ITC Kendo is the work of British designer Phill Grimshaw, suggesting the dash and verve of quick, sketchy calligraphy, complete with splatters of ink. Grimshaw says he worked deliberately against his own habits to create the forms, drawing the letters with slow deliberation" and a pointed pen. He overloaded the pen with ink and drew on rough paper, "applying a lot of pressure at the beginning of a stroke and easing off towards the terminals. Accidental splashes occurred frequently owing to the nib catching the 'tooth' of the paper." Those splashes were refined into features which enhance but do not overwhelm the characters and carefully worked so as not to leave an obvious white strip of unsplattered space between lines and letters. The initial capitals can be used alone or combined with the lowercase alphabet, and the font includes a full set of f-ligatures and some extra ligatures as well as decorative elements."

Roswell was designed by Jim Parkinson, who acknowledges the 'spacey' ancestry of its name. Yes, Roswell, New Mexico. There was a big anniversary of 'the incident' in the news while I was designing in Roswell. "The incident" is of course the alleged UFO crash in Roswell. "I thought the name was acceptable as a serious font name, while, on another level, having a strangely humorous edge," says Parkinson. Roswell looks great in large sizes on a poster or in a magazine layout. It started out as "a variation on American gothic forms like Railroad Gothic", says the designer, but Roswell is an original design with eccentricities of its own."

ITC Fontoon was designed by Steve Zafarana of the Galápagos Design Group in 1995. Along with ITC Fontoonies and ITC Gargoonies from the same designers, it is the perfect text font for cartoons and comics. Slight irregularities in stroke contrast and basic forms distinguish ITC Fontoon and make it look like printed handwriting. It has an individual and consciously naive character and its high x-height makes it legible even in smaller point sizes. ITC Fontoon is best used for short texts and headlines.

Some words from the designer... The bold, playful element is everything in ITC Surfboard. West coast designer Teri Kahan was inspired by California's surfing lifestyle, and the letters of this alphabet dance along the writing line. The vitality of ITC Surfboard comes from the tension between its very free shapes and the precise edges and angles that create them. This all-capital font has deliberately tight spacing and works best in large sizes. Also included are fun, abstract surf/sail graphics.

ITC Dartangnon is a work of English designer Nick Cooke and began with the thought, It's a long shot but it might just work as a font." It started as a doodle with a chunky pencil. "So many script fonts look too stylized so I thought I'd try to produce one that looks more like handwriting." He scanned the doodles and used Fontographer to draw a set of monoline letters. "Working quickly I soon drew the whole alphabet, and without being too pedantic about the characters joining exactly, I arrived at this script." ITC Dartangnon is an energetic font which remains legible even in small point sizes. And, Cooke adds, "It is supposed to be used as upper and lowercase only, NEVER just caps.""

ITC Stoclet is the work of British designer Phill Grimshaw, an offshoot of the research and experimentation which led to the development of ITC Rennie Mackintosh. It is a condensed, angular typeface, and its sharp angles, swooping curves and long forms are reminiscent of Art Nouveau. The font includes a number of alternative characters which enhance its flexibility. ITC Stoclet is ideal for large, ornamental designs as well as short blocks of text.

Timothy Donaldson creates letterforms anywhere using anything: he is just as happy making letters with pens and brushes, many of which he makes himself. Applying his personal commitment to the beauty of hand-drawn letterforms to modern type design methods has ensured that his fonts frequently reveal the presence of a joyful creativity behind the design. Airstreams alphabet is composed of consciously irregular handwriting characters and the overall tone is set by the emphasized vertical strokes. The erratic Airstream with its cheerful, unconventional character is intended for shorter texts and headlines and should be used in point sizes 10 and larger.

Looking for something new for setting powerful headlines? Need a font that can create logos with ease? How about something masculine, a design with authority and panache? Then ITC’s newest typeface, ITC Sportbet™, may be the perfect choice. ITC Sportbet is a design that should be set tight, creating an arresting graphic image as well as words. Although a capital-only typeface, it benefits from a large suite of alternate characters that enable individual words and headlines to be customized with a distinctive personality. In addition to the obvious power of ITC Sportbet’s square-jawed character shapes, it’s fun to use. Exchange one or two letters with their alternative designs and a brand new headline or logo appears. ITC Sportbet was designed by Dane Wilson, the principal of the London-based design firm of Dane Design. Although this is his first commercial typeface design, Wilson has ample experience creating logos and custom typefaces for corporate branding. In fact, Sportbet grew out of such a project. “The idea initially came from wanting to provide a client with a stylish, modern and graphically impactful corporate identity logo font,” recalls Wilson. “Although the first sketches looked promising as a typeface, because of time and budget constraints, developing an entire alphabet would be overambitious.” Not to be deterred, Wilson continued to work on the design when time permitted. He eventually completed the font and started final application tests. The results looked good to Wilson, but he felt that the design was missing something. “I hit upon the idea of breaking out the left side of all the closed counters,” Wilson wrote about the design. “This simple device gave Sportbet the kick it needed.” Although one weight and a capital-only typeface, Wilson’s ITC Sportbet should prove to be a powerful and versatile communicator.

Tomi Haaparanta got the idea for the Tyke typeface family after using Cooper Black for a design project. He liked Cooper's chubby design, but longed for a wider range of weights. “I wanted a typeface that was cuddly and friendly,” recalls Haaparanta, “but also one that was readable at text sizes.” He started tinkering with the idea, and Tyke began to emerge. Even though Haaparanta knew his boldest weight would equal the heft of Cooper Black, he began drawing the Tyke family with the medium. His goal was to refine the characteristics of the design at this moderate weight, and then build on it to create the light and bold extremes. Haaparanta got the spark to design type in 1990, when he attended a workshop held by Phil Baines at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. “I've been working and playing with type ever since,” Haaparanta recalls. He released his first commercial font in 1996, while working as an Art Director in Helsinki. After about two dozen more releases, he founded his own type studio, Suomi Type Foundry, early in 2004. At five weights plus corresponding italics, Tyke easily fulfills Haaparanta's goal of creating a wide range of distinctive, completely usable designs. The light through bold weights perform well at both large and small sizes, while the Black is an outstanding alternative to Cooper for display copy.

ITC Juice is the work of American designer David Sagorski and shows a clear influence of cartoon graphics of the 1960s and 70s. The typeface has a number of unique letter forms as well as an extensive set of alternate characters. The creative, humorous ITC Juice hides a subtle sophistication beneath its funky exterior.

In Northern Sumatra, the crystal clear waters of Lake Toba lap gently against the surrounding mountains. In the middle of the lake sits the island of Samosir, for centuries the secluded home of the Batak people. Visitors arrive by ferry into the tiny town of Tuk Tuk, escaping the heat and humidity of the Sumatran jungle. Throughout the village, restaurants and guest houses are adorned with hand-painted signs in bright colors. Perhaps due to Sumatra's long history of European colonization, the letterforms are reminiscent of those used for posters and handbills in America and Europe at the end of the 19th century, but with a distinctly Southeast Asian flavor. Charles Nix, intrigued by the combination of Victorian fancy and Batak arabesque, photographed, sketched and translated the letterforms into a design that is now ITC Batak. Named for the proud ancestors of Samosir's inhabitants, it is a bold condensed letter with hexagonal serifs - a sort of properly dressed grotesque. Batak is available in either Condensed or Condensed Bold.

I fell in love at the age of twelve in Wales, recalls Bernard Philpot. "My father brought me to a small graveyard in the Welsh hills to show me two headstones carved by the great Eric Gill. I instantly fell in love with the beauty of the carving and the perfection of the letterforms. I still go back to marvel at these works of art." However, the ITC Bolthole™ design, Philpot's first commercial typographic endeavor, is quite unlike the works of Eric Gill that first captured his heart. Bolthole is a craggy sans serif with a definite grumpy attitude. It's not terribly legible, and, if more than a few words are set in the design, it's not very readable. To round out its cranky personality, Bolthole does not like to be set in small sizes. Like Cheez Whiz® and bullfights, you either love or hate this typeface. But whichever emotion dominates, there is no denying that Bolthole has a personality to be reckoned with - one with ample magnetism to ensure reader attraction. If used to set brief blocks of display copy, the typeface makes a powerful statement. Bolthole was originally designed to complement a whimsical ad for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. As Philpot recalls, "although the ad didn't win any awards, the type attracted some very positive comments for its original look and feel." Philpot studied graphic design and typography at the London School of Printing, and soon after graduation found himself working in a large advertising agency in London. According to Philpot, "After designing type for everything from packaging to ads, I thought it time to convert one of my designs into a complete font - and Bolthole was born." ITC Bolthole could very well be the Shrek™ of typeface design - which might not be such a bad thing."

Pelle Piano is the stage name for Per Ellstrom, a musician in Stockholm with an interest in irregular and informal lettering. ITC Coolman was inspired by lettering styles of the 1950s. “I have a passion for old '50s type lettering,” says Piano, “as seen on posters from B-movies and pocketbooks and cartoons.” Although ITC Coolman is not a script face, its caps work best with the lowercase, rather than together. The funky, bouncy look of Coolman cries out for beach movies.

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."

ITC Florinda was designed by Luis Siquot in 1997 and consists exclusively of capital letters. The basic forms were influenced by old favorites like Franklin Gothic, but Siquot ornamented the classic forms with symmetrical knobs which look like pieces of lead left over after pouring the forms. This gives the figures a playful, constructed look. When used in a text, the horizontal lines seem to come together to draw a fine line through the middle of the lines of text, giving it an ornamented character. ITC Florinda should be used exclusively for headlines or display.

ITC Orbon font is the work of New York designer James Montalbano, inspired in part by a demo of black letter calligraphy in which letters were created out of only four or five basic strokes. I combined that idea with the notion of taking historical forms like German gothic blackletter and progressively paring them down to achieve a futuristic version, as if this old form naturally evolved over several hundred years to arrive at its post-modern incarnation." Text should be set in point sizes of 20 and higher for optimal legibility. ITC Orbon is a highly condensed font with unique, oblong shapes which are ideal for a number of display applications."

Jim Spiece has a taste and a talent for reviving type styles from earlier in this century. ITC Deli Supreme is a “futuristic retro” face that would be at home as a logo on a car or a roadside diner from the 1940s or '50s; the lowercase nearly joins, in script style, thanks to the long extenders stretching out from the bottom-right corner of most letters, while the caps have beginning strokes leading in from the top left. ITC Deli Supreme, like ITC Deli Deluxe, features slightly rounded corners on all the letters, for a soft, streamlined look despite the squareness of the letterforms.

George Ryan's ITC Migrate is a highly condensed sans serif display face that effectively complements ITC Adderville. Migrate represents what Ryan calls a “more highly evolved version” of a typeface he designed for Bitstream in 1991 called Oz Handicraft. “Both faces,“ says Ryan, “are based on designs of the popular early 20th-century type designer Oswald Cooper.” His inspiration came from drawing samples found in the Book of Oz Cooper, published in 1949 by the Society of Typographic Arts in Chicago. “Oz worked extensively with the sans serif form long before it became popular in the States, eschewing a popular belief of the time that sans serifs were only skeletons of letters.” Where Oz Handicraft was informal and quirky, ITC Migrate has a more restrained feel. “The uppercase characters and figures, in particular, have been reworked,” says Ryan, ”resulting in a more formal and traditional, compressed sans serif typeface.”

ITC Simran was created by the London designer Satwinder Sehmi in 1998. The Indian influence is recognizable at first glance and lends the font an exotic feel - at least to the western eye. Sehmi borrowed forms and feelings from northern Indian writing systems for this typeface. Both the upper and lowercase letters make use of the same lowercase forms, but the upperacse letters have the addition of a horizontal bar running over them at the ascender height. This feature is directly reminiscent of writing systems in northern India, and is ITC Simran's most distinguishing characteristic. But there were other influences as well: Sehmi was also inspired by uncial forms when designing this typeface. ITC Simran exhibits the typical look of writing with a broad-tipped pen, with its strong strokes, as well as characteristic letter forms, for example, the a or h. ITC Simran is a fascinating and harmonious symbiosis of a variety of influences from different cultures. This font is best used for headlines and short texts in point sizes of 12 and larger.

Novarese font is the work of designer Aldo Novarese. He created 218 typeface cuts but as he was writing his book, Alfabeta, he decided to include only those he considered indispensable. He divided his fonts into 4 categories and in the designing of Novarese, took the best characteristics of each group and combined them into this font. In the style of Latin stone scripts of the second century BC. Novarese is a well-balanced and relatively wide text font with classic forms. ITC Novarese™ font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Canadian Serge Pichii was inspired by decorative lettering produced during the early 1920s by Jan Tschichold to create Ironwork. Similarly, his ITC Ancestor family was influenced by early work, but in this case, much earlier work: the characters carved by native British Columbian people on solid rock. He worked with anthropologists and linguists to produce a series of books dedicated to the history and culture of the people.

ITC Coconino is the work of Serbian designer Slobodan Miladinov. His original inspiration for this monostroked typeface was the idea of translating certain auditory impressions into type, in this case, the surprising and confusing music of the Serbian hip hop musician Voodoo Popeye." Miladinov is an art director in Belgrade and created Coconino using a "freemouse" technique with Adobe Illustrator and sees his work as "computer calligraphy which allows for a specific directness and immediacy in notation." The strokes of this font are simple and abrupt with a studied irregularity. The forms can look either cheerful and lighthearted or chaotic and subtly disturbing. Coconino was named for the home of hte Krazy KAt comics and even includes a few additional characters from the strip."

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.

Static looks almost like it was stamped on paper: the black color is not evenly distributed and the background comes through the letters and consciously irregular forms reinforce the effect. The characters do not all have the same height, nor do they stand straight and regularly on the base line. Static is a robust font with bold, rounded serifs and is best used for headlines and short texts in point sizes of 12 and larger.

ITC Anna is a labor of love by Daniel Pelavin. He designed the font for his wedding invitation and reused it on the birth announcement of his first child, Anna, whose namesake it is. The simple geometric forms and their proportions create a unique font appropriate for any special occasion.

ITC Flora is the work of Dutch designer Gerard Unger, and is named for his daughter. He started by doing calligraphy experiments with felt-tip and ballpoint pens, and developed these drawings into a formalized script typeface. Swiss typographer Max Caflisch advised the Dr.-Ing Rudolf Hell GmbH technology firm to add a new round-nibbed script face to their Digiset type library, and in 1984, Flora was released by Hell. Unger used a chancery cursive skeleton in this design, which imparts grace and movement. Flora was also intentionally designed to be simple and sturdy, and with its minimal variation in thick/thin stroke ratio, it worked well on the early digital typesetting machines. In 1989, the International Typeface Corporation released the font. ITC Flora continues to work well on current printers and typesetters, and it has an enduring popularity for uses that range from short text passages to display headlines.

While designing ITC Spirit, Patty King was influenced by classic typeface styles. The letter forms are clearly based on those of the Unziale, which, like ITC Spirit, is also composed of only capital letters. Hints of the Asian brush script style also show in this font. The irregular outer contours are best highlighted in larger point sizes and give the font the look of handwriting. ITC Spirit with its calligraphic style is best used for headlines and short texts in point sizes of 12 and larger.

ITC Isbell font is the work of Dick Isbell and Jerry Campbell of Detroit, Michigan, a highly stylized roman typeface which retains an exceptional legibility. The unusual arches and curves of several lowercase characters give the typeface its individuality. ITC Isbell font is ideal for advertising, brochures, menus, and a variety of other applications.

Designer Nick Curtis found the inspiration for this typeface on a 1920s poster for a German bookseller, by Berlin poster artist Paul Scheurich. ITC Jeepers retains the spontaneity and playfulness of Scheurich's original lettering and adds a few surprises of its own, one being the somewhat exclamatory ear on the lowercase "g". It was, in fact, the excited look of this particular character that gave rise to the font's name. Not to be outdone, the exclamation point takes on an even more startling demeanor. The monoweight, slab serif design has a friendly personality, perfect for headlines and other display uses.

The designer of ITC Medea , Silvio Napoleone said: “I've always had an interest in early letter shapes, particularly how they influenced modern typographic designs. While I was on vacation in Greece, I had a chance to see, first-hand, examples of early letterforms and typography. They really made an impression on me.” The idea of combining the ancient and the modern to create something new was the primary inspiration behind ITC Medea. ITC Medea is essentially a careful blending of the modern sans serif with the elegant forms of the uncial. At first glance, Medea appears to be constructed of geometric shapes. However, closer inspection reveals many calligraphic subtleties. Stroke terminals are flared slightly in characters like the 'e' and 'c.' The top curve of the 'd' is more pronounced than the bottom, and characters like the 'o' are elliptical rather than round. “I gravitated towards the simplicity and legibility of the uncial and half-uncial,” Napoleone recalls. “I thought it would make a great titling font, and I was surprised at how attractive ITC Medea looked in a body text.”

ITC Kokoa is the work of German graphic designer Jochen Schuss. Schuss found the seeds of inspiration on a trip to Ghana and expanded and experimented with the idea on the computer. It includes an array of symbols and borders to complement its stylized letters. ITC Kokoa retains a touch of its African roots but is overall a modern, funky font.

ITC Juanita is the work of Argentinian-born designer Luis Siquot and was inspired by a text set only with woodcuts which he was reading during a long international flight. ITC Juanita is a series of six distinct typefaces which Siquot sees as a personal reinterpretation of designs that originated in the 1930s and 40s and were still popular during his childhood in the 1950s. For me, Juanita is like a toy, charming, expressive, and also dramatic," says Siquot. The ITC Juanita series offers designers a range of variations based on similar structures, each variation with its own look."

On a cold winter's night, George Ryan, of Galápagos Design Group, began musing on the possibilities for a “truly original” sans serif typeface. What came out of his musing, and his always-present sketchpad, was ITC Adderville, a typeface whose visual impact is immediate and strong. Ryan explains how he did it: “The rounded ends of its strokes and their skewed baseline contact create an illusion of dancing feet. The tops of lowercase stems emit serif buds, suggesting transition into or out of the serifed form. The spear-like lowercase stroke terminators, along with other distinctive elements such as the stylized reticulation of the lowercase 'g' segments, the salute of that same character's spur, and the bold, non-self-conscious 'i' and 'j' dots, all contribute to the playful and unique nature of this design.” The result is a friendly, lively type family whose graduated weights -- book, medium, and heavy -- lend themselves especially well to use at small display sizes and in short blocks of text.

ITC Abaton, by Argentinian designer Luis Siquot, is an exercise in geometry and simplification. “It is done,” says Siquot, “with few elements, with modules of only straight lines (horizontals, verticals and diagonals of almost 45 degrees). Drawing the I and the O, I got the basic elements, and so started the fight between strict geometry and optical impression, until I obtained the rest of the characters.” The basic rectangular form is characterized by wedge-shaped serifs, almost like caps on the heads and feet of the letters. “Abaton has the 'spirit' of 19th-century faces used on money bills or postage stamps, but the realization is totally different,” Siquot explains. Abaton is a “shaded” typeface of caps and slightly smaller caps, upright and slightly condensed in form. Although the letterforms are legible at small sizes, the shading tends to clog up if it gets too small, so Abaton is happiest as a distinctive display face.

ITC Noovo is from British designer Phill Grimshaw and grew out of his work on ITC Rennie Mackintosh. He says, I still had 'Nouveau' coming out of my ears" and he drew it after a series of computer-intensive projects, "when I was missing the smell of permanent marker pens and the feel of paper." ITC Noovo is highly stylized yet works as both a text and display typeface."

Pacella was designed by Vincent Pacella and fashioned in the tradiation of Century Schoolbook, Corona and Nimrod. Pacella maintains high legibilty and exhibits a character and personality all its own.

ITC Merss proves that sometimes accidents work out just fine. Late one evening Eduardo Manso, an Argentinean graphic and type designer, spilled coffee on his desk. When he began to wipe up the mess, he noticed that one of the splashes looked like a roman letter 'l' - complete with serifs. This triggered his imagination. “What if a complete alphabet was created with this same irregular flow to the character designs?” ITC Merss was the result of Manso's experiments with “fluid” letter shapes. The oddly handsome design looks aged and spontaneous at the same time. Its irregular texture is striking-the result of careful modeling of character shapes. While Manso wanted to maintain the free-form character of spilled liquid, he also knew the individual letters had to work together with an underlying harmony. When not experimenting with typefaces - or spilled coffee - Manso creates award-winning graphic and publication designs. A contributor to the design magazine el Huevo (the Egg), he also writes articles on type and typography and is part of the publication's design team.

ITC Jaft is the work of New York designer Frank Marciuliano, an adventurous, energetic display typeface. It began with a series of posters designed by Marciuliano for the New York Times. The lettering was drawn with a bamboo pen and then filled in to create the unusual angles that give ITC Jaft its unique look.