Plantin is a family of text typefaces created by Monotype in 1913. Their namesake, Christophe Plantin (Christoffel Plantijn in Dutch), was born in France during the year 1520. In 1549, he moved to Antwerp, located in present-day Belgium. There he began printing in 1555. For a brief time, he also worked at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands. Typefaces used in Christophe Plantin's books inspired future typographic developments. In 1913, the English Monotype Corporation's manager Frank Hinman Pierpont directed the Plantin revival. Based on 16th century specimens from the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, specifically a type cut by Robert Granjon and a separate cursive Italic, the Plantin" typeface was conceived. Plantin was drawn for use in mechanical typesetting on the international publishing markets. Plantin, and the historical models that inspired it, are old-style typefaces in the French manner, but with x-height that are larger than those found in Claude Garamond's work. Plantin would go on to influence another Monotype design, Times New Roman. Stanley Morison and Victor Larent used Plantin as a reference during that typeface's cutting. Like Garamond, Plantin is exceptionally legible and makes a classic, elegant impression. Plantin is indeed a remarkably accommodating type face. The firm modelling of the strokes and the serifs in the letters make the mass appearance stronger than usual; the absence of thin elements ensures a good result on coated papers; and the compact structure of the letters, without loss of size makes Plantin one of the economical faces in use. In short, it is essentially an all-purpose face, excellent for periodical or jobbing work, and very effective in many sorts of book and magazine publishing. Plantin's Bold weight was especially optimized to provide ample contrast: bulkiness was avoided by introducing a slight sharpening to the serifs' forms."

In 1995, FontHaus came upon a rare opportunity to create a revival of Aries, a little known and previously unavailable typeface by the legendary Eric Gill. Discovering a lost typeface by one of the major designers of the 20th Century, was the discovery of a buried treasure, and being the first type company to release it was an honor. Thirteen years later, FontHaus came across another little known typeface treasure: Diane. Designed by the legendary French designer Roger Excoffon in 1956, this remarkable script has never been faithfully recreated until now. In close collaboration with Mark Simonson, FontHaus and Mr. Simonson painstakingly researched rare type books, publications, European metal type services, and period showings from the United States, England, Germany and from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Finding full specimens of the font turned out to be quite a challenge. In most cases, only the caps and lowercase were shown. Furthermore, the more we researched Diane, many curious facts came to light. The caps in earlier specimens of Diane are completely different from specimens published later, suggesting that the face was redesigned at some point, perhaps in the mid-1960s. So we are left with two different sets of caps. The original had very elaborate, swirly strokes, very characteristic of Excoffon¹s gestural designs for posters and logos. Later on, these appear to have been replaced by a set of simpler, more traditional script caps. The original caps are criticized in one source Mark found (Practical Handbook on Display Typefaces, 1959) as being "exquisite" but "not highly legible". Perhaps this is what led to the simpler caps being introduced. Nevertheless, FontHaus's release includes not only both sets of caps, but a range of alternates and a number of new characters not originally available such as the Euro, and a magnificent alternate Ampersand to name a few.

Rahere is a humanist sans with subtle features that give the typeface a distinctive, warm appearance without distracting the reader. Legible at large and small sizes, Rahere is a versatile family suitable for a wide range of applications such as annual reports, advertising, brochures, catalogues, information signage, screen text and visual identities. For projects that need to convey a sense of authority or credibility, this is the ideal sans serif to use. The family consists of six weights ranging from light to extra bold with corresponding italics and the character set covers most of the major European languages. Each weight contains lining & non-aligning numerals in both proportional & tabular spacing. The tabular numerals share the same width across all weights and styles – a must for financial tables in annual reports. Spirited and lively, the italic lowercase is more cursive and calligraphic than the roman, although it harmonises perfectly, displaying enough character to create emphasis without looking out of place. When used on its own, for pull-out quotes or poetry, the italic exudes a charm that draws attention to the text. The typeface is named after Rahere, a 12th-century Anglo-Norman priest, who founded St Bartholomew's Hospital, London in 1123. I will always be indebted to Barts (as it is now commonly known) because in 2007 I was successfully treated for relapsed testicular cancer. Way back in 1992 I designed my first sans serif, Charlotte Sans, and although it was relatively successful, I was never really satisfied with the end result: not enough weights & italics, a small character set, lack of accented characters, and my design skills were still in their infancy. Whilst Rahere shares many common elements with Charlotte Sans, it is much more than just a reworking; it represents over 20 years of accumulated knowledge and experience as a designer.

a, g, k and y It was a forensic examination by Jason Smith of his existing designs that laid the groundwork for FS Jack. Jason made a list of unique characteristics that would give the sans serif font its typographic thumbprint, which included an unusually large x-height and slightly off-the-wall letters like the lower-case “a”, “g”, “k” and “y”. “I wanted to make something that was slightly uncomfortable,” says Jason, “and in doing so simplify the quirkiness down to a few letters.” Fernando Mello did “the rest of the cooking”, filling the design out and making the additional weights. Tipos Latinos Upon its release in 2010, FS Jack was submitted by Fernando, who is Brazilian, for the esteemed type design biennial, Tipos Latinos, where it was selected as a winner in the Families category. It went on to be selected for type exhibitions throughout Latin America and around the world. “FS Jack is a workhorse,” says Fernando, “but also very ownable and distinctive, and available in a good range of weights, crafted by Jason and I.” Corporate “FS Jack took a couple of years to get noticed and is still fairly underused,” says Jason, “which is good in a way, for our Brandfont clients that have adopted it.” FS Jack was chosen as the signature font for The Shard in London, from its signage down to business cards. Fontsmith also worked with Lloyds Bank to customise FS Jack into a bespoke font for the bank’s updated brand identity – part of Fontsmith’s Brandfont service, which you can read about here. Fat Jack Included in the FS Jack family – just – is FS Jack Poster, the super-heavy weight of the range. “That was a last minute addition,” says Fernando, “after Jason and I started talking about how much we liked Gill KO, a typeface that is almost comically fat.”

The dearJoe series of fonts came to life around the year 1999, when I created dearJoe 1, which was a first (and half-assed) attempt to convert my own handwriting into a working font. Being able to type in my own hand had always been a childhood fantasy, and even though I only partly understood the software, a working font was generated and I decided to put it on the internet for people to use in their own personal projects. Which they did: at this moment the dearJoe 1 font has been downloaded millions of times and can be found on Vietnamese riksjas, Tasmanian gyms and chocolate stores on 5th Avenue for instance. The font is not something I am particularly proud of, but it started me of in building what's now the JOEBOB graphics foundry. Inbetween creating other fonts, the dearJoe series has become a theme I revisit every once in a while, trying to create an update on how my handwriting has evolved, along with my abilities in creating fonts that mimic actual handwriting. In the last decade or so I started implementing ligatures and alternate characters, which helped a lot in coming to a result that can almost pass for actual handwriting. The 2019 dearJoe 7 font is the latest addition to this font family. All characters were scanned from handwritten notes, cherrypicking the characters and letter-combinations I liked best. They were written with a Lamy M66 B pen and only minor adjustments were made to the original scans, leaving most little flaws and rough edges as they were for a convincing ball-point on paper result. The font comes with over 150 ligatures, making sure the font has a variated and credible overall look and feel.

Listen up! Got a font that’s gonna give your text that raw, tough edge you’re lookin’ for. Burnaby Stencil, baby. This typeface is all about the spray-painted stencil vibe, with bold headlines that’ll grab attention like a bear trap. But don’t think it’s all bark and no bite. Burnaby Stencil packs a punch with a gritty tone that’ll make your message feel like it’s coming straight from the streets. And if you’re worried about it looking too cookie-cutter, no need to fret. This font switches up custom letter pairs in OpenType savvy apps, giving your text a natural, hand-painted feel. So if you’re ready to unleash the rugged, urban vibes in your designs, Burnaby Stencil is your new best friend. Let your words speak loud and proud with this font that’ll make ’em stand up and take notice. Most Latin-based European writing systems are supported, including the following languages. Afaan Oromo, Afar, Afrikaans, Albanian, Alsatian, Aromanian, Aymara, Bashkir (Latin), Basque, Belarusian (Latin), Bemba, Bikol, Bosnian, Breton, Cape Verdean, Creole, Catalan, Cebuano, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chichewa, Crimean Tatar (Latin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dawan, Dholuo, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Friulian, Gagauz (Latin), Galician, Ganda, Genoese, German, Greenlandic, Guadeloupean Creole, Haitian Creole, Hawaiian, Hiligaynon, Hungarian, Icelandic, Ilocano, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Kaqchikel, Karakalpak (Latin), Kashubian, Kikongo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Latin), Latvian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Maasai, Makhuwa, Malay, Maltese, Māori, Moldovan, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Novial, Occitan, Ossetian (Latin), Papiamento, Piedmontese, Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Rarotongan, Romanian, Romansh, Sami, Sango, Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian (Latin), Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorbian, Sotho, Spanish, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Tetum, Tongan, Tshiluba, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen (Latin), Tuvaluan, Uzbek (Latin), Venetian, Vepsian, Võro, Walloon, Waray-Waray, Wayuu, Welsh, Wolof, Xhosa, Yapese, Zapotec Zulu and Zuni.

ITC Christoph's Quill is just about everything you could want in a typeface: it's distinctive, beautiful, and exceptionally versatile. According to designer Russell Bean, ITC Christoph's Quill is the culmination of experimentation with a graphics tablet that spanned several years. Then one day, as if by magic, it all just fell into place. The design seemed to flow from my pen." Bean was born in Australia and, except for a brief stint with a photo-lettering firm in Southern California, has spent most of his career working down under. "I can recall a deep fascination for the written word," he says. "Even before learning to spell, read or write, I think I recognized that this was a means of visual communication." Bean's first job was in a small ad agency as a trainee in the production department, where he learned art techniques and how to handle print, as well as "the value of visual impressions," he says. His career path meandered from one design job to another, but always in the general direction of fonts and typefaces. Today, his workload consists of logo design commissions, font editing, typography and print production consultation to a select group of loyal clients - still leaving time, notes Bean, "to pursue my type design ambitions." ITC Christoph's Quill began life as a simple, visually striking font of caps, lowercase, punctuation and numerals. To this Bean added a bold weight, for when a little more strength is desirable. Next came a flock of alternate characters. Finally, Bean drew a set of decorative caps, a suite of logos, and a sprinkling of beginning and ending swashes. The net result is a type family that can add a signature flourish to a vast range of projects: from invitations and menus to logos, signage, packaging and more."

Go out into the wilderness. Cut down a tree. Stop and smell the roses. And then treat yourself with this unplugged, hand-lettered typeface. LiebeGerda is an effortless-but-refined, spontaneous-but-elegant brush font. She is ready for your next project, and she wants to add that little crafty something that makes the difference. Her natural breath of fresh air lets you escape those same old monotonous script fonts you’ve been using. After our successful first brush font, LiebeDoris, and our first interconnected script, LiebeLotte, we’re combining both genres and taking them to the next level: an interconnected brush script. OpenType magic varies LiebeGerda’s letterforms: Most characters have no less than three different variations that are automatically shuffled and inserted as you type. Plus, the “All-Caps” OpenType feature exchanges uppercase letters with less-swashy variants. Now you know why every one of the four styles contains more than 1,200 characters! Ulrike of LiebeFonts painted LiebeGerda’s four styles individually from scratch and carefully adjusted every detail by hand. Rather than being one typeface with different weights, LiebeGerda is a package of four individual fonts that go together really well. Ulrike’s high level of type-nerdy craftsmanship shows. When you use LiebeGerda, your designs will easily convince your audience that they’re looking at a hand-crafted piece of lettering. Feel free to add a few of the stacked ligatures like “the”, “for”, and “new” to round off the illusion. Last but not least, LiebeGerda has a lot more detail than most other brush fonts. That means there’s no ugly, lazy bézier artifacts in the brush traces. You can print words at billboard size, and people will still believe they smell the paint from your brush!

Hispania Script is a distinctive and distinctly nineteenth century script. It was released by Schelter & Giesecke of Leipzig, Germany around 1890. Particularly noteworthy are the sharply-pointed legs of the upper case ‘K’ & ‘R’ that seem to be characteristic of the period. Similar strokes, often with a slight curve, may be seen in typefaces like Alt-Romanish and Tinteretto by Schelter & Giesecke, Artistic and Lateinsch by Bauer and Berthold and the poster lettering of Edward Penfield. The angle of this script (approximately 24 degrees) and the sharp delicate points must have made the manufacture of this face in metal type a challenge. The resulting type was probably quite fragile and subject to accidental damage. Additionally, the sharp points would be subject to wear. With digital type, these concerns are eliminated. As far as I know, no one has ever dropped a digital letter on the floor. Nonetheless, creating a digital outline for a typeface like Hispania Script, with many crossing strokes, can be quite time-consuming. Even with an accurate scan of a good quality original, it is usually necessary to construct each crossing stroke separately and then remove the overlap in order to obtain a sharp and convincing intersection. Steep internal angles are often defined with two points, rather than one, to minimize ink or toner fill that can muddy the rendering in smaller sizes. Like all formal scripts, Hispania Script is always useful for announcements and invitations. However, the distinctiveness of of this design strongly suggests that there are other applications that may benefit from its use. Step outside the box and try it in some unexpected places. It is the unexpected that often draws a person’s eye.

While the Aspire family finds its roots of inspiration in the ACURA automotive company logo, with its wider base, the Aspire Narrow family condenses those styles into something more suitable for larger bodies of text in a more standardized width. Aspire pays homage the techno display styling of the inspiration logotype, further evolving beyond its brand inspired origin to give birth to a font family that pulls on modern and historical styles. It adopts a sturdy yet approachable style with its uniform stroke forms and curves, and goes on to include a lowercase, numerals, and a comprehensive range of weights, creating a straightforward, uncompromising collection of typefaces that lend a solid foundation and a broad range of expression for designers. Here’s what’s included with the Aspire Narrow Family bundle: 477 glyphs per style - including Capitals, Lowercase, Numerals, Punctuation and an extensive character set that covers multilingual support of latin based languages. (see the 6th graphic for a preview of the characters included) Stylistic Alternates - alternate characters that remove the angled stencil cuts for a more standardized text look. 3 weights in the family: Light, Regular, & Black. 3 obliques in the family, one for each weight: Light, Regular, & Black. Fonts are available in TTF & OTF formats. The TTF format is the standard go to for most users, although the OTF and TTF function exactly the same. Here’s why the Aspire Narrow Family is for you: - You’re in need of a narrow automotive sans font family with a range of weights and obliques. - You’re love that ACURA letter styling, and want to design with a narrow font within that genre. - You’re looking for an alternative to Eurostile with more stylized letterforms. - You’re looking for a clean techno typeface for your starship console labelling. - You just like to collect quality fonts to add to your design arsenal.

Our new Hamburger font is based on the old classic Brush Script design with many new additions. We've added many alternates to the design including lowercase swash tail letters, swash underscores and a few alternate uppercase letters. Upright scripts are popular these day so new to this old type design is a near upright script version, a lot of hand work went into producing it. One of the biggest problems with the old Brush Script font is that people use it as all caps, which doesn't look good because of the extended swash on the top left side of the caps letters. We've fixed that problem by making an all caps version where the caps in the lowercase position have the top left swash tucked in to help the letters display better as an all caps font. We've also created a small caps version, again the small caps lowercase have all the top left swashes tucked in to bring the letters closer together for a better display. Also new to this font are two higher x-height versions that are ideal for signage. The first is Hamburger X which stands for extra x-height and the second is Hamburger SPX which stands for super x-height. Both of these higher x-height fonts are suitable for signage on a building, billboard and vehicle lettering where you're looking for faster readability from moving traffic. We've designed a new lowercase b and moved the original to an alternate position. We've also redesigned the uppercase C bringing the bottom up to the baseline and moved the original C to an alternate position. The original lowercase g was open at the top, we've closed it and we're not offering the original g as an alternate.

Madrigalle was seven months in the making and may be described as a contemporary copperplate. When designers look for a font that is both elaborate and strong, they generally have to go back to styles of a previous period, possibly produced recently but not contemporary in their look and feel. In Madrigalle, I believe that I've produced a font that is contemporary but has the boldness and delicacy that mark the fonts of previous generations. I feel that most fonts that derive their style from the complexity of their characters place too much emphasis on upper case characters, and that lower case characters are very conservatively treated. I have tried, with Madrigalle, to redress this imbalance and to introduce informality and vigor to the genre. Madrigalle comes in three options: Two simpler options, Madrigalle Nocturne - slightly less elaborate, and Madrigalle Minuet - slightly more elaborate. Each of these options may be easily used in packages that don't support the Character Map OpenType feature. The Professional Option, Madrigalle Expert, combines all the features of Nocturne and Minuet and has a large number of additional opentype character alternatives. It takes full advantage of Opentype features to provide the designer with a wide range of options, enabling him to give an individual stamp to his work. I recommend that packages such as InDesign and Illustrator, which support Character maps, be used with Madrigalle Expert in order to make full use of this font’s OpenType features. (Just select GLYPHS from the TYPE palette, and set your creativity free!) All Madrigalle styles contain the accented characters used in the major European languages. Try Madrigalle, use it for invitations, advertising media, fashion media, music media, contemporary cosmetics, anything romantic... the list is endless!

The original Avenir typeface was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, after years of having an interest in sans serif typefaces. The word Avenir means “future” in French and hints that the typeface owes some of its interpretation to Futura. But unlike Futura, Avenir is not purely geometric; it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an “o” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These nuances aid in legibility and give Avenir a harmonious and sensible appearance for both texts and headlines. In 2012, Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next to life, as a new take on the classic Avenir. The goal of the project was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. Since then, Monotype expanded the typeface to accommodate more languages. Akira’s deep familiarity with existing iterations of the Frutiger designs, along with his understanding of the design philosophy of the man himself, made him uniquely suited to lead the creation of different language fonts. Avenir Next World family, the most recent release from Monotype, is an expansive family of fonts that offers support for more than 150 languages and scripts that include Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian and Thai. Avenir Next World contains 10 weights, from UltraLight to Heavy. The respective 10 Italic styles do not support Arabic, Georgian and Thai, since Italic styles are unfamiliar in these scripts/languages. Separate Non-Latin products to support just the Arabic, Cyrillic, Georgian, Hebrew and Thai script are also available for those who do not need the full language support.

The original Avenir typeface was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, after years of having an interest in sans serif typefaces. The word Avenir means “future” in French and hints that the typeface owes some of its interpretation to Futura. But unlike Futura, Avenir is not purely geometric; it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an “o” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These nuances aid in legibility and give Avenir a harmonious and sensible appearance for both texts and headlines. In 2012, Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next to life, as a new take on the classic Avenir. The goal of the project was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. Since then, Monotype expanded the typeface to accommodate more languages. Akira’s deep familiarity with existing iterations of the Frutiger designs, along with his understanding of the design philosophy of the man himself, made him uniquely suited to lead the creation of different language fonts. Avenir Next World family, the most recent release from Monotype, is an expansive family of fonts that offers support for more than 150 languages and scripts that include Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian and Thai. Avenir Next World contains 10 weights, from UltraLight to Heavy. The respective 10 Italic styles do not support Arabic, Georgian and Thai, since Italic styles are unfamiliar in these scripts/languages. Separate Non-Latin products to support just the Arabic, Cyrillic, Georgian, Hebrew and Thai script are also available for those who do not need the full language support.

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. This version of Bodoni was done by Morris Fuller Benton for American Typefounders between 1907 and 1911. Although some of the finer details of the original Bodoni types are missing, this family has the high contrast and vertical stress typical of modern types. It works well for headlines, logos, advertising, and text."

Compatil is the first comprehensive type system which enables all typographical elements to be used to full effect in order to reproduce the message conveyed by text information. Four different type styles with a total of 16 weights including italics have been merged into a unique typographical network. There are now no limits to the font user's creativity. The system is a product of technical innovation and constitutes a new design approach which meets the highest aesthetic standards. For almost two years, a team of experts from Linotype has been working with initiator Professor Olaf Leu under the direction of Silja Bilz, Erik Faulhaber and Reinhard Haus to create the Compatil type system. Despite the Internet and TV, it is essential today to be able to absorb information quickly by being able to read it with ease. A fact that is becoming increasingly important both on-screen and on paper. It is the role of the font to increase legibility and to ensure typographically perfect results for text design work. The new Compatil type system meets all these needs. The Compatil is a part of the Platinum Collection. The following four different styles are available: Compatil Exquisit, Compatil Fact, Compatil Letter and Compatil Text. Compatil is available in various font formats: 16 separate OT Pro fonts including the small caps and Adobe Central European character set for OpenType-supporting applications like Adobe InDesign, or as 32 separate OpenType Com fonts for office communication, with the following special features: 1. Optimized display capabilities for computer screens eXcellent Screen Fonts (XSF-quality). 2. An extended, international character set, which supports 48 different languages for Microsoft Office applications like MS Word or as 64 PostScript fonts, which can be used in non-OpenType-supporting applications like Quark XPress.

You might call this a Bodoni Ornate font that Bodoni never made, close examination of this old 1800s font and it's plain to see that the top half of the letters is very Bodoni in appearance. Apple Pie is a revival of and old font from the William Hagar Type Foundry, which I've been able to date back to 1850. The William Hagar type specimen book from the 1850s only shows this font as a caps only typeface plus numbers, later in 1869 MacKellar Smiths and Jordan offered this font with a lowercase. Over a two year period I was able to collect enough letters to begin production of this old decorative font, the type specimen books only showed a small line of text for this font so I would search through old documents on eBay and also shows relating to Ephemera. I could have easily developed a new font based on a very small sample of letters but I wanted to wait and find as many letters as possible, I was unable to find the Q, X, Z and ten lowercase letters so those missing letters are of my own design. New to this font is the addition of an all Caps Greek character set, accented letters for Eastern Central and Western European countries is also within this font. Fill fonts are available for the Apple Pie font, you will need an application that works in layers such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator or Corel Graphics in order to use the Fill fonts. Some Fill fonts may be used as stand alone fonts but the versions for Apple Pie look best when layered behind the parent or main Apple Pie fonts. Be sure to check out the left and right hands located on the Less Than and Greater Than keys.

Compatil is the first comprehensive type system which enables all typographical elements to be used to full effect in order to reproduce the message conveyed by text information. Four different type styles with a total of 16 weights including italics have been merged into a unique typographical network. There are now no limits to the font user's creativity. The system is a product of technical innovation and constitutes a new design approach which meets the highest aesthetic standards. For almost two years, a team of experts from Linotype has been working with initiator Professor Olaf Leu under the direction of Silja Bilz, Erik Faulhaber and Reinhard Haus to create the Compatil type system. Despite the Internet and TV, it is essential today to be able to absorb information quickly by being able to read it with ease. A fact that is becoming increasingly important both on-screen and on paper. It is the role of the font to increase legibility and to ensure typographically perfect results for text design work. The new Compatil type system meets all these needs. The Compatil is a part of the Platinum Collection. The following four different styles are available: Compatil Exquisit, Compatil Fact, Compatil Letter and Compatil Text. Compatil is available in various font formats: 16 separate OT Pro fonts including the small caps and Adobe Central European character set for OpenType-supporting applications like Adobe InDesign, or as 32 separate OpenType Com fonts for office communication, with the following special features: 1. Optimized display capabilities for computer screens eXcellent Screen Fonts (XSF-quality). 2. An extended, international character set, which supports 48 different languages for Microsoft Office applications like MS Word or as 64 PostScript fonts, which can be used in non-OpenType-supporting applications like Quark XPress.

Born on May 8, 1892 in Reno Nevada, Lewis Franklin (“Lew” ) Hymers left an indelible mark as a caricaturist, cartoonist and graphic artist. At the age of twenty [in 1912] he worked for the San Francisco Chronicle. During World War I he worked for the Washington Post. He even was employed for a time by Walt Disney as an animator - but most of his life was spent in either Tujunga, California or his birthplace of Reno, Nevada as a self-employed illustrator. Hymers inked a feature for the Nevada State Journal called “Seen About Town”, which was published during the 1930s and 1940s. In this panel, he caricaturized many of the familiar faces around Reno. He also designed signs, logos, post cards and numerous other commercial illustrations for clients, but what has endeared him to a number of fans was his vast library of stock cuts (the predecessor to paper and electronic clip art) which feature his humorous characters in various professions and life situations. So popular is his work amongst those “in the know” that a clip art book collection of over seven hundred of his drawings that was issued by Dover Publications [but long out of print] commands asking prices ranging from just under $15 to well over $100 for a single copy. Lew Hymers passed away on February 5, 1953 just a few months shy of his 61st birthday. Although his artwork depicts the 1930s and 1940s lifestyles, equipment and conveniences, more than sixty years after his death they stand up amazingly well as cheerful pieces of nostalgia. The twenty-seven images (and some variants) in Hymers JNL were painstakingly re-drawn from scans of one of his catalogs and is but just a tiny fraction of the hundreds upon hundreds of illustrations from the pen of this prolific artist.

Some typefaces need time to ripen; Burian and Scaglione made the first sketches for Ebony back in 2008, but it took a few years of maturing in a drawer to be developed into a multi-functional type family. While keeping in tune with TypeTogether’s focus on complex typographic structures needed for magazine, newspapers and books —whether printed or digital—, Ebony goes far beyond editorial use and promises great performance in branding and advertising. The range of dark weights with taut and powerful curves can boost any headline, while the lighter styles create an approachable and clean feel in blocks of continuous text. Ebony does not fall short on aiding legibility either; letterforms have a distinct direction of ductus and features like the top serif on ‘l’ help making them clearly distinguishable from each other. It is a type family that cleverly seeks a balance between the openness and legibility of humanist sans serifs and the striking and more regularised character of grotesques. The letter-shapes feature generous counters and open terminals with crisp angles, and daringly grow both in colour and width as the fonts get bolder. Infused with this strength, Ebony also shows a quirky side in some of her shapes; the vertical fractions, the at-symbol, the old-style numbers, … The predominantly slanted style of the italics is broken up in some letterforms, such as ‘a e f l’, that are more in line with a classic cursive appearance. This, together with a forceful italic angle, ensure a change in texture within a block of text, despite sharing the same letter weight and width with the uprights. With 18 styles, tending towards the heavier part of the weight-spectrum, this face has a powerful quality!

The original Avenir typeface was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, after years of having an interest in sans serif typefaces. The word Avenir means “future” in French and hints that the typeface owes some of its interpretation to Futura. But unlike Futura, Avenir is not purely geometric; it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an “o” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These nuances aid in legibility and give Avenir a harmonious and sensible appearance for both texts and headlines. In 2012, Akira Kobayashi worked alongside Avenir’s esteemed creator Adrian Frutiger to bring Avenir Next to life, as a new take on the classic Avenir. The goal of the project was to take a beautifully designed sans and update it so that its technical standards surpass the status quo, leaving us with a truly superior sans family. Since then, Monotype expanded the typeface to accommodate more languages. Akira’s deep familiarity with existing iterations of the Frutiger designs, along with his understanding of the design philosophy of the man himself, made him uniquely suited to lead the creation of different language fonts. Avenir Next World family, the most recent release from Monotype, is an expansive family of fonts that offers support for more than 150 languages and scripts that include Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian and Thai. Avenir Next World contains 10 weights, from UltraLight to Heavy. The respective 10 Italic styles do not support Arabic, Georgian and Thai, since Italic styles are unfamiliar in these scripts/languages. Separate Non-Latin products to support just the Arabic, Cyrillic, Georgian, Hebrew and Thai script are also available for those who do not need the full language support.

Gill Sans is a humanistic sans serif family that, while is considered by many to be quintessentially British in tone and concept, has been used in virtually every country and in nearly every application imaginable. Gill Sans has reached this level of near-ubiquity for one simple—and very good—reason: it is an exceptionally distinctive design with a potential range of use that is almost limitless. This toolkit family includes a wide range of styles including the standards such as Light—which is open and elegant—and a Regular that, with its flat-bottomed d, flat-topped p and q and triangular-topped t, has a more compact and muscular appearance. Its Bold styles tend to echo the softer, more open style of the light while the extra bold and ultra bold have their own vivid personalities, but each of them would make for an eye-catching headline. Take into account the family’s many weights, including condensed and extra condensed designs, and extended language support and you have yourself a tool you’ll be thrilled to return to, time and again. Gill Sans was designed by Eric Gill: a versatile, brilliant, and prolifically successful designer of the early part of the last century. One of the main reasons for the enduring success of his namesake design is that it is based on Roman character shapes and proportions, making it unlike virtually any other sans serif out there. Gill also worked his own warmth and humanity into his design, resulting in a typeface in which each weight retains a distinct personality of its own. Pair with serif fonts like Gill's own Joanna; or more modern offerings like Frutiger® Serif, Malabar™, Syntax® Serif, FF Scala®, or DIN Next™ Slab.

Y’all ready for this? Now starting for Insigne: the new serif Mirantz. This rookie all-star plays a precise game every game, cutting at all the right angles to leave your reader impressed and ready to see more. You can always count on Mirantz to lead with solid mechanics and a clean style, but don’t be surprised when the face keeps it real with a little individual flare and creativity. This personal touch is nothing short of elegance in every appearance. So what makes us love this rookie above the other great players in the field? Contrast, for one. Mirantz brings more contrast to the game than most serifs out there. The serifs on this face have a crisp, sharp wedge that naturally draws the reader’s eye. You can’t help but fall in love with its clean, natural style. Mirantz also features a tall x-height and regular proportions that can play a number of positions on the page and still stay strong through the last half of the copy or even the final period. Mirantz is a solid powerhouse player, containing a complete set of small capitals and nine weights from thin to bold. It can play well both down low and up top with its subscripts and superscripts and can move your reader’s eye easily across the copy with its titling capitals, condensed and extended variants, and open style figures. With its options covering more than 72 Latin-based languages, look for this newcomer to have international success in the near future. It you haven’t set your draft picks for this next round of projects, think hard before passing up Mirantz. A capable serif like this one is a guaranteed asset to any team of fonts. Production assistance from Lucas Azevedo.