Fonts in Focus, September 2006

Hermann Zapf and Akira Kobayashi redeveloped Palatino™ for the 21st Century, creating Palatino nova. Released by Linotype in 2005, the Palatino nova family is part of Linotype’s Platinum Collection. Palatino nova includes several weights (Light, Regular, Medium, and Bold), each with companion italics. Four styles (Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic) have Greek and Cyrillic glyphs built into their character sets. The Palatino nova family also includes revised versions of Aldus (now called Aldus nova), as well as two titling weights. The first titling weight, Palatino nova Titling, is based on Hermann Zapf’s metal typeface Michelangelo, including Greek glyphs from Phidias Greek. The heavier titling weight, Palatino nova Imperial, is based on Sistina™.

Inspired by the work of famed Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, the German designer Thomas Finke created Bergell™, a lively and natural script face. Bergell’s calligraphic style is both dynamic and elegant, like the kind of special, festive handwriting many desire, but few ever manage to achieve. Why spend so much time at your drawing table when there are great fonts like this one?

ITC Black Tulip™ was designed by Dudley Rees and inspired by the modular simplicity of the Greek fret band, an ancient repeating pattern formed by tracing a line at right angles between two horizontal rules to form an interlocking motif. Rees admired the discipline of the motif, “I saw how that simple rigid rectangular network suggested an alphabet that would need little or no kerning,” he says. He describes ITC Black Tulip as a “dramatic headline face”.

Erbar™, created from 1922 onward by the German designer Jakob Erbar, was one of the first and most popular of the new gemoetric sans serifs of the 1920s. Revived by Linotype during the late 1940s and 1950s, the more condensed versions of Erbar became mainstays in newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Camellia™ was designed by Tony Wenman in 1972. This is a light, round typeface, with a very groovy feeling. Wenman mixed art nouveau traits with 1960s style to create the perfect whimsical effect. The letters are drawn with hairline, modulated strokes, giving the letters a thin appearance, although they are all quite wide. Overall, the effect creates a refreshingly new, decorative linear sans serif. The x-height of the letters is so high that the ascenders and descenders become diminutive, so this typeface works best in large display sizes. The typeface is unicase, and has an uncial-like bearing.

Conga Brava™ is the work of type designer Michael Harvey, a combination of the high-minded, purist letterforms of revivalist, modern calligraphers with the mundane, even crude, lettering of warehouse stenciling. The resulting lyrical yet utilitarian forms have a visually exciting graphic effect, which Harvey has frequently used in his book jacket designs. Like his other typefaces, Ellington, Strayhorn, and Mezz, Harvey named his design after a jazz classic, “Conga Brava”, by Duke Ellington and his trombonist Juan Tizol. The rolling rhythm, polished swing, and stacatto brass treatment of the tune suits the look of this sassy roman design and even more so, its stencil mate. When you need a typeface that radiates sound and motion, think Conga Brava.

Linotype Dropink™, from German designer Christine Voigts, is part of the TakeType Library, chosen from the entries of the Linotype-sponsored International Digital Type Design Contest 1999 for inclusion on the TakeType No. 3. A spirited font, Linotype Dropink may remind you of your first attempts with a broad-tipped pen or of schoolwork in days of yore. However, the blots of ink are in this case done on purpose, are indeed the highlight of the font, large and small, round and irregularly sheped. Linotype Dropink is intended exclusively for headlines/display and should be used in point sizes of 18 or larger.

The Facsimile™ font was designed by Jenny Luigs and Simon Wicker. Facsimile’s forms were constructed for electronic readers, just like OCR fonts. Its familiar forms and symbols personify the zeitgeist of the late 20th century.
Facsimile is part of the Take Type Library, which features the winners of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests.

Hildegard™ is a sans serif text face that works well in both larger and smaller point sizes. On close inspection, one will discover a world of subtle angle variation within the letters’ structure that is loosely inspired the stroke movements one uses in calligraphy. These built-up strokes create visible ink traps at many joints, which in smaller sizes play a functional as well as an aesthetic role.
Jan Sonntag is the designer of the Hildegard typefaces, which received one of several awards in the 2003 International Type Design Contest, sponsored by Linotype GmbH.

German designer Hellmut G. Bomm developed the Linotype Invasion™ family of fonts in 2002. The three text faces in the family, Linotype Invasion Harold, Linotype Invasion Wilhelm, and Linotype Invasion Rex, were all inspired by styles of lettering found in the Bayeux Tapestry. Created sometime during the late 11th Century, the Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of William the Conqueror’s successful invasion of England, and victory over King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The Linotype Invasion font family is faithful both to late Romanesque lettering styles, as well as to the appearance of letters stitched into cloth. This is the perfect font family for any English history buff, medieval buff, art history buff, typography buff – maybe just about anybody! The fonts work best in display settings. Perhaps you should try stitching them into cloth yourself for an extra authentic look.

Mandarin font first appeared with the Type Founders of Chicago and is an interpretation of artistically drawn Asian brush calligraphy.
The stylized Asian atmosphere is not created only by the forms of the figures but also by the very name of the typeface. A mandarin was a high official of the ancient Chinese empire.
Alphabets like Mandarin font are often used for the menus, signs and advertisements of Asian restaurants as well as for businesses with Asian products.

Praxis™ was designed in 1976 by Gerard Unger for the German technology corporation Dr.-Ing Rudolf Hell. Praxis is the sans serif counterpart to Demos™, another early digital type designed by Unger, who is an accomplished Dutch typographer and teacher. Praxis and Demos share important characteristics, such as open counters, a tall x-height, and blunt stroke terminations. Both faces have very little thick/thin variation, which facilitates smooth linear enlargement and reduction. And like Demos, Praxis is a flexible and legible typeface that works well in small point sizes and on low-quality paper (office documents, newsletters, newspapers, etc.).

The Siseriff™ family of types contains nine different styles, which were developed by the master Swedish typographer Bo Berndal in 2002. Siseriff is a contemporary slab serif face. Except for the Siseriff Black weight, all of the letters display a slightly condensed appearance that is coupled with a relatively uniform width throughout the alphabet. The Siseriff™ Font Family is part of the TakeType Collection.

German designer Martina Theisen designed Linotype Typentypo™ in 2002. Lively characters which consist of faces and other bodyparts that build a real letter. Combined to words this font brings new expressions. Another application for Typentypo is to use it for initials. The other cartoon fonts from Martina with faces are Smileface, Improfil and Creatures. Animalia or Zootype are faces with a similar theme like Typentypo.