DBXL Nightfever was originally designed by Donald Beekman in 2001 for the disco-techno-house record label of the same name, an imprint of United Recordings. Geometric and gridded, with a solid sci-fi techno feel, Nightfever still contains a lot of soul. Three additional wider weights were added for more design flexibility, as well as italics for all widths. After the record label was terminated the Nightfever fonts were used for many other DBXL design projects. It was put online for free download first in 2008, this year (2019) the design got more refined with additional accurate kerning and spacing. All fresh and new, ready for a new space age!

What a nice tranquil feeling you get from the wide forms of this font. The air of spontaneity was the most important thing about developing Rifleman. The forms were carefully and slowly constructed and then loosely traced with a paintbrush. Maybe the original drawings will become a font someday but i like to think that they won't for some reason. Surprisingly Rifleman is left to only the bare essential elements, anything that wasn't necessary was left out or removed. The goal was to make it as lightweight as possible to make up for the intricate detail. Rifleman is a surprisingly lightweight font offering lends itself to speedy typesetting!

A "tunesmith" is one so nicknamed because the person or persons craft (compose) a song from scratch. When the area of Broadway known as Tin Pan Alley was in its heyday, every music publisher's office would have sounds emanating from the various cubicles of men and women trying for the next big hit. Sheet music was the main source of songwriter's royalties during those days, and to please the general public with a song destined to be a popular piece was a lofty goal. It's then only fitting that the lettering inspired by a 1920s-era piece of sheet music for a song called "Jerry" would be named Tunesmith JNL.

Font naming is not all that difficult. Take Printout for example. I was busy working on this font, when my niece came over with a poem she needed to have printed. One of her classmates had the same request (they’re writing poems for our national Remembrance Day). As I was printing out these poems, I thought the name Printout would be perfect for the font I was working on. See? It’s not rocket science! Printout is a totally awesome, completely handmade font. I used an almost dried out Japanese brush pen to get the eroded effect. Maybe I should name my next font ‘Dried Out Brush Pen’? I’ll let you know.

The Bitstream version of Linotype Janson. Nicholas Kis (Miklos Kis) was a Hungarian punchcutter who worked in Amsterdam. His types are some of the greatest in the Dutch old face style and have been used as models for a number of developments in this century. The Linotype version of this style, Janson, was created by Chauncey H.Griffith in 1937 and based on an original face cut by Kis in 1670–90. The face is named after Anton Janson, a Dutchman who worked in Leipzig, with whom the face has no connection. The typeface is used for text setting. Cyrillic version was developed at ParaType in 2001 by Vladimir Yefimov.

Camelot was the first of over 100 typefaces designed by Frederic Goudy. The upper case characters were drawn in 1896 for the Dickinson Type Foundry. Goudy was so encouraged by his check for $10 (double what he asked for the drawings), that he spent the next 50 years designing type. The lower case was added by the Dickinson foundry. This Lanston digital release includes a Text version based on the smaller point sizes of the metal type and a Display version based on the larger sizes. The two appear different in size but share the exact same line weight when at the same point size.

Eckhardt Bold JNL continues a series of sign painter-inspired type designs and is named in honor of the late Al Eckhardt, a talented sign man who was a good friend of Jeff Levine for about 18 years until his passing. The font is available in both regular and oblique versions and was inspired by an example found in the 1928 edition of E.C. Mattthews' "How to Paint Signs and Sho' Cards". Both squat and wide for maximum use in wall and window applications, the original name for the design is "Heavy Plug". Plug was the sign painter's term at the time for describing this type of letter form.

100.000 years ago years ago, a group of mad scientists from the far away planet ZyrXX, encountered the earth and just waited to conquer the planet. Their masterplan was to use electronic brain waves to manipulate our minds. Sounds cheesy and comic, right? Well, that is the true story about this font. The font was built using a grid (hence the name!) and all I had in mind, was a mixture of old sci-fi movies and computer graphics from the 80ies. I did my best to recall and re-create this - I will let you be the judge to decide whether I succeeded! :)

Einhorn is a peculiar typeface. Difficult to classify, this upright, bold, script-like semi serif typeface was designed in 1980 by Alan Meeks. Meeks was inspired by the art nouveau period, and may have been trying to liven up the design scene. In 1980, typefaces like Helvetica and Univers were ubiquitous, and the digital revolution was still years away. Experimental faces like Einhorn helped fill the gap for creative designers looking for untraditional choices in which to set headlines and advertising work. The merit of pioneer display faces like Einhorn have never lessened; Einhorn still sets a mean display text, and works great in logos and other corporate ID solutions.

I came across an old book called ‘Studio Handbook Letter And Design For Artists And Advertisers’ by Samuel Welo. Samuel Welo was an American advertising calligrapher, typographer and lettering artist, who was most active during the roaring twenties. Lenox Avenue is my version of a set of letters in that book. It was handmade (just like Welo had done). I only had an ABC/abc to work with, so I designed all the remaining glyphs myself. I changed some of the original (and quite quirky) letters to a more contemporary form. The font is named Lenox Avenue, once home of the famous Savoy Ballroom. Comes with all the bells & whistles.

Auriol and Auriol Flowers were designed by Georges Auriol, born Jean Georges Huyot, in the early 20th century. Auriol was a French graphic artist whose work exemplified the art nouveau style of Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1900, Georges Peignot asked Auriol to design fonts for Peignot & Sons. The resulting Auriol font was the basis for the lettering used by Hector Guimard for the entrance signs to the Paris Metro. It was re-released by Deberny & Peignot in 1979 with a new bold face, designed by Matthew Carter. These decorative fonts with a brush stroke look are well-suited to display settings.

Brushland was initially born as custom type project, where the goal was to achieve a natural feeling as if it was really written. The project raised some questions, how natural should be this script typeface? How to simulate this writing feeling? For this, four different glyphs were drawn for the same character. This “Feature” or “Behavior”, programmed in the font, combines the variants in the sequence of 1, 2, 3 & 4 and replaces the letters at the time the words are composed, in order to avoid the repetition of glyphs. Through the “Contextual Alternates” OT Feature, the user can decide if they appear or not.

I started to work at the Bernhard Studio in 1952 to 1959 in New York. I helped with some type designs and many other projects, this two tiered signature was added on all of Bernhard’s art that was produced in the past and in his later years. In the 50’s I thought Bernhard’s Gothic face was quite a bit outdated but as you may know it has become one of todays most used faces. His signature is based on his Bernhard Gothic Font. With todays computer technology I have digitized the caps and added lower case glyphs with lower ascenders and other slight changes.

There is plenty of lyric and literature about looking over one's shoulder in contemplation. What would you have done differently if you knew then what you know now? This is the kind of question that comes out of nowhere. When it does and whether its context is personal or professional make very little difference. It's a question that can cause emotions to rise and passions to run hot. It can trigger priority shifts and identity crises. It's never easy to answer. Three years ago, I published a font called Semilla. My aim with that was to distill the work of Bentele, a lettering artist from early 1950s Germany. Picking such an obscure figure back then was my way of pondering the meaning and efficiency of objectivity in a world where real human events and existences are inevitably filtered through decades of unavoidably subjective written, printed and oral history. And maybe to pat myself on the back for surviving surprises mild and pleasant. Having been fortunate enough to follow my professional whims for quite some time now, I took another, longer look at my idea of distilling Bentele's work again. I suppose the concepts of established history and objectivity can become quite malleable when personal experience is added to the mix. I say that because there I was, three years later, second-guessing myself and opining that Bentele's work can be distilled differently, in a manner more suited to current cultural angles. So I embarked on that mission, and Bowling Script is the result. I realize that it's difficult to reconcile this soft and happy calligraphic outcome with the introspection I've blathered about so far, but it is what is. I guess even self-created first world problems need to be resolved somehow, and the resolution can happen in mysterious ways. Bowling Script is what people who like my work would expect from me. It's yet another script loaded with all kinds of alternation, swashing and over-the-top stuff. All of that is in here. These days I think I just do all that stuff without even blinking. But there are two additional twists. The more noticeable one is ornamental: The stroke endings in the main font are of the typical sharp and curly variety found in sign painting, while the other font complements that with ball endings, sometimes with an added-on-afterwards impression rather than an extension of the actual stroke. In the philosophical terms I was mumbling earlier, this is the equivalent of alternate realities in a world of historical reduxes that by their very nature can never properly translate original fact. The second twist has to do with the disruption of angular rhythm in calligraphic alphabets. Of course, this is the kind of lettering where the very concept of rhythm can be quite flexible, but it still counts for something, and experimenting with angular white space in a project of a very dense footprint was irresistible. After playing for a bit, I decided that it would interesting to include the option of using optically back-slanted forms in the fonts. Most scripts out there, including mine, have a rhythm sonically comparable to four-to-the-floor club beats. So the weirdly angled stuff here is your chance to do the occasional drumroll. Everyone knows we need one of those sometimes. Bowling Script and Bowling Script Balls fonts comes with 1600 characters and features extended Latin-based language support. There are also a basic version of both fonts without all the alternates and extra OpenType features. Bowling family ships in cross-platform OpenType format. We also want to present “Mute”, a visual essay narated by Tomás García and Valentín Muro, about digital life created specially to introduce Bowling Script.

Cloister Open Face was designed in 1929 by Morris Fuller Benton as one weight of the Cloister Old Style family. Cloister itself appeared from 1897 with American Type Founders, and later for the typesetting machines of the Linotype, Intertype and Monotype companies. At that time, it was the truest modern industrial revival of the Jensonian Roman. Benton stayed close to the style of his model in both design and spacing. Cloister Open Face has an old-world elegance, and it works well for titling in books and magazines. In 1458, Charles VII sent the Frenchman Nicolas Jenson to learn the craft of movable type in Mainz, the city where Gutenberg was working. Jenson was supposed to return to France with his newly learned skills, but instead he traveled to Italy, as did other itinerant printers of the time. From 1468 on, he was in Venice, where he flourished as a punchcutter, printer and publisher. He was probably the first non-German printer of movable type, and he produced about 150 editions. Though his punches have vanished, his books have not, and those produced from about 1470 until his death in 1480 have served as a source of inspiration for type designers over centuries. His Roman type is often called the first true Roman." Notable in almost all Jensonian Romans is the angled crossbar on the lowercase e, which is known as the "Venetian Oldstyle e.""

One of the earliest fonts published by Canada Type was Tiger Script, Phil Rutter's digitization of Jaguar, Georg Trump's 1967 wild calligraphic brush face. In 2010, when the font was revisited for an update, it was shown that it too light for applications under 24 pt, and too irregular for applications over 64 pt. So the face was redigitized from scratch. This new digitization brings a more seamless contour and a much steadier stroke, and much better outlines for use at both extremes of scaling. Language support was also greatly expanded, and many alternates and ligatures were added to the redigitized character set. The name was also changed to Trump Script, to better reflect the origins of the design. Trump Script is a master calligrapher's hand producing very uncommon jolts and bursts of sharpness. It showcases some of the most suprising letter forms ever drawn, like the very unique treatments of B, K, W, Y and Z. In the lowercase one can see the cattiest g ever made, and some of the wildest shapes in the f, j, p, y and z. Trump Script comes in all popular formats. The TrueType and PostScript packages are comprised of two fonts. The OpenType version, Trump Script Pro, combines both fonts into one, and includes features for intelligent substitution in software that supports advanced typography. Language support includes Western, Central and Eastern European character sets, as well as Baltic, Esperanto, Maltese, Turkish, and Celtic/Welsh languages.

Lust Didone’s character set was expanded as well during the redraw and update, the Italics were separated and reimagined anew from the universal italics in the original offering. Lust Didone also includes the new Fine optical size with complementing Italics for each size as well. And, yes, more swashes. The Lust Collection is the culmination of 5 years of exploration and development, and I am very excited to share it with everyone. When the original Lust was first conceived in 2010 and released a year and half later, I had planned for a Script and a Sans to accompany it. The Script was released about a year later, but I paused the Sans. The primary reason was the amount of feedback and requests I was receiving for alternate versions, expansions, and ‘hey, have you considered making?’ and so on. I listen to my customers and what they are needing… and besides, I was stalling with the Sans. Like Optima and other earlier high-contrast sans, they are difficult to deliver responsibly without suffering from ill-conceived excess or timidity. The new Lust Collection aggregates all of that past customer feedback and distills it into 6 separate families, each adhering to the original Lust precept of exercises in indulgence and each based in large part on the original 2010 exemplars produced for Lust. I just hate that it took so long to deliver, but better right, than rushed, I imagine.

I love geometric sans serifs, their crispness and rationality. Le Havre taps into this style, but for a while, I've wanted to create a font recalling the printed Futura of the 1940s, which seems to have an elusive quality all its own. After seeing an old manual on a World War II ship, I developed a plan for "Le Havre Metal" but chose to shelve the project due to Le Havre's small x-height. That's where Steagal comes in. When Robbie de Villiers and I began the Chatype project in early 2012 (a project which led one publication to label me the Edward Johnston of Chattanooga!), we started closely studying the vernacular lettering of Chattanooga. During that time, I also visited Switzerland, where I saw how designers were using a new, handmade aesthetic with a geometric base. I was motivated to make a new face combining some of these same influences. The primary inspiration for the new design came from the hand-lettering of sign painters in the United States, circa 1930s through 1950s. My Chatype research turned up a poster from the Tennessee Valley Authority in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which exhibited a number of quirks from the unique hand and style of one of these sign artists. Completing the first draft of Steagal, however, I found that the face appeared somewhat European in character. I turned then to the work of Morris Fuller Benton for a distinctly American take and discovered a number of features that would help define Steagal as a "1930s American" vernacular typeface--features I later learned also inspired Morris Fuller Benton's Eagle. The overall development of Steagal was surprisingly difficult, knowing when to deliberately distort optical artifacts and when to keep them in place. Part of type design is correcting optical illusions, and I found myself absentmindedly adjusting the optical effects. In the end, though, I was able to draw inspiration from period signs, inscriptions, period posters, and architecture while retaining just enough of the naive sensibility. Steagal has softened edges, which simulate brush strokes and retain the feeling of the human hand. The standard version has unique quirks that are not too intrusive. Overshoots have almost been eliminated, and joins have minimal corrections. The rounded forms are mathematically perfect, geometric figures without optical corrections. As a variation to the standard, the “Rough” version stands as the "bad signpainter" version with plenty of character. Steagal Regular comes in five weights and is packed with OpenType features. Steagal includes three Art Deco Alternate sets, optically compensated rounded forms, a monospaced variant, and numerous other features. In all, there are over 200 alternate characters. To see these features in action, please see the informative .pdf brochure. OpenType capable applications such as Quark or the Adobe Creative suite can take full advantage of the automatically replacing ligatures and alternates. Steagal also includes support for all Western European languages. Steagal is a great way to subtly draw attention to your work. Its unique quirks grab the eye with a authority that few typefaces possess. Embrace its vernacular, hand-brushed look, and see what this geometric sans serif can do for you.

Worldly Even though it’s a new arrival, FS Brabo has seen the world. Designed by a Brazilian working in London and studying in Belgium under a Dutchman, it’s certainly well-travelled. And it was inspired by the extraordinary archive of early book typefaces at the world-renowned Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, while Fernando Mello was attending Frank Blokland’s Expert class Type Design course at the Plantin Institute of Typography. It was there that Fernando became engrossed in the collection of early metal type, matrices, punches and type samples by figures such as Garamond and Granjon. So much so that he took on the mighty task of developing ‘a beautiful, functional, serifed text font’ of his own. Heroic FS Brabo’s journey from sketch to font family took an epic three years, starting in Antwerp, continuing at Fontsmith in London, and reaching its conclusion back in Fernando’s home city of São Paulo. No wonder Fernando was reminded of another titanic face-off: that of Antwerp’s Roman hero of legend, Silvius Brabo, and the evil ogre, Antigoon. Brabo came to the town’s rescue after the tyrannical giant had been charging ships’ captains extortionate taxes and chopping off the hands of those who refused to pay up. Having finally downed Antigoon after a long and terrible duel, Brabo cut off the giant’s own hand and threw it into the river Scheldt, unwittingly giving the town its name: the Dutch for ‘hand-throw’ is hand werpen. What better way for Fernando to name his literary typeface than after the hero of Antwerp’s oldest tale? The garalde factor FS Brabo is not a revival, but a very much a contemporary, personal interpretation of a garalde – a class of typeface originating in the 16th century that includes Bembo, Garamond and Plantin, with characteristically rounded serifs and moderate contrast between strokes. Brabo’s ‘ct’ and ‘st’ ligatures, upper-case italic swashes and contextual ending ligatures – ‘as’, ‘is’, ‘us’ – all preserve the beauty and character of traditional typefaces, but its serifs are chunkier than a garalde. Their sharp cuts and squared edges give them a crispness at text sizes, helping to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. A workhorse with pedigree It may give the appearance of a simple, four-weight typeface, but FS Brabo has hidden depths beneath its simplicity and beauty. OpenType features such as cap italic swashes, contextual ending swashes – programmed only to appear at the end of words – and stylistic alternatives make this a complete and well-equipped typeface. Comprehensive testing was carried out at text and display sizes, too, to prevent counters from filling in. All of which makes FS Brabo a very modern take on a traditional workhorse serif typeface: colourful and versatile enough to adorn not just editorial projects but also signage, advertising and logotypes.

Worldly Even though it’s a new arrival, FS Brabo has seen the world. Designed by a Brazilian working in London and studying in Belgium under a Dutchman, it’s certainly well-travelled. And it was inspired by the extraordinary archive of early book typefaces at the world-renowned Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, while Fernando Mello was attending Frank Blokland’s Expert class Type Design course at the Plantin Institute of Typography. It was there that Fernando became engrossed in the collection of early metal type, matrices, punches and type samples by figures such as Garamond and Granjon. So much so that he took on the mighty task of developing ‘a beautiful, functional, serifed text font’ of his own. Heroic FS Brabo’s journey from sketch to font family took an epic three years, starting in Antwerp, continuing at Fontsmith in London, and reaching its conclusion back in Fernando’s home city of São Paulo. No wonder Fernando was reminded of another titanic face-off: that of Antwerp’s Roman hero of legend, Silvius Brabo, and the evil ogre, Antigoon. Brabo came to the town’s rescue after the tyrannical giant had been charging ships’ captains extortionate taxes and chopping off the hands of those who refused to pay up. Having finally downed Antigoon after a long and terrible duel, Brabo cut off the giant’s own hand and threw it into the river Scheldt, unwittingly giving the town its name: the Dutch for ‘hand-throw’ is hand werpen. What better way for Fernando to name his literary typeface than after the hero of Antwerp’s oldest tale? The garalde factor FS Brabo is not a revival, but a very much a contemporary, personal interpretation of a garalde – a class of typeface originating in the 16th century that includes Bembo, Garamond and Plantin, with characteristically rounded serifs and moderate contrast between strokes. Brabo’s ‘ct’ and ‘st’ ligatures, upper-case italic swashes and contextual ending ligatures – ‘as’, ‘is’, ‘us’ – all preserve the beauty and character of traditional typefaces, but its serifs are chunkier than a garalde. Their sharp cuts and squared edges give them a crispness at text sizes, helping to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. A workhorse with pedigree It may give the appearance of a simple, four-weight typeface, but FS Brabo has hidden depths beneath its simplicity and beauty. OpenType features such as cap italic swashes, contextual ending swashes – programmed only to appear at the end of words – and stylistic alternatives make this a complete and well-equipped typeface. Comprehensive testing was carried out at text and display sizes, too, to prevent counters from filling in. All of which makes FS Brabo a very modern take on a traditional workhorse serif typeface: colourful and versatile enough to adorn not just editorial projects but also signage, advertising and logotypes.

One of my dreams as a type-designer was making a good looking chancery cursive. Full of life, like some of the best calligraphers around the world do on their artworks. With Julian Waters, John Stevens and Denis Brown (just to name a few of them) (1) chancery, or italic script, was transformed into a new, exciting and very fresh style of calligraphy mainly at the end of 20th Century. Dream Script may be that dream named above made true. I have been practicing chancery in the way I learnt from those calligraphers for many years now. Making a font out of my ink-sketches was a tough work, since they were closer of -being art- than of -being type-. However, this font rescues many aspects of handmade calligraphy: You have to look at it really close to notice it is actually a font, and that was one of my goals. The secret of a good looking chancery is on its subtle details: pen angle is constantly changing, even on the strokes which seem straight. Capitals and swashes have to be done a little faster than lowercase letters. The rhythm has to be even, in spite of its playful look. The fact that makes Dream look alive is that it has many alternates per glyph. This makes each word look unique like it happens in calligraphy: you will find alternates for the beginning/ending of a word/phrase, some for the middle of it, some interchangeable. Also, to accompany the script, you will find Dream Caps, which was inspired in the eternally beautiful trajan capitals. Place them like I did on the posters and you will have great results for sure. The font works great in small, middle and big sizes and can be a great selection for magazines, wedding invitations, perfumes, and posters. Close your eyes, and Dream with me... TECHNICAL Dream Script Pro is the most complete style, it contains all the alternates and ligatures (OT programmed, better if you use Adobe applications) If you plan to use the font for text, be sure to activate the less decorative capitals, which are placed in the “salt” group of alternates. Dream Script Standard has less glyphs than the Pro one, it contains just some ligatures for a better legibility. (OT programmed, better if you use Adobe applications) NOTES (1) Not only are they great artists, but also good people, who are always willing to share with their students all what they know. I would also like to thank Ricardo Rousselot, whose work inspired me this time to make “The Dream Script” exlibris; and to Alisara Tareekes, a very talented friend which international calligraphy conferences gave me: She kindly helped me with some tips to make this font better.

The unconventional structure of this typographic family was inspired in my fonts: Rosadelia, alcira, Navaja, Ninja 1, and Ninja 2.

I was playing around with computer style forms, and suddenly noticed an optical effect in this style. There you go!

HandsOn font was developed in the late 90s. Font shape looks like manual drawing. Suitable for decoration of children's books.

Sales Book JNL was recreated from sample letters found in the wood type section of an old printer's supply catalog.

Chilespice was originally designed to head a newspaper article on chiles. Use it when you need something verdant and organic.

This carefully crafted Display Serif Typeface was meticulously with inspiration from the beautiful Douro valley in the north of Portugal.

This font was created to capture the delicacy of ancient art. But it can still be used today very well.

The first prime minister of the state of Israel was uique in his looks, his voice and his hand writing.

Based on the letterforms of Matheis' Contact, this font was completely redrawn, digitized and extended to include Central European glyphs.

Rooky Hand was made with the simple goal of creating a casual handwriting font which looked good in all sizes.

DetourDork was inspired by American highway signs. Hand-drawn with a medium marker, but it looks very clean and straight.

Questa Slab is a slab serif font family. This typeface has ten styles and was published by The Questa Project.