Humanistic sanserif in 4 fonts The Parisine Office typeface family can be considered as the text version of the Parisine. When Parisine xheight fit Helvetica large xheight, Parisine Office is more close to Gill Sans in term of proportion, as it was developed for Ratp, the public transport in Paris to allow compatibility with documents set in Gill Sans without changing the length of text. Parisine Office by default is a humanistic sanserif available in 4 fonts perfect for text setting. The design of the italic lowercases is more cursive than in Parisine. About Parisine Parisine helps Parisians catch the right bus Observateur du design star of 2007

Einhorn is a peculiar typeface. Difficult to classify, this upright, bold, script-like semi serif typeface was designed in 1980 by Alan Meeks. Meeks was inspired by the art nouveau period, and may have been trying to liven up the design scene. In 1980, typefaces like Helvetica and Univers were ubiquitous, and the digital revolution was still years away. Experimental faces like Einhorn helped fill the gap for creative designers looking for untraditional choices in which to set headlines and advertising work. The merit of pioneer display faces like Einhorn have never lessened; Einhorn still sets a mean display text, and works great in logos and other corporate ID solutions.

Designed by Malaysian designer, Ong ChongWah, Abadi is a versatile sans serif typeface whose style lies between the humanist Gill Sans and the more rigid lineales such as Monotype Grotesque and Helvetica. These humanist characteristics give the Abadi fonts a friendliness in use and contribute as much to its legibility as the generous 'x' height. The italic font relates to the roman, yet has sufficient character to be effectively used independently. The range of weights and widths available give Abadi a wide spectrum of graphic applications, from small quantities of text in magazines and newspapers, to display use in packaging, advertising and even television.

Red Tape is three fonts that were designed by sticking letters together with red tape. It makes for a wonderful makeshift set of fonts. And I really enjoyed sticking those letters together. Of course I did it on screen using bits and pieces of scanned red tape. Just use it as you like, I won't give you any red tape in how to use the fonts. »Red Tape« is since February 2012 on permanent display in the »German National Library« – next to the likes of »Bodoni«, »Garamond« and »Helvetica« – being part of the exhibition about type through the ages. Your (now a little famous) unproblematic type designer, Gert.

Although initially designed as a rational/geometric font, Triplex developed into one of Zuzana Licko's most intuitive typeface designs at the time. Its first extensive use was in Emigre magazine #14, a special issue devoted to Swiss designers published in 1990. Triplex was intended as a friendly substitute for Helvetica. The name Triplex refers to the three versions that make up the entire family; Triplex, Triplex Serif and Triplex Italic. Each version of the typeface comes in light, bold and extra bold. The italic was designed and drawn by type designer and sign painter John Downer, and was designed to work with both the serif and sans serif versions. See also Triplex Italic OT.

Annonce is a digitization and expansion of a 1912 Johannes Wagner Foundry classic called Aurora Grotesk, which also circulated later on in metal under the name Annonce. Bold, extended and clear as a bell, Annonce stood out as the definite big sign font long before the Helveticas of the world. With angled cuts on some of the letters, it also shows humanistic traits that make it more appealing than any other face in its genre. The Annonce set comes in two fonts, a regular and an italic, and includes a very large character set that accommodates almost all Latin-based languages, including Turkish, Baltic, Celtic, Maltese, Esperanto, and the languages of Central and Eastern Europe.

Eligra is a modern and elegant sans-serif typeface family inspired by old and new classics like Helvetica and Gotham. Its geometric and precise strokes create a versatile and timeless font. However, Eligra has unique features, like its subtle swirls and curves, that add a dash of personality while still maintaining the font's simplicity and clarity. Eligra has more than 800 glyphs, with a large set of Latin, Cyrillic and Greek characters, several alternates, and different styles of numerals. It is clean, clear, stable, and contemporary, making it a perfect choice for branding projects, websites, advertisements, documents, presentations or any other occasion where you want to convey evenness while maintaining a contemporary and innovative look.

Herokid is a grotesque style font, inspired by classic fonts like Helvetica, Impact and Univers, with a dynamic, versatile and flexible personality. It ranges from Thin to Heavy, and from UltraCompressed to UltraExpanded. It’s a huge family, with 96 variants adaptable to kinds of design projects providing flexibility for their creation. Consider Herokid your new workhorse, you will be able to generate high-impact headlines, subtitles and/or text; all with the same font family. The mixture of wide and condensed sets allows for versatile combinations and can give great movement to a design, while the regular weights can be used for text bodies. The heavier weights also stand out, with its very full shapes with small counterforms, ideal for big headlines.

Gabriel Sans is a font family inspired by the original Sans Serif fonts of the Transitional age like Futura and Grotesk, but with a modern twist. It is clean, elegant and straight-to-the-point. It has features similar to the classic Helvetica - like the endings of the capital C - but goes one step further. It also has a quadratic look, which makes it easily distinguishable and easy to use - the height is nearly as long as the width. It is professional and equally suited to your business or your personal lifestyle; it can be used in logotypes as well as in typeset text. It’s an all-purpose font offering the best of both worlds! Gabriel Sans comes in six weights, italic and normal.

The Neue Haas Unica™ family is an extended, reimagined version of the Haas Unica® design, a Helvetica® alternative that achieved near mythical status in the type community before it virtually disappeared. Originally released in 1980 by the Haas Type Foundry and designed by Team ’77 — André Gürtler, Erich Gschwind and Christian Mengelt— for phototypesetting technology of the day, the design was never successfully updated for today’s digital environments – until now. Toshi Omagari of Monotype Studio has given this classic a fresh, digital facelift with more weights, more languages and more letters to meet today’s digital and print needs. Available in 18 styles, the Neue Haas Unica family is remarkably appropriate for a wide range of applications, possessing a delicate gradation of weights and clear character shapes. The family's lighter weights are perfect for headlines and other large settings, as well as small blocks of copy at typical text sizes. The regular, medium and bold weights know no boundaries and the heavy and black designs are ideal for when typography needs to be powerful and commanding. Like the Neue Helvetica and Univers Next typefaces, the Neue Haas Unica family can be used just about anywhere – or for any project. In addition to its 9 tailored weights and complementary italics, the Neue Haas Unica family also possesses additional characters for Eastern and Central European, Greek and Cyrillic language support, which did not exist in the original design. A cosmopolitan typeface for today's modern, discerning design needs, the Neue Haas Unica collection is a new classic in the making—one that every designer should surely have at their disposal.

Kirshaw is not your grandfather's sans serif from the 1950s and 1960s. All those old classics like Helvetica, Futura, Franklin Gothic, and Univers are showing their age like an old Elvis Presley song. Kirshaw is a clean, rounded design with sharp contrasting edges. Like those classics, Kirshaw is easy to read in small body copy and captions, plus it's delightfully modern and stylish for headlines and logos. I designed Kirshaw and Kirkly while undergoing cancer treatment at Stanford Medical Center. Font design was always in the back of my mind and now I had extra time. Kirshaw is a distinctive, modern, easy-to-read sans serif family consists of 14 weights (including italics). It’s an Adobe Latin 3 Character Set containing 350 glyphs per style (including special characters).

The idea was to find common intersections between the humanistic and the neo-grotesque model of sans. This variable font offers everything from the world of sans serif in one place – a broad range of weights, adjustable contrast, and a lot of alternative glyphs. As a bonus, you can choose the “cold” or “warm” impact of the text. The Cosan Cold variant has closed apertures and minimal tension in the manner of Helvetica, and the Cosan Warm is open, more dynamic, and airy. Cosan is very suitable for a parallel bilingual setting, as both types are equivalent in their proportions and text color. Like Yin and Yang, each has a piece of the other in him. The Warm version is not totally dynamic, nor is the Cold version totally rigid.

The first versions of Nimbus Sans have been designed and digitized in the 1980s for the URW SIGNUS sign-making system. Highest precision of all characters (1/100 mm accuracy) as well as spacing and kerning were required because the fonts should be cut in any size in vinyl or other material used for sign-making. During this period three size ranges were created for text (T), the display (D) and poster (P) for small, medium and very large font sizes. In addition, we produced a so-called L-version that was compatible to Adobe’s PostScript version of Helvetica. Nimbus was also the product name of a URW-proprietary renderer for high quality and fast rasterization of outline fonts, a software provided to the developers of PostScript clone RIPs (Hyphen, Harlequin, etc.) back then.

TradaSans is a new addition in the range of Univers and Helvetica. It represents a fresh face in this ongoing strong category of sans serif typefaces. TradaSans slightly squarish tendency, and its technical and neutral look create an objective and factual appearance. TradaSans is an ideal typeface for universal use. It offers high reading qualities with longer text applications and its sophisticated design details make it a distinctive headline typeface. TradaSans consists of 20 well tuned weights and is well equipped for advanced typography. It comes in OpenType format with extended support for up to 80 languages. All weights contain small caps, ligatures, superior characters, proportional lining figures, tabular lining figures, proportional old style figures, lining old style figures, matching currency symbols, fraction- and scientific numerals, matching arrows and alternate characters.

Preface vs. Helvetica/Futura/Gill: a different strategy of text color. Whereas the established classes of sans serif typeface achieve a dynamic balance between stroke and space by combining a diversity of letterform with an evenness of fit, Preface switches the emphasis, driving out diagonals to create a dominant harmony of curves and perpendiculars, matched with a greater variety of inter-character space shapes—the result of extra width introduced in the “f” and “t”, and by the openness that accompanies the wide tails of the “ a” and “l”, the long ear of the “r”, and the serif of the “i”. En masse, and in keeping with the present trend in typography, Preface exhibits a coarser texture than the traditional sans serif faces, but one that is nonetheless even and precise. With tabular, oldstyle figures.

Tusker Grotesk is a headline typeface designed for robust and high-impact use. The initial inspiration for Tusker came from postwar typefaces like Haettenschweiler, Impact and Helvetica Inserat which use very high x-heights. Other influences in the condensed end of the Tusker family are old grotesques like Folio Extra Condensed and Stephenson Blake Elongated Sans No.1 with their flat terminals and closed-up apertures. Then as the widths in Tusker grow, the lettering takes some more inspiration from gothic style sans such as Inland Type's Title Gothic No.8, while maintaining the optical weight established in the narrow end of the family. Each width set is duplexed, stackable and is ideal for headlines, logos and bold attention-grabbing editorial design. Tusker has extended latin coverage ideal for western, central and eastern European languages.

Patika Typeface is a contemporary neo-grotesque font that combines modern aesthetics with functional legibility. Inspired by the timeless elegance of classic typefaces such as Helvetica, Futura, and Avant Garde, Patika offers a fresh take on the genre with its unique blend of clean lines, balanced proportions, and subtle details. Designed with utmost care and precision, Patika Typeface achieves a harmonious balance between width and height, particularly in its lowercase letters, ensuring optimal legibility across various sizes and applications. Its versatile nature makes it an ideal choice for a wide range of typographic needs, from eye-catching headlines to extensive blocks of text. Equipped with a comprehensive set of OpenType features, including alternative glyphs, fractions, arrows, ligatures, and more, Patika offers designers an array of tools to enhance their typographic compositions and add a touch of uniqueness to their designs.

Pragmatica Slabserif was designed as a complement to the popular type family Pragmatica by Vladimir Yefimov and Isabella Chaeva (1989-2004) by addition of square serifs. Inspired by Helserif (Phil Martin, 1978) which was formed in the same way by addition of square serifs to Helvetica (Eduard Hoffman and Max Miedinger, 1957). First sketches of Pragmatica Slabserif were created by Vladimir Yefimov in 1988 during development of Pragmatica. Olga Umpeleva designed the whole slabserif type family of six weights basing on those sketches. All styles of Pragmatica Slabserif coordinate with corresponding Pragmatica styles on metrics, proportions, weights and design. The new family can be used together with Pragmatica and separately. It’s convenient for technical texts, for magazines of general nature, for business applications as well as for advertising and display matter. Pragmatica Slabserif was released by ParaType in 2011.

Introducing Goga, a versatile sans serif family available in 10 weights from hairline to black. It is a typeface that combines the best of geometric sans serifs and neo-grotesques. It draws inspiration from typefaces like Avenir on the one hand and Helvetica on the other. Although Goga is a universal and neutral typeface, it is rather warmer and friendly in nature. If you want to add more juice to your project, you can do so by using unusual stylistic alternates of the lowercase g (hence the name Goga). Goga is a typeface suitable for both large sizes and smaller text, thanks to its large x-height. It contains Latin-extended character set, and thus supports most Latin languages. It also offers many open type features such as fractions, old-style figures, tabular figures, discretionary ligatures and more.

35-FTR was custom drawn specifically for the book Analogue Photography which required the timeless elegance of Futura and the compact utilitarian typesetting of Helvetica. It combines the best of both with the foundation of a geometric sans but the proportions and rhythm of the Swiss classic. The result is a versatile font that bridges the gap between information design and high-end sophistication. 35-FTR can effortlessly traverse the spectrum of friendly and approachable to aspirational exclusivity. This functional elegance excels in the bolder weights and is perfect for setting display and readable body copy. Version 2.1 includes refinements to the two-story "a" and "g", new superior and inferior figures and improved kerning for German text. Original features: 7 weights with obliques, open type features, European characters, symbols, transit icons, circled figures, old style figures, tabular figures, proportional figures fractions, arrows.

FranklinGothicHandLight is part of a series of hand-drawn fonts from way back in time – before computers changed the way we worked. When I was in advertising – before computers – a very time consuming part of my daily work was sketching headlines. I used to be able to sketch headlines in Franklin Gothic, Times, Futura, Helvetica and several scripts. We had a kind of huge inverted camera – which we called Lucy. We projected the alphabet onto a sheet of transparent paper, outlined the letters with a fineliner and then filled them in. It was very tedious work, but the resulting headline had its own charm and we had a permanent race going on who was best and fastest. I won most of the time! They used to call me the fastest "Magic Marker" this side of the Atlantic. Great days, just like today! Your sentimental type designer from the past Gert Wiescher

In the late 1990s Gerard Unger won the assignment to design the signage system for the Holy Year celebrations to be held in Rome in 2000. The system he developed in cooperation with the design agency n|p|k used a classically inspired serif typeface, but the earlier proposals included a sans-serif, which became Vesta (2001). Vesta is a versatile family that can be used as a display face alongside Unger's serif faces Gulliver, Capitolium or Coranto; it can also be used on its own, even in longer texts. Vesta is narrower and therefore more economical than some commonly used sans serifs such as Arial and Helvetica; there is also a noticeable contrast between thick and thin parts, which makes it more lively. Vesta is to be extended with narrow versions, small capitals and old style numerals, along with some special versions for headlines.

FranklinGothicHandDemi is part of a series of hand-drawn fonts from way back in time – before computers changed the way we worked. When I was in advertising – before computers – a very time consuming part of my daily work was sketching headlines. I used to be able to sketch headlines in Franklin Gothic, Times, Futura, Helvetica and several scripts. We had a kind of huge inverted camera – which we called Lucy. We projected the alphabet onto a sheet of transparent paper, outlined the letters with a fineliner and then filled them in. It was very tedious work, but the resulting headline had its own charm and we had a permanent race going on who was best and fastest. I won most of the time! They used to call me the fastest "Magic Marker" this side of the Atlantic. Great days, just like today! Your sentimental type designer from the past Gert Wiescher

The Nixt Font Family is a new font with currently seven styles. As an alternative to Helvetica, Arial, Gill Sans, Futura, & Gotham, Nixt has a similar design aesthetic to those aforementioned in that its design, structure, and feel crosses decades of appeal. From Mid-Century, through the stark '60s, decades of succeeding modern architecture through the turn of the 21st Century, Nixt's glyphs are timeless, clear, ultra-legible in all styles and weights. Best use in Advertising, Branding, Signage, Architecture, Fashion, Posters, Headlines, and By-Lines, Print & Digital, and of course Labels. There are currently, at first release, 7 Styles: Extra Light, Light, Regular, Italic, Book, Bold, & Extra Bold. There are more in process and will be added when completed. The inspiration behind the Nixt Fonts is the Bauhaus, Mid Century Industrial Design, Art Deco through Moderne Era Architecture, American Pottery and American Design of The Twentieth Century.

EXCLUSIVE! Read all about it! The latest scoop from Comicraft is sure to be in all the newspapers today! The Times are a changin' -- comic book letterers everywhere can say a font farewell to typesetting the front pages of Planets and Bugles in Helvetica, Verdana or Gill Sans! Superhero's Pal, Johnny "Roshell" Olsen, was up all night writing copy for the late-night edition, making sure that your newspaper headlines and copy have a warm, pen lettered look... some might say a Rosen-glow! Put a little Extra Extra in your bylines and maybe there's a Pulitzer and an Eisner in your future! Not ready to purchase? Get ExtraExtra Engraved free with any purchase, or by subscribing to our newsletter at the bottom of this page. Features Seven fonts (Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Heavy, Heavy Italic & Engraved) with upper and lower case alphabets.

FranklinGothicHandCond is another part of a series of hand-drawn fonts from way back in time – before computers changed the way we worked in advertising. When I was in advertising – before computers – a very time consuming part of my daily work was sketching headlines. I used to be able to sketch headlines in Franklin Gothic, Times, Futura, Helvetica and several scripts. We had a kind of huge inverted camera – which we called Lucy. We projected the alphabet onto a sheet of transparent paper, outlined the letters with a fineliner and then filled them in. It was very tedious work, but the resulting headline had its own charm and we had a permanent race going on who was best and fastest. I won most of the time! They used to call me the fastest "Magic Marker" this side of the Atlantic. Great days, just like today! Your sentimental type designer from the past, Gert Wiescher.

Basic Commercial is a family of fonts based on historical designs from the hot metal type era. First appearing around 1900, these designs were created by type designers whose names have not been recorded, but whose skills cannot be overlooked. These typefaces were popular among groups and movements as diverse as the Bauhaus, Dadaism, and the masters of Swiss/International-Style typography. They influenced a variety of later grotesque fonts, such as Helvetica and Univers. Basic Commercial was distributed for many years in the United States under the name Standard Series. The typeface worked its way into many aspects of daily life and culture; for instance, it became the face chosen for use in the New York City subway system’s signage. The Basic Commercial family members have a clear and objective design. Their forms exhibit almost nothing unusual, but remain both lively and legible nonetheless. Perhaps for this reason, Basic Commercial’s design has been popular with graphic designers for decades.

FranklinGothicHandBold is another part of a series of hand-drawn fonts from way back in time – before computers changed the way we worked in advertising. When I was in advertising – before computers – a very time consuming part of my daily work was sketching headlines. I used to be able to sketch headlines in Franklin Gothic, Times, Futura, Helvetica and several scripts. We had a kind of huge inverted camera – which we called Lucy. We projected the alphabet onto a sheet of transparent paper, outlined the letters with a fineliner and then filled them in. It was very tedious work, but the resulting headline had its own charm and we had a permanent race going on who was best and fastest. I won most of the time! They used to call me the fastest "Magic Marker" this side of the Atlantic. Great days, just like today! Your sentimental type designer from the past Gert Wiescher

The award-winning Scala family (1990-1993) is a worldwide bestseller and has established itself as a ‘classic’ among digital fonts. It was one of the first serious digital text fonts to support small caps, ligatures and different set of numbers. In fact Scala and Scala Sans (1990-1993) are two workhorse-like typefaces sharing a common form principle: the skeletons of both Scala and Scala Sans are identical, therefore they can be combined perfectly. Where many of the modern sans serifs (like Helvetica and Univers) have rather ‘closed’ letter shapes, the same elements in Scala Sans are much more ‘open’. This greatly improves legibility, especially in the smaller point sizes. The italic of Scala Sans is not a slanted version of the roman, but rather a ‘real’ italic. Another part of Scala is very popular among its users: Scala Hands, containing more than one hundred decorative hands and pointers, is included in the Scala fonts and is a free bonus.

Linotype Projekt was created by German type designer Andreas Koch with both a well-defined inspiration and goal. It occurred to me that typefaces like Helvetica and Univers seemed to have a higher quality in hot-metal composition as with modern digital typesetting. They are stronger and livelier. This is in part due to the printing process, which presses the characters onto paper, and in part to the forms of the letters, which differ from the PostScript version of the same typeface. An important aspect of printing is the slight increase in character width resulting from the pressure which also serves as an optical correction to the forms. (True exact squares appear slightly barrel-formed to the eye.) I wanted to revive this peculiarity, not because of a nostalgic feeling, rather just because it is more attractive." The result is Linotype Projekt, a text font which is harmonious, clear and extremely legible. Koch lives in Bielefeld, Germany, and is a freelance book and type designer."

Coolvetica is a sans-serif typeface, inspired by logotypes from the 1970s. This was an era where everyone was modifying Helvetica—not only logo designers but even font designers were into outlandish Helvetica mods. Phototype catalogs were loaded with playful variations of the already ubiquitous typeface. Coolvetica recreates that retro custom display lettering style with extra-tight kerning and funky curls. But don’t let the vintage feel fool you—Coolvetica is a true display typeface that’s ready to make a statement. Condensed, compressed, and crammed styles all use a flat-sided approach, an old-school strategy that’s rarely seen today. And with mathematical symbols, OpenType fractions, and numeric ordinals, this typeface is as versatile as it is stylish. So why settle for a dull typeface when you can stand out with Coolvetica? Try it out for your next project and see the difference a little typographical flair can make. Most Latin-based European, Vietnamese, Greek, and most Cyrillic-based writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Buryat, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dungan, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Gikuyu, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaingang, Khalkha, Kalmyk, Kanuri, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kazakh, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Komi-Permyak, Kurdish, Kurdish (Latin), Kyrgyz, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Macedonian, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Nahuatl, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Russian, Rusyn, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tajik, Tatar, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Uzbek (Latin), Venda, Venetian, Vepsian, Vietnamese, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xavante, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec, Zarma, Zazaki, Zulu and Zuni.

A rounded slab in 4 styles In our age, since the arrival of microcomputing, the majority of professional letters have been composed in quality typefaces. Typewriters & the typestyles they used have become antiques. A letter set in Times or Helvetica & printed with a laser printer at 600 dpi or more are of such quality that one can no longer distinguish it with a document produced by offset printing. But letters composed in this way appear overly institutional when a bit of informality is needed. Le Monde Courrier, designed by Jean François Porchez, attempts to re-establish a style halfway between writing and printing. Informal neo-tech style This rounded slab serif returns the informal character of “typewritten” fonts to letters and suit well all bad conditions, from inkjet printed memos to webfonts use. With a unique typographic colour, it integrate itself with the rest of the Le Monde family with effective contrast. The verticals metrics and proportions of Le Monde Courrier are calibrated to match perfectly others Typofonderie families. Bukva:raz 2001 Type Directors Club .44 1998 European Design Awards 1998

Recta was one of Aldo Novarese’s earliest contributions to the massive surge of the European sans serif genre that was booming in the middle of the 20th century. Initially published just one year after Neue Haas Grotesk came out of Switzerland and Univers out of France, and at a time when Akzidenz Grotesk and DIN were riding high in Germany and Gill Sans was making waves in Great Britain, it was intended to compete with all of those foundry faces, and later came to be known as the “Italian Helvetica”. It maintains traditional simplicity as its high point of functionality, while showing minimal infusion of humanistic traits. It shows that the construct of the grotesk does not have to be rigid, and can indeed have a touch of Italian flair. While the original Recta family lacked a proper suite of weights and widths, this digital version comes in five weights, corresponding italics, four condensed fonts, and small caps in four weights. It also includes a wide-ranging character set for extended Latin language support.

The first versions of Nimbus Sans have been designed and digitized in the 1980s for the URW SIGNUS sign-making system. Highest precision of all characters (1/100 mm accuracy) as well as spacing and kerning were required because the fonts should be cut in any size in vinyl or other material used for sign-making. During this period three size ranges were created for text (T), the display (D) and poster (P) for small, medium and very large font sizes. In addition, we produced a so-called L-version that was compatible to Adobe’s PostScript version of Helvetica. Nimbus was also the product name of a URW-proprietary renderer for high quality and fast rasterization of outline fonts, a software provided to the developers of PostScript clone RIPs (Hyphen, Harlequin, etc.) back then. Also in the 80s, a new, improved version of the Nimbus Sans, namely Nimbus Sans Novus was designed. Nimbus Sans Novus was conceptually developed entirely with URW’s IKARUS system, i.e. all styles harmonize perfectly with each other in terms of line width, weight, proportions, etc. On top of that, Nimbus Sans Novus contains more styles than Nimbus Sans.

London-based designer David Quay designed ITC Quay Sans in 1990. One of the precursors to the long run of functionalist European sans serif faces that has been a dominating force in type design since the 1990s, ITC Quay sans is based on the proportions of 19th Century Grotesk faces. Grotesk, the German word for sans serif, defines an entire branch of the sans serif movement, which culminated in the 1950s with the design of Helvetica. ITC Quay Sans is made up of very simple, legible letters. The weights of the strokes throughout the alphabet vary very little. Microscopic flares on the ends of each terminal add a bit of dimension to the design. This helps prevent the onset of the monotony, a danger when one repeats countless near mono-weight stroked letters throughout a large body of text. ITC Quay Sans is a very readable face; it works equally well in all sizes. Six fonts of the ITC Quay Sans typeface are available: Book, Book Italic, Medium, Medium Italic, Black, and Black Italic. ITC Quay Sans is similar to Hans Eduard Meier's Syntax, and Tim Ahrens' Linotype Aroma."

For over 30 years, Tomás Vellvé created beautiful graphics and distinctive typefaces in his native homeland of Spain. First drawn as a phototype display design in 1971, Vellvé’s only typeface in digital form is an uncommon solution to the problem of creating a new sans serif design. The end result, which bears his name, is a design that stands out from the crowd of other sans serif typefaces. The phototype version was only available in a single, light weight. With the release of the digital fonts, however, three additional weights as well as a companion italic for the light weight were created.The typeface designs were originally drawn for Agfa Monotype (now Monotype Imaging) in 1996 as part of the company’s “Creative Alliance” initiative. Through an exclusive licensing arrangement, the Vellvé™ family has now been added to the ITC Typeface Library.ITC Vellvé is a wide design with strong calligraphic overtones. This is no “anonymous” design like so many modern sans. Letters like the `R, `e and `s clearly show the hand of Tomás Vellvé in the design process. Vellvé provides a fresh choice between geometric sans serifs such as Helvetica® and industrial sans serifs like Futura®.

CastleType was commissioned in 1991 by San Francisco Focus magazine to digitize three members of the Standard family. This is a Continental lineale that was popular in Switzerland in the 1950s and later in the United States. A cousin to the classic sans serifs, Standard is an alternative that is considerably warmer and a bit more idiosyncratic. In 2008, CastleType released additional members of the Standard CT family to make it a complete typographic solution with three widths (normal, condensed, extended) of four weights each (Regular, Medium, Bold, and Extra Bold). Some of the original Standard fonts, particularly Standard Regular, appear to have been hastily designed (or perhaps too closely imitated Helvetica); these have been greatly improved in the CastleType versions with more harmonious proportions and other refinements. The three lighter weights of the Extended subfamily were designed from scratch based on the new Standard CT Regular and Standard CT Extended Extra Bold. More recently, four light weights (Light, Extra Light, Ultra Light, and Hairline) have been added to each of the three widths. The entire Standard CT family includes support for most European languages, OpenType features, arbitrary fractions, and a collection of geometrics, dingbats & fleurons.

Basic Commercial is a font based on historical designs from the hot metal typeface era. It first appeared around 1900, and was created by type designers whose names have not been recorded but whose skills cannot be overlooked. This typeface's design has been popular among groups and movements as diverse as the Bauhaus, Dadaism, and the masters of Swiss/International-Style typography. It influenced for a variety of later grotesque fonts, such as Helvetica and Univers. Basic Commercial was distributed for many years in the United States under the name Standard Series. The typeface worked its way into many aspects of daily life and culture; for instance, it became the face chosen for use in the New York City subway system's signage. The Basic Commercial's font family members have a clear and objective design. Their forms exhibit almost nothing unusual, but remain both lively and legible nonetheless. Perhaps for this reason, Basic Commercial's design has been popular with graphic designers for decades. To read more about the history of typefaces like Basic Commercial, visit our font feature, The Sans Serif Typefaces. In addition several weights of this typefamily are available as soft rounded versions."

Ionic No5 is a refresh of a classic Linotype Clarendon-style serif, another restored classic from the Monotype library, much like the recent updates to Walbaum and Helvetica Now. The original typeface was designed to be printed and read at small sizes, popular with newspapers in the 20th Century at its birth. The restoration and refinement of this typeface has bestowed a greater sense of clarity and directness, smartly stylish, and an utterly captivating appeal. Because these styles were so popular for books and newspapers for so long we associate them with being editorial or bookish, not dull, but thoughtful. Designers today can use that association to their advantage as a visual shortcut to convey similar meaning and tone. More attention was given on modernising the typeface with precious use and the introduction of sharp edges & finishes. The thinnest weights can give a dancing typewriter aesthetic, being low stroke contrast. The heavy weights have an unquestionable presence on the page. Overall, the typeface has a richness and almost illustrative quality about it. The true depth of Ionic No.5 could enable each weight to be a poster by itself. Ionic N°5™ font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

New York to London via Europe The hardworking FS Koopman is a crossbred workhorse which draws inspiration from Swiss and Germanic grotesks, American gothics and early British grotesques, but refuses to fit neatly into any of these categories. Its neither one nor the other, but all of the above. Fontsmith designers Andy Lethbridge and Stuart de Rozario decided to take the characteristics they admired from each category and distill them down into one functional family. Neo meets Neue FS Koopman aims to swim against the tide of Helvetica-ish derivatives by bringing some personality and soul to a genre that all too often ends up feeling bland and sterile. FS Koopman subtly embraces the quirkiness and charm often seen in early twentieth century designs but pairs this with the functionality of later pioneers of the genre. It’s a grotesque isn’t it? The term grotesque surfaced around the early 1800s and refers to the early sans serif designs that many initially believed were strange or ‘grotesque’ due to their lack of elegant serifs. Later variations became known as neo-grotesques and this moniker stuck around even after they gained mass popularity. Some American variants became known as gothics. FS Koopman takes cues from all three categories and blends them into one cohesive design.