Pirouette

Pirouette™ is based on a logotype that Japanese designer Ryuichi Tateno created for a packaging design project in 1999 – a shampoo container, at that! Already Tateno’s original design experimented with overlapping swash italic letterforms. These experiments grew outside out their initial packaging project, taking on a life of their own. Eventually, they developed into the Pirouette typeface, which was honored both with a first place finish in Linotype’s 2003 International Type Design Contest, sponsored by Linotype GmbH and with a Certificate of Excellence from the Type Directors Club of New York in 2005.

The original Pirouette family contained six different elements, but now all of these elements have been combined together into one font, with contextual OpenType features! A number of ligatures and ornaments are inside the font as well. Plus, since the new Pirouette is a Linotype Com font, it can set 48 Latin-based languages effortlessly; that’s almost all of the languages used in Europe!

Explanation the new OpenType Features: The main function of the Contextual Alternates feature in Pirouette is to undo collisions and awkward combinations. Therefore it should normally be left on by default. You must use Adobe InDesign CS2 or later to take full advantage of all the features. Microsoft’s WinFX applications also give access to advanced features.

Stylistic Sets 1 through 4 each turn on related groups of lowercase alternates. Stylistic Set 1 turns on all non-colliding lowercase alternates. Stylistic Set 2 turns on final alternates for titlings and headings that would collide inside a run of text. Stylistic Set 3 turns on a slightly shorter form of final e and final n. Stylistic Set 4 activates yet another version of final e. Stylistic Set 5 turns on tall versions of capital I, V and X (for Roman numerals; only the glyphs I, V, and X have this feature, so this height change should not be applied to numerals above 39).

Capital letters have several alternates as well. Aside from their standard form, they have Swash and Titling variants as well. Furthermore, the design seen in the Swash version can be made to have two colors, by combining two other separate OpenType features together. This trick requires Adobe InDesign CS2, but the result is like magic! Instructions on exactly how to use this typeface best are included as a PDF with the purchase of the font absolutely free!