Typographer and graphic designer Pavel Teimer (1935-1970) designed a modern serif roman with italics in 1967. For the drawing of Teimer he found inspiration in the types of Walbaum and Didot, rather than Bodoni. He re-evaluated these archetypes in an individual way, adjusting both height and width proportions and modifying details in the strokes, thus effectively breaking away from the historical models he used as a starting point. Teimer’s antiqua has less contrast; the overall construction of the characters is softer and more lively. The proportions of the italics are rather wide, making them stand out by their calm and measured rhythm. This was defined by the purpose of the typeface, as it was to be utilised for two-character matrices. The long serifs are a typical feature noticeable throughout the complete family of fonts. In 1967, a full set of basic glyphs, numerals and diacritics of Teimer’s antiqua was submitted to the Czechoslovak Grafotechna type foundry. However, the face was never cast.
At the beginning of 2005 we decided to rehabilitate this hidden gem of Czech typography. We used the booklet "Teimer’s antiqua - a design of modern type roman and italics", written by Jan Solpera and Kl‡ra Kv’zov‡ in 1992, as a template for digitisation. The specimen contains an elementary set of roman and italics, including numerals and ampersands. After studying the specimen, we decided to make certain adjustments to the construction of the character shapes. We slightly corrected the proportions of the typeface, cut and broadened the serifs, and slightly strengthened the hair strokes. In the upper case we made some significant changes in the end serifs of round strokes in C, G and S, and the J was redrawn from the scratch. The top diagonal arm of the K was made to connect with the vertical stem, while the tail of Q has received a more expressive tail. The stronger hairlines are yet more apparent in the lower case, which is why we needed to further intervene in the construction of the actual character shapes. The drawing of the f is new, with more tension at the top of the character, and the overall shape of the g is better balanced. We also added an ear to the j, and curves in the r have become more fluent.
To emphasise the compact character of the family, the lining numerals were thoroughly redrawn, with the finials being replaced by vertical serifs. The original character of the numerals was preserved in the new set of old-style figures.

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Where Modern is too fragile and Century too boring, Hercules comes with its elegant forms and, at the same time, with sufficient firmness to be usable for longer texts. In its heavy, bold designs it approaches Falstaff, while in the light ones it has some features which are taken over from Didot or from Modern. The text designs have been corrected for small sizes. The range of its use is, therefore, quite extensive - from dictionaries and technical literature through magazines to art posters and advertising materials.

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The Filosofia Regular family is designed for text applications. It is somewhat rugged with reduced contrast to withstand the reduction to text sizes.

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Andrade is a new typeface designed by Dino dos Santos in 2005.

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An elegant take on Bodoni, with its subtle flared serifs that give it a very beautiful distinguished look.

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Scotch Modern is a revival of the typeface used in the book New York State Cabinet of Natural History.

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Punchcutters (when types had to be cut, and not just drawn), were working with steel, a strong metal they had to sculpt. They were subject to physical contingencies: each type cast was engraved separatly and, as we move down into the smaller type sizes, the drawing was adapted to new specific data encountered — fine hairlines—hence fragile—need to be reinforced, the curves simplified and the width spacing slightly increased to prevent the ink from clogging up the composition. So, each body size had its own drawing, mostly given by merely physical limits relating to the dexterity and eyesight of the punchcutter… and of the reader, too.

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A universal typeface for books, magazines and newspapers must be economizing, quiet, strong in drawing, but original and peaceful at the same time. Type “for all weather” must resist also many difficulties of printing on different surfaces. Therefore, the basic design “Text” is slightly darker and legible from 6 point size even in a dim light, whereas “Book” reduces the effect of running ink and saves toner cartridge. In offices of smaller companies these lighter fonts are welcomed as toner-savers. Andulka also need less space on the page than other text typefaces and saves paper too.

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Mokka is a robust and crisp typeface with strong serifs and individual forms.

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In spite of its name, this font family embodies the ultimate classic modern advertising typeface, rather than concern itself with revivalism or Didone authenticity. Naturally the spirit of the original Didot faces still exists in this family, but over twelve years of work on it have made it more fitting to the luxurious expression of our day and age, rather than nineteenth century Europe.

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Vinegar Pro is a modern, legible serif typeface.

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Although originally conceived as a magazine face – with strong serifs and open character shapes for good legibility in small sizes, and compact letter forms optimized for narrow columns and tight headlines – Marat evolved into a comprehensive family for general use.

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In spite of its name, this font family embodies the ultimate classic modern advertising typeface, rather than concern itself with revivalism or Didone authenticity. Naturally the spirit of the original Didot faces still exists in this family, but over twelve years of work on it have made it more fitting to the luxurious expression of our day and age, rather than nineteenth century Europe.

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The Roos family is a digitization and expansion of the last typeface designed by Sjoerd Hendrik De Roos, called De Roos Romein (and Cursief). It was designed and produced during the years of the second World War, and unveiled in the summer of 1947 to celebrate De Roos’s 70th birthday. In 1948, the first fonts produced were used for a special edition of the Dutch Constitution on which Juliana took the oath during her inauguration as the Queen of the Netherlands. To this day this typeface is widely regarded as De Roos’s best design, with one of the most beautiful italics ever drawn.

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Giambattista Bodoni of Parma, Italy, designed and cut his typefaces at the end of the eighteenth century. The Bodoni types were the culmination of nearly 300 years of evolution in roman type design, in which fine hairlines contrast sharply with bolder stems, and serifs are often unbracketed. Bodoni is recognized by its high contrast between thick and thin strokes, pure vertical stress, and hairline serifs. This particular version of Bodoni was first created by Morris Fuller Benton for American Type Founders between 1908 and 1915. It brings elegance and sparkle to any graphic image, including headlines, text, and logos.

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Slavoboj Tusar was the brother of Czech prime minister in the 1920s and 30s. His typeface was introuced at the Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925, revised and manufactured by Lanston-Monotype in 1926 and redesigned and digitized in 2004.

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The engraver Jean Jannon ranks among the significant representatives of French typography of the first half of the 17th century. He was born in 1580, apparently in Switzerland. He trained as punch-cutter in Paris. From 1610 he worked in the printing office of the Calvinist Academy in Sedan, where he was awarded the title "Imprimeur de son Excellence et de l'Academie Sédanoise". He began working on his own alphabet in 1615, so that he would not have to order type for his printing office from Paris, Holland and Germany, which at that time was rather difficult.

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Karmina is a text typeface developed mainly for pocket books and budget editions. It was built to withstand the worst printing conditions: low quality papers, high printing speed with web presses and variations in the ink level of the printing press.

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Created by Adobe type designer Carol Twombly, Chaparral combines the legibility of slab serif designs popularized in the 19th century with the grace of 16th-century roman book lettering.

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Adobe Jenson Pro captures the essence of Nicolas Jenson’s roman and Ludovico degli Arrighi’s italic typeface designs. The combined strength and beauty of these two icons of Renaissance type result in an elegant typeface suited to a broad spectrum of applications.

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Freight’s comprehensive range of weights and styles excels in a variety of uses, from train schedules and university catalogues to technical manuals and cookbooks.

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German-born punchcutter Johann Fleischman, contemporary of Baskerville and Fournier, worked at the Enschede Foundry in Haarlem. Expert in advanced tools and the qualities of fine steel, he pushed beyond the frontiers of his time, cutting active typefaces famous worldwide for their “sparkle.”

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Minion Pro is an Adobe Original typeface designed by Robert Slimbach. The first version of Minion was released in 1990. Cyrillic additions were released in 1992, and finally the OpenType Pro version was released in 2000.

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Minuscule was inspired by Émile Javal’s research into the physiology of reading. He was a 19th-century opthalmologist, the first to analyze how we read.

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The versatile Borges type family is inspired by the literature of Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges.

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Copacabana is heavily based on one of my favourite typefaces Goudy Old Style Italic. It is sharper and more clearly defined than Goudy yet still retains it old style characteristics. The face is slightly angled so is basically upright whilst still retaining Italic characteristics.

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Dederon Serif has been specifically designed for book setting. Preliminary sketches were drawn in 2004. Its inspiration – particularly its weight and width proportions – can be traced to the Liberta typeface from the TypoArt type foundry in former Eastern Germany. After a careful study of the model, the design of Dederon branched off into its own direction, finding its distinctive voice and becoming a wholly original type family. Dederon Serif kept most of the elements typical for the Old Style Roman lettering, such as the angle of the stress, the medium x-height, and lower contrast. In large sizes, the typical shapes of the letters stand out – the calligraphic feel characteristic for the Czech typefaces by Oldrich Menhart, the unusual serifs hinting at the angle of the pen, the shapes of the stems, or the terminals of dots and ears.

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Depot is a solid confident sans-serif, available in 8 weights with supporting true italics and ready for everyday use.

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Berling was created by Karl-Erik Forsberg for the Berling foundry in 1951, with other weights added in 1958. The design is an old style roman, particularly useful for books, journals, and other text applications. Although it has higher contrast than most old style typefaces, Berling has the classic features of old style romans with its diminutive x-height, and ascenders that exceed the height of the capital letters. Berling is good for text settings as well as display work.

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Tribute is a new typeface by German type designer Frank Heine. This is Heine’s fourth release with Emigre Fonts. Remedy, released in 1991, was a major commercial success. It’s curlicue, free-style, comic appearance, provided a perfect counter to Emigre’s then primarily modular type designs. Dalliance, a classic roman and script combo based on handwriting from a photocopy of a 1799 battle map, was released in 2002 and became an instant classic.

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Dutch Mediaeval is a text family based on Hollandse Mediaeval, the 1912 Sjoerd Hendrik deRoos classic, arguably the most popular Dutch text face of the 20th century. Over the years, many typographers and pressmen have gushed loving words about this typeface in metal, and now it comes to digital life in wonderful and expert style.

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An attempt to go back towards the beauty of fine book printing, inspired in Britain’s literary classics.

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Edita is a gentle typeface, humanistic in concept yet with a contemporary feel, where softness and fluidity play a very important role.

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While Adelle is a slab serif typeface conceived specifically for intensive editorial use, mainly in newspapers and magazines, its personality and flexibility make it a real multiple-purpose typeface.

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In 1931, The Times of London commissioned the Monotype Corporation, under the direction of Stanley Morison, to design a newspaper typeface.

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An ultra heavy redesigned Bodoni look, extremely powerful but yet very elegant.

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This family was inspired mainly (Normal and Italic style ) by a Didot pattern font used in Rennes (France, Britanny) by Cousin-Danelle, printers, for Antiquités historiques et monumentales ‡ visiter de Montfort ‡ Corseul, par Dinan... Saint Malo... etc. an historic guidebook for journey through a part of (French) Britanny 1820, and many other books.

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Designed by R.H. Middleton for Ludlow, circa 1930. Digitally engineered by Steve Jackaman.

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Designed by R.H. Middleton for Ludlow, circa 1930. Digitally engineered by Steve Jackaman.

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This Bodoni-like font sets out to slightly square off rounded shapes, adding a very slight curve to the join from the square serif and stem, and minimizing and softening the pronounced bulbs found in Bodoni. There are hints of Walbaum and Melior but the overall effect is a more subtle, and interesting letterform that is friendly, fresh and contemporary.

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Firmin Didot cut the first modern face about 1784 in Paris; Giambattista Bodoni followed prolifically on his heels; his punches and matrices survive in Parma. Bauer has produced the most faithful and delicate contemporary version of his types.

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ALS Mirta is a clean text type well-suited for use in typesetting of smart volumes and kids’ books.

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Narziss is a very popular display typeface. People really love the thin hairlines and the swirls.

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An interpretation of the modern serif.

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Relato Sans is the other face of Relato Serif (a typeface with much idiosyncrasy) never the less, the sans version of this typeface is more austere and aseptic. A humanistic type, with a contemporary cut, created for general use in texts and holders and with a great variety of weights, which allows the enough flexibility for projects of great magnitude.

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See also BF Fiona Script and BF Fiona Slab.

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ITC Tyfa is a joint effort of Frantisek Storm and Josef Tyfa. The original metal face of Czech artist and designer Tyfa was inspired by the work of architect P.L. Nervi. “In the past, type design was primarily based on the esthetic values of the faces. Mine were inspired by the forms of modern architecture,” says Tyfa. Storm began digitizing the typeface under Tyfa’s direction and feels the design shows “a little touch of baroque typography.” While it is possible to see the influences of older Czech designers, ITC Tyfa is a unique typeface with a distinctive character all its own.

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The concept of the Baroque Roman type face is something which is remote from us. Ungrateful theorists gave Baroque type faces the ill-sounding attribute “Transitional”, as if the Baroque Roman type face wilfully diverted from the tradition and at the same time did not manage to mature. This “transition” was originally meant as an intermediate stage between the Aldine/Garamond Roman face of the Renaissance, and its modern counterpart, as represented by Bodoni or Didot. Otherwise there was also a “transition” from a slanted axis of the shadow to a perpendicular one. What a petty detail led to the pejorative designation of Baroque type faces! If a bookseller were to tell his customers that they are about to choose a book which is set in some sort of transitional type face, he would probably go bust. After all, a reader, for his money, would not put up with some typographical experimentation. He wants to read a book without losing his eyesight while doing so.

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Dolly, a book typeface with flourishes.

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Of W. A. Dwiggins’ wartime experiments, the most successful was Eldorado, released by Mergenthaler in 1953. With unusual fidelity, he followed an early roman lowercase, cut in the 16th century by Jacques de Sanlecque the elder, aer Granjon.

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Designed in 1935 by William Addison Dwiggins, Electra has been a standard book typeface since its release because of its evenness of design and high legibility.

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One of the good practices of today’s type foundries is that they release their type families as systems including both serif and sans serif type. Usually, the sources of inspiration need to be well tried with time and practice, since production of a type family is such a laborious and complex process. From the beginning, it needs to be clear that the result will be suited for universal use. Such systems, complete with the broad, multi-lingual variations permitted by the OpenType format, have become the elementary, default instrument of visual communication. Non-Latin scripts are useful for a wide scope of academic publications, for packaging and corporate systems alike. And what about outdoor advertisement designated for markets in developing countries? Cyrillics and Greek have become an integral part of our OpenType font systems. Maybe you noticed that the sans serif cuts have richer variety of the light – black scale. This is due to the fact that sans serif families tend to be less susceptible to deformities in form, and thus they are able to retain their original character throughout the full range of weights. On the other hand, the nature of serifed, contrasted cuts does not permit such extremes without sacrificing their characteristic features. Both weights were drawn by hand, only the Medium cut has been interpolated. Anselm Ten is a unique family of four cuts, slightly strengthened and adjusted for the setting in sizes around 10 pt and smaller, as its name indicates.

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Designed by Robert Slimbach, Warnock Pro is a new Adobe Originals type composition family named after John Warnock, the co-founder of Adobe Systems, whose visionary spirit has led to major advances in desktop publishing and graphic arts software.

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Named after the Florentine river which runs through the heart of the Italian Renaissance, Arno draws on the warmth and readability of early humanist typefaces of the 15th and 16th centuries.

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Before the arrival of photo-composition, each font size had a specific design. Le Monde Livre, designed by Jean François Porchez, along with Le Monde Journal, re-establishes this practice. In effect, the latter was developed specifically for use at small point sizes (below 10 points.)

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Le Monde Journal is the typeface on which the entire Le Monde family is based. By definition, it is intended for newspaper use and at small sizes. Even though it has the same colour as Times, it appears more open. The reading flow has been made more fluent and less abrupt. The counters in the glyphs are bigger, as if they were “illuminating the interior". The form, characterized by its serifs, remains embedded in our visual memory.

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Eduardo Danilo’s dramatic redesign of El Universal, a leading Mexico City daily, introduced Cyrus Highsmith’s Zócalo.

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Eduardo Danilo’s dramatic redesign of El Universal, a leading Mexico City daily, introduced Cyrus Highsmith’s Zócalo.

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Since the arrival of desktop computers, the majority of professional letters have been composed in quality typefaces. Typewriters & the typestyles they used have become antiques. A letter composed in Times or Helvetica & printed with a laser printer at 300 or 600 dpi are of such quality that one can no longer distinguish it with a document produced by offset printing.

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Freight’s comprehensive range of weights and styles excels in a variety of uses, from train schedules and university catalogues to technical manuals and cookbooks.

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A redesign of Torino, a great feel with many possible uses. Also has a matching Italic version.

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LaBodoni is my newly designed Bodoni.

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Condé Nast commissioned the FB version of this popular oldstyle for Traveler magazine.

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Giambattista Bodoni created this modern typeface in 1790 which served as the structural model for Sol Hess’s faithful rendition. Hess made necessary adjustments for mechanical typesetting on Lanston’s Monotype composition system.

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A Bold new re cut of Bodoni, designed with a more contemporary look.

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This typeface is named after Sarah Eaves, the woman who became John Baskerville’s wife. As Baskerville was setting up his printing and type business, Mrs. Eaves moved in with him as a live-in housekeeper, eventually becoming his wife after the death of her first husband, Mr. Eaves. Like the widows of Caslon, Bodoni, and the daughters of Fournier, Sarah similarly completed the printing of the unfinished volumes that John Baskerville left upon his death.

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From M.F. Benton 1917 and DTP types Limited 1992.

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In 1924 Morris Fuller Benton designed for ATF a new variation on his father’s design, Century Oldstyle. Century Schoolbook has become a synonym for readability.

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Instead of seeking inspiration in the past, Fedra Serif is a synthetic typeface where aesthetic and technological decisions are linked. Fedra combines seemingly contradictory ways of constructing characters into one harmonious font. Its humanistic roots (the rhythm of the handwriting) is balanced with rational drawing (a coarse computer-screen grid).

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Instead of seeking inspiration in the past, Fedra Serif is a synthetic typeface where aesthetic and technological decisions are linked. Fedra combines seemingly contradictory ways of constructing characters into one harmonious font. Its humanistic roots (the rhythm of the handwriting) is balanced with rational drawing (a coarse computer-screen grid).

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Malena is a typographic family created by Lentino and Muhafara like a shared working project which integrates both views on typography as a whole.

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I started designing Cultura in 2003 for a book about the city of Oporto, Portugal. It was supposed to be a typeface only to use in that book and only in Regular and Italic, but after a large amount of requests I decided to expand the family, creating SmallCaps and Bold versions with some ligatures for better text possibilities.

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The typeface was designed at the Polygraphmash type design bureau in 1949-61 (project manager Elena Tsaregorodtseva).

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Joanna was designed by Eric Gill in 1930, based on type originally cut by Granjon, and released by the Monotype Corporation in 1937.

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Centro Pro is the winner of the prestigious European Design Awards 2008 for original typeface.

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Morris Fuller Benton started the Bodoni revival with this version for ATF in the early years of the 20th century. We consider it the first accurate revival of a historical face for general use. Sturdy and a little mechanical in the 19th century tradition, this is the Bodoni series familiar to us all.

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