LinoLetter 2007/09

Since the beginning of the month, we’ve added a second layer of language support to our webshop. Now, German-speaking visitors can shop at Linotype in their own language! Simply click on the German flag in the upper-right corner of our store, or surf directly to Linotype.de. Additionally, our free font management application, FontExplorer X, is available in a localized German-language version.

Linotype Ergo, designed by Gary Munch and a winner in Linotype’s 1997 International Digital Design Contest, was conceived as a blend of traditional and modern type concepts. It works as a legible text family as well as a lively display or headline selection. Now, 14 new styles have been added to the family, making it more useful than ever! Five condensed weights, each with a companion italic, are now available in both OpenType Pro and Com formats, as are two compressed weights, each with their own italic fonts. What helps make Linotype Ergo so legible? The strokes of its characters accommodate the tendency of the eye to enlarge horizontals and perceive verticals as lighter. The lowercase forms have open, friendly counters and are enhanced by small quirks, such as the slightly leaning “s” and the wide “t.” The deep branching of curves from main strokes helps this humanist sans to be very readable at smaller sizes.

Carl Crossgrove’s Mundo Sans, a typeface family from Monotype, is becoming quite a popular design. As such, we are pleased to offer it for sale on Linotype’s webshop. Mundo Sans is a humanist sans serif, but it brings its own personality into this successful genre. In addition to the fine typefaces that have preceded it, Crossgrove gives credit to hand-lettered signage as a strong influence on the heavy weights in the Mundo Sans family. Throughout his work on the project, Crossgrove aimed to create a humanistic typeface with subtle pen ductus, a wide range of weights and a fluid, unobtrusive italic. He kept the design clean and distinctive enough for display use while still being sufficiently understated and proportioned for text composition. With seven weights and a complementary suite of cursive italics, there is little outside the range of the Mundo Sans family. Weights range from the delicate and understated Extra Light through the forthright Medium to the lively and robust Ultra. Mundo Italics are true cursive designs with fluid strokes and obvious calligraphic overtones. The flick of the down-stroke in the “a,” the descending stroke of the “f” and graceful curve of the baseline of the “z” add grace to the design and distinguish it from more traditional sloped-roman italics. Crossgrove says that Mundo Sans isn’t meant to be revolutionary, yet it has a quiet distinction that separates it from other types. Without shouting “new and different,” Mundo Sans just works.

Linotype’s Handwriting Value Pack bundles five personal fonts together for one low price: 29.90 USD/EUR through October 15, 2007! Handwriting faces add intimacy to greeting cards, advertising pieces, packaging, and invitations. The package includes: Ashley Script™, a typeface from 1955 that reflects the spirit of its age; ITC Dartangnon™, a contemporary and casual English monoline script; ITC Grimshaw Hand™, which is peppered with letters exhibiting a special panache; Linotype Elisa™ Bold, a flowing calligraphic design with an almost romantic touch; and Linotype Finerliner™ Macro, a small script that combines regularly formed lowercase letters with generously sweeping capitals.