Oita might be a carefully crafted typeface family, created by a meat-bag human. Or, it might have been made by a supremely clever sentient robot. Found in the dark recesses of a top secret spy agency’s quantum computer, this font came with this somewhat unusual description, which is presented without comment. "To conquer, we cannot simply overcome. Success is found in supremacy--in the dominance of Oita. While looking for the right tool for this success, our research has led us to the finely executed forms found of military domination throughout history. In our labs, we've used our specialized machines to harness these forms' power and refined their impact through elements of contemporary and computer design. The structure proves to be robotic and squared on its edges. However, the chutzpah of this technical face still allows it to pass as if created by human hands. Our resulting payload, Oita, is modern and sturdy. While based on a practical, octagonal structure, make no mistake; this new instrument will drive forward the energy you want to push through your projects. Oita has 42 cuts certain to encompass your designs on world domination. Each font contains the glyphs to support over 52 languages. The font also includes tabular and lining figures, numerous ligatures, and selected advanced Opentype options, including stencil and experimental options to bring out the dynamic characteristics that have already been crafted into Oita. Early tests have found that the new instrument is easily scalable to smaller dimensions without reducing its impact. The font remains highly readable across a variety of applications. We speculate from our findings that it will be successful for sporting and technical applications. So for you who venture to use Oita, use it boldly. Don't just overcome. Dominate. Go and conquer mightily with Oita. We'll be watching." We may never know whether Oita hails from mind or mechanism. What we do know is that, should you choose to take on Oita, you'll be acquiring a dynamic poster and packaging face, a minigun-toting bad robot of a font that exudes pace and power.

Operina is based on a 16th-century lettering model of the scribe Ludovico degli Arrighi (Vicentino Ludovico degli Arrighi) used in his 1522 instructional lettering book, "La Operina da Imparare di scrivere littera Cancellarescha." This book contains what is considered to be the earliest printed examples of Chancery Cursive. Rather than try to reproduce a perfect, smooth, type-like version of Ludovico's hand, which has been attempted in the past, the designer opted to leave in some rough edges and, thereby, create a look that mimics the endearing artifacts of quill and ink lettering on parchment. When reviving an old style, a designer is faced with many challenging decisions, such as whether to aim for ultimate authenticity or to modify the alphabet for modern use. The decision here was to create a font that resembles the 16th-century Italian hand-lettering master's, but is also useful to the contemporary user. Because the letters U u W w J j and our modern Arabic numerals were not in use during the advent of these original letterforms, these had to be interpolated. To make a complete and useable font set, we also had to fashion many of the extra and diacritical characters to match the look of the alphabet. There are three fonts in this set: Romano(simple), Corsivo(more complex), and Fiore(swash). Romano is the most subdued, it contains Roman looking caps and has lining figures. Corsivo is more elaborate, it has more decorative capital letters and an alternate version of the lowercase with longer ascenders and descenders, and old style figures. Fiore, the swash font, is the most elaborate with the longest ascenders and descenders. You may not wish to use the Fiore version on its own, especially as all caps; it is meant to enhance the other two alphabets because it contains the most elaborate capitals and has many extra ligatures. P22 Operina Pro is an OpenType version that contains over 1200 characters. It features Small Caps, Old Style Figures, full European, Cyrillic and Greek character sets and a new OpenType first with automatic Roman Numerals. Just type any number and with the feature, it will convert to Roman Numerals!

Albertina was a typeface ahead of its time. It was in the early 1960s when designer Chris Brand, an accomplished calligrapher, aspired to draw a typeface based on the principles of calligraphy. Unfortunately, typesetting machines of that era put many restrictions on designers. Characters had to be drawn within a very coarse grid, which also defined their spacing. Technological limitations meant that italic designs often had to share the same character widths as the romans. Designers were forced to draw italic faces much wider and with more open spacing than what would be typical in calligraphic lettering or hand-set type. Not surprisingly, production of the first Albertina fonts went very slowly. Brand would submit his character drawings, and the Monotype Drawing Office would modify them to be compatible with the company's typesetting equipment. The new drawings would then be sent back to Brand for approval or rework. Most were reworked. The process took so long, in fact, that by the time the face was completed it was once again out of phase with the times: instead of being released as metal type for the Monotype composing machines it had been tailored for, Albertina debuted as phototype fonts for the Monophoto typesetter. The design's first use was for a catalog of the work of Stanley Morison, exhibited at the Albertina Library in Brussels in 1966. Sales of the design were not remarkable. With the advent of digital type technology, Albertina's story took a far happier turn. Frank E. Blokland, of the Dutch Type Library, used Brand's original, uncompromised drawings as the foundation of a digital revival. The Monophoto version had taken a considerable battering from the limitations of Monotype's unit system," recalls Blokland, "but there was no need for me to incorporate these restrictions in the digital version." With the full backing of Monotype and original designer Brand looking over Blokland's shoulder, a new design for Albertina emerged, displaying all the grace and verve of Brand's original drawings. The basic family drawn by Brand also grew into three weights, each with an italic complement and a suite of small caps and old style figures."