting cards or party invitation designs with the help of these hand lettered captions.

Sveva Versal is a light swinging art nouveau caps only headliner, with swash like alternates and lots of special combinations. It's well suited to set a short and fancy block or line of text. PDF Specimen

No mystery here—it's a larrupin' good lighter version of the original Whiz-Bang Woodtype goody, Dime Box. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

Souplesse (flexibility in French) is a nice, uncomplicated typeface; happy beyond words, yet with a bit of a bite. The glyphs have a rough edge, yet remain very legible. Souplesse comes with a bagful of diacritics.

Arrieta is a versatile typeface family designed to serve various design purposes. It combines the traditional mechanical typography process of punch cutting with the expressive strokes of a nib pen, resulting in a reliable, angled typeface.

Linotype Creative Arrows was designed by Robert Bucan in 1998 and consists mainly of directional symbols. Arrows and symbols in many different variations can also be built together, creating unique combinations for a variety of applications.

A font inspired by regime propaganda inscriptions found in Italian institutional and civic architecture of the 20’s and 30’s. Bold, severe lettering, suggestive of pre-war Italian Art Deco and American Depression Modern aesthetics.

Based on a written pen-form of 'runes' (translation of Elvish Certar and Cirth), it was used by Dwarves to write their own secret tongue. NOTE: this font comes with an interpretation guide in pdf format.

One of six fonts inspired by old stencil lettering guides, Jeff Levine has drawn a font which captures the feel of simpler times when signs and posters were stencilled by school children, teachers, librarians and shopkeepers.

Lucky Skirt is a bold, fun, and playful display font. Its well-rounded and slightly chunky characters make this typeface an extremely versatile one! It can elevate the look of almost any of your beautiful creations!

Dave West released the Behemoth Semi-Condensed font in 1960. With nineteenth-century wood-cut influence PL Behemoth Semi-Condensed is an example of the revival of slab serif styles, popular in the sixties and seventies.

Originally conceived from the basic sign writers brush stroke pattern and heavily influenced by the songs of David Bowie this style has developed into an organic Futurist face, kind of post modern retro, catch my drift?