The Engraver’s Square Gothic—like its rounder cousin, the engraver’s sans serif, Sweet® Sans,has been one of the more widely used stationer’s lettering styles since about 1900. Its minimal forms, made without curves, were popularized long ago by bankers and others seeking a serious, established feel to their stationery. One might argue that the design is a possible precursor to Morris Fuller Benton’s Bank Gothic® typeface. Sweet® Square is based on antique engraver’s lettering templates called “masterplates.” Professional stationers use a pantograph to manually transfer letters from these masterplates to a piece of copper or steel that is then etched to serve as a plate or die. This demanding technique is rare today given that most engravers now use a photographic process to make plates, where just about any font will do. But the lettering styles engravers popularized during the first half of the twentieth century remain both familiar and appealing. Referencing various masterplates, Mark van Bronkhorst has drawn Sweet Square in nine weights. The sources offered just uppercase, small caps, and figures, yet similar, condensed examples had a lowercase, making it possible to interpret a full character set for Sweet Square. Italics were also added to give the family greater versatility. The fonts are available as basic, “Standard” character sets, and as “Pro” character sets offering special characters, a variety of typographic features, and full support for Western and Central European languages. Sweet Square gives new life to an uncommon class of typeface: an early twentieth-century commercial invention that brings a singular verve to modern design. Its unique style is as useful as it is novel. Bank Gothic is a registered trademark of Grosse Pointe Group LLC.

The Engraver’s Square Gothic—like its rounder cousin, the engraver’s sans serif, Sweet® Sans,has been one of the more widely used stationer’s lettering styles since about 1900. Its minimal forms, made without curves, were popularized long ago by bankers and others seeking a serious, established feel to their stationery. One might argue that the design is a possible precursor to Morris Fuller Benton’s Bank Gothic® typeface. Sweet® Square is based on antique engraver’s lettering templates called “masterplates.” Professional stationers use a pantograph to manually transfer letters from these masterplates to a piece of copper or steel that is then etched to serve as a plate or die. This demanding technique is rare today given that most engravers now use a photographic process to make plates, where just about any font will do. But the lettering styles engravers popularized during the first half of the twentieth century remain both familiar and appealing. Referencing various masterplates, Mark van Bronkhorst has drawn Sweet Square in nine weights. The sources offered just uppercase, small caps, and figures, yet similar, condensed examples had a lowercase, making it possible to interpret a full character set for Sweet Square. Italics were also added to give the family greater versatility. The fonts are available as basic, “/fonts/sweet/square/” character sets, and as “Pro” character sets offering special characters, a variety of typographic features, and full support for Western and Central European languages. Sweet Square gives new life to an uncommon class of typeface: an early twentieth-century commercial invention that brings a singular verve to modern design. Its unique style is as useful as it is novel. Bank Gothic is a registered trademark of Grosse Pointe Group LLC.

This typeface is a tribute to well-known Italian designer Marcello Nizzoli. Nizzoli is a modern sans serif font that offers a wide range of alternatives—a workhorse type well suited for headlines, posters, corporate identity and advertising campaigns. This modular design is based on geometric shapes and combines straight lines with rounded corners. The whole family is composed of four 7-weight subfamilies: one normal and one alternative plus rounded versions. Each subfamily includes matching italics. This typeface is my own interpretation of those curves and shapes found in Marcello Nizzoli’s designs.

Are you looking for a modern typeface? Geometrico. Round without Compromises. Now 12 Italic Styles added. Even more futuristic than the classical Bauhaus typeface Futura, “Geometrico” is a geometric typeface based on round shapes as suggested by its name. Designed without compromises, neither in form nor in function: Geometrico is ideal for logotypes, headlines and other modern typographic purposes. Would Paul Renner be delighted? Or would he turn around in the grave? Make your own opinion. Try Geometrico for free. Download a free trial version of Geometrico with a reduced character set. Check it out!

Tazugane Info is a screen-ready Japanese font family, that follows on the debut of Monotype's first original Japanese typeface – Tazugane Gothic. It offers a more restrained personality, with calligraphic design details pared back to create a geometric letterform – a good alternative for designers looking for a matter-of-fact alternative to the warmer Tazugane Gothic tone of voice. Tazugane Info was updated to support the “Reiwa” new era symbol. Reiwa can be written as two kanji: 令和. This update to Tazugane Info includes Reiwa designed as a single ligature and is encoded as U+32FF. “While Tazugane Gothic fits perfectly when your job requires an organic and friendly tone of voice, Tazugane Info provides a more solid look,” says Kobayashi. “I hope that having two options will make it easier to choose an appropriate tone of voice to convey information or brand messaging.” Its strokes create a smooth uninterrupted flow that's designed for use on-screen. Although books, newspapers and magazines are traditionally set vertically in Japan, smartphones, information panels and car navigation systems are all set horizontally – and Tazugane Info has been tailored to this environment, featuring a new set of kana phonetic symbols. Tazugane Info is available in 10 weights, and includes the complete set of kanji and latin found in Tazugane Gothic.

The 1920 song “Noah’s Wife Lived a Wonderful Life (‘Cause Noah Had to Stay Home)” is another example of one of those overly-worded song titles from early 20th Century composers. What’s more important for type enthusiasts is that the title was hand lettered with a round nib pen in a slightly ragged Art Nouveau style. Cleaning up the ragged design, the end result became Nouveau Showcard JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

This wood type revival is a rare specimen, indeed. Audebaud is a charming and bold 19th Century Clarendon of French lineage. With its rounded terminals, and unique proportions; this font will instill a joie de vivre in any design. The design was inspired by the work of Constant Audebaud. Audebaud was an engraver of wooden type that was used for posters and the like. His work appeared in the 1880s in the Deux-Sèvres département of France.

Vidocq is a single weight typeface designed for use in headlines and titles, inspired by the woodcut styles of the 19th century. Its rounded forms and dark stroke translate into a bold yet friendly appearance coupled with a narrow proportion that let’s it set well in condensed settings. Thanks to an extended character set and wide range of Opentype features that includes arrows and fleurons, Vidocq was created to allow designers to play with various styles while composing layouts.

Zawlbuk is a type inspired by Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura. The Letters are drawn using a flat nib pen on a paper, scanned and drawn into a vector format.

Mottle is a strong, chiseled typeface made to help you stand out from the crowd. Gnarled after patterns found in nature such as marble, tree bark, and the brindled coats of animals, Mottle exudes a unique, natural, yet man made look. Great for display use such as logos, movie and album covers, and signage, Mottle gives off a feeling that is old yet new, gothic yet modern. Mottle supports over 30 languages, featuring over 400 glyphs and 500 OpenType kerning pairs. The Dollar, Euro, Yen, and Pound symbols are included, as well as Extended Diagonal Fractions support, and the Estimated Symbol. Language support for Basic Latin English, Western European Diacritics, Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Saami (Southern), Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, and Turkish.

The Uncial alphabet is a majuscule script with unjoined letters which is found in European manuscripts of the 4th to 8th centuries and from which modern capital letters are derived. Potus Uncial is designed with lowercase letters reflecting the Uncial style while keeping them as close to the original majuscule script Uncials and making it a useful modern day font. I have found it to be appropriate for historic, medical and spatial topics and may be used in packaging designs, medical journals, declarations, greeting cards and prehistoric articles.

This engaging slab serif face made its debut in the 1906 ATF specimen catalog, and wears well over a century later. Its warm lines and a wide stance ensure that your headlines will be noticed. Both versions feature the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turskish 1254 character sets, with localization for Lithuanian, Moldovan and Romanian.

The pattern for this font was found in the 1906 specimen book for the Keystone Type Foundry under the name Ancient Gothic, which is a pretty accurate description of the particular appeal of this typeface. Use it liberally anytime you want to add an air of mystery or menace...or simply some quaint charm. Both versions of the font include complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1524 character sets, with localization for Moldovan, Romanian and Turkish.

Anatolian typeface was designed with inspiration from the traditional Anatolian kilim motifs and symbols that characterize Turkish culture. Motifs and design elements that has been used for centuries on carpets now found place in a typeface as serifs. It was exciting to see how these old design elements would turn into a modern font that would be applicable for modern designs.

Jeames brings familiarity to the often detached feeling extended serif genre. The curved, heavy, joints let the letters bounce along while the proportions and contrast keep your eyes grounded. This mid century inspired family of three weights is intended for large titles and display. The set includes language support, opentype fractions, and other fun glyphs. You can learn more about its development here.

PiS Konzert is a bulky quirky all caps headline sans, inspired by letters found on a hand drawn polish poster from the 1960s. Its slightly shaky mid-century style makes it perfect for concert posters, movie intros or any other applications that need to evoke that bold, loud and still a little classy feeling of staggering inebriatedly through a murky jazz club.

Ballard Ave is inspired by old vintage signage found in Ballard, Washington, an old neighborhood of Seattle. Ballard Avenue is a protected historical district filled with turn of the century brick buildings that have been converted into quaint shops and independent businesses. This alphabet is based on the antique signage that still exists on the sides of many of these buildings.

Printers Plant Ornaments was inspired by the decorative motifs used to fill in page space that have been around since moveable type printing commenced in the 15th century. All the ornaments are representations of plants. There is an assortment of 47 ornaments located under the character set keys. Under their respective shift + character set keys are the same 47 ornaments flopped.

The hand lettered title found on the sheet music for 1938’s "So Help Me (If I Don't Love You)" was the basis for Totally Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. A classic mix of widely rounded letters and condensed letters typifies the design style of the Art Deco era.

Bold and squared with rounded corners, the hand lettering found within the November, 1936 issue of Radio Mirror magazine really stands out. This stylized sans serif design, when used in poster displays or headline lettering, is attention-getting and drives the point home. Radio Actor JNL, is available in both regular and oblique versions.

An image found online of the first [1923] “Oreo Sandwich” package provided a type inspiration from the pen-lettered block sans with rounded corners used for the product's name. Prior to 1923, the cookies were sold in boxes or tins. The result is Packaged Cookies JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

This late 19th century design conjures up early 20th century Dutch DeStijl lettering with a mostly strict adherence to right angles and minimal stroke modulation. Geometric began its life as a metal typeface from the Central Type Foundry, circa 1884. Soon after, this design was officially licensed to Morgans & Wilcox and was shown in their 1890 catalog in Regular, Light and Condensed Light variations. After acquiring Morgans & Wilcox, Hamilton Manufacturing offered Geometric Light Face Condensed as their own No 3020 and the Geometric Light Face as No 3021. HWT Geometric has been expanded digitally to include a Regular Condensed version. A heavier wood type specimen was found from an unknown manufacturer and digitized as it was found, resulting in the HWT Geometric Shopworn and Shopworn Inked variations. These digital versions all include a full Western and Central European character set of over 380 glyphs.

Adso was born out of a research that studied the possibility of reintroducing Gothic writing in our contemporary world. Inspired by Textura, Adso was decidedly freed of all those little details that make Blackletter faces appear foreign or even displeasing to the contemporary reader’s eyes. Nevertheless, the basic features of Gothic color were preserved: verticality, modularity, and darkness. Adso is a gothic font for today’s age, highly readable and open to all fields of expression.

Etruscania font is base on Anchient Etruscan Alphabet. The Etruscan alphabet is an Ancient Italian alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of the central and northern lands, to write their language, from around 700 BC to around 100 AD. The Etruscan alphabet took inspiration from the Phoenician alphabet. The earliest known Etruscan abecedarium inscribed on an ivory wax tablet frame, measuring 8.8x5 cm, was found at Marsiliana near Grosseto, Tuscany in Italy. It dates from around 700 BC.

Simpliciter Sans is a typeface based on the lettering used in the 20th century on technical drawings, either written by free hand or using templates. The lettering was made with a round pen, therefore all lines got rounded ends. All lines had the same thickness in uppercase, lowercase and small caps. The upright style was used on construction drawings and the italic style on machine drawings. The backslant style was used on maps for names of water bodies — seas, lakes, rivers etc. — and for water depth. Simpliciter Sans is primarily intended for texts on drawings, diagrams, charts and maps, but it can also be used for signs and labels. It also works surprisingly well as a body type in smaller sizes.

A retro looking gothic with that "South Beach" look.

A sans serif casual gothic. Works for many applications.

Nyfors was a sudden idea. I noticed an ad in a magazine, with some handtexted words. I don't recall what the ad was about, neither the words. When I later on tried to remember how the single characters looked like and began to draw them, the result wasn't bad at all. I am not longer sure that they resemble the characters in the ad, but it doesn't matter. Nyfors is a nice handtexted typeface, whatever its origin. There is a small stream in Tyresö where I live and work, called Nyfors. During some centuries there was a center of small scale industries along it, and they used its water to run their machinery. The typeface has its name from that stream. Nyfors was released in 1995.

French designer Christophe Badani developed the Linotype Rough family in 1999. The family contains nine different typeface styles, each with a slightly different voice. The forms appear to have found a unique middle ground between hand-drawn letters and pure geometry, especially Linotype Rough Outline. Make sure to pay special notice to the true-italic forms in the three italic weights! Badani's attention to typographic detail is not to be missed. Linotype Rough is perfect for headlines and display work. The medium and bold weights can also function splendidly in text. The entire family is included in the TakeType 4 collection, available through Linotype."

The Fou typeface family was designed as an alternative to Trade Gothic condensed bold. During the design process of a normally wide font variant a system developed that responds to white space and changing proportions. Thus, round transitions become rectangular and vice versa, space is made and space is taken away. This system and the associated changes are continued on a model with semi-serifs. Fou can also be used as an alternative to Din or the wider Q-Type, but in comparison offers more room for emphasis with its italics, expert sets and numerous special characters.

With the famous and much used Eurostile and Bank Gothic in my mind I wanted to design a mono-line font as simple and legible as possible. A square with rounded corners, i.e., the letter ‘o’ as its basis. From there on back to basics, so straights remained simple straights with 90° endings, whatever the angle. Numbers are monospaced. The result seems to be a pleasantly balanced and neutral font. Excellent for display purposes and surprisingly legible in even small sizes. This perhaps typical approach by an architect led to the name of the font: ArchiType.