Clear Sans™ is a… wait for it… rational geometric sans serif. It is intended to fill a niche… to provide an alternative to the somewhat based-on-vernacular signage, somewhat geometric sans. I hear the word vernacular thrown around too much and too loosely. If a typeface is based in the vernacular, based on hand-painted or hand-crafted signage, then it should be based on the movements of the hand, retain that warmth and not on a pretty geometric model. For me, clean, geometric and precise doesn't have to be cold and expressionless. The original skeleton was hand-painted in 2008 to help determine and inform my decisions going forward. The typeface was completed shortly afterwards at the behest of an old friend for their identity. As usual, I expanded it, but considered retiring it since there were so many things similar out there. Years later, I had a chance to rediscover it and came to the conclusion that it could be improved, expanded in a logical and useful way, and introduced. I would be lying if I didn't admit that the rise of webfonts and embedded type in applications influenced many of the decisions I made about reworking Clear Sans™. Completely new Text and Screen fonts were developed that utitlize larger x-heights, space-saving widths, logical (and simplified) weight offerings… to name a few alterations. Even the pricing of each variant was considered to produce a more reasonable and simple solution for the developer, designer, professional and novice. Clear Sans™ is a departure from my previous sans serifs, but the influences of Aaux Next, Akagi Pro and Halogen are evident. Enjoy a light-hearted mini-site devoted to Clear Sans™

Original Foundry: TypeType Original typeface name: TT Cottons Pinatas Cottons is a friendly hand-drawn typeface with condensed proportions. Each separate style of Pinatas Cottons was drawn by using different instruments. For instance, the black style was painted with a real brush, and the thin one was created with a pen. We tried to keep this analog feeling of hand drawing while we digitalized each style of the typeface. Pinatas Cottons is your ideal design helper.

This typeface was inspired by the font Pabst Heavy, designed by Chauncey Hawley Griffith in 1928 for Linotype. Because of its formal characteristics, recalls the popular Cooper Black and probably was the reaction of Linotype to counter the popularity of this font distributed by the "American Type Founders" was acquired. It's a heavy typeface, ideal for headlines or for use in creating logos, rounded shapes and gestures evoke dynamism and make it perfect to highlight specific words or phrases.

Abitare Sans was originally commissioned by the group Rizzoli Corriere della Sera. It’s a typeface of 30 weights designed to be used in Abitare magazine. The request of the president Mario Piazza was a new CP Company with some redesigned glyphs, but the result is a radical evolution of its concept being intended to be used as a font for text far more readable. In Abitare Sans the geometric structure was kept without neglecting the numerous editorial requirements.

Misopen is a handwriting script font with a unique, casual and beautiful handwriting style. Misopen was made using a calligraphy pen with a fine nib. This font was designed by writing a lot of sample letters and trying to make it connect natural. It also contains many OpenType "ligatures". Each letter was made with love and designed to work well on designs like invitations, wedding, signatures, clothing, photography, branding, album covers and more. Just try it yourself.

When I am working on a new font, I usually play some music, or have a song in my head. When I was working on this font, an Audioslave song called Getaway Car was playing in my head. Again: naming a font is not that difficult! Getaway Car was made with a cheap brush and expensive Chinese ink. It is an all caps font, ideally suited for posters, book covers and designs that need a bold, rough & ready look.

The Vienna Workshop was a production community of visual artists, which operated from 1903 to 1932. The emphasis lay on fine craftsmanship and its motto was: "Better to work 10 days on one product than to manufacture 10 products in one day". The typeface before you was based on some of the artwork produced by Vienna Workshop artists, in particular that of Koloman Moser. Vienna Workshop comes with some unusual glyphs, intriguing ligatures and Babylonian language support.

UUeirdie is weird. The Condensed-Light style was derived from the star-serifed font Asterx by replacing the star serifs with a rounded flare serif. Widening that style resulted in UUeirdie-Regular and the bold was then constructed to complement it. The warped version was a result of play with a font distortion program. Although the glyphs have sharp corners, they do not have straight lines. The UUeirdie faces are rough, irregular, and maybe a bit creepy.

BRIGNELL BIG is a two font family designed by Ian Brignell. Bold and honest, it approaches like a dare: Go Big no regrets. A bold, personable sans serif headline font characterized by a stylized and geometric structure. Creatively, Brignell Big was born in 2011 and was inspired by lettering designs Ian was working on for CO Bigelow packaging that harkened back to early 20th century modern sans serifs. Recommended for headline use especially on packaging. Extended Latin set.

The hand composition typeface was created at Polygraphmash type design bureau in 1959 by a well-known Soviet book and type designer Pavel Kuzanyan (1901-1992). It was reproduced in the 1960s for slugcasting and machine display composition. Sharp contrast, strong weight, slightly condensed Modern Serif with calligraphic elements. The typeface is useful in text and display composition, in scientific, fiction and art books. The revised and completed digital version was designed at ParaType in 2002 by Lyubov Kuznetsova.

A set-aside work file featuring a bold sans serif typeface that may or may not have had a vintage source history was given a new treatment. Initially, the solid design was converted to a stencil format and an experiment was undertaken to see what the alphabet would look like with a dual line treatment. Surprisingly, it turned out quite well and the end result is Dual Line Stencil JNL; available in both regular and oblique versions.

Torpedo is a five-weight rounded, compressed sans serif font family. It was designed by Steve Jackaman over a several-year period, and was released in 2017 alongside its sister typefaces Coliseum Pro and Clydesdale. Torpedo, whose name was inspired by round torpedo warheads, is a visually sturdy font that maintains excellent legibility. Torpedo is flexible in its applications, like its violent namesake; it is explosive at large sizes, and still works efficiently at low profiles.

This family was created inspired from the two sets of rough initials fonts used by the famous William Caxton in Westminster (GB) in the late 1400’s. As it was normal for the time, there were not any differences between I and J, U and V. It is not a mistake. We have reconstructed the few other missing characters. This font was conceived as a supplement for our 1479 Caxton but may be used with all our Blackletters fonts.

PT Telingater Display™ was designed in 1959 by a well-known Soviet book designer Solomon Telingater (1903-1969) at Polygraphmash type design bureau. The typeface was awarded the Silver Medal at the International Book Art Exhibition (IBA-59) at Leipzig (Germany) in 1959. Light flared sans serif with calligraphic flavor and low contrast between main strokes and hairlines. For use in title and display typography. The digital version was developed for ParaType in 2001 by Lyubov Kuznetsova.

Clydesdale is a five-weight compressed sans serif font family. It was designed by Steve Jackaman over a several-year period, and was released in 2017. Clydesdale, much like its sister typefaces Coliseum and Torpedo, was inspired by authoritative Roman display typefaces. The font family excels in displays, but is a great performer in all text sizes. It is perfect for users who enjoy the impressiveness of Coliseum Pro and Torpedo, and need a complementary sans serif typeface.

The font Wappenstein was inspired by the carving on a memorial stone located in Paderborn, Germany. The stone was an Epitaph of the Brenkener family, and the carver is known as the “Meister des Brenkener Familienepitaphs”. The carving, dating to 1562, currently is curated by the Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum in the city of Paderborn and was originally in the Brenkener Pfarr Kirche. A Wappenstein is a stone that contains a carving of the heraldic achievement of a person.

This wood type revival is a rare specimen, indeed. Audebaud is a charming and bold 19th Century Clarendon of French lineage. With its rounded terminals, and unique proportions; this font will instill a joie de vivre in any design. The design was inspired by the work of Constant Audebaud. Audebaud was an engraver of wooden type that was used for posters and the like. His work appeared in the 1880s in the Deux-Sèvres département of France.

An early 1960s hand-lettered trade publication ad for an upcoming single 45 rpm release inspired the type design of Miss Rhythm JNL. The nickname of "Miss Rhythm" was given to Ruth Brown because of her popular "jump tunes"; that is rhythm and blues with an uptempo beat. Because the trade ad for her record was the inspiration for the font, it was only fitting to use that nickname as the font's name in honor of her.

This font was inspired by music from the band Mae.

This font was inspired by music from the band Asteria.

This was created by hand, scanned and digitalized for quality.

This font was inspired by music from the band Silverstein.

Palette was designed by Martin Wilke for Berthold in 1950.

A gentle breeze caressed his face as his body took on the easy posture of a dancer on break. Flickering sparklets of light sprinkled the glass-smooth surface of the aqua liquid on which he floated. His mind wandered; he was only days away from his scheduled departure date. This day was no different from a hundred other days he had spent melded to his windsurfer, skittering along the breadth of the modest lake, soaking up the sun's rays and forgetting about the entire rest of the world. Lake Quannapowitt, and the town of Wakefield, Massachusetts, were familiar to Steve, a long-time resident of the picturesque New England town. This is where he grew up; this is where he married and lived for many years; and this is the place he was preparing to leave, not one week hence. Not generally prone to nostalgia, it was in just such a state he nonetheless found himself once Zephyrus retreated, as was his custom, periodically, while patrolling the resplendent lake. Steve was going to miss the lake, and he was going to miss the town. How many hours of how many days had he spent exactly like this, standing on his motionless board, waiting for his sail to fill, and staring at the lake's shores, its tiny beach, the town Common with its carefully maintained greenery, and equally well-tended gazebo, the Center church - its spire shadow piercing the water's edge, like a scissor-cut the better to begin a full-fabric tear? Yes, he was going to miss this place - this town which all of a sudden had become a place out of time, just as he was about to become a person out of place. Once this idea struck him, he couldn't shake it. He was transported back in time four score years, now watching his ancestors walk along the shore. Nothing in view belied this belief - not the church's century old architecture, not the gazebo frozen in time, nor the timeless sands of the beach, nor the unchanging Common. Everything belonged exactly where it was, and where it always would be. This, he decided, was how he would remember his hometown. And this is when it occurred to Steve to design a typeface that would evoke these images and musings - a typeface with an old-fashioned look, reflected in high crossbars, an x-height small in size relative to its uppercase, and an intangible quality reminiscent of small-town quaintness. Wakefield, the typeface, was born on Lake Quannapowitt in the town for which it was named, shortly before Steve moved away. It is at once a tribute to his birthplace and a keepsake.

It's a very happy day when we stumble upon beautiful alphabets that were never digitized. It is even a happier day when the beautiful alphabet finds its way to us through friends and people who like our work. Some two months ago, the forms of this gorgeous font were pointed to us by a friend who saw it in an old Dover Publications specimen book showcasing historical alphabets. It was there under the name Vanessa, with nothing else to go by. We looked and researched for further information but found nothing else. So this gem comes to you like a coal that winked its way out of the ashes because it wanted to shine again. Flirt is very authentic art deco with a noticeable element of artistic pride, swashy delicate majuscules and very aristocratic, fashionable and flirty minuscules. The majuscules can be used as every other capitals usually are, or as initial caps. The minuscules can very nicely stand on their own quite independently from the caps whenever desired. These letters are quite similar to the hand lettering used on of the kind of theater posters, specifically burlesque and opera entertainment, which are now considered very retro-chic and fashionable to see hanging on walls in home or office. The initial specimen we worked from showed a single basic art deco alphabet with numerals which seemed as they belonged to another font. That alphabet became the base Flirt font, the numerals were redrawn to fit much better with the minuscules, and the character set was greatly expanded to include punctuation, accented characters, and many many alternates, especially for the majuscules. Majuscules with a descending right vertical stroke were a common artistic touch in the high days of theater posters, so we thought they would be great additions to the character set. These alternates can be found all over the font. So to maximize the design fun, have a character map or glyphs palette handy when you use Flirt. After the base font was finished, we thought it would be a good idea to give it a bold treatment unlike anything seen out there, and the farthest thing from the mechanical bolds seen everywhere now. This bolding treatment consisted of thickening the lowercase's vertical strokes inwards, but leaving the horizontal stroke weight as is, and thickening only the thicker vertical strokes of the uppercase. The result is quite the visual feat. We encourage you to test both the regular and bold weights and see for yourself.

My first font for 2009 was Aerle. It is a new dark sans serif font in my continuing objective of designing book fonts that I can really use. It made a little ripple in the industry, but more than that I found that I loved it with Aramus and Artimas — my latest book font family with the same proportions. In many ways, Aerle is a very different direction for me built on what I have learned on Aramus and other recent developments in my style. The concept came to me while using Bitstream's Mister Earl on a site online—though there is no direct reference. I wanted a more playful heavy sans with a much smaller x-height than I have been using lately, plus taller ascenders. As I was using Aerle, I constantly needed a light and bold version. The new direction I am taking is a result of a decision that my fonts, though I loved the character shapes, produced an even type color that is too dark or a little dense. Aerle was an attempt to get away from that look even though the letterspacing is quite tight. For Aerle Thin I pushed a little further in that direction and increased the letterspacing. The hand-drawn shapes vary a lot, many pushing the boundaries of the normal character. This gives a little looseness and helps the lightness in feel I am looking for. It will be interesting to see where this all goes. Most new type around the world is far too perfect for my taste. While the shapes are exquisite, the feel is not human but digital mechanical. I find myself wanting to draw fonts that feel human — as if a person crafted them. In most ways this is a normal font for me in that it has caps, lowercase, small caps with the appropriate figures for each case. These small caps were very small (x-height as is proper). So Aerle's small caps are a little oversize because they plugged up too bad at x-height size. The bold is halfway between. These size variations seem important and work well in the text. This font has all the OpenType features in the set for 2009. There are several ligatures for your fun and enjoyment: bb gg sh sp st ch ck 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!

With some slight variation, Merchandising JNL was modeled from the lettering on a display box for Meyercord Decal letters and numbers. The phrase "make your own signs with decals" was lettered in a casual brush-like style, and is reproduced for the first time digitally.

Heliotype was created by British artist Lee McAuley, who was inspired by Soviet Constructivist designs. Heliotype adds serifs to a sans serif model, allowing the characters to connect to one another. The strong, aggressive geometric appearance of Heliotype make it a great font for experimentation.

Aldersgate was designed as a comfortable, easy-to-read sans serif alternative font for a series of retirement community brochures. It was intended to compliment existing sans serif fonts for subheads and captions and is ideal when a conservative but subtly different font is needed.

This was a patented design, so we know who designed it and when. August Will was a type cutter who sold his work to a number of foundries. We worked over this design to open up the space between the strokes to accompdate smaller sizes.

Bastard is a contemporary blackletter typeface and was one of the first created using a personal computer. It was drawn using primitive font design software in 1988, and refined and published two years later. It has now been revised to feature an expanded character set.

Our first font of Grecian was so old that it had been cast in a hand mold. Extremely popular face in the nineteenth century, made by many foundries and wood type makers in various widths. Lowercase was added by some foundries in later years.

Ed Benguiat drew the PL Bernhardt font which was released in 1970. PL Bernhardt was modeled after a 1930/1931 design by Lucian Bernhard. All terminals on non-vertical strokes are diagonal so that lower and uppercase X looks as though they are dancing.

Amongst a number of items for sale in an online auction was a font of metal type featuring a thin, condensed serif font with decidedly Art Deco styling. This was the inspiration for Department Store JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Evening Paper JNL, one could say, was "culled from the headlines". It was. The front page headlines from some 1938 newspapers archived online were the basic model for this font. The typeface design goes back to a font first issued by Ludlow in the 1920s.

This font was a product of self-initiated project I started a while back. It started and finished as a project that I was working on while procrastinating at school, for fun; however, I spent enough time to not give it out for free.

In 1968 Hildegard Korger’s Typoskript was cut by Typoart in Dresden, Saxony. This freshly redrawn and digitized version was extended to include Central European, Baltic and Turkish letterforms, and possesses various OTF features. It is well suited for invitations, lyrics, poems and related things.

The Roger family was designed in memory of a friend of ours who passed away recently. We created a humorous design for him because he was always laughing and never failed to see the funny side of things. We miss his great outlook on life.

"Baker’s Showcard Book" (1916) was an early 20th Century instructional book on sign lettering. One of the sample alphabets entitled “Decorative Roman” was a spurred serif, Art Nouveau design that has been recreated digitally as Elegant Showcard JNL in both regular and oblique versions.