Paralucent is versatile all-purpose modern sans. Available in seven weights, from Thin to Heavy, and in two widths each with corresponding italics, it avoids some of the more eccentric calligraphic quirks of Akzidenz or Helvetica or the cool precision of Univers for an elegant, functional, yet warm design. There are two additions to the core 28-weight family: a three-weight stencil set, and a four weight text family. The text weights have been adjusted for use at small point sizes, and feature more open character shapes, looser inter-letter spacing for improved readability, and lining numerals for use in listings and tables. Several core ideas inform Paralucent’s design. Prime attention has given to the negative space between characters, giving a more even “colour”, especially in text. For example, the J, L and T have shorter arms than comparable sans typefaces, while the M and W are wider. The A has a lower bar, opening up the interior counter. An unusually high lower-case x-height again helps to give a more even colour and improve legibility. Care has been taken to rationalise repeated elements like the tails on lower-case letters, or the Q and the “ear” of the g. Typographic design solutions that are consistent across all these features add more stylistic cohesion. ‘Ink traps’ are exaggerated incisions used to open up a letter's narrower internal angles, which can become clogged with ink, especially in small point sizes. Now largely redundant due to the high quality of modern print, they are still sometimes used as a stylistic quirk or design feature. Now that digital fonts are often reversed or outlined, or enlarged to enormous sizes, these can also lead to unexpected or obtrusive results. Paralucent takes these inevitable digital manipulations into account, and adds optical corrections without resort to ink traps. The family has been picked up by many UK and US publishers, featuring heavily in magazines like Loaded, Heat and TV Quick, as well as high-end coffee-table photography books and gallery websites. A perennial Device bestseller.

ATF Franklin Gothic® A new take on an old favorite Franklin Gothic has been the quintessential American sans for more than a century. Designed by Morris Fuller Benton and released in 1905 by American Type Founders, Franklin Gothic quickly stood out in the crowded field of sans-serif types, gaining an enduring popularity. Benton’s original design was a display face in a single weight. It had a bold, direct solidity, yet conveyed plenty of character. A modern typeface in the tradition of 19th-century grotesques, Franklin Gothic was drawn with a distinctive contrast in stroke weight, giving it a unique personality among the more mono-linear appearance of later geometric and neo-grotesque sans-serif types. Franklin Gothic has been interpreted into a series of weights before, most notably with ITC Franklin Gothic. But as the original type was just a bold display face (later accompanied by a few similarly bold widths and italics), how Benton’s design is expanded to multiple weights and styles as a digital type family can vary significantly. Benton designed several gothic faces that harmonize with one another, including Franklin Gothic, News Gothic, and Monotone Gothic, that can serve as models for new interpretations of his work. With ATF Franklin Gothic, Mark van Bronkhorst looked to Benton’s Monotone Gothic—originally a single typeface in a regular weight, and similar to Franklin Gothic in its forms—as the basis for lighter styles. ATF Franklin Gothic may appear familiar given its heritage, but is a new design offering a fresh take on Benton’s work. The text weights are wider and more open than some previous Franklin Gothic interpretations, and as a result are quite legible as text, at very small sizes, and on screen. ATF Franklin Gothic maintains the warmth and the spirit of a Benton classic while offering a suite of fonts tuned precisely for contemporary appeal and utility. The 18-font family offers nine weights with true italics, a Latin-extended character set, and a suite of OpenType features. Download the PDF specimen for ATF Franklin Gothic.

Iza W and Intellecta Design are proud to announce Invitation Script, a modern and clean revival of the classic work of the Portuguese master penman Manuel de Andrade de Figueiredo, whose work can be seen in “Nova Escola para aprender a ler, escrever, e contar (...)'' (1722). Invitation Script is the third script superfamily published by Intellecta Design, after Penabico and Van den Velde Script. Invitation Script has original letters designed by Iza W. Creative direction and core programming were provided by Paulo W. Chyrllene K assisted with some work on unusual and archaic styles, resulting in a special font - Invitation Script Archaic (soon available). Invitation started out from Andrade’s script style and evolved into a voluptuous script font family. The result is a typeface ideal for beautiful headings, signatures, art work typography, titles and short pieces of hand-lettered text. Invitation family includes two multi-table Opentype fonts, three supplementary fonts for ornaments and fleurons, and the Archaic font with some of the Andrade’s original characters. Embedded in the regular fonts are additional sets of letters. Over 40 variations are available for certain letters via the Special Sets Opentype table. The two regular versions of Invitation Script contains the following: (i) An extensive set of ligatures providing letterform variations that make eye-popping designs or simulate real handwriting. These are accessible via contextual alternates and other open-type features. (ii) Many stylistic alternates for each letter (upper and lowercase, accessed via the glyph palette, encoded in the ranges of the Special Set Opentype feature). Since there are over 1100 glyphs in each font, we suggest using the glyph palette. (iii) A set of ornaments and fleurons accessed with the glyph palette or using the Ornaments feature. Additional ornaments can be found in the two Invitation Script Ornaments fonts. (iv) Initial and final letters with artistic variations accessible using the initial and final form open-type features. (v) Major kerning work: over 6000 kerning pairs, hand-set to avoid collisions and to create intricate combinations of letters, using swashes and other resources. These powerful features are all accessible in InDesign, Illustrator, QuarkXpress and similar software. We recommend exploring the magic of this font using the glyph palette. Our sample illustrations and PDF brochures showcase the power and pizzazz of this calligraphic script. Let your imagination go wild and use Invitation Script in ways that Andrade could not have foreseen. In non-OpenType-savvy applications, Invitation Script is still an exceptionally beautiful calligraphic typeface that stands up to the competition. The regular fonts contains the complete Latin alphabet, including Central European, Vietnamese, Baltic and Turkish, with a full set of diacritics and punctuation marks. --- 1 FIGUEIREDO, Manuel de Andrade de, 1670-1735 Nova Escola para aprender a ler, escrever, e contar. Offerecida á Augusta Magestade do Senhor Dom Joaõ V. Rey de Portugal. Primeira parte / por Manoel de Andrade de Figueiredo, Mestre desta Arte nas cidades de Lisboa Occidental, e Oriental. - Lisboa Occidental: na Officina de Bernardo da Costa de Carvalho, Impressor do Serenissimo Senhor Infante, 1722. - [18], 156 p., 44 f. grav. a buril : il., ; 2º (31 cm)Engraved royal coat of arms supported by angels over the city of Lisbon, engraved portrait of the author (both of the foregoing by Bernard Picart), (12)ff., 156pp., engraved calligraphic section title, 44 engraved plates. Wood-engraved culs-de-lampe and lettrines. Sm. folio. “Andrade de Figueiredo was born in Espirito Santo, where his father was Governor of the ‘Capitania.’ The fine portrait is dated 1721 and is showing Figueiredo at the age of 48. He was an eminent calligrapher and a creator of the Portuguese handwriting until the reign of Don José I (ca. 1755). His work follows the style of the great Italian masters in its use of clubbed ascenders and descenders, and of Diaz Morante, the famous Spanish writing master, in its very elaborate show of command of hand. By his contemporaries, he was known as the ‘Morante portugues’” (Ekström). “Ce livre est un manuel, composé de quatre parties, destiné à apprendre à lire, à écrire, à conter ainsi que l’orthographe. Les planches comportent des examples d’écritures, d’alphabets et de textes ornés de remarquables traits de plume exécutés d’une main sûre et enjouée” (Jammes).