In the late 1930s, old Egyptiennes (or Italiennes) returned to the collective consciousness of European printers and type houses — perhaps because political news were front a centre, especially in France where Le Figaro newspaper was seeing record circulation numbers. In 1939 both Monotype and Lettergieterij Amsterdam thought of the same idea: Make a new typeface similar to the reverse stress slab shapes that make up the titles of newspapers like Le Figaro and Le Frondeur. Both foundries intended to call their new type Figaro. Monotype finished theirs first, so they ended up with the name, and their type was already published when Stefan Schlesinger finished his take for the Amsterdam foundry. Schlesinger’s type was renamed Hidalgo (Spanish for a lower nobleman, ‘son of something’) and published in 1940 as ‘a very happy variation on an old motif’. Although it wasn’t a commercial success at the time, it was well received and considered subtler and more refined than the similar types available, Figaro and Playbill. In the Second World War, the Germans banned the use of the type, and Hidalgo never really recovered. Upon closer inspection, Schlesinger’s work on Hidalgo was much more Euro-sophisticated and ahead of its time than the too-wooden cut of Figaro and the thick tightness of Playbill. It has a modern high contrast, a squarer skeleton, contour cuts that work similarly outside and inside, and airy and minimal solutions to the more complicated shapes like G, K, M, N, Q and W. It is also much more aware of, and more accommodating to, the picket-fence effect the thick top slabs create in setting. Basilio (named after the signing teacher in Mozart’s Figaro) is the digital revival and major expansion of Hidalgo. With nearly 600 glyphs, it boasts Pan-European language support (most Latin languages, as well as Cyrillic and Greek), and a few OpenType tricks that gel it all together to make a very useful design tool. Stefan Schlesigner was born in Vienna in 1896. He moved to the Netherlands in 1925, where he worked for Van Houten’s chocolate, Metz department store, printing firm Trio and many other clients. He died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1944. Digital revivals and expansions of two of his other designs, Minuet and Serena, have also been published by Canada Type.

Mecanica is an original design by Alex Kaczun. It is a display font not intended for text use. It was designed specifically for display headlines, logotype, branding and similar applications. The entire font has an original look which is strong, dynamic, machine generated and can be widely used in publications and advertising. Mecanica is a futuristic, techno-looking and expressive typeface with an appearance of metal-like parts with some very sharp edges. This attractive display comes in roman with lower case and lining figures. The font also is available with true-drawn slant italics. Other design style variations include Swash as well as Ornamental Italic Capitals along with a few Ornamental Symbols to embellish and enhance the possibilities.

The idea that mathematical precision and the supposed "purity" of geometric forms are part of the discourse of us graphic designers is not new. Studying typography for some time now and learning about all the small alterations and adjustments that this geometry undergoes to better adapt to the imperfect human eye, I found myself with a new way of seeing things. Compasso is, in a way, a result of my growth as a designer. Established and recognized fonts like Futura, Avenir, and their predecessors (including Tempo - published by the Ludlow foundry in the early 20th century) informed the result of Compasso at some level. Others opened my mind to possibilities. Mallory, Azo Sans, the font designed for Audi by Bold Monday, and many other contemporary sans-serif fonts that left me speechless are also responsible for details present in this font. From the first sketch, the family grew on both sides, gaining condensed and extended counterparts. From there - and from a brilliant insight from designer Nicole Rauen - I learned that Compasso was not about geometry. Compasso is about rhythm. It's about the rhythmic movement that provides a foundation, supports, and also makes you dance and swing. My musical taste is too eclectic, I can go from classical to funk in less than two songs on Spotify. Compasso is also eclectic. It's a font to take your project anywhere, a record to listen to on any occasion.

I hope that you enjoy the "Linden" font. The basis for this new font is my Leaf font. As much as I love the Leaf font, however, I felt (and still feel) the desire to have a larger font, for three reasons: 1. I enjoy customizing my internet browser to show different fonts. The original "Leaf" font was a bit too small for that. The new "Linden" font is perfect for this function. 2. Some of the fonts that I use in writing e-mails look their best at sizes 24 or 36. That’s fine for me, but unless I want to go to the trouble each time of changing the size, then the recipients oft my e-mails get wolloped with an enormous-sized font. When I use "Linden" for my e-mails, it’s automatically a perfect size at 12 or 14, solving this problem. 3. I also enjoy customizing the font in which I read my e-mails. Unfortunately, there are only a few which are legible in the tiny size in which this is configured. Again, "Linden" is configured to be large enough automatically so that it can easily be read by anyone. I am pleased to offer a pleasant font for use in any or all of the scenarios; I love fun solutions and hope that you will enjoy the "Linden" font. (Just a tip: when printing out documents using the "Linden" font, I love it best in font size 11!)

Bold, punchy and attention-grabbing, Maximum is an extended sans serif with obround curves that fills the space on the page due to its tight spacing and short ascenders and descenders. Recommended for posters, packaging, headlines and branding.

Juliet is a modern calligraphy script with flowing curves. It will add a romantic touch to any crafting project!

With the clear, simple elegance of its sans serif forms and the warmly human touches of its tapering stems, the Optima family has proved popular around the world. In 2002, when it was finally possible to produce digital alphabets without technical limitations and compromises, and more than fifty years after the first sketches, an expansion and redesign of the Optima family was completed and released as Optima nova. Hermann Zapf and Japanese type designer, Akira Kobayashi, collaborated on the project, which included re-working of the existing weights and the addition of several new weights: small caps, old style figures, light, heavy, and condensed. The original Optima was never manufactured with a real italic, only an oblique version of the roman. Optima nova has a complete range of beautifully designed real italics; the new italic forms, of the e, f and g are especially notable. The titling face includes capital letters with special and unusual letter combinations and ligatures, making it an excellent choice for headlines, logos and advertising purposes. Optima continues to be an all-purpose typeface; and Optima nova works for just about anything from book text to signage. Optima Nova® font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Lost Souls is intended to represent something old, retro and innovative at the same time.

Galena Pro is an extended version of Galena, a typeface published for Bayer Corporation in 1996. Galena Pro is based on the open and organic forms imagined by the writers of humanist Italy, who designed the first so-called Roman characters. Humanist style fonts have moderate stroke contrast, uneven widths, and a classic, but soft and easy-to-read appearance. Galena Pro gives a new birth to the 15th century incunabula, a typographic drawing where the gestures of this standardized handwriting are not mechanical, but more fluid. The Galena Pro series can provide professional typography with OpenType features such as alternative sets of numbers, fractions and an extended character set to support Central and Eastern European as well as Western European Languages. The different styles of the Galena are enriched with a condensed variant to meet the need for space savings in titles and texts.

Galena Pro is an extended version of Galena, a typeface published for Bayer Corporation in 1996. Galena Pro is based on the open and organic forms imagined by the writers of humanist Italy, who designed the first so-called Roman characters. Humanist style fonts have moderate stroke contrast, uneven widths, and a classic, but soft and easy-to-read appearance. Galena Pro gives a new birth to the 15th century incunabula, a typographic drawing where the gestures of this standardized handwriting are not mechanical, but more fluid. The Galena Pro series can provide professional typography with OpenType features such as alternative sets of numbers, fractions and an extended character set to support Central and Eastern European as well as Western European Languages. The different styles of the Galena are enriched with a condensed variant to meet the need for space savings in titles and texts.

Barata Display is an all caps script family font inspired by the street vendors and informal commerce in Latin countries. A condensed defined and thick stroke evokes the chalk signs that are made in "tianguis", markets, greengrocers, barbecues and flea markets from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires. It is a typeface that "SCREAM" buy me, save money, discounted, almost Free, opportunity!. What distinguishes the New Barata Display from Estudio Arellano Type Foundry is the expressive power of its structure. The Alphabet is built on the geometric principle of free traces from freehand writing. Composed of 236 capital Roman characters, Barata Display includes most common accents and diacritics. Barata Display can be used in any kind of commercial or personal promotion, in graphic design, web, print, animation, etc. Perfect for price labels, tags and other applications such as posters and t-shirts. It is a typeface ideal for headlines and Lettering.

The Keiss type family is our interpretation of the popular nineteen century Scotch Roman typefaces. We intended to keep a very classic approach while introducing a couple of new elements that differentiate this type family from it’s ancestors. This design, with short descenders and ascenders, along with three very distinct optical sizes makes this type family well suited for contemporary newspapers. The Title and Big versions range from Thin to Heavy, with matching italics, in order to be used in big sizes and stand out in the design. The Text ranges from Thin to ExtraBold and is a standalone type family for text usage, with narrow proportions and wider and open italics for improved text setting. The Condensed versions, ranging from Thin to Bold, don’t have italics, although they can be matched with the italics of the Title and Big versions, due to the fact they are very condensed.

The Keiss type family is our interpretation of the popular nineteen century Scotch Roman typefaces. We intended to keep a very classic approach while introducing a couple of new elements that differentiate this type family from it’s ancestors. This design, with short descenders and ascenders, along with three very distinct optical sizes makes this type family well suited for contemporary newspapers. The Title and Big versions range from Thin to Heavy, with matching italics, in order to be used in big sizes and stand out in the design. The Text ranges from Thin to ExtraBold and is a standalone type family for text usage, with narrow proportions and wider and open italics for improved text setting. The Condensed versions, ranging from Thin to Bold, don’t have italics, although they can be matched with the italics of the Title and Big versions, due to the fact they are very condensed.

The Keiss type family is our interpretation of the popular nineteen century Scotch Roman typefaces. We intended to keep a very classic approach while introducing a couple of new elements that differentiate this type family from it’s ancestors. This design, with short descenders and ascenders, along with three very distinct optical sizes makes this type family well suited for contemporary newspapers. The Title and Big versions range from Thin to Heavy, with matching italics, in order to be used in big sizes and stand out in the design. The Text ranges from Thin to ExtraBold and is a standalone type family for text usage, with narrow proportions and wider and open italics for improved text setting. The Condensed versions, ranging from Thin to Bold, don’t have italics, although they can be matched with the italics of the Title and Big versions, due to the fact they are very condensed.

The Keiss type family is our interpretation of the popular nineteen century Scotch Roman typefaces. We intended to keep a very classic approach while introducing a couple of new elements that differentiate this type family from it’s ancestors. This design, with short descenders and ascenders, along with three very distinct optical sizes makes this type family well suited for contemporary newspapers. The Title and Big versions range from Thin to Heavy, with matching italics, in order to be used in big sizes and stand out in the design. The Text ranges from Thin to ExtraBold and is a standalone type family for text usage, with narrow proportions and wider and open italics for improved text setting. The Condensed versions, ranging from Thin to Bold, don’t have italics, although they can be matched with the italics of the Title and Big versions, due to the fact they are very condensed.

Galena Pro is an extended version of Galena, a typeface published for Bayer Corporation in 1996. Galena Pro is based on the open and organic forms imagined by the writers of humanist Italy, who designed the first so-called Roman characters. Humanist style fonts have moderate stroke contrast, uneven widths, and a classic, but soft and easy-to-read appearance. Galena Pro gives a new birth to the 15th century incunabula, a typographic drawing where the gestures of this standardized handwriting are not mechanical, but more fluid. The Galena Pro series can provide professional typography with OpenType features such as alternative sets of numbers, fractions and an extended character set to support Central and Eastern European as well as Western European Languages. The different styles of the Galena Pro are enriched with a condensed variant to meet the need for space savings in titles and texts.

The Keiss type family is our interpretation of the popular nineteen century Scotch Roman typefaces. We intended to keep a very classic approach while introducing a couple of new elements that differentiate this type family from it’s ancestors. This design, with short descenders and ascenders, along with three very distinct optical sizes makes this type family well suited for contemporary newspapers. The Title and Big versions range from Thin to Heavy, with matching italics, in order to be used in big sizes and stand out in the design. The Text ranges from Thin to ExtraBold and is a standalone type family for text usage, with narrow proportions and wider and open italics for improved text setting. The Condensed versions, ranging from Thin to Bold, don’t have italics, although they can be matched with the italics of the Title and Big versions, due to the fact they are very condensed.

Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed. Elegant but with that distance that well-defined forms seem to impose. Her voice, however, was sweeter, closer, and when she spoke her name, like a slow whisper, one felt like what she had come to say could be read in her image. Rufina's story can only be told through a detour because her origin does not coincide with her birth. Rufina was born on a Sunday afternoon while her father was drawing black letters on a white background, and her mother was trying to join those same letters to form words that could tell a story. But her origin goes much further back, and that is why she is pierced by a story that precedes her, even though it is not her own. Maybe her origin can be traced back to that autumn night in which that tall man with that distant demeanor ran into that woman with that sweet smile and elegant aspect. He looked at her in such a way that he was trapped by that gaze, even though they found no words to say to each other, and they stayed in silence. Somehow, some words leaked into that gaze because since that moment they were never apart again. Later, after they started talking, projects started coming up and then coexistence and arguments, routines and mismatches. But in that chaos of crossed words in their life together, something was stable through the silence of the gazes. In those gazes, the silent words sustained that indescribable love that they didn't even try to understand. And in one of those silences, Rufina appeared, when that man told that woman that he needed a text to try out his new font, and she saw him look at her with that same fascination of the first time, and she started to write something with those forms that he was giving her as a gift. Rufina was as tall and thin as a reed, wrote her mother when Rufina was born.

Kwersity is a boxy, geometric, slab-serifed typeface with strokes of uniform weight. Its circular elements are almost rectangular. The narrower style has a high x-height. Both the narrower and wider variants come in three weights, regular, semi-bold, and bold. (In its original, pre-2020 form, what is now semi-bold was bold. What is now bold is new as of 2020.) There is also a shadow version; Kwersity-semibold can be layered on top of it to color the interior of the letters.

Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813) was called the King of Printers; he was a prolific type designer, a masterful engraver of punches and the most widely admired printer of his time. His books and typefaces were created during the 45 years he was the director of the fine press and publishing house of the Duke of Parma in Italy. He produced the best of what are known as "modern" style types, basing them on the finest writing of his time. Modern types represented the ultimate typographic development of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They have characteristics quite different from the types that preceded them; such as extreme vertical stress, fine hairlines contrasted by bold main strokes, and very subtle, almost non-existent bracketing of sharply defined hairline serifs. Bodoni saw this style as beautiful and harmonious-the natural result of writing done with a well-cut pen, and the look was fashionable and admired. Other punchcutters, such as the Didot family (1689-1853) in France, and J. E. Walbaum (1768-1839) in Germany made their own versions of the modern faces. Even though some nineteenth century critics turned up their noses and called such types shattering and chilly, today the Bodoni moderns are seen in much the same light as they were in his own time. When used with care, the Bodoni types are both romantic and elegant, with a presence that adds tasteful sparkle to headlines and advertising. The Bauer Bodoni was done by Heinrich Jost for Bauer Typefoundry in 1927. This version has finer details of the original Bodoni types. It works well for headlines, logos, advertising.

A new type giant emerges taking after the legendary geometric sans serif Mont! Mont Blanc elevates all prized unique details of Mont and translates them into an independent flawless text font family. This type prodigy comes with heaping legibility improvements dedicated to the smaller sizes and challenging paragraphs. The new type family is set to climb to the top of your “favorite design tools” with adjusted x-height, refined weight, and glyphs redesign to name but a few. Venture into new projects equipped with 8 font weights and matching italics, multi-script support, and rich OpenType features set. Language Support: Extended Latin (all Western languages), Cyrillic, Greek OpenType Features: Localized Forms Subscript Scientific Inferiors Superscript Numerators and Denominators Fractions Ordinals Lining Figures Proportional Figures Tabular Figures Oldstyle Figures Case-Sensitive Forms Standard Ligatures Stylistic Alternates Contextual Alternates

Geogrotesque Slab is the ideal companion of the popular Geogrotesque. The challenge was to achieve a fully recognizable font that works as part of the existing family, for that reason the Slab version conveys the same message in a different way. The new font remains clean and tech with a human touch yet provides a new security, confidence and firmness thanks to the serifs. This new addition, combined with Geogrotesque, Geogrotesque Stencil and Geogrotesque Condensed Series provides even more design options and now there’s a Geogrotesque for every need. The type family consist of 14 styles 7 weights (Thin, UltraLight, Light, Regular, Medium, SemiBold and Bold) plus italics. It is available for desktop and WebFont and includes ligatures, tabular figures, fractions, numerators, denominators, superiors and inferiors with support for Central and Eastern European languages. For more details see the PDF.

A font face with cyber, spatial, and virtual connotations that offers a decisive futuristic and techno spirit. Inspired by geometric forms from visual tendencies in the early 2000s, it was used once in corporate identity. Originally created in 1998, it remained unpublished by its author until today. It is now offered with many improvements. With one alternate for H and more diacritics and ligatures and extended range glyphs, Conectiva can be used in titles and display text that require a futuristic and dynamic style. Conectiva 2.0 has been arranged and improved with more glyphs and new OpenType features (Fractions, discretional and standard ligatures, slashed zero and more new stylish alternates). This upgrade includes 4 new weight variables (Light, book, bold and extrabold). Recommended for games, presentations, or any graphic pieces that reveal and need futuristic, techno, and/or Sci-fi style.

Night Train is a new font built from the ground up; while Night Train may resemble an old classic wood type there are a few lines that make this font a little more modern setting it apart from other wood type revivals. If you're a railroad enthusiast you're sure to enjoy the steam locomotive graphic located on the less than and greater than keys on all versions of this font, due to the fine detail of this train illustration the best printing results will be at 600dpi or higher on a laser printer. An alternate K and R are within the Night Train fonts, for Win Type1 these alternates are on the left and right bracket keys, for Truetype and OpenType you may access the alternates by using the Character Map in Windows or Adobe Illustrator, for OpenType you may also find them on the stylistic alternates page of the glyph map in Illustrator. There's something new with Night Train that the sign making people will love, for the first time FontMesa is pleased to offer a block shadowed version in four directions. One fill font is all that is needed for all four open faced fonts, you'll need an application that works in layers in order to use the fill font with the open faced fonts, simply place the fill font in its own layer then move it behind one of the open faced fonts of Night Train. The Night Train name has been on my list to use as a font name for a few years, a friend from years ago used to sail his boat in the Mackinac race from Chicago to Mackinac Island, the name of that boat was the Night Train. Watching the 2010 Olympic four man U.S. bobsled team win gold with their sled also called Night Train has inspired me to complete this font.

From today's point of view Katarine has a rather unusual origin. Initially an all-caps display face, what was to become the Medium weight of the family was augmented with a lower case, then the character set was completed by adding all the missing glyphs. The next step was the creation of the Light and the Bold weights with matching Italics. This working method compromised the relationships between the characters across the different weights After some consideration the decision was made to start over and draw the complete family from scratch. This time the "conventional" process was followed — first the Light and Bold weights were designed. Those extremes were used to interpolate the Regular, Medium and Semibold weights. When compared to the original, the glyphs of the new fonts are slightly wider. The construction of the letters is sturdy, with an x-height that varies from the heaviest to the lightest weights. The relationship of the stem weight between the horizontal and vertical strokes is carefully balanced. Characters are open and firm; the italics have room to breathe. The original fonts included two sets of small caps — Small Caps and Petite Caps. However neither set were suited for emphasis, with the Small Caps being too tall and the Petite Caps too short. We decided to replace them both with one set of traditional small caps, slightly taller than the x-height, perfectly suited for emphasis in text usage. The original version of Katarine was partly incorporated into the new OpenType versions. Thus most of the original arrows, frames and boxes can be found in the new Katarine. Each individual weight now contains 830 glyphs, nine sets of numerals, small caps, numerous ligatures and fractions. An additional font named Numbers contains numerals in circles and squares, and is now augmented with accented caps and a number of terminal alternatives, which can easily be accessed through stylistic sets. We also added two extra variants, Experts Regular and Experts Black (in inverted form). Katarine Std preserves the solid construction and excellent legibility of the original family, but has now become a fully featured OpenType typeface. Katarine is suited for a broad range of applications, from simple layouts to intricate corporate systems. It is the typeface of choice where the cold, austere character of modern sans serifs are inappropriate, yet simple shapes and good legibility are required.

Organic versus geometric are two different universes that converges on nature systems and has its reflection on this new sans serif typeface. Frambuesa is a half humanist-half geometric sans that merges decorative curves with straight lines looking for a balance. The result: a solid but somewhat romantic, nostalgic type program that go ahead harmoniously, dancing to the rhythm of a naturally imperfect melody. Frambuesa can’t hide its family genetics. Structure and proportions come from Elisetta, her older sister they so both have a really good text performance. Regular variables and italics feel comfortable in a lot of contexts and are useful for little words or big title compositions. All seven weights are carefully adjusted to achieve soft transitions between one and the other resulting in high readability levels on program combinations and complex uses. This new font family name is a tribute to Lucia’s childhood, a very happy one. Frambuesa honors this sweet intense red fruit that her grandpa’s Coco gave to his grandchildren every Sunday in the summer.

First released in 2009, Aviano Didone has been completely remastered and expanded with new weights and optical sizes. Aviano Didone's high contrast forms lend elegant beauty, luxury and romance to your designs and it's extended letterforms provide strength and power. Aviano's foundational classical forms give the face a look that is unique for Didone faces. Aviano Didone is a bold interpretation of vertically contrasted type. Aviano Didone comes in eight different weights and is packed with OpenType features. Want ball terminals for that logotype or headline? Flat serifs? Swash forms? Aviano Didone includes 102 alternate characters. Five style sets are available, and Art Deco inspired alternates, small forms, swash, titling and stylistic alternates. Aviano Didone also includes 40 discretionary ligatures for artistic typographic compositions. The new optical sizes allow Aviano Didone to be used on the web or in print without losing detail. Be sure to check out the rest of the Aviano series which can be used as complementary faces, including Aviano, Aviano Serif, Aviano Sans and Aviano Flare.

The font is based on an alphabet from a mid1920s art deco book. The original seemed to have tapering strokes but it was too small to be sure; I made all strokes parallel & orthogonal and slightly modified the original in a number of other ways to bring it into the 21st Century. The designers of the original were Paul Carlyle and Guy Oring. Nocturne has all the elegance of the Deco fonts of the 1930s. It recalls the romantic, sophisticated Zeitgeist of the early 20th century, that nostalgic time "between the wars". Nocturne comes in two styles: Nocturne Regular, which uses the Art Deco convention of small x height, and long ascenders. This style is perfect for headers, posters, labels etc. Nocturne Book, which, with its higher x height and slightly wider characters, is extremely legible and suitable for small size text.

Shiva font family is a very narrow family for text and titling. Even though shiva has very thin strokes, the letterforms give a strong, impactful and dignified image. a, e, f, g & y in Roman and g & y Italic have their alternate glyphs that can be used with OpenType salt feature.

Patriot is the sans-serif version of Exocet and, like Exocet, is based upon early Greek and Roman stone-carving, yet it adheres more closely to the shared historical source material. Patriot was developed to include unique forms and alternative characters, becoming a striking original typeface in its own right.

Frenzy evolved from a logo for a Gen X product offered by a very staid company. It is a sythesis of Classic Roman Capitals and American Typewriter—with a bit of frenetic energy stirred in. It is dedicated to the designers son, who is the epitome of the font... contained chaos.

Coliseo is a lively and fun Art Nouveau inspired typeface, inspired by stone lettering seen on facade of the Coliseum Theatre in London. It's beautifully characterful let legible making it ideal for poster work or anything where it's useful to combine Roman display faces with a feeling of life and energy.

Ornate Blackboards is a beautiful collection of ornaments from Intellecta Design, excellent for use in works of art and editorial publications, like book covers, headpieces to sections of books, magazines, packaging works, and many other solutions. Good to use with roman versals, chiseled fonts and many other different kinds of typefaces.

Unitext Variable Regular is a single font file that features one axis: Weight. TFor your convenience, the Weight axis has preset instances from Hairline to Black. This Roman (upright) font is provided as an option to customers who do not need Italics, and want to keep file sizes to a minimum.

Alphabet set made of two white parallel lines. They are looked like infinite looped icons. Ideal for dynamic app, minimalism design, sports identity, technology adv. What's included? Uppercase (lowercase are the same) Numbers Symbols Punctuation Multilingual support Please feel free to request any help you need: kaer.pro@gmail.com Best, Roman.

Catigan recreates classical attitudes by reflecting some of the attributes of transitional typefaces. Catigan does not, however, follow historical models. Catigan is warm with a very personal expression and also with excellent text qualities. The complementary Italic makes a distinctly calligraphic impression and stands in lively contrast to the roman weights.

Antika is a beautiful modern script font featuring flowing letters. It will add a romantic touch to any crafting project!

Many typefaces are distinctive or attractive at the expense of legibility and versatility. Not so the Optima® family. Simultaneously standing out and fitting in, there are few projects or imaging environments outside of its range. Although Optima is almost always grouped with sans serif typefaces, it should be considered a serifless roman. True to its Roman heritage, Optima has wide, full-bodied characters – especially in the capitals. Only the E, F and L deviate with narrow forms. Consistent with other Zapf designs, the cap S in Optima appears slightly top-heavy with a slight tilt to the right. The M is splayed, and the N, like a serif design, has light vertical strokes. The lowercase a and g in Optima are high-legibility two-storied designs. Optima can be set within a wide choice of line spacing values – from very tight to very open. In fact, there are few limits to the amount of white space that can be added between lines of text. Optima also benefits from a wide range of letter spacing capability. It can be set quite tight, or even slightly open – especially the capitals. If there are any guidelines, Optima should be set more open than tight. It’s not that readability is affected that much when Optima is set on the snug side; it’s just that the unhurried elegance and light gray typographic color created by the face are disrupted when letters are set too tight. Optima is also about as gregarious as a typeface can be. It mixes well with virtually any serif design and a surprisingly large number of sans serif faces. The Optima family is available in six weights, from roman to extra black, each with an italic counterpart. In addition, the family is available as a suite of OpenType® Pro fonts, providing for the automatic insertion of small caps, ligatures and alternate characters, in addition to offering an extended character set supporting most Central European and many Eastern European languages. When you’re ready to find its perfect pairing, browse these fantastic matches: Monotype Century Old Style™, Dante®, Frutiger® Serif, Joanna® Nova, Malabar™, and Soho®.