A practical sans serif need not appear dry, constructed, or derivative. It can excel in its sensible role and yet possess a distinct flair. Iskra (spark or flash) is a new sans serif designed by Tom Grace. It was conceived to challenge the limits between utilitarian and decorative. Sporting a low-contrast profile, it is a study of bridled energy in the Cyrillic and Latin scripts. Its eye-catching forms are an oblique tribute to the less-predictable style of brush lettering, and contain daring, elegant curves, economical proportions, and a slight top-heavy asymmetry. Its warmth comes from the subtle emphasis on the structures and details of individual letterforms, whereas its solidity is demonstrated through its balanced rhythm over long spans of text. Each font supports over 75 languages and is hand-tuned for a pleasing legibility and aesthetic both in print and on screen. This type family makes an excellent choice for presentations, articles, branding, and advertising. Available in 14 styles, Iskra represents a fresh, stimulating, forward-looking perspective on how we see both the vitality of the particular letter and the overall harmony of text. Iskra is available in three different character repertoires: Iskra, complete set — Iskra CYR, Cyrillic-based subset with a Latin supplement — Iskra Cyr, Latin-based subset. Both the LAT and CYR series conform to most standard codepages used by typical software covering their respective scripts. All three series have similar OpenType functionality."

As good as Nylon is, there’s nothing better than a nice woolly blanket. The smell and coarse, uneven texture are relaxing and feel reassuring. More comfortable. In a world where technology can reach millimetric precision, sometimes it’s good to connect with the imperfect and controlled impurity that is nature. Font design in particular has matured through software that can generate the most perfect letters in the world. But most of them don’t have soul. Landa is a glimpse from the cutting edge into the past. Inspired by Venetian lettering from the 15th century, whilst giving them new meaning, its letters become expressionist and have a modern touch. A rendez-vous between Nicolas Jenson, Oldřich Menhart, and nature itself. In Landa you can feel the texture of trunks and branches, from full fertile splendour to dried-out frailty. It takes the reader for a stroll through the woods on a late autumn evening, or on an adventure through the Amazonian rainforest, depending on the weight chosen. In the lighter and italic options, Landa text is organic and rustic, and very comfortable to read. What’s more, while it’s discreet on smaller screens, when enlarged it reveals brittle and expressive calligraphic shapes. This also makes it ideal for packaging or display elements. Landa provides advanced typographical support in several languages and OpenType features including case-sensitive forms, small caps, contextual alternatives, stylistic alternates, fractions, proportional and tabular figures. In this case it is technology that serves lettering, not the latter being technology dependent. Let’s not forget, as Erik Spiekermann said “we are still analogical beings. Our brains and eyes are analogical.” Perhaps that’s why to disconnect we always need to go back to forests, rivers, nature. Perhaps that’s why we still prefer wood to steel or wool to nylon.

Welcome to the world of Stampoo, where creativity meets typography. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill typeface—this is a joyful, wild, and curvaceous font that is guaranteed to make your words pop. When you use Stampoo, your message will be transformed from a mundane statement to a laid-back expression of kindness. It’s like giving your words a warm hug, but without the awkwardness of physical contact. The rubber stamp letterforms are as natural as the grass under your feet, and the bespoke pairs will make your text flow like a mountain stream. But Stampoo isn’t just a pretty face. Oh no! This font is a true workhorse, designed to make your life easier. With OpenType ligatures, those tricky letter combinations are replaced by bespoke pairs, making your text look more natural and realistic. It’s like having a personal typographer at your fingertips, without the exorbitant hourly rate. So why settle for boring, run-of-the-mill typography when you can have the natural, creative, and joyful letterforms of Stampoo? Add a touch of whimsy to your next project, and let Stampoo do the heavy lifting. Your audience will thank you for it. Some Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aymara, Basque, Bemba, Bikol, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Galician, Genoese, German, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hiligaynon, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Makhuwa, Malay, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Papiamento, Piedmontese, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romansh, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tetum, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

Cute FS Kitty is the type equivalent of Bagpuss: plump, cute, cuddly and not fond of exercise. So don’t go giving it a run-out on body copy; FS Kitty is an all-caps font made for showing off in posters and headlines, and on products, point-of sale and especially sweets. Blubber Kitty had been quietly curled up in Phil Garnham’s sketchbook for a year before he brought it out to be brushed up. “It was in the mix as a basic form when I started thinking about FS Lola. It was a twisted, bubbly beauty – quite squishable and huggable. The working file was called Blubber. “At that time it was a basic construction of strokes. I created the ‘A’ first, purely as a shape to play with, not as type. I flipped it for ‘V’, and copied that for a ‘W’. I flipped the ‘W’ for an ‘M’... I thought, ‘This looks a bit wacky, but I like it,’ and just carried on. The most tricky characters were the ‘B’ ‘P’ and ‘R’. I must have drawn about 20 kinds of B for this, just to get it to fit.” Variety “When the regular weight of Kitty had been designed,” says Jason Smith, “it just felt like a natural progression to go on and explore how far we could go with it: Light, Solid, Headline, Shadow.” Phil Garnham thinks there’s still more to come. “There are some really individual characters in this font that I think have yet to be exploited: the Greek Omega symbol, the strange face in the ampersand. Like Bagpuss, Kitty has kept a low profile so far. “We know people are using Kitty. In fact, it was the first of any of our fonts that we sold on the day it was released. But I still haven’t seen it out there in the wild. It’s going to be a exciting moment.”

The design process of this font was rudely interrupted on August 11th, 2015, when my first child, Hazel, was born. Thinking up names for fonts can be tricky, as can thinking up names for babies, so when the font was finally finished, it seemed like a good idea to kill two birds with one stone, and here it is: Hazel Script. Hazel Script is a finely crafted, elegant, connecting script. I wanted to make something unique, and to this end, the contrast in the face is not based on any ductal logic, or the writing of some imagined tool. The thick parts of glyphs are purely aesthetic devices, placed to give the otherwise monoline font an interesting rhythm. The over-sized upper case letters follow a mid-century lettering skeleton, and swash forms can be used judiciously to add spice to the text. Hazel Script works "out of the box" but to really get the best out of it, use OpenType-savvy programs to unlock a world of swashes, alternates, ligatures and the like. In detail, the features are as follows: Swash - alternate forms for many glyphs Stylistic Sets - 1: script r, 2: alternate s, 3: script z, 4 and 5: more swash options, 4,5,6 and 7: access to alternate ampersands (the font boasts six to choose from!), 8: connecting forms for K, L, R, X and Z. Localised forms - ij digraphs for Dutch, and a script lslash for Polish. Standard ligatures - a mixture of ligatures, including the 'percent off' (just type "% off") and a heart that connects to the ends of words (type "<3") Automatic fractions Ordinals - a and o for Spanish etc. but also s,t,r,d,h and n for English 1st 2nd and 3rd etc. Contextual alternates - automatically places special start and end glyphs where necessary. Hazel Script would look great in glossy magazines set large, or would make a slightly unorthodox choice for wedding stationery, birth announcements, letterheads...

It can be tricky to find typefaces that can convey the feeling of personal warmth that comes from a handwritten note, custom brandings, special series of products, especially as we type more and more and write with a pen or pencil less and less. To add some more of that warmth to a font, I’ve made Ronet. A duo font based on the my handwriting. Double eponymous styles of the font —Ronet and Ronet Alternative— each have a unique flavor with its own rhythm and character. It can be used on branding designs, product labels, invitation cards, social purposes which is bloggers, influencers but they were capable of so much more, and I’m happy to share them for general use. Ronet has extraordinary alternative characters, that makes these fonts so impressive. These two styles have dynamic substitution, alternates, and beautiful kerning! Nevertheless, they each support an impressive range of languages using the Extended Latin alphabets and because they were designed to work well in a simple tool, a rare feature of these fonts is that they look just as good no matter where you use them. LOTS of writing, and then even more care once I developed and refined digital outlines from the samples. Ronet and Ronet Alternative each wrote pages and pages of letters to produce lots of examples for comparison and selection, in order to get the most authentic overall texture that captured the spirit of my left hand.. Ronet feels friendly and personal, like a neighbor or local shopkeeper who always seems happy to see you. This will perk up your social feeds in a snap. Start with Ronet and just add in your design to make it perfect. What started with a simple pen and paper has become a diverse and ever-expanding creative outlet that blends hand-drawn creativity with cutting-edge technology — and the end results are popping out everywhere, from advertising to design and decor to art and DIY.

Sublime45-Regular Sublime Revised for 2021. One font in Opentype format as Sublime45. Families and all TT Truetype versions eliminated in this wonderful stand alone. The Spring 1997 original release of Sublime —borne an organic creature of black water soluble ink & digitized by Coniglio Type. Sublime is a fun font to use in commercial layouts. It is soft and fluid as ink. Like the wrinkles of time, it is imperfect. That in itself makes it incredibly attractive, warm and “human factor”. Sublime offers legibility so sorely missed in the current recreational font market. Sublime was inspired by World War II US fighter pilot Donald Alling. He flew missions over Nazi Germany. His squadron also dropped food, medicine and relief supplies over the Netherlands. Known as “the Colonel” to his friends. Don as a civic engineer ruled literally miles of ink letter callout’s with a template device called a LeRoy in peacetime on vellum and mylar across his career as a technical illustrator. You didn't want to screw up inking into a template with wet black permanent ink. You really had to have a steady hand and it was all done by hand. You can say Don worked “unplugged”. And that is cool! He was part of the broad stroke of postwar industrial expansion that helped keep America strong, rendering exploded views on top secret projects. Many of us were not even born yet when all this was going on. Today at over 80 years young Don is like a national treasure, savvy and bright—and the ladies love him! The Colonel remains a dedicated master airbrush man, stand–up man, caricature artist and letterman all without use of a computer! He was lucky enough to retire before a desktop cathode tube was put in his face. Today the Colonel enjoys restoring VW’s, flying and freelance consulting when not being called to supper by his lovely wife Rea.

Cute FS Kitty is the type equivalent of Bagpuss: plump, cute, cuddly and not fond of exercise. So don’t go giving it a run-out on body copy; FS Kitty is an all-caps font made for showing off in posters and headlines, and on products, point-of sale and especially sweets. Blubber Kitty had been quietly curled up in Phil Garnham’s sketchbook for a year before he brought it out to be brushed up. “It was in the mix as a basic form when I started thinking about FS Lola. It was a twisted, bubbly beauty – quite squishable and huggable. The working file was called Blubber. “At that time it was a basic construction of strokes. I created the ‘A’ first, purely as a shape to play with, not as type. I flipped it for ‘V’, and copied that for a ‘W’. I flipped the ‘W’ for an ‘M’... I thought, ‘This looks a bit wacky, but I like it,’ and just carried on. The most tricky characters were the ‘B’ ‘P’ and ‘R’. I must have drawn about 20 kinds of B for this, just to get it to fit.” Variety “When the regular weight of Kitty had been designed,” says Jason Smith, “it just felt like a natural progression to go on and explore how far we could go with it: Light, Solid, Headline, Shadow.” Phil Garnham thinks there’s still more to come. “There are some really individual characters in this font that I think have yet to be exploited: the Greek Omega symbol, the strange face in the ampersand. Like Bagpuss, Kitty has kept a low profile so far. “We know people are using Kitty. In fact, it was the first of any of our fonts that we sold on the day it was released. But I still haven’t seen it out there in the wild. It’s going to be a exciting moment.”

Juan Bruce’s Noort is not a type family for wayfinding or mapmaking alone, but for clarifying information and engaging readers along their own journey. The information designer’s role is to bring clarity and style to overwhelming amounts of information, which fortunately is Noort’s purpose as well. Hierarchies submit to its will and layering colour only adds more presence to its active posture. Noort’s design uses the proven editorial text features of a large x-height, ample spacing, and low contrast to check all the boxes for paragraph text use. But it’s the long serifs, wide characters, and overall typographic presence that make it resilient and ease the task of reading in small point sizes. These details mean Noort is able to demonstrate importance not only with its five pitch-perfect weights, but with its brindled colour within a layout. Noort’s roman and italic styles play off each other by transplanting their design features. The roman style’s serifs are transferred in substance but expectedly increased in speed in the italic styles. And the italic’s inktraps and separated strokes are echoed amidst the roman’s upright structure. Where digitisation could have removed the influence of the hand, Noort retains the analogue nature of its creation. This antiphonal seeding of details creates a cohesive family that is as fascinating as it is functional. Noort’s axis and serifs have a slightly varying ductus — the directional flow that aids reading and character clarity. Its latent obviousness in text sizes immediately becomes its signature style when bumped up to subhead sizes. And since Noort’s counters are so wide and welcoming, its heavier weights can expand more within themselves than along their exterior edges. Noort’s ten total fonts cover the Latin A Extended glyph set to bring its unbordered, globetrotting sensibilities to your projects. OpenType features include ligatures, fractions, and several figure styles, along with mature-rather-than-overbearing swashes. Aligned with TypeTogether’s commitment to produce high-quality type for the global market, the complete Noort family can set digital and printed works with ease, capitalising on the dual needs of clear information and fascinating textual artistry.

A creative context 2003. Fontsmith was sharing a small, cold, whitewashed studio space in Northburgh Street, Clerkenwell. But things were on the up following prestigious custom type commissions for The Post Office and E4. “Slab serifs were on the brink of another revival, we could feel it,” says Jason Smith. “All we wanted to do was have a play with these slabs, go as far as we could within what was acceptable and readable.” “It wasn’t initially clear what was happening,” recalls Phil Garnham. “We were becoming very influenced by our surroundings, outside the studio space. We absorbed the essence and the designer grime of where we were.” Process Jason began by drawing stems on-screen. “The key aspect of the font is the upward bend of the leading shoulder serif, the way it kind of ramps up and then plummets back down the stem. “The regular and light characters are quite narrow – great for text but the bold is quite wide and chunky – better for headlines. I think ‘y’ is quite different for a slab design. We call it the Fontsmith ‘y’.” Promotion Fontsmith were determined to get FS Clerkenwell noticed. To launch the font, Ian Whalley, a designer friend of Fontsmith, captured words heard on the streets of Clerkenwell, set them in the new font and crafted a small book of typographic conversations. It was a first for Fontsmith. “I think that’s part of why this font has been so successful,” says Phil. “It really does embody the spirit of the area, as a special place for design, arts and crafts. And designers love that.” Contemporary twist FS Clerkenwell, based on influences in and around this part of London with a rich tradition of printing and design, mixes tradition with creation. Old-fashioned values meet new-school trends. Its quirky, contemporary character lends an edge to headlines, logotypes and any large-size text.

You stand, poised at the brink. If you do not choose the right, the best typeface, this may be one of the greatest disasters in your history. The whole root and core and brain on which and around which your project is built seems about to perish into an ignominious end. But I do not for a moment fail to believe that Winsel shall prevail for you. This bold new face, founded from the tested mind of insigne design, will in the moment of need wield for you the full might of its ancestors. The entire strength of the British Empire’s vernacular poster lettering spanning the 1920’s to the 1950’s drives the very heart of every feature and weight this font has to offer. Winsel’s expanded design is sharp and angular, based on pointed brush strokes. Its thick, sturdy appearance will draw and direct your reader’s mind to the weight and importance of your messages and titling. Within the font’s full forces work a range of styles to achieve victory in the contest ahead: thick weights that are compact and muscular for carrying a heavier load and lighter, finer weights to lead you through your more sensitive operations. It stands equipped with OpenType features, ready to support most European Latin-based languages and providing features such as Small Caps and Titling Caps in all nine of its weights. Well-honed for the task ahead, Winsel has been crafted to ride out the storm of mediocrity and to outlive the merits of inconsequence, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. There has never been in all the world such an opportunity for you. With Winsel, you shall go on till the end. You shall write on the beaches. You shall write on the landing grounds. You shall write with growing confidence and growing strength in print or on the air. Every morn has brought forth a noble chance. Your chance this day is Winsel.

The name of this font brings back memories of an old fried chicken restaurant in Willow Springs Illinois circa 1960’s and 1970’s, my family would all get in the car and take a long drive down to an old country road Illionis Rt 171 through a forest preserve where we’d come upon the old Willowbrook motel with a bar and restaurant next door. The restaurant was called Kegal’s, when you entered the building you had to walk through the smoky bar first to get to the restaurant, I can still see the hard wood floors with all the finish worn off from decades of foot traffic. Up until the mid 1960’s Kegal’s used to raise their own chickens behind the restaurant, back then fried chicken in the Midwest was either coated in flour or bread crumbs, Kegal’s was covered in a beautiful layer of golden bread crumbs. Before your meal arrived they’d bring a basket of dinner rolls along with crackers, bread sticks and country butter, on the side they’d serve coleslaw with a vinegar sauce, which is very common in the Midwest, the first time you try it your face puckers up like you just sucked on a lemon but you get used it over time. After waiting for what seemed like forever to a child the waitress comes out of the kitchen with a huge tray of that golden deliciousness and your mouth begins to water, in her other hand was another tray filled to overflowing with crinkle cut french fries all made by hand, I’d eat a hole handful of those french fries first then take a bite of that tender juicy farm raised chicken. Today a fine Italian restaurant occupies the old Kegal’s building and the motel is long gone, only my fond memories remain. Fast forward to 2020 and FontMesa has just made some Fried Chicken as an eight weight type font family with alternates. With the Fried Chicken slab serif font family we’ve broken some rules by removing a few of the slabs on certain letters for a unique homemade look. Fried Chicken is perfect for your next product label, t-shirt design, logo, headline or cookbook cover. Treat yourself to some good ol’ Fried Chicken today.

Why do we need another typeface? This is a prickly question often asked of typeface designers. Depending on who you ask, the answer in simplified form is usually one of two: 1. As the basis of written communication, type design carries social responsibility, so we must continue to improve legibility. 2. Type design is a form of artistic expression. Without art, life is not worth living. The best work, of course, accomplishes both. Xavier Dupré, the designer of the Malaga typeface family, has at least one leg securely planted in the latter notion. He believes, like others, that within typeface design most legibility needs have been worked out and that today we are satisfying aesthetic desires. We design typefaces to differentiate our communications. Type design is primarily a formal exercise reflecting our personal quirks, technological obsessions, and cultural heritage. In case of Dupré’s work, issues of cultural heritage and personal quirks are of particular consequence. An incessant traveler, he visited the following countries during the development of the Malaga type family: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, France, Belgium, and finally, Spain, where his choice for the name Malaga originates (Malaga is a port city in southern Spain). Dupré’s home is where his laptop is. He travels with a 12- or 15 inch PowerBook, without a printer, and with sporadic access to his reference books and other historical documents. All he needs is a table and chair. He even learned to design without a mouse since hotel and cafe tables are often too small to also fit a mousepad. Dupré is the new global designer who can take disparate influences and fluidly process the information into a coherent whole. Malaga is a case in point. It is inspired by ideas ranging from blackletter to Latin fonts, and from the Quattrocento’s first Venetian antiquas to brush stroke types. This makes Malaga a richly animated font saturated with unorthodox detail. Its black and bold weights are particularly suited for headlines and short texts, while the subtle modulation and moderate contrast in the regular and medium weights makes it perfectly readable in extended text settings. While Malaga doesn’t claim to resolve any particular legibility issues, it is nonetheless perfectly readable and will impart any design with a healthy dose of visual character.

Roundabout is a typeface that is extracted from an ellipse shape. Each and every character started at the same geometrical figure. By cutting it up in sections, twist and rotate the separate characters could be build. The ellipse provides this typeface with evident and smooth looking features. The name Roundabout is misleading, an ellipse is not round. But the word Roundabout has a nice ring to it and it seems to fit this typeface perfectly. The Roundabout as we know it is a place where the traffic circles. Sometimes in the greater metropoles it jams like clotting veins. Various exits are presented for those who know which way to go, for those who don’t it seems an eternal treadmill. Unlike my typeface, that seems rather careless, light weighted and knows her way around. A roundabout in a child’s mind is a playful carrousel or a merry go round. Merry go round has the sweetest sound and a match is found. My Roundabout is a joyful, optimistic and open typeface, which can be used over and over and over again for many or any purposes. ----- Roundabout ist eine Schrift die aus der Form einer Ellipse entstand. So teilen alle einzelnen Zeichen denselben geometrischen Ursprung. Durch das zerteilen, verdrehen und verflechten der elliptischen Grundform konnten die separaten Zeichen so geformt werden, dass sie einen klaren und weichen Charakter erhielten. Der Name Roundabout scheint auf den ersten Blick etwas irreleitend - ist eine Ellipse ja nicht wirklich rund. Er hat aber einen schönen Klang und doch eine tiefe Verbindung zu dieser Schrift. In unseren Gedanken ist Roundabout ein Kreisverkehr: Manchmal, in großen Städten, kann er blockieren, so wie eine verstopfte Ader. Verschiedenste Auswege zeigen sich denen, die ihr Ziel kennen; für alle anderen erscheint dieser Ort wie eine endlose Schlaufe. Dieses Bild widerspricht dem Auftreten meiner Schrift, welche eher sorglos und leichtfüßig ist; sie kennt ihren Weg. In dem Kopf eines Kindes jedoch ist ein Roundabout ein verspieltes Karussell, ein „merry go round“. ,,Merry go round“ klingt bezaubernd und so fiel die Entscheidung. Meine Roundabout ist eine fröhliche, optimistische und offene Schrift, die immer und immer wieder genutzt werden kann, zu jedem erdenklichen Zweck.

For everyone wishing for a modern serif that’s as clear and readable as a sans in restrictive digital environments, meet Portada by Veronika Burian and José Scaglione. Sans serifs are commonly used on small screens to save space and carry a modern tone. Serifs may appear fickle and unsteady, pixel grids change from one product to another, and space is at a premium. Portada now provides a serif option for these restrictive digital environments, putting that old trope to rest. The screen has met its serif match. Portada was created from and for the digital world — from e-ink or harsh grids to Retina capability — making it one of the few serifs of its kind. Portada’s text and titling styles were engineered for superlative performance, making great use of sturdy serifs, wide proportions, ample x-height, clear interior negative space, and its subservient personality. After all, words always take priority in text. It’s not all business, though. Portada’s italics contain an artefact of calligraphy in which the directionality of the instrokes and the returning curves of the outstrokes give the family a little unexpected brio. Yet even the terminals are stopped short of flourished self-absorption to retain their digital clarity. When printed these details are downright comforting. Portada’s titling styles enact slight changes while reducing the individual width of each character and keeping the internal space clear. Titling italics have increased expressiveness across a few characters rather than maxing out the personality in each individual glyph. Digital magazines, newspapers, your favourite novel, and all forms of continuous screen reading benefit from Portada’s features. This family can also cover many of the needs developers have: user interface, showing data intensive apps on screen, even one-word directives and dialogs. And, as a free download, an exhaustive set of dark and light icons is included to maintain Portada’s consistent presence, whether as a word or an image. The complete Portada family (eight text styles, ten titling styles, and one icon set) is designed for extensive, clear screen use — a rare serif on equal footing with a sans.