This easy to read, versatile letterstyle was inspired by Al Imelli's "Advertiser's Square" (circa 1920's). Modifications were made and alternates added.

Castile is a central region of Spain that formed the core of the Kingdom of Castile, under which Spain was united in the 15th and 16th centuries. "Castile" is a Kufic modern Arabic typeface. It is suitable for books' covers, advertisement light boards, and titles in magazines and newspapers. It is very distinctive when used in black and white printout. It decorates colored pages and makes artworks more attractive. This font comes in three different weights. I adore Spain and the historical achievements of the Islamic civilization existed there in the past. By designing "Castile" Typeface, I wanted to refer to the Islamic civilization that Muslims had in Spain and especially in Andalusia. Today the name of Castile survives in two autonomous regions of Spain: Castile-La Mancha (capital city is Toledo) and Castile-Leon (capital city is Valladolid). The main characteristic of "Castile" Typeface is in its modern open-end style for some of its Arabic characters such as "Sad", "Dad", "Seen", "Sheen", "Qaf", "Faa", "Yaa" and others. The shape of the characters' "dot", "dots", and "point" is innovative; a triangle with a semi-circle shape. "Castile" Typeface is suitable for books' covers, advertisement light boards, and titles in magazines and newspapers. Its charactersí modern Kufic styles give the typeface more distinction when it is used also in posters, greeting cards, covers, exhibitionsí signboards and external or internal walls of malls or metroís exits and entrances. It can also be used in titles for Arabic news and advertisements appeared in different Arabic and foreign satellite channels.

Imagine a font that is easier to read the smaller it is – or the further away the text is. There are already many line screen fonts, I wanted to take it to the extreme and use as few lines as possible, while keeping the grid of the fonts metrics. The result is a typeface that lives up to its name. Each individual line makes no sense on its own; individual letters are only recognisable in the context of all associated lines, individual letters are most likely to be recognised in the context of whole words. Attached to a building wall, text would be readable from a great distance and become increasingly difficult to decipher the closer you get to the building. Placed on the ground or on a large flat roof, text would only be readable from an aeroplane or - depending on the size - in Google Earth. Kontext has old style figures, superscript numerals, case-sensitive questiondown and exclamdown and an alternative ampersand, 390 glyphs at all. Use the same value for font size and line spacing to keep the lines in the grid, or change the line spacing in 10% steps. Change the spacing in 100-unit or 25-percent increments increments to keep the grid. The »H« in the font name stands for horizontal (lines). The numbers in the font name refer to the brightness of the background and letters themselves, with the first number describing the background and the second the letters. Starting with »00« (white) to »200« (dark) See also my Family Kontext Dot

Imagine a font that is easier to read the smaller it is – or the further away the text is. There are already many line screen fonts, I wanted to take it to the extreme and use as few lines as possible, while keeping the grid of the fonts metrics. The result is a typeface that lives up to its name. Each individual line makes no sense on its own; individual letters are only recognisable in the context of all associated lines, individual letters are most likely to be recognised in the context of whole words. Attached to a building wall, text would be readable from a great distance and become increasingly difficult to decipher the closer you get to the building. Placed on the ground or on a large flat roof, text would only be readable from an aeroplane or - depending on the size - in Google Earth. Kontext has old style figures, superscript numerals, case-sensitive questiondown and exclamdown and an alternative ampersand, 390 glyphs at all. Use the same value for font size and line spacing to keep the lines in the grid, or change the line spacing in 10% steps. Change the spacing in 50-unit or 25-percent increments to keep the grid. The »V« in the font name stands for vertical (lines). The numbers in the font name refer to the brightness of the background and letters themselves, with the first number describing the background and the second the letters. Starting with »00« (white) to »200« (dark) See also my family Kontext Dot

In 1948, Mergenthaler Linotype released the first weights of Trade Gothic, designed by Jackson Burke. Over the next 12 years Burke, who was the company’s Director of Typographic Development from 1948 through 1963, continued to expand the family. Trade Gothic Next is the 2008 revision of Jackson Burke’s design. Developed over a prolonged period of time, the original Trade Gothic showed many inconsistencies. Under the direction of Linotype’s Type Director Akira Kobayashi, American type designer Tom Grace, a graduate of the MA Typeface Design in Reading, redesigned, revised and expand the Trade Gothic family. Many details were improved, such as the terminals and stroke endings, symbols, and the spacing and kerning. Moreover, there are newly added compressed widths and heavy weights perfect for setting even more powerful headlines. Trade Gothic Next brings more features and better quality for today’s demanding typographers. Trade Gothic Next® font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Chasta. script Chastha Script is a romantic typography. sans, an elegant & fun vintage script font. Can be used for various purposes such as logos, wedding invitations, t-shirts, letterhead, signage, news, posters, badges etc. Chastha Script features 521+ glyphs and extruded fonts, alternate characters, ligatures, strokes, and multiple language support. See all the glyphs here: http://s28.postimg.org/7osts7ezx/All_Glyphs.jpg To enable the OpenType Stylistic alternative, you need a program that supports OpenType features such as Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe Indesign & CorelDraw X6-X7. How to get alternate glyph access from open type fonts: http://youtu.be/iptSFA7feQ0 There are additional ways to access alternatives/swashes, 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 Need help? If you need help or advice, please contact me by email. Thank You!

Orkhon inscriptions (Orkhon inscriptions, Orkhon inscriptions, Khöshöö Tsaidam monuments (also known as Khoshoo Tsaidam, Koshu-Tsaidam or Höshöö Caidam) or Kul Tigin steles (simplified Chinese: 阙特勤碑; traditional Chinese: 闕特勤碑; pinyin: Què tèqín bēi )) They are two monumental installations written by the Göktürks in the Old Turkic alphabet in the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia at the beginning of the 8th century. They were erected in honor of two Turkish princes Kül Tigin and his brother Bilge Kagan. Both Chinese and Old Turkish inscriptions describe the legendary origins of the Turks, the golden age of their history, their subjugation by the Chinese and their liberation by İlteriş Kağan. According to one source, the inscriptions contain "rhythmic and parallel passages" similar to those of epics. In the Old Turkish Alphabet, 38 letters are accepted academically and this pattern is generally used in the books. But there are more than 38 letters in this alphabet, these special letters are included in this font.

Facit is a contemporary sans serif text face. It is designed to be a highly legible and flexible font that does not draw the attention to itself. Instead of being original by itself it is the result of a careful examination of ancient as well as modern formal concepts. “It is by definition impossible to design an un-conventional typeface. Type is pure convention, this is why we can read each other’s written words”, says its designer Tim Ahrens. However, rather than generating an average, existing principles were consciously combined into a unique design solution: The word ‘Facit’, in its German version, means ‘conclusion’. The fonts are provided in OpenType format. Each font contains 720 glyphs. Technically, they follow the Adobe Pro fonts and provide the same glyph set and OpenType functionality. OpenType features include ligatures, true small capitals, superiors, inferiors, numerators and denominators. Every font contains old style and lining figures, both in a proportional and a tabular design. For some letters there alternate characters.

Many decades back, churches, schools and other buildings with a need to display an outdoor message often chose a sign making system utilizing characters silk screened onto metal pieces in a block chamfer style. Each piece had a crimp in the top of the metal which formed a hook to fit over the existing rails of a message panel. This allowed for a finished sign to be displayed within minutes, and a quick change of information was not very time-consuming. A popular version of these signs provided white letters and numbers on black backgrounds. This was the model for Announcement Board JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. There are two different width blank panels on the broken and solid bars for those who wish to kern the letters tight to form a ribbon, however they were designed to have slight spacing in order to emulate the hand assembly of those vintage sign panels.

Calligraphica was designed because there are very few inline fonts, and even fewer inline calligraphic fonts. The original forms were written with a split pen in a single stroke. The minuscules have a rougher look and the capitals have a smoother shape to imitate hand written calligraphy with more formal, decorative initial caps. The Calligraphica family contains 6 fonts: Calligraphica Regular and Italic are the regular upright roman true italic version of the font. The ascenders on this font are a bit higher than the capital letters--this is standard for most fonts. Calligraphica LX Regular and Italic are similar to the first 2 fonts except their ascenders are longer and reach high above the capital letters--giving these fonts a taller appearance. Calligraphica SX Regular and Italic are similar to the first 2 fonts except their ascenders are shorter and are the same height as the capital letters--giving these fonts a shorter appearance.

Modica Pro is here to expand upon the success and versatility of the original Modica typeface (2019). Modica has been compressed, condensed, narrowed, widened, and extended to a mega-family of 108 fonts that now includes small caps as well as additional language coverage. Modica Pro is a nimble typeface that can handle a multitude of applications – everything from body copy to retail fashion to corporate identities... why not put Modica Pro to task today? There are 108 fonts in this family, ranging from Hairline to Ultra weights across six widths in both roman and italic. A single variable font (included with the full family) covers all weights, widths, and italic angle with every increment in between to suit whatever style you prefer. Modica Pro has a character set that covers all Latin European languages. Key features: 1 Variable Font 9 Weights in Roman and Italic 6 Widths Small Caps Full European character set (Latin only) 650+ glyphs per font.

In 1948, Mergenthaler Linotype released the first weights of Trade Gothic, designed by Jackson Burke. Over the next 12 years, Burke, who was the company’s Director of Typographic Development from 1948 through 1963, continued to expand the family. Trade Gothic Next is the 2008 revision of Jackson Burke’s design. Developed over a prolonged period of time, the original Trade Gothic showed many inconsistencies. Under the direction of Linotype’s Type Director Akira Kobayashi, American type designer Tom Grace, a graduate of the MA Typeface Design in Reading, has redesigned, revised and expanded the Trade Gothic family. Many details were improved, such as the terminals and stroke endings, symbols, and the spacing and kerning. Moreover, there are newly added compressed widths and heavy weights perfect for setting even more powerful headlines. Trade Gothic Next brings more features and better quality for today’s demanding typographers. Trade Gothic Next Soft Rounded introduces a new friendliness and warmth to the family.

"Hi there, thank you for passing by. Colllab Studio is here. We crafted best collection of typefaces in a variety of styles to keep you covered for any project that comes your way! If you're looking for a hand-drawn font to help craft a unique statement piece, you've probably been spending hours looking for the perfect brush font. The problem with most brush fonts is that they're not actually made from real brushes - they look like they've been artificially drawn by a machine. There's now a high-quality alternative available. We are proud to introduce our new, very high resolution Chicago Brush font - the result of our meticulous process of digitizing hand-drawn typefaces and then optimizing them through our exclusive, innovative technology. That’s why we created Chicago Brush, a font made from a real brush. Use it to create logos, names and signage. It will look hand lettered, like you really worked on those letters manually. A Million Thanks Colllab Studio www.colllabstudio.com

Garden Script is a calligraphy font. This is a modern bold font style. Here you will get a beautiful modern font. This font is available in several modern swirls that can make your work look elegant, sweet and perfect. With this style, this font will be suitable for logos, branding projects, design of household appliances, product packaging, mugs, quotes, posters, shopping bags, logos, book covers, business cards, invitation cards, greeting cards, and all your other beautiful projects. Garden Script has 420+ glyphs included alternative, ligatures characters and various language support. You can use this font for your work very easily. Because there are many features in it. Contains a complete set of upper and lowercase letters, punctuation, numbers, ligatures, alternates and multilingual support. This font also includes several ligatures and alternative styles Set Stylistic For those of you who have software that is able to work OpenType (Corel Draw / Photoshop / Illustrator / InDesign). Thanks & Happy Designing!

Ahra from Magpie Paper Works is an upright, hand-lettered script full of fun calligraphy. This Opentype font was created with a pointed pen & ink, and features a host of special features. Within Ahra are three sets of capital letters, ranging from simple to quirky to traditional, as well as single-word characters for common titles (Mr., Miss, Dr., etc.) prepositions (to, the, for, etc.) and envelope addressing (blvd., st., etc.). You'll also find simple & automatic end-of-word swashes, old-style numerals and special double-letter ligatures for a true hand-drawn look. Ahra Hand features decorative word art, all lovingly drawn in a swirling traditional calligraphy style. There are 88 unique greetings, prompts, and phrases, plus an ornate set of numerals 0-9. Ahra Swash includes over fifty unique hand-inked flourishes, borders, corners, swashes and curls. Mix and match for a truly custom look! All were designed to coordniate with the Ahra alphabet, but can be used to enhance other faux-calligraphy fonts.

My eldest son Sam always wanted to visit Japan and he has been saving up for a ticket for years now. We should have traveled there this year, but due to the pandemic, that was impossible. We’re now trying to go next year. Sam and I did make some kind of itinerary and I told him how we were going to get around, as I have been to Japan many times. I told him about the Shinkansen trains, the cute Tram in Nagasaki and the immense subway system in Tokyo. One of the lines in Tokyo is the so-called Yamanote Circle Line, which I have used on numerous occasions. A new font name was born and it stuck to this particular font! Subway Circle is a 100% handmade font. It is rounded, slightly slanted and comes with a sunny disposition. I am sure that, when you use it, you will find your 生きがい… ;-)

Ithalia Script - a new fresh & modern script with a handmade calligraphy style, decorative characters and a dancing baseline! So beautiful on invitation like greeting cards, branding materials, business cards, quotes, posters, and more design concept! The alternative characters were divided into several OpenType features such as Swash, Stylistic Sets, Stylistic Alternates, and Ligature. The OpenType features can be accessed by using OpenType savvy programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop , Corel Draw X version, And Microsoft Word. And this Font has given PUA code (specially coded fonts). so that all the alternate characters can easily be accessed in full by a craftsman or designer. How to access all alternative characters using Adobe Illustrator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzwjMkbB-wQ There are additional ways to access alternates/swashes, using 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 Windows Character Map with Photoshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9vacoYmBw

This series, with 104 illustrations in three files, collects original ink drawings with absurdities, bizarre people, whimsical personalities and risky behaviors! There is a very peculiar sense of narrative in the sucession of characters, even if they came out rather spontaneously and their order is random.With a vintage look and feel, these people seem to come out of a time capsule from Victorian times. Almost everything in the Bizarries (and also in their close relatives, our Illustries, Whimsies, Ombres, Absurdies and Genteta dingbats) is invented and drawn with no references —just a handful of images were sketched from historical photography. These illustrations can be very useful for a variety of projects, either in black and white, or colored in a paint or drawing application. You can use them at any size, from a small spot illustration to a huge poster, depending on your needs. The outlines remain crisp and clear no matter how much you enlarge, reduce, distort or tweak their shapes.

This is the Alter Rebbe of Liadi Ksav. This is a complete font with all diacritic marks (Nikud and Taamim) and also shevana, kamatz katan, dagesh hazak and holam chaser. There are 2 alternatives kinds of Lamed. The Nikud and the Trop are completily independent of the letters. You can use diferent colors in them. There is no combination of letters except for Alef-Lamed ligature. Two diferents kinds of "He" appears in the Tetragramation. You can make any kind of prayer book with this font.

There is a particular charm about traditional, hand executed sign writing. There is also something magical about watching an experienced sign writer at work with his sign writer's dagger (don't worry, it's a specially shaped paintbrush), watching the elegant lettering formed by deft brushstrokes. The Dewhirst family of five decorative faces is inspired by an elegant specimen of just such hand painted sign writing seen while I was out and about one day. Use this family of five faces to add a special touch of flair.

Introducing my latest font Birdsong, a handwritten font which is very elegant and modern. Ideal for logos, branding names, posters, podcasts and so on. This is perfect for you all. Features uppercase and lowercase, numbers and punctuation, ligatures and swashes. Birdsong is multi-lingual. There it is! I really hope you enjoy it. Comments and likes are always welcome and accepted. More importantly, don't hesitate to send a message if you have a problem or question. Now just read this, go there and make it happen.

DF Riga is a minimal bitmap typeface which works very well in small sizes both on your screen and on paper. But... if you want to express its deep beauty, use it in display sizes and the smell of ink is there. These typefaces (DF-A BIT, DF-Riga and DF-Dudok) owe their existence to the excellent letterpress printing of Hanneke Briër at the Grafisch Centrum Groningen. Beyond ‘the perfect’ there is a lot to get, it is made, you can see that.

Max Joseph Gradl designed Art Nouveau jewelry in Germany. At least some of his designs were produced by Theodor Fahrner of Pforzheim, Germany -- one of the leading manufacturers of fine art jewelry on the Continent from 1855 to 1979. I don't know if he designed for Fahrner exclusively, but every example I found was produced by that firm. I assume it was also the same M.J, who edited a book, Authentic Art Nouveau Stained Glass which was reissued by Dover and is still available. For an artist as accomplished as Gradl was, he is very tough to research. There just does not seem to have been much written about him. The jeweler is visible in most of his typeface designs. They exhibit a sculptural quality as if they were modeled in clay (or gold) rather than drawn on paper. His monograms, especially, reflect that quality. Those shown in plates 112 through 116 in Petzendorfer actually appear to have been designed specifically for fabricating in the form of gold or silver pendents. Of the initial letters that came out of Germany during this period, these by Gradl seem unusually open and lyrical. They seem to be dancing on the page, rather than sitting. Please note that Gradl designed only the decorated initials. All other characters supplied were extrapolated by HiH, including the accented initials. Orn.1 (unicode E004) is based on a jeweled gold clasp designed by Gradl (please check out Gallery Image on Myfonts.com). Also included are an art nouveau girl’s face, a swan and the face from Munch’s “Scream”, from scans of old printer’s ornaments. Gradl Initialen M represents a major extension of the original release, with the following changes: 1. Added glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Added glyphs to complete standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page. Special glyphs relocated and assigned Unicode codepoints, some in Private Use area. Total of 341 glyphs. Both upper & lower case provided with appropriate accents. 2. 558 Kerning Pairs. 3. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: salt, dlig, ornm and kern. 4. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. 5. Refined various glyph outlines. 6. Alternative characters: 16 upper case letters (with gaps in surrounding decorations for accents above letter). 8. Four Ornaments: face1, face2, swan and orn1 (silhouette of Gradl clasp) The zip package includes two versions of the font at no extra charge. There is an OTF version which is in Open PS (Post Script Type 1) format and a TTF version which is in Open TT (True Type)format. Use whichever works best for your applications.

Aramus is a new serif font in my continuing objective of designing book fonts that I can really use. In many ways, Aramus is a very different direction for me. It comes from a scan of an old display face that has been radically modified to a much smaller x-height than I have been using lately, plus taller ascenders. Many of the characters needed a lot of correction to bring them into my taste. In general, I have decided that many of my fonts create a type color that is too dense. Aramus is an attempt to get away from that look. Although Amitale has been a very successful book family and excellent to work with, I find I still need something more open with a lighter color. Aramus is the first look at the new direction. The original hand-cut serifs vary a lot, different for almost every character. This gives a little looseness and helps the lightness I am looking for. It will be interesting to see where this all goes. This is a normal serif for me in that it has caps, lowercase, small caps with the appropriate figures for each case. This font has all the OpenType features in the set for 2009. I didn't bother with the CE accents (though I can add them upon request. They will be in the final new book family). There are several ligatures for your fun and enjoyment: bb gg ff fi fl ffi ffl ffy fj ft tt ty Wh Th and more. Like all of my fonts, there are: caps, lowercase, small caps, proportional lining figures, proportional oldstyle figures, & small cap figures, plus numerators, denominators, superiors, inferiors, and a complete set of ordinals 1st through infinity. Enjoy!

Homelessfonts is an initiative by the Arrels foundation to support, raise awareness and bring some dignity to the life of homeless people in Barcelona Spain. Each of the fonts was carefully digitized from the handwriting of different homeless people who agreed to participate in this initiative. A biography/story of each homeless person captures their story, to help raise awareness and bring some dignity to the life of homeless people. Monotype is pleased to donate all revenue from the sales of Homelessfonts to the Arrels foundation in support of their mission to provide the homeless people in Barcelona with a path to independence with accommodations, food, social and health care. Salvador was born in a small village in the province of Seville, Spain where he lived until 2002. During many years he worked in restaurants, construction, and in the fields, until he decided to go try his luck in Palma de Mallorca. There he worked in hotels and in construction, until the economic crisis erupted and he was left without work or benefits of any kind and he began to live in the street: “The street has few good things, but it teaches you to be more selfless, to share with others what you have, even if it isn’t much.” In 2006, a friend encouraged him to come along to Barcelona and bought his plane ticket. Once there, things did not go much better and he had to continue living in the street. A year ago he left behind that life and now he explains his experience in guided tours to school groups: “I like it because I see that many of them are interested and they ask questions. It is good that they learn.”

Ratcaps and Ratkeys were designed as a set of highly-legible keycap fonts for use in software and systems documentation destined for in-house printing. They were specifically designed for clarity and legibility even on low-resolution (300 dpi) laser printers. Ratcaps consist of representations of the basic alpha-numeric keyboard keys. Ratkeys contains the special function and modifier keys. Both fonts also come in a 3D-effect version.

It is a neat and friendly handwriting typeface with unadorned innocence. The tight handwriting gives off a cute atmosphere as if it were written by a young person. In the existing KINDERLAND, only Regular and Bold were introduced, but the Korean version of the font introduces two white weights. White weight can give a unique feel by saving only the border and not filling the typeface. This font contains Korean.

A style of die-cut cardboard letters and numbers used for signs, displays and show cards was the basis for Haute Couture JNL, an Art-Deco flavored typeface from Jeff Levine. A direct cousin to Signboard JNL, this font shares some similar characteristics in letterforms. Both styles of die-cut lettering were manufactured by a number of companies, and were most popular from the 1940s through the mid-1960s.

Centar Sans is a simple, modern, universal, powerful, invisible but not characterless, sans serif family. The family is designed for identities & corporate projects. Its wide range of styles covers lots of possibilities of use, from headlines to texts. It supports a lot of languages including cyrillic and comes along with 19 OpenType features - Small Caps, ligatures, alternates and many more. Regular styles are FREE! Extended detail here. or here.

Ratcaps and Ratkeys were designed as a set of highly-legible keycap fonts for use in software and systems documentation destined for in-house printing. They were specifically designed for clarity and legibility even on low-resolution (300 dpi) laser printers. Ratcaps consist of representations of the basic alpha-numeric keyboard keys. Ratkeys contains the special function and modifier keys. Both fonts also come in a 3D-effect version.

The first photo-typesetting machine in operation, the Uhertype, was introduced in 1925. It was a combination of manual phototypesetting machine and make-up machine. The machine’s typefaces were designed by Jan Tschichold. The patents on Uhertype were bought up at the time to prevent the invention of filmsetting spreading. Jan Tschichold has been very influenced by Gill Sans (1928) for this humanistic sans serif drawn in 1933/36 for Uhertype.

Ephemera Shoemakers is a bold font with spurred serif & medium contrasted, vintage inspiration with letters in all caps. Traditionally this type of decorative font that emerged in Italy, France & England in the nineteenth century were used in large headlines and posters that were closely related to circus shows, carnival or environments of the Far West American. Perfect for signs, posters, handbills and other large format advertising. Ephemera Shoemakers Pdf Specimens

PiS Lietz Parilon invites you to the austrian countryside for an amazing ski-tour on snowy mountains back then when skilifts were sparse and mustaches were far from ironic. Use this heavy fraktur for retro tourism posters, your classic beer or schnaps brand or anything that needs a good swig of tradition! Heat up the Jagatee and enjoy the earthy taste of PiS Lietz Parilon, it will warm your heart!

Benton Modern was first prepared as a text face by Font Bureau for the Boston Globe and the Detroit Free Press. Design and proportions were taken from Morris Fuller Benton’s turn-of-the-century Century Expanded, drawn for ATF, faithfully reviving this epoch-making magazine and news text roman. The italic was based on Century Schoolbook. These display cuttings were prepared by Dyana Weissman and Richard Lipton; FB 2008

This font is an adaptation of the typeface I designed for TJX Europe, which was used in their branding campaigns for the TK MAXX stores all over Europe. Most characters were given a major facelift and also a few extra ligatures were added in the process. Quintus comes with a regular and a bold version so it offers more variety in use. It also works well in all caps.

Bertie was designed by Alan Meeks in 1986, an ornamented typeface with a light and elegant look. Such typefaces were at their peak in the middle of the 19th century, when they were created for the advertisements of booming industries. The sophisticated Bertie is based on forms of the transitional period and is best used in headlines with point sizes of 18 or larger to highlight its unique details.

A 1967 ad for Aurora “Monster Scenes Custom Builder Kits” featured the drippy, gooey hand lettering long associated with science fiction and horror movies. The letters in the ad were auto-scanned and additional characters were completed with the end result being a horror-themed font with sharper angles and lines instead of drips. This is now available as Monster Movies JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

To design a text typeface "at the top with, at the bottom without" serifs was an idea which crossed my mind at the end of the sixties. I started from the fact that what one reads in the Latin alphabet is mainly the upper half of the letters, where good distinguishableness of the individual signs, and therefore, also good legibility, is aided by serifs. The first tests of the design, by which I checked up whether the basic principle could be used also for the then current technology of setting - for double-sign matrices -, were carried out in 1970. During the first half of the seventies I created first the basic design, then also the slanted Roman and the medium types. These drawings were not very successful. My greatest concern during this initial phase was the upper case A. I had to design it in such a way that the basic principle should be adhered to and the new alphabet, at the same time, should not look too complicated. The necessary prerequisite for a design of a new alphabet for double-sign matrices, i.e. to draw each letter of all the three fonts to the same width, did not agree with this typeface. What came to the greatest harm were the two styles used for emphasis: the italics even more than the medium type. That is why I fundamentally remodelled the basic design in 1980. In the course of this work I tried to forget about the previous technological limitations and to respect only the requirements then placed on typefaces intended for photosetting. As a matter of fact, this was not very difficult; this typeface was from the very beginning conceived in such a way as to have a large x-height of lower-case letters and upper serifs that could be joined without any problems in condensed setting. I gave much more thought to the proportional relations of the individual letters, the continuity of their outer and inner silhouettes, than to the requirements of their production. The greatest number of problems arose in the colour balancing of the individual signs, as it was necessary to achieve that the upper half of each letter should have a visual counterbalance in its lower, simpler half. Specifically, this meant to find the correct shape and degree of thickening of the lower parts of the letters. These had to counterbalance the upper parts of the letters emphasized by serifs, yet they should not look too romantic or decorative, for otherwise the typeface might lose its sober character. Also the shape, length and thickness of the upper serifs had to be resolved differently than in the previous design. In the seventies and at the beginning of the eighties a typeface conceived in this way, let alone one intended for setting of common texts in magazines and books, was to all intents and purposes an experiment with an uncertain end. At this time, before typographic postmodernism, it was not the custom to abandon in such typefaces the clear-cut formal categories, let alone to attempt to combine the serif and sans serif principles in a single design. I had already designed the basic, starting, alphabets of lower case and upper case letters with the intention to derive further styles from them, differing in colour and proportions. These fonts were not to serve merely for emphasis in the context of the basic design, but were to function, especially the bold versions, also as independent display alphabets. At this stage of my work it was, for a change, the upper case L that presented the greatest problem. Its lower left part had to counterbalance the symmetrical two-sided serif in the upper half of the letter. The ITC Company submitted this design to text tests, which, in their view, were successful. The director of this company Aaron Burns then invited me to add further styles, in order to create an entire, extensive typeface family. At that time, without the possibility to use a computer and given my other considerable workload, this was a task I could not manage. I tried to come back to this, by then already very large project, several times, but every time some other, at the moment very urgent, work diverted me from it. At the beginning of the nineties several alphabets appeared which were based on the same principle. It seemed to me that to continue working on my semi-finished designs was pointless. They were, therefore, abandoned until the spring of 2005, when František Štorm digitalized the basic design. František gave the typeface the working title Areplos and this name stuck. Then he made me add small capitals and the entire bold type, inducing me at the same time to consider what to do with the italics in order that they might be at least a little italic in character, and not merely slanted Roman alphabets, as was my original intention. In the course of the subsequent summer holidays, when the weather was bad, we met in his little cottage in South Bohemia, between two ponds, and resuscitated this more than twenty-five-years-old typeface. It was like this: We were drinking good tea, František worked on the computer, added accents and some remaining signs, inclined and interpolated, while I was looking over his shoulder. There is hardly any typeface that originated in a more harmonious setting. Solpera, summer 2005 I first encountered this typeface at the exhibition of Contemporary Czech Type Design in 1982. It was there, in the Portheim Summer Palace in Prague, that I, at the age of sixteen, decided to become a typographer. Having no knowledge about the technologies, the rules of construction of an alphabet or about cultural connections, I perceived Jan Solpera's typeface as the acme of excellence. Now, many years after, replete with experience of revitalization of typefaces of both living and deceased Czech type designers, I am able to compare their differing approaches. Jan Solpera put up a fight against the digital technology and exerted creative pressure to counteract my rather loose approach. Jan prepared dozens of fresh pencil drawings on thin sketching paper in which he elaborated in detail all the style-creating elements of the alphabet. I can say with full responsibility that I have never worked on anything as meticulous as the design of the Areplos typeface. I did not invent this name; it is the name of Jan Solpera's miniature publishing house, in which he issued for example an enchanting series of memoirs of a certain shopkeeper of Jindrichuv Hradec. The idea that the publishing house and the typeface might have the same name crossed my mind instinctively as a symbol of the original designation of Areplos - to serve for text setting. What you can see here originated in Trebon and in a cottage outside the village of Domanín - I even wanted to rename my firm to The Trebon Type Foundry. When mists enfold the pond and gloom pervades one's soul, the so-called typographic weather sets in - the time to sit, peer at the monitor and click the mouse, as also our students who were present would attest. Areplos is reminiscent of the essential inspirational period of a whole generation of Czech type designers - of the seventies and eighties, which were, however, at the same time the incubation period of my generation. I believe that this typeface will be received favourably, for it represents the better aspect of the eighties. Today, at the time when the infection by ITC typefaces has not been quite cured yet, it does absolutely no harm to remind ourselves of the high quality and timeless typefaces designed then in this country.In technical terms, this family consists of two times four OpenType designs, with five types of figures, ligatures and small capitals as well as an extensive assortment of both eastern and western diacritics. I can see as a basic text typeface of smaller periodicals and informative job-prints, a typeface usable for posters and programmes of various events, but also for corporate identity. Štorm, summer 2005

Print Illustrations JNL gathers a number of charming and functional designs redrawn from vintage sources. There are attention getters, spot illustrations, catch words and decorative embellishments all in one digital file.