Sweet Upright Script is the first release for Sweet Fonts Collection, published by MVB Fonts. It is an interpreted revival of a vintage, social engraving lettering style that was popular during the 20th Century. It is probably the first digital version of the design. With the advent of the engraving machine (a pantograph device) around 1900, commercial engraving moved from the use of hand-cut plates to the use of masterplates (lettering patterns). Lettering was traced from the masterplate using the engraving machine, letter by letter, onto a coated steel plate, that would then be etched in a chemical bath. The resulting plate was used to print engraved stationery with the raised print distinctive to the process. Many of these lettering styles were used for decades for commercial and social applications (letterheads, wedding invitations, etc.), but as they were merely traced alphabets, were not "fonts". Many remain unavailable in digital form. Over time, a number of the most popular styles were adapted to phototype, which sped up the process of plating for engraving, avoiding the need to trace each letter by hand with the engraving machine. Later, when type went digital, these phototype fonts were revived as digital fonts. As a result, the styles offered by engravers narrowed over time, as has the range of engraving styles revived in digital form.

Remastered in 2019. Wasabi is the re-imagining of my very first release, Iru. Like Iru, Wasabi was heavily influenced by the monument lettering style, Vermarco. The simple, geometric forms allowed for small lettering sizes to be sandblasted cleanly and has been a monument lettering workhorse for decades… the only issue centered around the lack of a lowercase or any other letters beyond the 26 uppercase glyphs and the numerals. Wasabi solves this with the same simple, efficient line reminiscent of the old Vermarco while bringing it into the 21st century. Visual and optical incongruities of the original uppercase were replaced with new interpretations for the capital letters, a new lowercase and small caps were​ produced and the original single weight alphabet was replaced with six new weights. Wasabi has several ‘lighter’ weights primarily because the thin lines and simple transitions produce very elegant relationships… and I wanted to make sure those relationships could be explored regardless of the scale of letter. Stylistic Alternates show up through the upper, lowercase and small cap glyphs that attempt to simplify these shapes even more when the opportunity arises. Wasabi is as much a utilitarian typeface as it is a headline face. This realization led to the decision to produce a companion Condensed version shortly after the initial regular weights were developed and tested; so, try them all!

Mr Robot is a typeface designed for our next book for children. We wanted to have a colorful, dimensional and edgy looking letters for headlines. There are three ways to use Mr Robot. You can align three text frames with same text but with different colors and font styles (Regular, Shadow 1 or Shadow 3 and Shadow 2) or with ALLinONE font style but select a different OpenType Stylistic Sets (set 1 is like Shadow 1, set 2 like Shadow 2 and set 3 like Shadow 3). This works great but we don’t like to have unnecessary text frames in our layouts so we added a very cool Contextual Alternates OpenType feature. You just need Mr Robot ALLinONE style and only one text frame. First make sure that Contextual Alternates is off. Type every character three times (RRROOOBBBOOOTTT), select colors for each letter (first letter of every three is a side shadow, second is bottom shadow and third is a front of the dimensional letter). When everything is set just turn Contextual Alternates back on. Styles and alignment will be set automatically. Check out the Users Manual for a visual explanation. For web fonts it is better (at least for now) to use the first method (with font styles) as the OpenType features are not supported in older browsers.

Tomi Haaparanta got the idea for the Tyke typeface family after using Cooper Black for a design project. He liked Cooper's chubby design, but longed for a wider range of weights. “I wanted a typeface that was cuddly and friendly,” recalls Haaparanta, “but also one that was readable at text sizes.” He started tinkering with the idea, and Tyke began to emerge. Even though Haaparanta knew his boldest weight would equal the heft of Cooper Black, he began drawing the Tyke family with the medium. His goal was to refine the characteristics of the design at this moderate weight, and then build on it to create the light and bold extremes. Haaparanta got the spark to design type in 1990, when he attended a workshop held by Phil Baines at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. “I've been working and playing with type ever since,” Haaparanta recalls. He released his first commercial font in 1996, while working as an Art Director in Helsinki. After about two dozen more releases, he founded his own type studio, Suomi Type Foundry, early in 2004. At five weights plus corresponding italics, Tyke easily fulfills Haaparanta's goal of creating a wide range of distinctive, completely usable designs. The light through bold weights perform well at both large and small sizes, while the Black is an outstanding alternative to Cooper for display copy.

Baba Jaga is a font you may want to turn to if you’re in need of something eye catching, if not, eye gouging! Thinking of something horrific? Something distressing? Baba Jaga is your go to font, Whether you’re putting together a flyer for a Halloween party, or trying to put a little “oomph” into a poster that needs a little something jarring, Baba Jaga may just be what you’re looking for. See for yourself…if you dare! (ok, that was a bit corny, but it wouldn’t have been if it was set in Baba Jaga!) There is no lower case for Baba Jaga as it is a display font. The Upper case version serves both the upper and lower case keys. Baba Jaga has a glyph count of 390 and supports the following languages; Afrikaans, Albanian, Asu, Basque, Bemba, Bena, Bosnian, Catalan, Chiga, Colognian, Cornish, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Embu, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Galician, German, Gusii, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Kabuverdianu, Kalaallisut, Kalenjin, Kamba, Kikuyu, Kinyarwanda, Latvian, Lithuanian, Low German, Lower Sorbian, Luo, Luxembourgish, Luyia, Machame, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Malagasy, Malay, Maltese, Manx, Meru, Morisyen, North Ndebele, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Nyankole, Oromo, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Romansh, Rombo, Rundi, Rwa, Samburu, Sango, Sangu, Scottish Gaelic, Sena, Shambala, Shona, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Swiss German, Taita, Teso, Turkmen, Upper Sorbian, Vunjo, Walser, Zulu

Sofia Pro is a geometric sans font family who dares the modernism and the harmony of the curves. Created in 2009 and completely redesigned in 2012, it has become over time a popular alphabet and has received many accolades from graphic industry professionals. It has very rounded curves with very open terminals that makes this font family elegant, friendly and contemporary. Sofia Pro has been designed with a higher x-height than other fonts in its class to make tiny readability more obvious in any use situation. It will be ideal for use in small sizes such as business cards or mobile applications. This typeface is also equipped with powerful OpenType features to satisfy the most demanding professionals. It has solid features like case sensitivity, small, true capitals, full ligatures, tabular figures for tables, old style figures to elegantly insert numbers into your sentences, circled numbers, and more alternative characters to give personality to your projects. This typeface already has a powerful home kerning system called “Pro Kerning”. With all its specificities, Sofia Pro is a geometric sans that can meet the needs of professionals who want a family of clean geometric font; elegant with a wide character set for more than 130 languages of Western Europe, Europe Eastern, Central Europe, Greek and Cyrillic for international communication.

»COSMA« is an old greek word that stands for »beauty« and »order«, I thought it a very befitting name for my new font-family. My »Cosma« has that special high-contrast Renaissance beauty but is very orderly in appearance. »Cosma« is a classical beauty with modern touches that make it unique. You will love this font. It is a great everyday workhorse with seven weights from UltraLight to Bold and all the necessary weights in between. Great for body copy and headlines! With 964 Glyphs it is a truly European font designed for all Central European and Latin using countries. »Cosma« has a set of Cyrillic that is also good for Serbia, Macedonia and Ukraine. Sorry, no Greek! But it has oldstyle- and lining-, tabular- and tabular-oldstyle-figures, many alternative letters and ligatures. On top I designed two sets of alternative, decorated caps each in normal and oblique. »Cosma« comes in Normal, Italic and Oblique, sometimes you just don’t want to use Oblique instead of Italic that would be too playful for the occasion. »Cosma« doesn’t come cheap, but I start off with an 80 % reduction, so that is a good chance to get all 49 cuts for a phantastic price. Oh, I almost forgot, If you buy the whole family, you get the variable fonts to go with it for free, that’s a good investment into the future. Enjoy!

Have you ever searched for a font that looked like it was really someone's handwriting, only to find that it was too feminine or too hard to read? I used to want a font like that, too, until I discovered that a font like that had been residing in my attic, in letters to me from my late grandfather. Not only was I thrilled to have a font like this at hand, but also one that would be a memory of my grandfather every time I used it. He was a hard-working man, raising a family during the Depression, yet was still fun-loving, kind, and generous. We called him Grandhappy. As a wedding present, I received from him rolling pins and a cutting board made of 8 different kinds of wood that he pieced together. In this font, the bullet is a rolling pin in honor of that! Other than the fact that this is a font from the hand of one greatly loved, my favorite thing is that although a True Type Font, it has some features of an Open Type font. There are many alternative letter choices available through the use of little-used keys on the keyboard and alt codes. This font was chosen to portray Jay Gatsby's handwriting in The Great Gatsby (2013).

The branding agency's client wanted an ultra modern"" typeface that was ""futuristic without being gimmicky or ephemeral,"" according to the design brief. Designer Sebastian Lester took on this intriguing custom font assignment, but soon, a bureaucratic decision cancelled the project. ""I was left with a sketchbook full of ideas and thought it would be a shame not to see what came of them,"" says Lester. He decided to finish the design on his own. Lester's research confirmed that the principal ingredient of an ""ultra modern"" typeface was simplicity of character structure: a carefully drawn, monoline form, open letter shapes and smooth, strong curves. To conceive a typeface that crossed the line from modern to futuristic, Lester decided to amplify these qualities. About a year after Lester's initial conceptual work, two highly functional and versatile typefaces emerged. These are Neo Sans and Neo Tech, designs Lester describes as ""legible without being neutral, nuanced without being fussy, and expressive without being distracting."" Both the Neo Sans and the more-minimalist Neo Tech families are available in six weights, ranging from Light to Ultra. Each has a companion italic, and Neo Tech offers a suite of alternate characters. While engineered to look modern as tomorrow, Neo Sans and Neo Tech display the functional and aesthetic excellence that earns them a place in the list of classic designs from the Monotype typeface library.

Pershal is something of an oddball, and that's the point. Dynamic and fast, Pershal attracts interest. Its architecture evokes growth and progress. Inspired by the futuristic styles of the 1990s, Pershal started on an aircraft ride as a sketch on a napkin. I set the concept aside for almost a decade before I went back to play with the typeface. Pershal is planned to complement applications in consumer finance, technology firms or biotechnology. As such, it has a complete set of both tabular and proportional figures. For the lowercase, Pershal features a distinctive shape that emphasizes its x-height. Its horizontal movement is highlighted by some of its other features, such as its crossbars. To emphasize growth, acceleration and inventiveness, crossbars and other elements are cut at a dynamic angle. It's a sans serif without a lot of contrast. Another unique feature of this typeface is the vast number of OpenType alternates. If you prefer a more conventional appearance to your sans, with stylistic alternates, you have that option. Altogether, there are more than seven separate sets of stylistic alternates and about 250 alternates for characters. This enables you to mix-and-match and create your own personal typeface. For branding, this makes it very useful. For your next project that requires a dynamic and technological appearance, give Pershal a shot.

Sedid, “solidity; It is an Arabic term meaning “righteousness”. In particular, the correctness and soundness of a word is indicated by this word. The fact that I gave this name to the writing family is to point out its accuracy and robustness. This typeface, which is sans serif, consists of three families: ▪ Sedid: Font family containing Latin letters ▪ Sedid Pro: Font family including Latin, Arabic and Hebrew alphabets ▪ Sedid World: A family of typefaces including Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew alphabets Those who want to meet a new face of writing for their works and projects and make a difference in their work should meet the Sedid writing family. This typeface is as serious as it is affectionate, and solid as well as elegant. The Sedid font family can be used as a text and title font in all publishing and printing areas, magazines, newspapers, books, banner and poster designs, and websites. Sedid also has a pleasant-looking, flexible face with smooth lines and transitions. The inner and outer spaces of the font are proportioned so that the text can be read easily. Sedid font family consists of 14 fonts, seven plain and seven italic. The font family includes open type features, as well as a large number of ligatures, small caps, modifiers, and currency symbols of many countries.

Amorie is a tall and skinny hand drawn font. It comes in various weight and styles, and with an array of opentype options. Built to appear completely hand crafted, different designers could produce completely different results, selecting either Modella (classic and chic), Nova (fun and fancy) or SC (Small Caps and all business.) Each style comes in light, medium and bold and has an accompanying italics version. Opentype for this font includes Contextual Alternatives, which produces three versions of each character, making sure no two identical letters appear next to each other thus giving your design a fully authentic look. There are also stylistic alternatives, which offer different style to a select few characters, including capital letters: A, K, R, Q, Y and lowercase letters: a, e, k, t, y. Lastly, is a large set of swashes, 3 for each letter they accompany. For the most part this includes the whole uppercase alphabet as well as lower case letters with an ascender or descender. Amorie includes a large set of graphic extras, including stylish frames, arrows, line breaks, corners, flourishes and more. The complete package gives you one unbeatable font family. If you do not use Opentype but are using a program that includes a full glyph panel, you will be able to access each of the style variations you want.

The branding agency's client wanted an ultra modern"" typeface that was ""futuristic without being gimmicky or ephemeral,"" according to the design brief. Designer Sebastian Lester took on this intriguing custom font assignment, but soon, a bureaucratic decision cancelled the project. ""I was left with a sketchbook full of ideas and thought it would be a shame not to see what came of them,"" says Lester. He decided to finish the design on his own. Lester's research confirmed that the principal ingredient of an ""ultra modern"" typeface was simplicity of character structure: a carefully drawn, monoline form, open letter shapes and smooth, strong curves. To conceive a typeface that crossed the line from modern to futuristic, Lester decided to amplify these qualities. About a year after Lester's initial conceptual work, two highly functional and versatile typefaces emerged. These are Neo Sans and Neo Tech, designs Lester describes as ""legible without being neutral, nuanced without being fussy, and expressive without being distracting."" Both the Neo Sans and the more-minimalist Neo Tech families are available in six weights, ranging from Light to Ultra. Each has a companion italic, and Neo Tech offers a suite of alternate characters. While engineered to look modern as tomorrow, Neo Sans and Neo Tech display the functional and aesthetic excellence that earns them a place in the list of classic designs from the Monotype typeface library.

Over the course of 50 years, the charismatic and enterprising Frederic W. Goudy designed more than 100 typefaces; he was the American master of type design in the first half of the twentieth century. Goudy Old Style, designed for American Type Founders in 1915-1916, is the best known of his designs, and forms the basis for a large family of variants. Goudy said he was initially inspired by the cap lettering on a Renaissance painting, but most of the flavor of this design reflects Goudy's own individualistic style. Recognizable Goudy-isms include the upward pointing ear of the g, the diamond-shaped dots over the i and j, and the roundish upward swelling of the horizontal strokes at the base of the E and L. The italic was completed by Goudy in 1918, and is notable for its minimal slope. Goudy Bold (1916-1919) and Goudy Extra Bold (1927) were drawn not by Goudy, but by Morris Fuller Benton, who was ATF's skillful in-house designer. Goudy Catalogue was drawn by Benton in 1919-1921 and was meant to be a medium weight of Goudy Old Style. Goudy Heavyface was designed by Goudy for Monotype in 1925, and was intended to be a rival to the successful Cooper Black. Goudy Modern was designed by Goudy in 1918; its small x-height, tall ascenders and shorter caps impart a spacious and elegant feeling. Benton designed Goudy Handtooled, the shaded version that has just a hairline of white through its bold strokes. The Goudy faces, especially the bolder weights, have long been popular for display and advertising design. They continue to pop up all over the world, and still look reassuring to our modern eyes."

Over the course of 50 years, the charismatic and enterprising Frederic W. Goudy designed more than 100 typefaces; he was the American master of type design in the first half of the twentieth century. Goudy Old Style, designed for American Type Founders in 1915-1916, is the best known of his designs, and forms the basis for a large family of variants. Goudy said he was initially inspired by the cap lettering on a Renaissance painting, but most of the flavor of this design reflects Goudy's own individualistic style. Recognizable Goudy-isms include the upward pointing ear of the g, the diamond-shaped dots over the i and j, and the roundish upward swelling of the horizontal strokes at the base of the E and L. The italic was completed by Goudy in 1918, and is notable for its minimal slope. Goudy Bold (1916-1919) and Goudy Extra Bold (1927) were drawn not by Goudy, but by Morris Fuller Benton, who was ATF's skillful in-house designer. Goudy Catalogue was drawn by Benton in 1919-1921 and was meant to be a medium weight of Goudy Old Style. Goudy Heavyface was designed by Goudy for Monotype in 1925, and was intended to be a rival to the successful Cooper Black. Goudy Modern was designed by Goudy in 1918; its small x-height, tall ascenders and shorter caps impart a spacious and elegant feeling. Benton designed Goudy Handtooled, the shaded version that has just a hairline of white through its bold strokes. The Goudy faces, especially the bolder weights, have long been popular for display and advertising design. They continue to pop up all over the world, and still look reassuring to our modern eyes."

Prepare yourself for a wild retro ride with Hot Rush – 80s nostalgia is about hit you harder than a DeLorean at 88 miles per hour. This Sans & Script font duo were simply meant to be together; the unmistakeable clean & condensed sans is complimented perfectly by the long, fast, textured strokes of the script. It’s the ideal font pairing for retro-inspired high impact display text, merchandise design, logos, packaging & more. The Hot Rush font family consists of; Hot Rush Script • A fast, textured script font hand-made with a marker pen. Hot Rush Script contains uppercase-only characters, however a full alternate set of uppercase letters is available when you switch to lowercase. Supports a full set of numerals & punctuation. Hot Rush Sans • A condensed sans-serif font with a big impact, containing uppercase-only characters. Supports a full set of numerals & punctuation. Hot Rush Sans Striped • A second version of Hot Rush Sans, with vertical stripes running through each letter for added retro style. Italic Versions • For Hot Rush Sans & Hot Rush Sans Striped are also included as separate fonts. Extra Stuff; End Forms For Hot Rush Script are available for the letters A, C, E, F, G, H, K, L, R & T. These have elongated horizontal strokes and look great as the last letter of a word. Simply turn on ‘Stylistic Alternates’ with any Opentype capable software to access these characters. 4 Swashes For Hot Rush Script are available, these are great for underlining your text for extra style. Simply type any of the square brackets [ ] { } in the Hot Rush Script font to access the swashes. Language Support; All fonts support English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Indonesian, Malay, Hungarian, Polish, Turkish, Slovenian

Over the course of 50 years, the charismatic and enterprising Frederic W. Goudy designed more than 100 typefaces; he was the American master of type design in the first half of the twentieth century. Goudy Old Style, designed for American Type Founders in 1915-1916, is the best known of his designs, and forms the basis for a large family of variants. Goudy said he was initially inspired by the cap lettering on a Renaissance painting, but most of the flavor of this design reflects Goudy's own individualistic style. Recognizable Goudy-isms include the upward pointing ear of the g, the diamond-shaped dots over the i and j, and the roundish upward swelling of the horizontal strokes at the base of the E and L. The italic was completed by Goudy in 1918, and is notable for its minimal slope. Goudy Bold (1916-1919) and Goudy Extra Bold (1927) were drawn not by Goudy, but by Morris Fuller Benton, who was ATF's skillful in-house designer. Goudy Catalogue was drawn by Benton in 1919-1921 and was meant to be a medium weight of Goudy Old Style. Goudy Heavyface was designed by Goudy for Monotype in 1925, and was intended to be a rival to the successful Cooper Black. Goudy Modern was designed by Goudy in 1918; its small x-height, tall ascenders and shorter caps impart a spacious and elegant feeling. Benton designed Goudy Handtooled, the shaded version that has just a hairline of white through its bold strokes. The Goudy faces, especially the bolder weights, have long been popular for display and advertising design. They continue to pop up all over the world, and still look reassuring to our modern eyes."

Over the course of 50 years, the charismatic and enterprising Frederic W. Goudy designed more than 100 typefaces; he was the American master of type design in the first half of the twentieth century. Goudy Old Style, designed for American Type Founders in 1915-1916, is the best known of his designs, and forms the basis for a large family of variants. Goudy said he was initially inspired by the cap lettering on a Renaissance painting, but most of the flavor of this design reflects Goudy's own individualistic style. Recognizable Goudy-isms include the upward pointing ear of the g, the diamond-shaped dots over the i and j, and the roundish upward swelling of the horizontal strokes at the base of the E and L. The italic was completed by Goudy in 1918, and is notable for its minimal slope. Goudy Bold (1916-1919) and Goudy Extra Bold (1927) were drawn not by Goudy, but by Morris Fuller Benton, who was ATF's skillful in-house designer. Goudy Catalogue was drawn by Benton in 1919-1921 and was meant to be a medium weight of Goudy Old Style. Goudy Heavyface was designed by Goudy for Monotype in 1925, and was intended to be a rival to the successful Cooper Black. Goudy Modern was designed by Goudy in 1918; its small x-height, tall ascenders and shorter caps impart a spacious and elegant feeling. Benton designed Goudy Handtooled, the shaded version that has just a hairline of white through its bold strokes. The Goudy faces, especially the bolder weights, have long been popular for display and advertising design. They continue to pop up all over the world, and still look reassuring to our modern eyes."

HWT Konop is a monospaced (fixed-width) typeface that is also square! Designed by Mark Simonson (Proxima Nova) as square characters that can be arranged vertically or horizontally and in any orientation. To a traditional letterpress job printer, a font like this wouldn’t make much sense. But to a modern letterpress printer it is an unusual and creative design toolkit. The bold gothic style is reminiscent of gothic wood types but more geometric. Since the characters are meant to be used in any orientation, the usual optical adjustments, such as making verticals thicker than horizontals and making tops smaller than bottoms are set aside. This results in a quirky but charming design. To provide more design options, Simonson came up with a modular system consisting of three sizes: 12-line, 8-line, and 6-line. These three sizes can be used together like Lego® bricks, with endless arrangements possible. And the sidebearing match so that characters always align when different sizes are used together. The digital version of Konop replicates the wood type version as much as possible, including the three different size designs. It includes OpenType stylistic sets that allow most characters to be rotated in place, 90° left, 90° right, or 180°, just like the wood type version. Extra characters not available in the wood type version are included with the digital fonts. The set of 3 is priced just $5 more than one single font, so order via "Package Options" HWT Konop is named for Don Konop, a retired Hamilton Manufacturing employee, who worked from 1959 to 2003. In addition to serving on the Two Rivers Historical Society Board from 2004 to present-day, he was also instrumental as a volunteer in helping with the museum’s move to its current home in 2013.

The Dellgado is the font of choice for writing things beyond words. This typeface is designed with great detail to convey stylish elegance. So, it can be said, the character of the transformation is very beautiful, a kind of classic ornamental copper script. The Dellgado provides alternative variants of most fonts, binders and many calligraphy tips, ideal for elegant labels, high-end packaging, stationery and compositions for certain brands, beautiful titles, paragraphs, letters and short text, intended for read only with the eyes or meant to be whispered into someone's ear. The Dellgado includes various language support. It features OpenType with alternative styles and elegant binders. The OpenType features don't work automatically, but you can access them manually and for best results your creativity will be required in combining variations of these Glyphs. And also a touch of ornament makes this font look elegant. To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternative, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Indesign & CorelDraw X6-X7, Microsoft Word 2010 or a later version. (Windows), Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters using Adobe Illustrator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzwjMkbB-wQ How to use the font style set in Microsoft Word 2010 or later versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVJlZQ3EZU0 There are additional ways to access the alternative/swash, using the Character Map (Windows), Nexus Font (Windows) Font Book (Mac) or a software program such as PopChar (for Windows and Mac). How to access all alternative characters, using the Windows Character Map with Photoshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9vacoYmBw If you need help or advice, please contact me by email Regards Mova Pista

ITC Johnston is the result of the combined talents of Dave Farey and Richard Dawson, based on the work of Edward Johnston. In developing ITC Johnston, says London type designer Dave Farey, he did “lots of research on not only the face but the man.” Edward Johnston was something of an eccentric, “famous for sitting in a deck chair and carrying toast in his pockets.” (The deck chair was his preferred furniture in his own living room; the toast was so that he’d always have sustenance near at hand.) Johnston was also almost single-handedly responsible, early in this century, for the revival in Britain of the Renaissance calligraphic tradition of the chancery italic. His book Writing & Illuminating, & Lettering (with its peculiar extraneous comma in the title) is a classic on its subject, and his influence on his contemporaries was tremendous. He is perhaps best remembered, however, for the alphabet that he designed in 1916 for the London Underground Railway (now London Transport), which was based on his original “block letter” model. Johnston’s letters were constructed very carefully, based on his study of historical writing techniques at the British Museum. His capital letters took their form from the best classical Roman inscriptions. “He had serious rules for his sans serif style,” says Farey, “particularly the height-to-weight ratio of 1:7 for the construction of line weight, and therefore horizontals and verticals were to be the same thickness. Johnston’s O’s and C’s and G’s and even his S’s were constructions of perfect circles. This was a bit of a problem as far as text sizes were concerned, or in reality sizes smaller than half an inch. It also precluded any other weight but medium ‘ any weight lighter or heavier than his 1:7 relationship.” Johnston was famously slow at any project he undertook, says Farey. “He did eventually, under protest, create a bolder weight, in capitals only ‘ which took twenty years to complete.” Farey and his colleague Richard Dawson have based ITC Johnston on Edward Johnston’s original block letters, expanding them into a three-weight type family. Johnston himself never called his Underground lettering a typeface, according to Farey. It was an alphabet meant for signage and other display purposes, designed to be legible at a glance rather than readable in passages of text. Farey and Dawson’s adaptation retains the sparkling starkness of Johnston’s letters while combining comfortably into text. Johnston’s block letter bears an obvious resemblance to Gill Sans, the highly successful type family developed by Monotype in the 1920s. The young Eric Gill had studied under Johnston at the London College of Printing, worked on the Underground project with him, and followed many of the same principles in developing his own sans serif typeface. The Johnston letters gave a characteristic look to London’s transport system after the First World War, but it was Gill Sans that became the emblematic letter form of British graphic design for decades. (Johnston’s sans serif continued in use in the Underground until the early ‘80s, when a revised and modernized version, with a tighter fit and a larger x-height, was designed by the London design firm Banks and Miles.) Farey and Dawson, working from their studio in London’s Clerkenwell, wanted to create a type family that was neither a museum piece nor a bastardization, and that would “provide an alternative of the same school” to the omnipresent Gill Sans. “These alphabets,” says Farey, referring to the Johnston letters, “have never been developed as contemporary styles.” He and Dawson not only devised three weights of ITC Johnston but gave it a full set of small capitals in each weight ‘ something that neither the original Johnston face nor the Gill faces have ‘ as well as old-style figures and several alternate characters.