A mediterranean style sanserif in 4 styles The original idea of Costa was to create a contemporary mediterranean typeface style. Costa is a synthesis of the purity, as found on Greek capitals, and softness, found in Renaissance scripts. First thing was the design concept that take its roots on the Chancery script. Such writing style appeared during Italian Renaissance. Later few typefaces have been developed from such cursive models. Today most serifed typeface italic take their roots on such triangular structure we can find on gylphs like the n, p, or d. The Costa capitals remains close to pure sanserif models when the lowercases features an ending serif on many letters like the a, n, d, etc. This ending serif being more like a minimal brush effect, creating a visual contrast and referencing the exoticness of the typeface. Knowing that the Costa typeface family began life in the 90s as a bespoke typeface for Costa Crociere, an Italian cruise company — it suddenly makes sense and explains well why Jean François Porchez focused so much on Italian Chancery mixed to a certain exotism. The curvy-pointed terminals of the Costa n can obviously get find on other glyphs, such as the ending of the e, c and some capitals. So, the sanserif looks more soft and appealing, without to be to pudgy or spineless. The general effect, when set for text, remains a sanserif, even not like Rotis Semiserif. Costa is definitly not a classical typeface, or serif typeface which convey past, tradition, historicism as Garamond does beautifully. Because of the Costa crocieres original needs, Costa typeface was designed to be appropriate for any uses. Anytime you’re looking for good mood, qualitative effects, informal tone, cool atmosphere without to be unconvential or blowzy, Costa will convey to your design the required chic and nice atmosphere, from large headlines sizes, brands, to small text sizes. It’s a legible typeface, never boring. A style without neutrality which doesn’t fit comfortably into any typeface classification! Does it proves the novelty of its design and guarantees as well as its originality? Its up to you to be convinced. Barcelona trip Originally not planned, this need appeared because of a trip to Barcelona at the time of the project, where Jean François was giving a lecture. He wanted to pay an homage to that invitation to create something special. So, he designed during his flight some variations of the Spanish Ch, following ideas developed by the Argentinian type designer Rubén Fontana for his typeface called Fontana ND (published by the Barcelona foundry Bauer). Then, he presented during his lecture variations and asked to the audience which design fit the best to their language. They selected the design you can find in the fonts today. Read more about pairing Costa Type Directors Club 2000 Typographica: Our Favourite Typefaces 2004

A Postmodern vernacular sanserif in 8 fonts Prosaic designed by Aurélien Vret is a Postmodern typographic tribute to the french vernacular signs created by local producers in order to directly market their products visible along the roads. These signs drawn with a brush on artisanal billboards do not respect any typographic rules. The construction of these letterforms is hybrid and does not respect any ductus. Nevertheless the use of certain tools provokes a certain mechanism in the development of letter shapes. It’s after many experiments with a flat brush, that’s these letterforms have been reconstructed and perfected by Aurélien Vret. This is the starting point for the development of an easily reproducible sanserif with different contemporary writing tools. From non-typographical references of Prosaic towards readability innovation The influence of the tool is revealed in the letterforms: angular counterforms contrasting to the smoothed external shapes. This formal contrast gives to Prosaic a good legibility in small sizes. These internal angles indirectly influenced by the tool, open the counterforms. In the past, to deal with phototype limitations in typeface production, some foundries modified the final design by adding ink traps. In our high resolution digital world, these ink traps — now fashionable among some designers — have little or no effect when literally added to any design. Should one see in it a tribute to the previous limitations? Difficult to say. Meanwhile, there are typeface designers such as Ladislas Mandel, Roger Excoffon, and Gerard Unger who have long tried to push the limits of readability by opening the counters of their typefaces. Whatever the technology, such design research for a large counters have a positive impact on visual perception of typefaces in a small body text. The innovative design of counter-forms of the Prosaic appears in this second approach. Itself reinforced by an exaggerated x-height as if attempting to go beyond the formal limits of the Latin typography. It is interesting to note how the analysis of a non-typographical letters process has led to the development of a new typographic concept by improving legibility in small sizes. Disconnected to typical typographic roots in its elaboration, Prosaic is somewhat unclassifiable. The formal result could easily be described as a sturdy Postmodern humanistic sanserif! Humanistic sanserif because of its open endings. Sturdy because of its monumental x-height, featuring a “finish” mixing structured endings details. The visual interplay of angles and roundness produces a design without concessions. Finally, Prosaic is Postmodern in the sense it is a skeptical interpretation of vernacular sign paintings. Starting from a reconstruction of them in order to re-structure new forms with the objective of designing a new typeface. Referring to typographic analogy, the Prosaic Black is comparable to the Antique Olive Nord, while the thinner versions can refer to Frutiger or some versions of the Ladislas Mandel typefaces intended for telephone directories. Prosaic, a Postmodern vernacular sanserif Prosaic is radical, because it comes from a long artistic reflection of its designer, Aurélien Vret, as well a multidisciplinary artist. The Prosaic is also a dual tone typeface because it helps to serve the readability in very small sizes and brings a sturdy typographic power to large sizes. Prosaic, a Postmodern vernacular sanserif

Beorcana can be classified as a serifless roman, a stressed sans, a glyphic sans, or calligraphic sans. However it is classified, Beorcana derives not only from other stressed sans designs like Lydian, Amerigo and Optima, but also utilizes classic Renaissance proportions in both Roman and Italic, which facilitate extended reading. Beorcana is available in Display, regular Text and Micro styles. Beorcana’s Text styles offer comfort and liveliness in books, dictionaries, magazines and other reading-intensive settings. Display styles offer a stately and organic flavor for any application. Micro styles perform in tight and dense settings like dictionaries, bibles, maps and fine print. The name Beorcana is a variant of the Icelandic word for the Birch tree, and the related words for the Icelandic rune. Many variant spellings are used for the tree and the rune: Beorc, Berkanan, Birkana, Bercano, Bjork, Bjarka. The Birch was revered as a symbol of renewal, due to its role as a pioneer species in burned, boggy or otherwise unforested areas.

Sadness is based on some experiments during Felix Braden’s stay at the Trier College of Design: "I played around with Fontographer’s blendfonts-feature (a type design tool to interpolate fonts and to minimize effort and expenditure of large families) with some files from a close designer. Since the basic elements derived from extremely varied fonts without any similarities, the concluding shapes first turned out to be rather fragmentary. From those fragments I chose the most characteristic elements and drew a whole new font." For a detailed type specimen have a look at: http://on.be.net/1CdAZlC

Listen up, partner! If you want to give your message some real grit, you need to saddle up with Stud. This ain’t no wimpy, delicate typeface that’ll have you tip-toeing around your message like a city slicker. No way, pal. Stud is a cowboy typeface with brawny serifs that’ll have you shouting your message from the rooftops. With wide characters and robust letterforms, Stud is the epitome of solid confidence. It’s the kind of typeface that’ll have your audience sitting up straight, paying attention, and hanging on your every word. And let me tell you, there ain’t no other typeface out there that can do that. But that’s not all, folks. Stud comes equipped with some serious firepower. Some character combinations are automatically swapped for custom pairs in OpenType-aware apps. That means your message is going to be more powerful than a bull at a rodeo. So if you want to make a real impact, make sure to turn off your application’s “standard ligatures” function to disable the effect. It’s time to get tough with Stud. Saddle up and let your message ride into the sunset with confidence, power, and a powerful style that’ll leave your competition eatin’ dust. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Stu is based on the penmanship of the late Raoul "Stu" Stuart. Raoul's penmanship was always admired by those who saw it; it was a first glimpse into the artistic and creative side of an otherwise easy-going, funny guy. The print variants exude a soft yet masculine feel, while the scripts evoke a sense of sentimentality and romance. Stu features dingbats which say something about Raoul: affectionate and romantic (heart), a big coffee drinker (coffee cup), a great cook (spoon and fork), a music lover (musical note), and a prankster (winking smiley). (The winking smiley is available in all the font styles, while each of the other four dingbats is unique to one font style.) Stu is a tribute to the coolest dad in the world.

Futurist italic typeface from the programming era, Plau is a sans-serif with rounded corner personality and interestingly deliberate lettershapes. Comfortable in headlines, reads surprisingly well in longer passages of text. Includes the following OpenType features: OT All Small Caps, Small Caps, Fraction, Proportional/Tabular Oldstyle and lining figures, subscript and superscript numbers.