Sandena began as an attempt at a harmonic convergence between the classic lines of Palatino and the curved flair of Optima - both favorites of mine from the great Hermann Zapf. As I’ve always loved the Swash characters of the 50’s and 60’s letterforms, I incorporated these alternatives to offer the more complete package that you see here - a humanist font in the truest calligraphic sense. This OpenType font family comes in four weights and includes condensed and Swash Cap alternates. Sandena offers multiple-character foreign language support and is being offered in a number of packages best-tailored for your unique application.

Sistina, designed by Hermann Zapf in 1950 was first named Aurelia Titling. It is a heavy supplement to the Michelangelo Titling based on studies of inscriptions in Rome. First release in hotmetal at D. Stempel AG, Frankfurt in 1951. Sistina was originally an all caps font. The digital version from Linotype contains small caps. Hermann Zapf together with Akira Kobayashi, type director from Linotype had made a new revised version of Sistina now named as Palatino Imperial" in the Palatino nova type family, a Platinum Collection product from Linotype."

a digitization of a classic renaissance fancy font

Fiorenza is based on cursive calligraphy from Renaissance Italy.

The Quill font is based on classic Renaissance broad-pen calligraphy.

A mix of Renaissance & tropical atmosphere Basco is an exploration of the Renaissance style, a period in which letterforms were informed primarily by hand writing. It is clearly a contemporary interpretation of calligraphic shapes forms. The serifs are subtly asymmetrical. Slightly curved arches on the n, m and u are noticeable, creating an interesting tension in the text. Bruno Mello’s distinctive style is most obvious in his mastery of super fluid curves. It is a result of his extensive exploration of calligraphic forms, their tensions and dynamics, mixing angularities with curves. The roman weights include alternate swashes, as well as initial and terminal glyphs. The italics, based on chancellery script, feature simple stroke endings, most visible on the s and c. ➼ Basco minisite

Valfieris Aged looks as though it just came off an antique printing press. Ink has pooled in the serifs and on the corners, and the metal did not make full contact with the paper in center of the letters. Valfieris Aged includes a full set of OpenType alternates for every character in the English alphabet, swash alternates, ending swashes, titling alternates, oldstyle figures, historical forms, small caps and 64 discretionary ligatures. These ligatures are used to alter the appearance of the type so that the printing appears realistic and without any duplicate letters to detract from the antique appearance.

Monument is a titling version of Manuskript Antiqua, originally designed by Oldrich Menhart in 1952. Ralph M. Unger, who also redesigned Menhart's Manuskript Antiqua, redrew, completed and digitally remastered Monument for profonts. Monument is also available as part of URW's Manuskript Antiqua volume.

A sanserif with human touch in 6 fonts Angie Sans is a low contrast incised sans serif sharing some similarities with Optima by Hermann Zapf and Pascal by José Mendoza, both created at the end of the 50’s. The later, feature an italic not published by the initial foundry who launched Pascal. Angie Sans follow same path with its italic based on Chancery forms from the Renaissance, narrower than the roman shapes. With its capitals based on Roman proportions, lowercases featuring open counters, strong horizontals, Angie Sans is a legible typeface. The manual gesture is present in Angie Sans, which offer the plastic qualities such as warmth, craftmanship and humanity. Angie Sans is an Incised Garalde who works well for display as text settings. Available in 6 series, with matching italics, Angie Sans will work well in design projects where delicate and human touch is required. Angie Sans Morisawa Awards 1990

Venture Script reflects Hermann Zapf's handwriting. It was originally written with a Japanese feltpen. And like with Zapf's typeface Noris Script he wanted to preserve the rough outline of the handwritten form in the final drawings.

The Palatino™ typeface was first designed over 50 years ago by Hermann Zapf, and is probably the most universally admired and used of his type designs. In 1950, it was punchcut in metal by August Rosenberger at D. Stempel AG typefoundry in Frankfurt am Main, and then adapted for Linotype machine composition. Zapf optimized Palatino's design for legibility by giving it open counters and carefully weighted strokes, producing a typeface that was legible even on the inferior paper of the post-World War II period. The font was named after Giambattista Palatino, a master of calligraphy from the time of Leonardo da Vinci. Palatino is a typeface based on classical Italian Renaissance forms. It has become a modern classic in itself, and is popular among professional graphic designers and amateurs alike. Palatino works well for both text and display typography. The new Palatino™ Linotype typefaces are OpenType format fonts, which include many newly designed characters in four large character sets; including extensive support for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic alphabets, as well as for Central European and many other languages. The Palatino Linotype OpenType fonts contains the following Microsoft code pages: 1252 Latin 1, 1250 Latin 2 Eastern, 1251 Cyrillic, 1253 Greek with polytonic Greek, 1254 Turk, 1257 Windows Baltic, and 1258 Windows Vietnamese. The fonts also include many ligature glyphs, including some historical long s-ligatures, as well as sets of Small Caps, Old style Figures, and vertical & diagonal fractions. Each font contains 1325 different glyphs.

Vario is a bold brush-based design. Created by the renowned type designer and calligrapher, Hermann Zapf, Vario offers superb emphasis for use in headlines and displays. It is availble in both regular and italic styles. Vario was first produced in 1982.

Fiorentina is a ecstatic, abundant, embellished script in the Renaissance tradition. It could have been made for the Medicis or Sforzas. But I designed it completely new after being inspired by colorful Florentine wrapping papers. I gave it many different swashes and understrokes, alternate upper- and lowercase characters, 659 characters in all! The font has all accents for the European languages, Baltic, Roumanian and Turkish. Yours very versatile designer of beautiful typefaces Gert Wiescher

RMU Gilgengart is a revival of Hermann Zapf’s beautiful calligraphic blackletter font which was cut and first released by Stempel in 1952. This font comes with fine ligatures and swash letters. Before working with this font it is recommended to activate both OT features Standard and Discretionary Ligatures in order to get access to all ligatures. RMU Gilgengart contains the following swash letters: D, L, h, f, g, k, round s, and t, whereby you should use the small letters at the end of a word or slogan only.

Smaragd is a light and gracious font especially appropriate for titles and cards. It is Gudrun Zapf von Hesse’s interpretation of Baroque adornment engravings. Smaragd is clear and festive, well-suited to titles and headings, initials and private printed materials, such as cards and stationery.

The German poet, painter, calligrapher and type designer Emil Rudolf Weiß originally created this eponymous typeface for the Bauer Foundry of Frankfurt. Long known and loved by metal type enthusiasts under the name "Weiss Antiqua," this design was inspired by typefaces from the Italian Renaissance while still distinctly reflecting the artistic and poetic personality of its twentieth-century designer. Weiss has tall ascenders, sharp apex points, and a low-slung midsection on the caps. The italic moves like a classical ballerina. Weiss is one of the earliest contemporary serif types to have italics based on the chancery style of writing. The Weiss family works well for warmly legible text typography; and it's also an original choice for refined headline and display graphics."

Someone recently pointed out that May and June are the wedding season months, and that while we have some excellent fonts for non-traditional weddings (celtic and renaissance styles work well), we don't have a straightforward, elegant engraver style font. That's the kind of shortcoming we can remedy, hence our Belphebe font, which is in the tradition of popular wedding invitation fonts like Rook, but has some antique characteristics which are in the Scriptorium tradition. The kerning on this font was a real challenge, because we wanted all the characters to fit together for a flowing, hand-lettered look, but the results are worth it.

ITC Cerigo is the result of a challenge which designer Jean-Renaud Cuaz set for himself: to create a typeface with the grace of Renaissance calligraphy but different from the numerous Chancery scripts. He calls Cerigo a 'vertical italic' and based it on 15th century calligraphic forms. The weights are carefully designed to complement each other and are made more flexible by a number of italic swash capitals. The flexible ITC Cerigo is suitable for both text and display.

ITC Slimbach font is the work of California calligrapher and type designer Robert Slimbach. Inspired in part by German fonts and the work of Hermann Zapf, Slimbach created a "contemporary text font with a progressive look", combining clean serif shapes with the warmth of calligraphic forms.

Orlando is the work of British designer Freda Sack. It is an all capital, outline typeface including a complete set of swash initials and an array of stunning flourishes designed especially for this typeface. Orlando was inspired by and modelled upon 19th century antique type styles.

Orlando is the work of British designer Freda Sack. It is an all capital, outline typeface including a complete set of swash initials and an array of stunning flourishes designed especially for this typeface. Orlando was inspired by and modelled upon 19th century antique type styles.

Gudrun Zapf von Hesse designed the first sketches of Alcuin in 1986. The namesake of this typeface was an advisor of Charlemagne and was responsible for the writing reform of the Carolingian era. Alcuin was born in 735 in England, became an abbot in Tours and died there in 804. It was the idea of Zapf von Hesse to develop a modern text type based on the forms of the Carolingian minuscule. To create a text type that is excellent for a wide variety of applications, typical handwritten elements had to be discarded while still retaining the flow and character of handwriting. Alcuin with its strong calligraphic expression may be used in books, magazines, and also in the area of printed office communication.

Diotima Classic is a total upheaval for the 21st century of Gudrun Zapf von Hesse's mid-20th-century Diotima, one of the most beautiful types ever cast in metal. Its roots lay in a calligraphic sheet written by Gudrun Zapf von Hesse. The text was the Hyperion to Diotima" by Friedrich Hölderlin; Diotima is the name of a Greek priestess in Plato's dialogue about love. In the philosopher's imagination, she should appear slim and beautiful. In 1948, Gudrun Zapf von Hesse finished the typeface's Roman. The Diotima family was released as a metal typeface for hand setting by D. Stempel AG in 1951-53. This original Diotima is a festive design particularly suited to invitations, programs, and poems. The delicate Italic drew attention to text passages that should be emphasized. Linotype's previous digital Diotima only had one weight, which looked great in display sizes, but was too thin for text setting. Diotima Classic has four weights. The new Regular has more robust serifs and thicker hairlines, making it more appropriate for text sizes. The Diotima variation with finer serif remains under the name Light. Gudrun Zapf von Hesse also took the opportunity in 2008 to add an extremely heavy weight to the family. In comparison to the old Diotima, letterforms of the Diotima Classic are more harmonious and balanced. The rhythm of the Italic letters in Diotima Classic is more consistent. The lining figures of the Diotima Classic align with caps, and the letter spacing of the tabular lining figures in Diotima Classic is significantly better. The forms of the figures have been improved as well."

A tranquil and formal serif type family, JY Tranquility is ideal for text applications. It is based on Renaissance type forms.

The new typeface system is based on legibility of Renaissance and Baroque Antiqua. It maintains the quality of drawings without an overpowering historical legacy. The current concept makes the system a universal whole. Abrading of sharp edges which could catch one’s attention leads to a fine rounding of details. In this way, a sans drawing does not look hard and sterile unlike most of its contemporaries. Special attention was paid to every detail of each letter. The professional question of how to incorporate brightening wedges into the dark places of individual strokes’ onsets was resolved by rounded shapes that have their graphic response in the detail of the serifs. Particularly in larger sizes the typeface offers drawing sophistication and dimensional interconnection. Apart from Cyrillic alphabet, the alphabet design includes ­Vietnamese ­accents.

The new typeface system is based on legibility of Renaissance and Baroque Antiqua. It maintains the quality of drawings without an overpowering historical legacy. The current concept makes the system a universal whole. Abrading of sharp edges which could catch one’s attention leads to a fine rounding of details. In this way, a sans drawing does not look hard and sterile unlike most of its contemporaries. Special attention was paid to every detail of each letter. The professional question of how to incorporate brightening wedges into the dark places of individual strokes’ onsets was resolved by rounded shapes that have their graphic response in the detail of the serifs. Particularly in larger sizes the typeface offers drawing sophistication and dimensional interconnection. Apart from Cyrillic alphabet, the alphabet design includes ­Vietnamese ­accents.

Scrittura was inspired by Anton Scholtz’s font, Honeybird, and developed into a contemporary variation with three styles. Scrittura Moderna: sleek and calligraphic. A dramatic, vigorous yet elegant font, whose upright letter shapes flow into each other like molten gold. Use Moderna for marketing cosmetics and clothing, for book covers, greeting cards, wedding stationery. Scrittura Antiqua: weathered, almost grungy. A new font with an “antique” look , reminiscent of ancient parchment manuscripts. Use Antiqua for certificates, medieval banquet or wedding stationery, theatre posters and programs, and book covers. Scrittura Fantasia: magical and ghostly. A slightly distorted, evoking Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and your favorite horror movie. Use Fantasia for horror comic covers & posters, horror movie posters, CD covers, Halloween material. The font contains over 272 characters - (upper and lower case characters, punctuation, numerals, symbols and accented characters are present). It also includes "open-type"characters to enhance the flow of the text. It has all the accented characters used in the major European languages.

Old World elegance meets Levantine luxury in this stylish new font from Studio K. It takes its inspiration from the numerals on antique clocks and pocket watches – specifically the curlicue on the figure ‘2’ – from which the entire font has been extrapolated. The font also includes alternate swash capitals.

Jaggard is a classical renaissance penmanship inspired font which works great when used for display reasons only. Contains only uppercase alphabet designs.

ITC Veljovic Script was designed by Jovica Veljovic and displays an obvious calligraphic heritage. The designer was strongly influenced by German designer Hermann Zapf and Israeli designer Henri Friedlander. ITC Veljovic Script exhibits a crisp precision, as if the letters were cut in stone rather than drawn with pen and ink.

Goodchild Pro is a pragmatic text face, equipped for sophisticated academic typography. The face has a large x-height, as there is little point in adding to the stock of rangy “book” Jensons. Despite this departure from the archetype, in other respects Goodchild is true to the original letter forms in its tight fit, modulation of stroke contrast, and manipulation of x-height and serif size. Jenson’s tiny tittles and diamond-shaped periods have, however, been relinquished. The finish is not the antiquing that one often finds in Renaissance revivals. 
Here clean, decisive details provide a freshly minted, contemporary appearance, providing a smart impression should one wish to use the face at display size.