Fonts in Focus, April 2006

Distinguishing characteristics of Frank Marciulano’s Linotype Automat™ are its strictly constructed basis and its uniquely placed stroke contrasts. The emphasized vertical strokes are reminiscent of bars and give text a static feel. The forms of the letters are distinctly modern, an interpretation of a typeface meant for machines. Automat is not recommended for text but is particularly good for headlines in large point sizes, which allow its unusual forms to really stand out.
The Linotype Automat™ Font Family is part of the TakeType Collection.

Linotype Banjoman™ was designed by Paul Veres. Most of its basic forms are constructed although some characters, like the a, g, or p, are more freely designed. This font is available in a variety of weights and styles. The bold weights are best for headlines or emphasis in text and the balanced Text styles were designed specifically for running text. Linotype Banjoman is an independent yet well-mannered font suitable for a variety of purposes.

Gustav Jaeger’s Becket™ typeface embodies a retro-medieval aesthetic. Base letterforms that might have been at home with a writer of Irish uncials have been streamlined according to late 20th century tastes to create a timeless effect. Becket is the perfect font to set headlines and logos for clients in the music industry.

Britannic was originally created at the beginning of the 20th Century, and comes by way of the old British foundry, Stephenson Blake. Today’s digital version of Britannic includes five separate font styles, one of which – medium compressed – is an all caps design. Britannic is a sans serif face with a vertical axis and a high degree of stroke contrast, especially in the heavier weights. This typeface exudes a degree of elegance that has not often been matched in the century that has passed since it was first drawn.

Carousel™ is a fat faces display type designed by Gary Gillot in 1966. Fat faces were offshoots of the modern, or Didone, typefaces that were de rigueur during the early 1800s. These fat faces were among the first typefaces to be used solely for advertising purposes. Naturally, they were always used in larger point sizes, in display functions.
Carousel could be called an optimization of these old advertising typefaces. With high x-heights, ultra contrast between thick and thin strokes, and perfectly engineered drawing techniques, Carousel is a highly crafted typeface. Give it a spin in your next advertising campaign! Carousel’s fine thin strokes are very graceful in their appearance, and lend a strong, yet soft, feminine feeling to anything they touch.If you like Carousel check out wearing Annlie™, another fat face from 1966.

Doubler Script™ is a handwriting font that mimics the scribbles that young children make with crayons. The strokes that make up each letter are repeated and overlaid, creating a “doubled” effect, which may have acted as the inspiration behind this font’s name. Doubler Script is well suited to display applications aimed at a primary audience.

Frakto is a two-weight family of calligraphic Fraktur-style typefaces designed by Julius de Goede. One of the main categories of Blackletter typefaces, Fraktur was developed around 1517, and was used throughout Germany and Northern Europe well into the 20th century. With Frakto, Julius de Goede has re-applied the written element of the script back into the Fraktur style, rejuvenating and reinvigorating it for 21st century display use. Frakto is the perfect fit for certificates and newsletter headlines. We recommended using it in point sizes from 12-pt on up.

ITC Japanese Garden™ Ornaments is a symbol font designed by Akira Kobayashi (before Kobayashi became Linotype’s Type Director in 2001, he worked as an independent typeface designer in Tokyo). The images in Japanese Garden are, as the name suggests, mostly floral or herbaceous, derived from designs used in Japanese indigo stencil dyeing. "In Japanese Garden," Kobayashi says, "I tried to create a set of type fleurons that are very familiar to a Japanese eye, but not too exotic to people in other countries." Several of the designs fit together seamlessly in repeating patterns; others work either together or as isolated ornaments, a flexibility that also characterizes traditional Western type fleurons. "The original illustrations," notes Kobayashi, "were mostly cut from white paper squares, about two by two inches in size, and were simply scanned and traced. That is why there are few smooth curves and perfectly straight lines in the illustrations. I simply liked the ragged textures of them."
The ITC Japanese Garden™ Ornaments Font Family is part of the Linotype ITC Library.

Katfish™ is the work of Michael Gills, a unique and inventive script font. Initial capitals are complemented by a lively lowercase and a number of alternative characters, ligatures and swash elements. Katfish has a fun, irregular style and includes charming cat, fish and dolphin illustrations.

Morris Fuller Benton designed Lightline Gothic in 1908. In the early twentieth century, the modern concept of type "families" had not yet been formed; Lightline Gothic is a lightweight sans serif that was designed to harmonize with other sans serif offerings from American Type Founders (ATF). Today, most type families (like Neue Helvetica) contain light, regular, bold, etc. weights of the same basic letterform design. This was not always the case. Benton’s Lightline Gothic is a single typeface: it has no immediate family members. Nevertheless, it manages to integrate almost seamlessly with other sans serif typefaces of Benton’s, like Alternate Gothic, Franklin Gothic, and News Gothic™. The letters in Lightline Gothic appear to have been drawn with single, mono-weight lines, but on closer examination, there are subtle variations of stroke widths. This improves legibility of the overall design, and is a common element of most twentieth century sans serifs. Lightline Gothic is well suited for almost any application, including book and magazine design.

A as part of their overall character design, each of the thin-lined letters in the Linotype Orbit™ Light typeface sport a dot. This dot is found in a different position on each character, creating the illusion of various celestial bodies traveling about their orbits. If you need a futuristic font to paint on the side of your spaceship, or are looking for a font to fit in any all-around SCI-FI application, this might be it! In a hint towards timelessness, the design of Linotype Orbit’s letterforms is geometric, and the font includes old style figures.
Linotype Orbit Light was designed in 2002 by Italian designer Mauro Carichini , and is included in the Take Type 4 collection from Linotype GmbH.

The Samba™ family was inspired by the lettering art of J. Carlos, a Brazilian illustrator during the early 20th century. Turned into a workable series of fonts by the contemporary Brazilian designers Tony and Caio de Marco, Samba is especially recommended for use in logos, flyers, posters, and tattoos! This family of types offers the user a chance to mix three different styles of lettering into one coherent design, which can be very useful in solving certain design problems. While the regular Samba face is made up of mono-line letters, the style of Samba bold offers much more of a thick to thin contrast. The Samba Expert set displays lavish swash endings, which were inspired by Brazilian metal work.
The Samba family was one of the winners selected during the 2003 International Type Design Contest, sponsored by Linotype GmbH.

Sassoon was designed in 1995 by Rosemary Sassoon in the style of typefaces found in schoolbooks in the early 20th century. The font exhibits a harmony between the space within and outside of the letters. The forms have soft, round forms which give text an almost ornamental character. This flexible font can be used for headlines or text, in small or large point sizes.

All three fonts in the Vere Dignum™ family consist of letters that are drawn with almost mono-weight lines. Text set in Vere Dignum appears very light, as these lines are thin. Vere Dignum is best in for larger point sizes, but its display purposes need not be "dignified." A funky or fresh setting would be just as appropriate. The Vere Dignum family was designed in 2002 by the British graphic designer Phil Baines, and all three of its fonts are part of the Take Type 5 collection, from Linotype GmbH.