Franciszek Otto of Poland designed Linotype Notec in 1999. Linotype Notec is a low-tech" (or even "no tech!") typeface. By embracing handwriting's spontaneity, it has gotten as far away from technology as it can. Classified as an "inky"-style script face, for lack of a better term, Linotype Notec's informal design seems immediately artful and full of expression. Its irregularity and unexpectedness enlivens any composition, similar to how jazz or modern dance animate a room. Quite full of "ink," Linotype Notec's "strokes" are written in a sort of short-note-handwriting-style, which a slow-writing, thoughtful humanist might theoretically scribble to himself late at night. Yet Linotype Notec's character still maintains a jolt of energy; try Linotype Notec in small applications, in any size from 12-point on up."

Before 1959, in pre-Castro Havana, Cuba, the preeminent nightclub was the Tropicana. During the regime of Fulgencio Batista, Cuba was resplendent with nightclubs and gambling casinos catering to [mostly] the North American tourists; which brought it the title of the Monte Carlo of the Americas. Although Cuba (and the world as a whole) has changed vastly over the decades, the hand-lettered logo of the Tropicana Night Club has survived, and has been reproduced as a complete digital font called Tropicano JNL (a slight twist to the club's name). At first the font seems to be awkward, crude and amateurish, but in taking a second look, there's a playful charm to it. Additionally, this font can double as a "spooky" font for the Halloween season, monster parties and in other similar themes.

Nosegrind is a bit of a departure from our usual more traditional font offerings. It's based on skate-culture graffiti gleaned from various samples of similar style found on walls in Austin and online. The font includes two character sets, one which is plain and one which is enhanced with outlines. In normal usage the characters should nest, with slight overlap from one character to the next as shown in the sample to the right, but the lower case characters in the font are spaced evenly but not pre-nested, leaving the degree of overlap up to the user - nesting is easily adjusted with the tracking option in programs like Photoshop, Quark or InDesign. Ultimately Nosegrind will be added to our Modern Fonts collection, where it ought to fit in nicely.

Introducing Megatropolis : intellectual, architectural, urban and urbane. What started as an idea where the counters would be letters (3 scribbled glyphs on a piece of scrap paper), has grown into a mighty font family of eight stackable fonts. First came Megatropolis itself, a Deco font within a Deco font; Double Deco, you might say. In Illustrator, you can deconstruct it to make solid letters, outline letters or just the inset letters on their own, and you can stack them how you wish. Or you can get the whole Megatropolis family with Black , Outline , Inset , Smog , Shade and Shade with Inset and keep them all separate stackable, editable fonts. In addition, there’s Megatropolis Benday (available in TT only), with its fabulous stackable comic dots. Megatropolis is a typographer’s playground.

Although ITC Styleboy has a retro feel, it isn't based on any earlier typeface. As far as inspiration goes," says designer Chester Wajda, "I'd have to say comic strips of the '20s and '30s, and silent-film marquee lettering from the '20s - with a hint of a Chinese brush?" He originally created the typeface for a children's book he was working on. "I wanted it to be fun, but still somewhat formal in its underlying structure," he says. "It's largely based on right and 45-degree angles, with slight tucks inward on the stems and bowls, and a few flourishes here and there." Styleboy's top-heavy look is most noticeable in the caps, but it's exaggerated too in the "8" and the lowercase "g." Styleboy is Wajda's first typeface design."

Scharf is a sturdy serif of eight weights with matching true italics. Accurate serif details are carefully drawn to allow improvements to readability and further enhance the fonts' fluid and dynamic personality. This extensive type system is purposefully suited for editorial design and complex typographic hierarchy. Details include eight weights with matching true italics, over 950 characters per font with alternative lowercase a, e, g and y, eight variations of numerals, true small caps with accents, discretionary ligatures and language support covering Western, South and Central European and Vietnamese.