Who haven't heard the phrase that ‘any past time was better’?. Although I sometimes find this phrase a little too pessimistic (because I try to think that the best is yet to come), it may be true regarding my passion, typography. I'm too young (29) unfortunately, and this means I did not have the pleasure of being contemporary with maybe the man who has influenced my work the most (1). The man that showed that letters are more than just letters to be read. Herb Lubalin (1918-1981), also called sometimes as ‘the rule basher’ (2), smashed the taboos and sacred rules of type design and gave it personality. He rejected the functionalist philosophy of europeans in favor of an eclectic and exuberant style. To him, letters were not merely vessels of form, they were objects of meaning. (3). Nowadays, when looking at his portfolio, who dares to deny that the term ‘typography’ and ‘beauty’ may go hand-in-hand without any problem? Ed Benguiat, one of Herb’s partners, still likes making jokes with the phrase “screw legibility, type should be beautiful” and what I understand of this is not to forget the rules, but to know and break them carefully. In an era of pure eclecticism, we, the lovers of flourishes and swashes, can't do nothing but admire all the legacy that Lubalin, this wonderful type-guru, left. My font Lubaline read as “the line of Lubalin” is my humble tribute to him. Those who know his work, may see the influences easily like in his ‘Beards’ (1976) and ‘The Sound of Music’ (1965) posters; the art-deco forms in many of his amazing logos and practically in all his creations where letters seem to be alive just like you and me. I really hope that the future finds me still learning more and more about type-design and letterforms, and like him, always willing to make innovations in my field: Because letters are not just letters to be read. NOTES (1) These are some of my fonts in which some of Lubalin’s influences can be seen (in order of creation): Reina, Aire, Erotica, String, Beatle, Heroe, Selfie, Model, Seventies, and many others that are still in progress. (2) (3) Steven Heller. Herb Lubalin: Rule Basher. U&lc (1998) http://www.printmag.com/imprint/my-favorite-lubalin/

Plakato, a stencil love affair Plakato is a family of display fonts, consisting of various eye-catching styles, each of them very bold. Plakato is an identity toolkit, a heavyweight building block in case you need a strong personality, a small stencil font family to cut out your best ideas and grab all the attention. But just as with many other creations, its outcome is as divers as its multiple origins. Plakato comes in 16 eye-catching styles. The default stencil style comes in Regular & Italic. They both have 2 variations: one version, named Plakato Stencil, automatically creates borders around the text, putting any text into a graphic stencil in this way. Another version, the extruded three-dimensional version, guarantees even more attention for your message. Next to this there is also the Inline version, which is an optical play with a lot of lines. Plakato Inline has a supportive background layer, a separate font in case you want to add a background in a different colour. Then there is Plakato Paper, a manually teared version of Plakato offering a more physical look. This small family of eye-catching display fonts also contains a Neon font, an independent design in Plakato style, which can actually be used for making neon signs due to its construction. Plakato Neon comes with its own Dingbat font for that extra flush-flush. Plakato has also been redrawn on a C64, and with all its accompanying limitations been ported back and turned into a font: Plakato Game. Also this font comes with its own Dingbat font, full of emoji’s and icons for oldskool pleasure. Last but not least there is Plakato Build, constructed out of blocks. As if that wasn’t enough, there are various dynamic versions in the Plakato Play package, which offer a whole new range of possibilities for typographic expression, with new animation and interaction opportunities.

CP Company Flash is the version of CP Company designed for use in Adobe Flash. Available in three versions: Big to be used at 16pt, Medium at 16pt and Small at 8pt. Originally designed to be used in the cpcompany.com web site

An adaptation of the font Neuland, designed by Rudolph Koch in 1923. The freeware (TrueType) version has a limited character set. The Pro Set (Postscript) version has a complete character set (Adobe Standard for PC; Macintosh Standard for Mac), and extensive kerning.

A fitting complement to the ever-popular Saturday Morning Toast is this book weight, monoline version, popular in the early twentieth century. Both versions contain the complete Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Estonia Regular is based on the calligraphic style found in the east European country of Estonia. The swash versions are designed to be used in conjunction with the regular version. For the full character set all in one font, try Estonia Nouveau Pro.

Town Meeting JNL (available in both regular and oblique versions) is a modified version of Mud Creek JNL (which was based on Tuscan Egyptian – a classic wood type). The side spurs were removed and the split serifs were replaced by slab serifs.

Bispo is a script typeface family made based on italic chancery calligraphy. After one year of it first launch, Bispo family now has another variant, a Bispo Pro version. The Pro version now contains more than 450 glyphs and new OpenType features, enjoy!

The OpenType version of Farmer contains two sets of slightly different upper-case letters. The alternate version is accessible as Titling Caps in OpenType feature enabled software. Mixed and matched they create a strong and persuasive headline, logo or For Sale notice.

Hasan Ghada is an Arabic display typeface. It is useful for titles and graphic projects. The font is based on the simple lines of Modern Kufi calligraphy with new ideas for square shapes and geometric feel. It supports Arabic, Persian and Urdu. This font was designed in 2002 and the first version was released under name KactTitle in the typefaces group of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), which supported the Linux operation system. In 2007, I developed this font and created five weights of it.

Boldstrom is a heavy-handed, all caps, display font available in 5 versions. Emphasis was put into strong line weight, minimal contrast, and tight curves. This family is defined by very broad stems with comparatively thinner cross strokes. Spacing was condensed to ensure the characters fit snug against one another. This was done in part to minimize negative space while also creating tension. The result is a powerful looking sans serif designed to command attention and make a statement. Boldstrom will be best used in large format print, titling, books, movie posters, or company logos.