Fonts in Focus, July 2005

Peter Kin-Fan Lo designed Linotype Ancient Chinese™, which was a winner in the Linotype’s Second International Type Design Contest (1997). It is part of the TakeType Library. The symbol font contains 92 "portraits" of figures who look as if they could have populated ancient China. These portraits are black and white symbols, gathered together into a font. This symbol font may be used to access any design piece dealing with history, China, Chinese restaurants, or Asian art. To assure maximum readability, these symbols should be used at larger point sizes.

The English typographer Robert Harling created Tea Chest™ in 1939 with the Stephenson Blake foundry. Today, this classic design is available in digital format from Linotype.
Tea Chest is a bold stencil face. The font’s narrow letters are all caps, and they sport small, slab serifs. Harling’s design was most likely reminiscent of the old industrial lettering painted onto boxes and wooden crates that used to be shipped all over the world on the high seas. These letters had to be simple to reproduce, easy to read, and not take up too much space!
Try out Tea Chest for large signage displays, on exotic product packaging, or in magazine or newsletter headlines.

Linotype Schnitz™ is part of the Take Type Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. Designed by the Finnish artist Osmo Niemi, the characters seem to contain no round forms at all. Linotype Schnitz looks as though it were chiseled and has an angular, almost brittle feel. The restless and lively appearance makes Linotype Schnitz particular well-suited to headlines and shorter texts with point sizes of 12 and larger.

Take a look at our Schnitz usage sample

Montix™ is a narrow, constructed type family that developed by the German designer Diana Fischer in 2003. With five weights (light, light italic, regular, regular italic, and bold), Montix is a particularly effective small family, especially when used for headline or display purposes. Montix’s letterforms have relatively long ascenders and descenders, which compared with its horizontally compact body gives it its unique style. Words or lines of text set in Montix would look best when some amount of white space is left around them. Because of this, the faces are well suited for logos and corporate identity uses (corporations that are forward thinking and "with it," of course).

Marcu San™ is part of the Take Type Library, which features the winners of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contest. Designer Markus McCallion designed his sans serif font with unusual forms based on circles and circle fragments. Legibility is thus decreased for the sake of a unique look and a variety of design possibilities.

Linotype Inky Script™ is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. This fun fon was designed by the German artist Thomas Schnaeble as a handwriting font with little stroke contrast. The lower case letters are broad with a low x-height. Texts presented in Inky Script have a light, personal touch. Linotype Inky Script is well-suited to headlines as well as short to middle length texts.

Making a Christmas card takes a lot of work! Finding the right typeface can be tough, too. Have you ever spent hours searching for the right one? Well, in 2003, instead of spending hours searching, German designer Guido Bittner made his own. Expectation™ was first used on the Christmas card for Bittner’s Wiesbaden design studio, like VorSicht.
This delicate series of letters maintains a handwritten feel, in part because it began as a digitalization of Bittner’s own handwriting. VS Expectation Swash includes additional swash letters, which can be paired with regular version of VS Expectation to create superior effects. Perhaps it is already time for you to begin working on next year’s holiday cards. Let these fonts be the starting port for your inspiration!
Expectation was a winner in the 2003 International Type Design Contest, sponsored by Linotype.

Take a look at our Expectation usage sample

Linotype Elisa™, from designer Christopher Young, is part of the Take Type Library, chosen from the entries of the Linotype-sponsored International Digital Type Design Contest 1999 for inclusion on the Take Type 3 CD. The font is a flowing calligraphy font with an almost romantic touch. Text set in this font will have a personal flair and is legible in point sizes of 8 and larger. Linotype Elisa is best for middle length texts and headlines.

Take a look at our Linotype Elisa usage sample

Diverda™ Serif´s 10 styles/weights are modeled off of the same design principle underlying Diverda Sans. This slab serif family may also be used for all of the applications mentioned in Diverda Sans. Additionally, these 10 styles/weights would be a great choice for use in contemporary book design.

Diverda™ Sans is a geometric family of typefaces that are all free from ornament. Swiss designer Daniel Lanz optimized Diverda Sans for maximum legibility. In contrast to many other modern typefaces, which try to squeeze the traditional rounder forms of the alphabet into square designs, and which often attempt to equalize the widths of the capital letters, Diverda Sans remains true to the proper proportions of the Roman alphabet. The x-heights of Diverda´s characters are low, and the differences between curved, square, and triangular elements are very clear. Like the more calligraphic typefaces of the past, Diverda´s strokes exhibit contrast that is inspired by movements of the pen on paper; down strokes are heavier than up strokes. Possible applications for the Diverda Sans include magazine design, as well as advertising for fashion, design, or architectural products. Because of its 10 different individual styles or weights, Diverda Sans is also a good fit for Corporate Identity solutions.

Dassitzt™, designed by Jörg Herz, is a family of two typefaces, Dassitzt Typos and Dassitzt Pictos.
Dassitzt Typos is a heavy industrial-grunge display face, with dark, even letters that appear cut out of black paper or iron. Dassitzt Pictos is a whimsical collection of pictograms. The figures in this font are black silhouettes that show a minimum amount of detail, but a maximum amount of expression.

Linotype Charon™ is the work of Renate Weise. She studied fine arts in Mainz and works today as a freelance artist. Weise sees Charon as "a typeface with two sides to it. Charon is objective and classic, but not neutral, not an everyday typeface. Charon is modern and its animated, curving letters seek to touch the reader. The font is the moderator, which brings content to the reader, but should in itself make the reader curious." Charon is also named after such a moderator. Charon is the name of the ferryman of Greek mythology who brought the souls of the dead across the River Acheron into the Underworld, the one being who connected the worlds of the living and the dead. Linotype Charon, with its light swing and script character, can be used for both short texts or headlines.

Take a look at our Linotype Charon usage sample

Created by UK designer Richard Yeend in 2002, Linotype Buckingham Fraktur™ constitutes a remarkable calligraphic blackletter face. Blackletter refers to typefaces that evolve out of Northern Europe’s medieval manuscript tradition. As the name implies, Buckingham Fraktur is an English version of this style. Remarkably, Yeend’s letters retain the style of the pen stroke that must have drawn them.
The typeface Linotype Buckingham Fraktur has two supplementary fonts available for purchase: Linotype Buckingham Fraktur DFR contains many alternate characters, such as the long s and historical ligatures. These characters are necessary for the setting of historical documents. Linotype Buckingham Fraktur Alternate contains alternate letters that convert the first and last letters of individual lines of text into swash-like elements. This addition allows for the setting of extra calligraphic-like texts or pages.
All three Linotype Buckingham Fraktur fonts are part of the Linotype Library’s Take Type 4 collection.

Linotype Atomatic™ is part of the Take Type Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. German artist Johannes Plass designed his font in one strongly-crafted weight. Linotype Atomatic seems to mirror the fast pace and technology of modern times. The slight lean to the right gives an impression of speed and movement. Linotype Atomatic is intended exclusively for headlines in larger point sizes.

Take a look at our Linotype Atomatic usage sample

"I started designing Linotype Aroma™ about six months after discovering that Frutiger is not a brand of candy and Garamond not the name of a perfume", admitted German type designer Tim Ahrens about his typeface. "I didn’t want Aroma to be one of these bland, faceless fonts which sacrifice the natural, independent character of their figures to neutrality. I believe that beauty is often created coincidentally. For example, I am fascinated by the beauty of propeller blades, whose design is the transformation of a bird’s wing. I like their organic and abstract form, which still carries the essence and complexity of the original. A bird’s wing, a propeller: these are behind the formal concept of Aroma. Many contours have parabolic forms. The lower case r, for example, consists exclusively of lines and parabolic forms." Tim Ahrens also decided to give his font a more defined stroke contrast as is usual for sans serif fonts. The end strokes of many letters are slightly convex, giving the font a natural and organic look. Linotype Aroma is a lively font with lots of personality and is suitable for longer texts.

Take a look at our Linotype Aroma usage sample