The story of Scripps College Old Style is a heart-warming and inspiring chronicle about a young librarian, a handful of students, a wealthy grandmother, a dedicated educator -- and two eminent American type designers. The story begins in 1938, when Dorothy Drake, the newly hired librarian at Scripps College, a small women's college in southern California, became an impromptu dinner companion of the American type designer Fred Goudy. By the 1990s, the original fonts that Goudy had created for Scripps College in the 1940s had become prized -- but they were seldom-used antiques. Scripps needed digital versions of the metal fonts. This goal posed two immediate challenges: finding a designer familiar with letterpress printing who was skilled at creating digital fonts, and locating the money to commission the designer's services. The first challenge was the easiest to conquer. Sumner Stone was my first and only choice," recalls Kitty Maryatt, the current curator of the Scripps College Press. "I knew he had letterpress experience, was an accomplished calligrapher, and that his typeface designs were simply exquisite. The choice was easy."The second challenge was more difficult. It took the dedication, hard work and tenacity of Maryatt to bring the beautiful Goudy designs into the twenty-first century. While Stone was eager to begin work on the project, the college had no more money for new typeface designs in the 1990s than it did in the1930s. Years of lobbying, cajoling and letter writing were necessary to obtain the college's approval for the design project. Once she had the necessary funding, the design brief posed yet a third challenge. Goudy had provided two sizes of type to the Press: 14 point and 16 point. Which would serve as the foundation for Stone's work? In addition, the Goudy fonts were quite worn. Should Stone use printed samples as his design master, or base his work on the original Goudy renderings? The 14-point master drawings were the ultimate choice, with the stipulation that the finished fonts would provide both a seamless transition from the worn metal versions and a faithful representation of the original Goudy designs. Once the budget and design brief were established, the process of converting the original Goudy drawings into digital fonts took just a little over two months. Stone delivered finished products to Scripps in the fall of 1997. The first official use of the fonts was to set an announcement for a lecture by Stone at Scripps in February of 1998. But the story is not quite finished. Maryatt was so pleased with the new digital fonts, she wanted to share them with the graphic design community. At Stone's suggestion, she contacted Monotype Imaging with the hope that the company would add the new designs to its library. An easy decision! Now Monotype Imaging is part of the story. We are proud to announce the release of Scripps College Old Style as a Monotype Classic font. The once exclusive font of metal type is now available in digital form for designers around the world. "

Although Andi AW. Masry designed his Coomeec typeface with one eye on comic books, this is more than just another cartoon font. Even in our short profile of the font below, we're sure you'll find enough to be surprised by the calligraphic aesthetic and the wide range of potential uses of Coomeec. Typography had been one of Andy AW. Masry's hobbies before he turned professional in 2008 and formed his own agency in Jakarta in Indonesia. The former construction engineer had already spent many hours of his leisure time in following his pastimes of designing, photography and Latin typography. Fascinated by the close interaction between text and image in comic books, one of his first projects was the development of his font Coomeec™. The condensed letters of Coomeec seem to have more in common with a calligraphic brush typeface than a more conventional cartoon font. With the characteristic line forms of a brush font, the not unextensive variations in line thickness and numerous small embellishments to the glyphs, Coomeec can be used to enhance your projects with animated effects. You can achieve this not just in the larger font sizes; the font is also very legible in small sizes thanks to its large x-height. There are certain unusual letter forms, such as that of lowercase 'g', 's' and uppercase 'Y', that provide Coomeec with a touch of the exotic. As Coomeec has numerous character alternatives, you can use it not only to create diverse designs but also to ring the changes with the character of the text itself. There are variants for most lowercase letters, some of which exhibit only minor differences, such as the lack of a curlicue on the 'b', a modified downstroke on the 'h' and an elongated base for the 'k'. In the case of other letters, such as the 'q' and the 'r', there are significant disparities between variants. The uppercase characters are also available in a lively swash style with significantly extended terminals. Among the range of characters of Coomeec are oldstyle and lining figures designed for proportional and tabular setting. All alternatives are available in the form of the corresponding OpenType versions. Coomeec comes in two weights; Regular and Bold, each with its Italic version. The form of the slightly inclined Italic characters is identical to that of their upright counterparts with the exception of the lowercase 'f', which has an ascender in its Italic version. As an OpenType Pro font, the glyphs available for Coomeec ensure that it can be used to set not only western European but also central European texts. Coomeec is not just at home when used to set headlines. The excellent legibility of this individual and vibrant typeface means that it's also ideal for setting shorter texts. The various alternative letters provide the designer with the opportunity to vary the textual appearance, and to choose between creating a more formal or more light-hearted effect. Coomeec is not only available in an OpenType version but is also obtainable as a web font, so that you can employ its exotic features to good effect when creating internet pages.

While throned before your keys, under your drumming fingers awaits the most astounding standard computer typeface ever devised: BuGlobal. In addition to all the usual alphanumeric characters and symbols, this lone font lets you type more than 400 accented letters appearing in more than 80 English-variant languages worldwide, 70 common math and science symbols, and dozens of other useful characters —more than half a thousand all told— all within the digital parameters of one standard computer typeface, without needing any alternate keyboards or other clumsy digital luggage. Here is a sample: You can add any accent appearing in more than 80 English-variant languages used around the world to any letter appearing in all these languages simply by typing ANY letter then the accent. This includes more than 400 diacritic-laden letters in all —without needing to remember several keystrokes to type any of these letters as a few of them appear in standard computer typefaces. You can type more than 50 math/science symbols that do not appear in standard computer typefaces. These new symbols include several kinds of arrows plus constants, centerlines, dimensions, and graphs and scales that when retyped create continuous scales and graphs. Common symbols such as ballot boxes, rating stars, checkboxes, hearts, fancy fleurons, and similar motifs that do not appear in standard computer typefaces. Dozens of flashy arabesques like ========= [in BuGlobal these equal signs are kerned together so when you type them you create a continuous double line]. In this typeface more than 30 symbols that never appear twice in a row are kerned together so when you continuously type them you create all kinds of flashy arabesques that will make your typing more attractive. No other standard compute typeface allows you to do this. As for Beauty, BuGlobal’s characters are designed according to several axioms of ocular perception until each profile is as iconically simple as Shaker furniture. These axioms make BuGlobal’s letters easier to read compared to other typefaces, and a few of them are: Each letter should look much like the others but for one defining detail. The letters should be as similarly wide as possible. The letters’ midbars should be the same height and thickness. The higher the lowercase letters are compared to capital letters, the more legible and easily readable are their texts. BuGlobal has a typeface user’s guide, titled A Lovely Face, in which a description of each ocular axiom compares BuGlobal with Baskerville, Georgia, Palatino, and other commonly-used standard computer typefaces so you can quickly see why the other typefaces are inferior. You can download a pdf file of this typeface user’s guide, for free, at BuGlobal’s website, butlerfontforge.com, at any time so you can learn all about BuGlobal’s many amazingly new features before possibly buying it. BuGlobal’s plain letters are perfect for texts, its italics are gracefully emphatic, its bolds are ideal for titles and headers, and its arabesques are a fancy way to make your texts look dressy —all of which will add more shimmer to your semantic plumage. One good typeface is more useful than an infinity of poor ones. Robert Bringhurst

After my son was born, I found myself reading him a lot of books. A LOT of books. Some were good, some were great, but I found myself wanting to develop something using my skills and interests to make something that only I could make. In short, I realized my son needed to be indoctrinated—I mean, introduced into the wonderfully wild world of fonts. So, I set about to make a board book to teach about typography, called “The Clothes Letters Wear.” You can learn more about the book here. I’ve made the captivating illustrations bright and colorful, and the use of different letter forms makes for a fascinating read to delight ages young and young at heart. And, as an added bonus, this children’s book has a custom designed font. I’m always looking for an excuse to design a new font, and this book created the perfect alibi. Drum roll, please. I now give you … Cabrito (“little goat” en Español). This new serif typeface incorporates the latest research on typographic legibility for children, features to make it—well, extra legible. A little background: studies show that Bookman Old Style is one of the most readable typefaces, and as a consequence or perhaps the reason why, it is used thoroughly for children’s books. This font became my initial inspiration for the typeface. Then, I found more legibility research saying that (brace yourselves) Comic Sans is also very legible for beginning readers, much due to the large x-height and softer, easily recognizable forms. In addition, forms that are closer to handwriting also seem to be more legible. Once I threw all that into my cauldron and stewed it a bit, the result was a pleasantly rounded typeface that includes not-so-strictly geometric, handwriting-inspired forms for the b, d, p, and q. Es guapo! Cabrito’s slender weights are simple and fun, with extras that turn any “bah humbug” into a smile. Add lighter touches to your project with the typeface’s included sparkles or rainbows (not included). Splash a little more color on the page with the firmer look of the thicker weights. Cabrito’s upright variations across all weights are matched by optically altered italics, too, giving you even more variety with the font family. This modern typeface’s bundle of alternates can be accessed in any OpenType-enabled software. The fashionable options involve a significant team of alternates, swashes, and meticulously refined aspects with ball terminals and alternate titling caps to decorate the font. Also bundled are swash alternates, old style figures, and small caps. Peruse the PDF brochure to check out these options in motion. OpenType-enabled applications like the Adobe suite or Quark allows comprehensive control of ligatures and alternates. This font family also provides the glyphs to aid a variety of languages. Cabrito is a welcoming, everyday font family by Jeremy Dooley. Use it to convey warmth and friendliness on anything from candy and food packages to children’s toys, company IDs or run-of-the-mill promotional material. Cabrito’s unique appearance and high legibility make it equally at home in print as it is on a screen.

A common creation: (to pass from one hand to the other): For the first time, various hand-signs from diverse sources are unified into one single visual style. This compendium is the result of 15 years of incubation and 7 years of creation. In his travels throughout the world, graphic designer Jean-Benoit Levy, principal of the visual studio AND, has collected pictures of multiple hand signage. Uncertain what to do with those signs, he kept them year after year until the idea came to unify almost 200 handsigns into one single family. In accordance with this entire collection, the name of the typeface is a mix: "h-and-s". A global collection: (To put in good hands): We all have one thing in common: Hand-signs are an international language, they are meant to be understood by all of us. Each of us regularly comes in contact with modern hieroglyphs such as the hand-sign-codes that are so prevalent in our daily life. This way of communication belongs to no one in particular and to all of us in general. Even if the sense of certain signs varies from one culture to the other, there is a common hand-sign language. We are surrounded by this language of handsigns each time we step in a store, we eat, open a container of milk, we clean up, use package of wash-powder, by shaving, when we work, use tools, at home, by tearing the envelope of a condom, by traveling, etc. When we encounter these signs, we all understand them easily. A visual connection: (To go hand in hand): This typeface is a global visual statement. Collecting, ordering, redrawing, unifying. Reconstructed and assembled into one original alphabet, H-AND-S is a unique and complex signs program. Our choice is based on daily gestures and global hand-codes. Logically this typeface starts with the "American Sign Language" and expands on two type-variations, each on two levels of keyboard. The international team of H-AND-S would like to send his special thanks to all of the anonymous graphic designers throughout the world who designed different hand-signage and who influenced and inspired to create such a sign collection into one unified family. We, the global nomad team of AND, hope that you will enjoy our H-AND-S. Additional Credits Production: Studio AND. www.and.ch. Concept, Idea & Creative Direction: Jean-Benoît Lévy, Switzerland / USA. Research & Sketches: Eva Schubert, Germany. Illustration, Graphic Design & Visual Fusion: Diana Stoen, USA. Transfer, Adaptation & Refining: Moonkyung Choi, Korea. Finalization & Checking: Sylvestre Lucia, Switzerland. Coaching & Technical Advice: Mike Kohnke, USA. Creative Energy & Implementation: Joachim Müller-Lancé, Germany / USA.