Conversation Hearts are inspired by the sweethearts and conversation hearts that can be found all over the US and Britain, but not in Germany. A source of endless fun and surprise. As a typographer to me they are also a surprising document of written communication. Most people complain that nowadays the inscriptions are not as sweet as they used to be. While they used to held romantic and promising inscriptions like “Be True” “Sweet Talk”, today they carry “Tweet me” “Ur Hot” and “Party Girl”. So i took this as a motivation to work with conversation sweetheart on a conceptial inspirational and typographical level. The obvious: every letter pressed on the keyboard brings out a conversation heart that starts with the letter - i.e. L = Loverboy, H = Heartless but what to write? Since i didn't want to reproduce the old “Fax me” and “Email me” I had to come up with something new. Something with a personal relation and of course something that I Love - what else could i write in the shape of the heart? So I tried to access my upper subconsciousness and looked for two words for every letter in the alphabet. One for the capital letter pressed and one word for the lowercase letter. Resulting in a Kurt Schwitters worthy assemblage of vocables "Post-office" “Internship” “Zebra” “Answers” etc. It is not easy to read a text set in Conversation Hearts but easier as a text set in Zapf-Dingbats. To sparkle the visual appearance uppercase letters are filled hearts with “carved” inscription, while lowercase letters are an outlined heart with written inscription. Conversations Hearts is a part of the Light Hearted Font Collection that is inspired by a recording of Jean Baudrillard with the title, "Die Macht der Verführung" (The Power of Seduction) from 2006. Further inspiration came from the article, "The shape of the heart: I'm all yours". The heart represents sacred and secular love: a bloodless sacrifice. by British writer Louisa Young printed in EYE magazine (#43) London, 2002.

In 1995, FontHaus came upon a rare opportunity to create a revival of Aries, a little known and previously unavailable typeface by the legendary Eric Gill. Discovering a lost typeface by one of the major designers of the 20th Century, was the discovery of a buried treasure, and being the first type company to release it was an honor. Thirteen years later, FontHaus came across another little known typeface treasure: Diane. Designed by the legendary French designer Roger Excoffon in 1956, this remarkable script has never been faithfully recreated until now. In close collaboration with Mark Simonson, FontHaus and Mr. Simonson painstakingly researched rare type books, publications, European metal type services, and period showings from the United States, England, Germany and from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Finding full specimens of the font turned out to be quite a challenge. In most cases, only the caps and lowercase were shown. Furthermore, the more we researched Diane, many curious facts came to light. The caps in earlier specimens of Diane are completely different from specimens published later, suggesting that the face was redesigned at some point, perhaps in the mid-1960s. So we are left with two different sets of caps. The original had very elaborate, swirly strokes, very characteristic of Excoffon¹s gestural designs for posters and logos. Later on, these appear to have been replaced by a set of simpler, more traditional script caps. The original caps are criticized in one source Mark found (Practical Handbook on Display Typefaces, 1959) as being "exquisite" but "not highly legible". Perhaps this is what led to the simpler caps being introduced. Nevertheless, FontHaus's release includes not only both sets of caps, but a range of alternates and a number of new characters not originally available such as the Euro, and a magnificent alternate Ampersand to name a few.

Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813) was called the King of Printers; he was a prolific type designer, a masterful engraver of punches and the most widely admired printer of his time. His books and typefaces were created during the 45 years he was the director of the fine press and publishing house of the Duke of Parma in Italy. He produced the best of what are known as modern" style types, basing them on the finest writing of his time. Modern types represented the ultimate typographic development of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They have characteristics quite different from the types that preceded them; such as extreme vertical stress, fine hairlines contrasted by bold main strokes, and very subtle, almost non-existent bracketing of sharply defined hairline serifs. Bodoni saw this style as beautiful and harmonious-the natural result of writing done with a well-cut pen, and the look was fashionable and admired. Other punchcutters, such as the Didot family (1689-1853) in France, and J. E. Walbaum (1768-1839) in Germany made their own versions of the modern faces. Even though some nineteenth century critics turned up their noses and called such types shattering and chilly, today the Bodoni moderns are seen in much the same light as they were in his own time. When used with care, the Bodoni types are both romantic and elegant, with a presence that adds tasteful sparkle to headlines and advertising. This version of Bodoni was done by Morris Fuller Benton for American Typefounders between 1907 and 1911. Although some of the finer details of the original Bodoni types are missing, this family has the high contrast and vertical stress typical of modern types. It works well for headlines, logos, advertising, and text."

The ITC Pino™ typeface family is Slobodan Jelesijevic’s second suite of commercial fonts. Although a small family of three weights, it is remarkably versatile. Like many typefaces, Pino grew out of a desire for a particular kind of design. Jelesijevic was creating a series of illustrations for a children’s magazine and needed a typeface that was lighthearted, legible and would complement his illustrative style. Unable to find exactly what he needed, he decided to make his own font. “I spent the better part of a day looking for just the right typeface,” he recalls. “Of course, the hard part was finding something that would harmonize perfectly with my drawings. A custom font was not part of the project brief or budget, but I thought that perhaps I could use it again.” The regular weight of Pino became the solution to Jelesijevic’s problem. Jelesijevic did use the font again, but quickly realized that the single weight needed companion designs. Pino Bold and Black followed in quick succession. Before licensing the designs to ITC, the three-weight family provided headlines, book cover titles and even short blocks of text copy in several of Jelesijevic’s design projects. Born in Gornji Milanovac, Serbia, in 1951, Jelesijevic graduated with a degree in graphic communication and lettering from the Faculty of Applied Arts in the University of Arts in Belgrade. Currently, in addition to typeface design, he is sought out as a graphic designer and illustrator. When not working on design projects, he teaches graphic communications at the Faculty of Art in the University of Niš, Serbia. Pino is a stressed sans of slightly condensed proportions. Pino’s generous x-height, clearly defined counters and distinctive character shapes enable it to fulfill a wide variety of typographic applications. Friendly without being sanguine, the Pino type family will communicate with charm and vitality.

The Maiandra family of typefaces were inspired by an early example of Oswald Cooper's hand-lettering, as seen in an advertisement for a book on home furnishing, circa 1909. Although many of Oz Cooper's letterform designs were cast in metal type, this particular one was not. Cooper's design itself was inspired by examples of letterforms he had admired in his study of Greek epigraphy (inscriptions). Cooper combined those ancient forms with the flair characteristic of design styles of his time. The result was an attractive design possessing subtle, purposeful irregularities, or "meanders" in his skilled brushwork. The Cooper design exhibits a unique warmth and harmony in text, while presenting a compelling rhythm, color and texture on the page. "Realizing the presence of this uniform warmth and readability," notes Dennis, "I decided to expand the design into a family of three weights with companion italics." The weights for the Maiandra family were selected for their versatility in usage over a broad range of output device resolutions. Indeed, "the consideration of eventual display resolutions, be they for screen or printer, provided the greatest challenge in the design of this typeface family," explains Dennis. Creating shapes that conform to the rigors of digital letterforms and modern rendering environments, without losing the unique characteristics of Oz Cooper's original design, is what Dennis has accomplished with his tribute to this great designer of the past. Maiandra, whose name derives from the Greek 'maiandros', meaning 'meander,' is intended for extended text use, as well as for informal subject matter, such as business correspondence, brochures and broadsides. "An example of a good use for Maiandra," notes Dennis, "is in printed matter relating to the turn-of-the-century art period known as the Arts and Crafts Movement. It can stand alone or be used with designs that complement its shape and color."

Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813) was called the King of Printers; he was a prolific type designer, a masterful engraver of punches and the most widely admired printer of his time. His books and typefaces were created during the 45 years he was the director of the fine press and publishing house of the Duke of Parma in Italy. He produced the best of what are known as modern" style types, basing them on the finest writing of his time. Modern types represented the ultimate typographic development of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They have characteristics quite different from the types that preceded them; such as extreme vertical stress, fine hairlines contrasted by bold main strokes, and very subtle, almost non-existent bracketing of sharply defined hairline serifs. Bodoni saw this style as beautiful and harmonious-the natural result of writing done with a well-cut pen, and the look was fashionable and admired. Other punchcutters, such as the Didot family (1689-1853) in France, and J. E. Walbaum (1768-1839) in Germany made their own versions of the modern faces. Even though some nineteenth century critics turned up their noses and called such types shattering and chilly, today the Bodoni moderns are seen in much the same light as they were in his own time. When used with care, the Bodoni types are both romantic and elegant, with a presence that adds tasteful sparkle to headlines and advertising. Parma was designed by the monotype Design Team after studying Bodoni's steel punches at the Museo Bodoniana in Parma, Italy. They also referred to specimens from the "Manuale Tipografico," a monumental collection of Bodoni's work published by his widow in 1818.

Teo Tuominen’s Trevor took its first breath as a revival of an 18th century antiqua, but culminated in an entirely new and good-natured family. Trevor is an affable slab serif in nature: both heavy and kind. Known for their familiarity and their dark colour, the terminals of slab serifs put additional weight along the line to maintain an inky presence. Their clunky forms reveal slight immaturity and arouse the reader’s sympathy for the subject at hand. Trevor connects with others by consciously riding the line between being personal and commanding. One goal with Trevor was to pair the robust nature of a low contrast slab serif with more sophisticated elements, such as the ball terminals. So wherever one looks in Trevor, rounded corners rule the day, softening the overall appearance by mimicking ink spread made by old metal type. The easygoing look is tempered by very few inktraps and sharp corners, mostly to the inside of characters and in acute angles. Whatever Trevor is paired with, it has an altruistic outlook in that it sees the best in others. It’s the neighbourly type family
 — the neighbour you actually want. Trevor’s almost monolinear weight and high x-height give it a typewriter look in the extralight and light weights, but the whole family was made to work with many other font styles, design work, and information structures. It certainly finds its home in packaging and advertising, its sturdy verticality and narrowness fit the needs of headlines and intro text, and its seven weights are primed for plays and involved text needing many layers of distinction. The black weight is treated like a separate display style with altered ball terminals and serifs to capitalise on the added heft. Trevor’s seven roman weights cover the Latin A Extended glyph set to bring its kindly and commanding outlook to your projects. Along with alternate version of the ‘R’ in the black weight, its OpenType features include both tabular and proportional lining and oldstyle figures, ligatures, and fractions. The complete Trevor family, along with our entire catalogue, has been optimised for today’s varied screen uses.