I was listening to the radio and a song caught my attention. It was ‘Demagogue’ by a band called the Urban Dance Squad. That song brought back memories from when I was a student, so I decided to name this font after it. Demagogue was made using a Sharpie pen and a piece of expensive paper. The result is a very legible, very neat and very bold font. Demagogue is ideal for when you want to get your message across, but hopefully not in a demagogue-ish way! ;-)

Years ago the company that developed Fontographer marketed a program called Font-o-Matic, a program that distorted fonts in various ways. 99% of what it produced was garbage, but every once in a while it would yield something interesting. Since I had designed a lot of typefaces by that time, I had lots of material to feed it and it was fun to see what it produced. YahoschWormy is one of rare results that was interesting enough to save and clean up. The source font was Yahosch.

Morning News is the sister font of Evening News which I designed some years ago for use with my local newspaper Abendzeitung. Morning News is an adaption, a little bit rounder, which gives the font a much softer touch. The general design dates back to the pre-Hitler era, the time when Germany had already lost the first World War and was taking a short deadly breath to start the second big war. Lets hope there will be a day when there will never be another war in Europe (or elsewhere!). Another new peaceful font by your pacifistic designer, Gert Wiescher.

Sur is a modern minimalist sans-serif typeface available in two weights (normal and bold), with a good shape for big editorial headlines and fashion publications. It was developed during 2009, trying to find a new way to express ideas in editorial projects.

FranklinGothicHandCond is another part of a series of hand-drawn fonts from way back in time – before computers changed the way we worked in advertising. When I was in advertising – before computers – a very time consuming part of my daily work was sketching headlines. I used to be able to sketch headlines in Franklin Gothic, Times, Futura, Helvetica and several scripts. We had a kind of huge inverted camera – which we called Lucy. We projected the alphabet onto a sheet of transparent paper, outlined the letters with a fineliner and then filled them in. It was very tedious work, but the resulting headline had its own charm and we had a permanent race going on who was best and fastest. I won most of the time! They used to call me the fastest "Magic Marker" this side of the Atlantic. Great days, just like today! Your sentimental type designer from the past, Gert Wiescher.

FranklinGothicHandBold is another part of a series of hand-drawn fonts from way back in time – before computers changed the way we worked in advertising. When I was in advertising – before computers – a very time consuming part of my daily work was sketching headlines. I used to be able to sketch headlines in Franklin Gothic, Times, Futura, Helvetica and several scripts. We had a kind of huge inverted camera – which we called Lucy. We projected the alphabet onto a sheet of transparent paper, outlined the letters with a fineliner and then filled them in. It was very tedious work, but the resulting headline had its own charm and we had a permanent race going on who was best and fastest. I won most of the time! They used to call me the fastest "Magic Marker" this side of the Atlantic. Great days, just like today! Your sentimental type designer from the past Gert Wiescher

Originally ZionTrain was built as a (probably first in Cyrillic!) navigation typeface for the Kharkiv identity project and Kharkiv subway and airport navigation systems. We wanted comprehensible, distinctive letterforms, that can help everybody on the way from Babylon to Zion. The project was used in Kharkiv promotion at homeland and abroad, but was rejected by the new government. As a corporate typeface it was used for a few cultural projects. Now it is equipped with Slavic Cyrillic and Monotonic Greek and has special Stencil faces especially for low-budget navigations (don't forget to get your own Stencil Medium for free!).

Sometimes you get an idea stuck in your head and the only way to get rid of that demon is to put something down on paper. A year later the doodles became a skeleton, and then the skeleton had a body, then the body had a name, then the name got a personality. What was left was a clean set of ten fonts that encompass a very simple skeleton with a lot of visual appeal. During the process, I saw ways to expand the typeface's display capabilities by producing inline styles as well as a down-and-dirty rough set. Each font has a full set of glyphs that include Central European and Small Cap characters.

Sometimes you get an idea stuck in your head and the only way to get rid of that demon is to put something down on paper. A year later the doodles became a skeleton, and then the skeleton had a body, then the body had a name, then the name got a personality. What was left was a clean set of ten fonts that encompass a very simple skeleton with a lot of visual appeal. During the process, I saw ways to expand the typeface’s display capabilities by producing inline styles as well as a down-and-dirty rough set. Each font has a full set of glyphs that include Central European and Small Cap characters.

Sometimes you get an idea stuck in your head and the only way to get rid of that demon is to put something down on paper. A year later the doodles became a skeleton, and then the skeleton had a body, then the body had a name, then the name got a personality. What was left was a clean set of ten fonts that encompass a very simple skeleton with a lot of visual appeal. During the process, I saw ways to expand the typeface's display capabilities by producing inline styles as well as a down-and-dirty rough set. Each font has a full set of glyphs that include Central European and Small Cap characters.

Architype Universal is a collection of avant-garde typefaces deriving mainly from the work of artists/designers of the inter-war years, whose ideals underpin the design philosophies of the modernist movement in Europe. Their ‘universal’, ‘single alphabet’ theory limits the character sets. Architype Bayer was drawn from Bauhaus Archiv sketches for a minimal sans typeface that was created in 1925 by Herbert Bayer, based on his single-alphabet student thesis. This ‘universal’ alphabet was designed for exclusive Bauhaus use, but never cut as a typeface.

After the Second World War, the Ionic style replaced Modern Face as the favored typeface for newsprint. A couple decades later, it was in turn replaced by the next generation of newspaper fonts, a mix of Old Face, Transitional and Modern Face forms. Rotation was designed by Arthur Ritzel and presented by Stempel/Linotype in 1971 and named for the rotation newsprint machine for which is was particularly suited. The font displays the influence of Old Face design and gives newsprint a feeling of lightness and elegance.

Paperly is the perfect way to add a friendly, hand-written touch to any project! It's simple and minimalist design conveys a calm and friendly feel. It was designed by Rachel Kick based on original hand-drawn letters. Each character was initially drawn on paper before being transformed into a simple typeface. It has 4 styles that can be combined or used individually to fit the needs of any project.

The front page of a late-1940s sales catalog for the [now defunct] Duro Decal Company of Chicago had its company name hand-lettered in a tall, condensed chamfered sans serif type design. Although chamfered lettering had been popular for decades, the way the "R" was shaped gave the letters a bit of an Art Deco influence, and this influence was carried through in the creation of Durable JNL.

Here's another old-timer that needed a lowercase, so we drew one. Originally issued as a caps-only type by The American Type Founders Company about 1898, this font found its way into Craftsman period design. It was the inspiration for Galadriel, a dry transfer sheet alphabet.

Thymesans was one of Chank’s earliest fonts, created way back in 1994 for CAKE Magazine. Sometimes it's got serifs, sometimes it doesn't. “What a weird and fickle futuristic font!” says Chank. Emancipate your designs with this decidedly modern font. Good for funk or country album covers.

The design of Bramber was inspired by Allied propaganda posters of the second World war, especially Russian posters. It has a distinctive solid, geometric appearance. 
Bramber also has a feel of mid 1980s design. Bramber is ideal for use as a distinctive headline or display font.

I really like the UK and I quite enjoy the British slang. Off Yer Trolley is one such expression. It means ‘behaving in an unusual way or doing something silly’. It just popped in my head when I was looking for a name for this rather silly font. Off Yer Trolley is a handmade cartoon or kids font. As the name implies, this font certainly behaves in an unusual way and you can use it for something silly as well!

Ishtar was the Babylonian goddess of war, fertility, love and sex - all in all a lethal combination. She wasn't the sweetheart her lovers had hoped for; I guess the 'war' part in her resume is a dead give-away. Ishtar font is no sweetheart either: it doesn't have a real baseline and its spooky character might not be everyone's cup of tea. It does have a certain charm, however, and befitting a Babylonian goddess, it comes with Babylonian language support!

Kwikspeed is a italic display font that was developed from typography used in e sport themed design work. The font is designed so that the capital letters link together in a cool way. The font includes lots of alternative capital letters to provide many different options allowing you more versatility. The same goes for the ligatures - they also present cool ways of displaying letter combinations. The font includes uppercase, lowercase, numbers, alternative capitals, discretionary ligatures, basic Latin international and punctuation characters.

The roots of this font go back to 1967. A book title in trendy letters was created in a completely ingenuous way as a film prop for a Super 8 fun film. I drew the letters with felt-tip pen and poster paint without thinking too much about it. It wasn't until a good 50 years later that I realized, this was a first awkward typeface draft. The flower power vibe was captured here subconsciously. In 2019 I completed the few glyphs and created variants that I would not have thought of at the time.

Years ago the company that developed Fontographer marketed a program called Font-o-Matic, a program that distorted fonts in various ways. 99% of what it produced was garbage, but every once in a while it would yield something interesting. Since I had designed a lot of typefaces by that time, I had lots of material to feed it and it was fun to see what it produced. KolkFizzy is one of rare results that was interesting enough to save and clean up. The source font is Kolkman.

The design idea for this condensed sans serif stencil font was inspired by a post-World War II brass stencil spotted in an online auction. The United States was assisting Europe with much-needed goods, and the text in the middle of a “stars and stripes” shield used for marking the shipping containers read “For European Recovery supplied by the United States of America”. It was the first line (“For European Recovery”) that became the working model for Supplier Stencil JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Years ago the company that developed Fontographer marketed a program called Font-o-Matic, a program that distorted fonts in various ways. 99% of what it produced was garbage, but every once in a while it would yield something interesting. Since I had designed a lot of typefaces by that time, I had lots of material to feed it and it was fun to see what it produced. BaumSquiggle is one of rare results that was interesting enough to save and clean up. The source font is Baumfuss.

When letterpress started with the Gutenberg Bible, the typeface was like a texture. Before humanism, type did not really need to be legible. The letters were rather drawn in an ornamental way. It filled a space. My idea for Matrona was to create a similar structure. I wanted it to be very bold and still as legible as possible. The result was a headline typeface that can fill spaces. You can even fill it with a picture. Or you create an ornament with contents. There are 3 weights to extend the usage to different sizes.

The roots of this font go back to 1967. A book title in trendy letters was created in a completely ingenuous way as a film prop for a Super 8 fun film. I drew the letters with felt-tip pen and poster paint without thinking too much about it. It wasn't until a good 50 years later that I realized, this was a first awkward typeface draft. The flower power vibe was captured here subconsciously. In 2019 I completed the few glyphs and created variants that I would not have thought of at the time.

RMU Siegfried Pro is another breathtaking Art Nouveau font from the fin-de-siècle period which underlines your stylish projects in a remarkable way. The font was carefully redesigned, some oddieties abolished, and the font was extended to make it usable for Central European languages too. Three embedded graphic elements let you make a fitting frame. The letter k has an alternative form, so look for all OT features in this font.

Lettering has an unusual way of adapting itself to many needs. The type style for Sporting Chance JNL was based on metal house identification letters used for Welcome Home JNL. The same type of block design was prevalent in 1920s-1930s era window signage via die-cut foil characters. Yet we tend to nowadays associate block lettering with sports-themed items. No matter the application, Sporting Chance JNL will fill the bill.

A 1917 informational poster for shipbuilders during World War I detailing the importance of their governmental work was hand lettered in a style closely resembling Cooper Black, yet retaining its own look and feel. This inspired Industrial Poster JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Yalla was inspired during a trip Mateusz Machalski took to Cairo (Egypt). The vast array of strong Arabic headline type, geometric forms working in interesting ways and contrasting with smooth, calligraphic details fed the design. Due to the same proportions and heights, Yalla works great together with Afronaut.

Floridium grew out of an affection for the old wood types of the 1800s. Painters Roman* was the initial inspiration. It was the source for the �banana� and �snake head� serifs. But the design�released by Adobe as Juniper�was too quirky to be useful. I tried to make it more sophisticated and modern while keeping the original personality of the 19th century types. The name resulted from a trip to Miami while the initial drawings were being made. Not the best way to name a typeface, but while we were in Miami Beach there was this tall blonde in a bright yellow bikini sitting on this bright yellow Porsche and...

MaryTodd was created for small texts with a variety of hierarchies. Is condensed to save space. It has a rich set of glyphs: small caps, old style figures, monospaced numbers, numerators and denominators for fractions, etc. It is ideal for organizing and presenting information in a clear and simple way.

An "Aiguille" is a sharp pinnacle of rock in a mountain range. Aiguille font is a beautiful handwritten connected script font. I thought it was a good way to start off the new year! Aiguille comes with a whole bunch of alternate glyphs, ligatures and even ‘end-of-word’ alternates.

The National Show Card Writer sign making set contained many different sizes and styles of lettering stencils, and additional type designs could be purchased as add-ons. This product was one of the many economical ways merchants, religious organizations, schools and others could make their own signs at low cost.

Originally issued by the Palmer and Rey Type Foundry of San Francisco in 1884, this typeface bore the name Octagon Condensed, and is as fresh today as it was way back when. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

The font is based on an alphabet from a mid1920s art deco book. The original seemed to have tapering strokes but it was too small to be sure; I made all strokes parallel & orthogonal and slightly modified the original in a number of other ways to bring it into the 21st Century. The designers of the original were Paul Carlyle and Guy Oring. Nocturne has all the elegance of the Deco fonts of the 1930s. It recalls the romantic, sophisticated Zeitgeist of the early 20th century, that nostalgic time "between the wars". Nocturne comes in two styles: Nocturne Regular, which uses the Art Deco convention of small x height, and long ascenders. This style is perfect for headers, posters, labels etc. Nocturne Book, which, with its higher x height and slightly wider characters, is extremely legible and suitable for small size text.

The first weights of Neue Haas Grotesk were designed in 1957-1958 by Max Miedinger for the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei in Switzerland, with art direction by the company’s principal, Eduard Hoffmann. Neue Haas Grotesk was to be the answer to the British and German grotesques that had become hugely popular thanks to the success of functionalist Swiss typography. The typeface was soon revised and released as Helvetica by Linotype AG. As Neue Haas Grotesk had to be adapted to work on Linotype’s hot metal linecasters, Linotype Helvetica was in some ways a radically transformed version of the original. For instance, the matrices for Regular and Bold had to be of equal widths, and therefore the Bold was redrawn at a considerably narrower proportion. During the transition from metal to phototypesetting, Helvetica underwent additional modifications. In the 1980s Neue Helvetica was produced as a rationalized, standardized version. For Christian Schwartz, the assignment to design a digital revival of Neue Haas Grotesk was an occasion to set history straight. “Much of the warm personality of Miedinger’s shapes was lost along the way. So rather than trying to rethink Helvetica or improve on current digital versions, this was more of a restoration project: bringing Miedinger’s original Neue Haas Grotesk back to life with as much fidelity to his original shapes and spacing as possible (albeit with the addition of kerning, an expensive luxury in handset type).” Schwartz’s revival was originally commissioned in 2004 by Mark Porter for the redesign of The Guardian, but not used. Schwartz completed the family in 2010 for Richard Turley at Bloomberg Businessweek. Its thinnest weight was designed by Berton Hasebe.

P22 Klauss Kursiv is the first ever digital revival and expansion of the last face Karl Klauß designed for the Genzsch & Heyse foundry in Stuttgart before he died in 1956. Karl Klauß’s classical training in the graphic arts gave him solid chops to use as a springboard for design ideas that remained relevant among the countless trends fleeting around the turmoil of two world wars. By the mid-1950s, a kind of ornamental deco aesthetic was well on its way into mainstream design in post-war Europe, and demand was high for unique, lively and non-minimal ad faces. Klauß, a reliable designer with a proven track record of calligraphic faces, pushed the envelope on his own calligraphy and designed something that packages elegance in a boldness seldom seen before in luxury scripts. Quite a bit of talent is on display in Klauss Kursiv. In spite of the restraint this kind of design imposes on itself almost by default, the interplay between thick and thin never seems forced or challenging. Clear, natural strokes build a compact alphabet that demonstrates the wrist control of a veteran calligrapher. Creative nib angling segues into very clever start-and-stop constructs to make attractive forms that work quite well together, yet stand well to individual scrutiny. P22 Klauss Kursiv comes with a load of built-in alternates and ligatures in a font of over 470 glyphs, providing extended support for Latin languages.

Many years ago I created two upside-down typefaces, UpsidedownJJ and UpsidedownTOC. They were based on monospaced or typewriter fonts, and were rotated 180 degrees, which is the same as a vertical flip followed by a horizontal flip. Recently I was reminded that this way of creating an upside-down typeface is not the only way to create an upside-down typeface--a simple vertical flip creates a different one. That is what this typeface is, a simple vertical flip. The original typeface on which this one is based is JetJaneMono.