Fonts in Focus, August 2005

ITC Arid™ was designed by Rob Leuschke in 1997 as a lively calligraphy typeface which looks as though it was put to paper with a piece of charcoal. Generous capitals mix harmoniously with the more reserved lower case characters and the forward slant of both create a dynamic impression. Arid should be used in point sizes of 12 and larger and is well-suited for headlines and short to middle-length texts.

Blackmoor™ is the work of British designer David Quay. Based on an old English letter style, it evokes a mediaeval character. Its rough, distressed features make it ideal for a variety of applications, from serious historical publications to horror movies and comics.

British designer Jeremy Tankard began Blue Island™ in 1996 with the idea of creating a completely ligature-based roman typeface, an original but complex task that took years to realize. Individually, Blue Island’s letters can appear a bit dismembered, but when set together, they are clearly transformed into words which fall in waves down the page. Successfully balancing readability with intriguing decorative forms, Blue Island is especially effective for titling. As for its romantic name, Blue Island is the title of a poem, also by Tankard, which evokes notions of freedom, escape, intrigue, and the undulating beauty of the sea.

Created by Swedish designer Bo Berndal in 1999, Linotype Dala™ Text can best be described as a softer, friendlier blackletter. Blackletter refers to typefaces that evolve out of Northern Europe’s medieval manuscript tradition. Often called gothic, or Old English, these letters are identified by the traces of the wide-nibbed pen stroke within their forms.
Linotype Dala Text most resembles the fraktur type of blackletter. Fraktur types were popular text faces in Northern Europe until the 20th century. Inspired by Swedish folklore, this fraktur is much softer and rounder than most examples. Its connection to the Scandinavian folkloric tradition makes Linotype Dala perfectly suited for such texts as fairy tales, medieval stories, and other things that might appeal to a child’s sense of adventure.
To strengthen the medieval fairy tale look, use Linotype Dala Text together with other elements of the Linotype Dala family: Library’s Linotype Dala Pict and Linotype Dala Border. The characters in these two supplementary fonts were inspired by medieval and renaissance folk art, and were also drawn by Bo Berndal, making them a perfect match.

Linotype Finerliner™ is part of the TakeType Library, chosen from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contest. The American artist Gary Munch, from whom we also have Linotype Ergo and Ergo Sketch, designed Linotype Finerliner as a handwriting font with calligraphic influences. The small, regularly formed lower case letters contrast nicely with the generous, sweeping capitals. The font is available in a light and medium weight and displays no stroke contrast. The lighter weight, micro, is best used for shorter texts in point sizes 18 or larger and the medium weight, macro, is mainly intended for headlines in larger point sizes.

The designer Sine Bergmann created the symbol font Linotype Giacometti Pi™ 1994. This font, a winner typeface from the 1st International Type Design Contest. Sine Bergmann designed also Linotype Festtagsfont™ (1999), a symbol font from the TakeType No. 3.1 CD, chosen from the entries of Linotype´s 3rd International Type Design Contest.

Indus™ is part of the TakeType Library, which features winners of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contest from 1994 to 1997. Designed by P.H. Hashim from India, Indus finds its historical roots in inscriptions found on ancient Indian graves. Thus Indus has a unique look and is versatile in point sizes from middle to headline. The font combines well with sans serif and slab serif typefaces.

Neo Contact™ is the typeface used on the packaging of Marlboro cigarettes (Marlboro "Reds," the main line of the brand). The typeface is bold and condensed, designed in the Egyptienne style. Egyptienne types were first designed in the 1800s, as type founders - especially in the westward-expanding United States - began to dream up newer, bolder styles of letters for advertising usage. During the 1800s, it became increasingly important for businesses to set themselves, and their products, apart from competitors. This desire has remained with corporations, as well as with advertisers and designers, into the 21st century.
In addition to cigarette packaging, Neo Contact (as part of Marlboro’s branding efforts) can be seen on numerous items, including Ferrari’s F1 racers, and at Formula 1 race tracks.
The letters in Neo Contact are filled with personality. Their forms display two distinct weights of line, and the serifs are made up of tiny, strict slabs. Ball terminals round out the design. Neo Contact is a complete font, with a complete western character set.

Designed by Intertype’s design group under the direction of Edwin W. Shaar in about 1952, Nuptial font is an informal script that was designed especially for wedding invitations.

Hans-Jürgen Ellenberger designed the six-member Linotype Rana type family in 1997. The types – available in three weights, each with italics – are drawn in a calligraphic marker style. The informal letter shapes are wide, round, and playful. The typeface has some notable characters, including a remarkably innovative italic ampersand, an odd single-barred euro symbol, a lowercase "e" with a diagonal stroke, and a capital "A" whose top has an interesting slant.
Although Linotype Rana was not designed for use in long passages of text, its subtle feeling does have many uses. Linotype Rana is perfect for logos, and speech bubbles in comic strips. It also looks good as text inside of invitations. In fact, we think that this is the right type anywhere that something big and quirky is needed!

Linotype Rowena™ is part of the TakeType Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. This text font was designed by the Latvian artist Gustavs A. Grinbergs and is available in six weights, from light to black. The font has a light stroke contrast and its basic forms are the circle, rectangle and triangle, making it a constructed face. The impression of the font on the reader is elegant and cool, very like poster fonts of the 1930s. Linotype Rowena is suitable for headlines and shorter texts with point sizes 12 and larger.

Scriba™ is the work of British designer Martin Wait, an informal, all caps open typeface embellished with an unusual shadow effect. With its strong, casual appearance, Scriba is excellent for use in large display sizes.

Silvan Kaesar designed Seedbad after observing the unique sign lettering along the shores of Lake Geneva’s bathing area. Seebad’s four different settings represent the cutting edge new style of Swiss design, which spans the bridge between modern and contemporary. Containing geometrically forms, Seebad has a narrow base. Some characters (the lowercase "t", for example) display unicase, even uncial-like tendencies. If you are looking for a face to spice up your layouts with an ultra-modern, cutting-edge flair, while not sacrificing copy length, Seebad is the face for you!
The four fonts making up the Seebad family are all included in the Take Type No. 5 collection, released by Linotype in 2003.

Louis Lemoine created the font Linotype Spacera™ in 2002. Spacera is a fun font from the new TakeType No. 4 which contains 182 fresh, new, experimental, freaky and above all contemporary fonts.The original concept for Spacera was inspired back in 1991, while Louis Lemoine was working on the Star Tours Post Show for Euro-Disneyland, Paris. This is a contemporary typeface that could be a good choice when a modern futuristic look is desired.