Fonts of Akira Kobayashi in the Linotype Library
Japanese designer Akira Kobayashi is Type Director at Linotype. Since joining Linotype, he has been responsible for the futher development of classic typefaces like Avenir, Optima, and Zapfino. He has created numerous typefaces of his own, many of which have received prizes from all across the typographic spectrum.
ITC Luna
Akira Kobayashi turned to the designs of the 1930s for his inspiration for both ITC Luna and ITC Silvermoon. "Luna is designed to fill the gap between a pure Art Deco display face and an ordinary text face," says Kobayashi. "It has an Art Deco style but is still fairly easy to read. It can be used in short passages of text. As for individual characters, I especially liked the distinctive O, shaded only on one side. Lowercase a and g are also unusual, but they are somehow legible enough in text matter." And for a finishing touch on his Luna, Kobayashi added the charming moon face as an extra character.
Optima™ nova
Optima™ was designed by Hermann Zapf and is his most successful typeface. The font was produced in matrices for the Linotype typesetting machines and released in 1958. With the clear, simple elegance of its sans serif forms and the warmly human touches of its tapering stems, this family has proved popular around the world. In 2002, when it was finally possible to produce digital alphabets without technical limitations and compromises, and more than 50 years after the first sketches, an expansion and redesign of the Optima family was completed and released as Optima™ nova .
Hermann Zapf and Akira Kobayashi collaborated on the project, which included re-working of the existing weights and the addition of several new weights for a total of 40 fonts. Small caps, oldstyle figures, light, heavy, and condensed fonts have been added.
The original Optima™ was never manufactured with a real italic, only an oblique version of the roman. Optima™ nova has a complete range of beautifully designed real italics; the new italic forms , of the e, f and g are especially notable.
The titling face includes capital letters with special and unusual letter combinations and ligatures, making it an excellent choice for headlines, logos and advertising purposes. Optima continues to be an all-purpose typeface; and Optima nova works for just about anything from book text to signage.
Optima nova is part of the Linotype Platinum Collection .
ITC Scarborough™
ITC Scarborough was designed by Akira Kobayashi in 1998 to be reminiscent of the typefaces in advertisements of the 1930s. The special written form of the font has no connection between the letters and follows the principles of the brush scripts often used in the headlines and film trailers of this time. Kobayashi chose dynamic forms for his font, small yet robust with contrast between the strokes. ITC Scarborough is available in regular and bold weights and is best used for headlines and short texts.
ITC Silvermoon™
ITC Silvermoon was designed in the style of the advertisements of the 1920s. Art Deco was the artistic movement which marked the years between the two world wars, combining elements of Jugenstil, futurism and east Asian influences. This font carries on in that tradition. The small, high reaching figures with their elegant forms and reserved but distinguishing loops give Silvermoon its unmistakable look. Kobayashi designed this font in two weights, regular and bold. To retain the elegance of the bold weight, the consistent stroke width of the regular weight was exchanged for contrasting strokes. This gives the weight more weight without detracting from its grace. The nostalgic, romantic ITC Silvermoon is best used for headlines and short texts in point sizes of 12 and larger.
Skid Row™
Skid Row is named after a song from Akira Kobayashi´s favorite film, Little Shop of Horrors. It is an informal script typeface whose unique, streaky appearance was first drawn with a brush and then refined to give the typeface an even texture. Skid Row is particularly effective in large display applications.
ITC Woodland™
ITC Woodland is based on Kobayashi’s hand lettering with a flat brush or square-edged pen. "I wanted to design each weight to act its own part," says the designer. "The light version tends to look almost fading in small sizes, but the heavy weight is as black as Cooper Black." The cheerful ITC Woodland is ideal for graphics, greeting cards, correspondence, and other applications requiring a light touch.
ITC Japanese Garden™ Ornaments
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."
ITC Seven Treasures™ Ornaments
ITC Seven Treasures is a symbol font for use in patterns and textures. The interlocking patterns, usually circular or oval, are taken primarily from motifs used in Japanese textiles. Most of these designs are known as komon, or "tiny patterns," and they are often applied to kimono and other textiles, although their use is not limited to fabrics. They also appear carved in wood in traditional architecture, and painted in pictures as background patterns. Each of the individual designs in ITC Seven Treasures Ornaments is carefully sized and spaced so that it will fit together into a continuous pattern. Most overlap slightly but precisely, so that when you type a row of them you can’t tell where one leaves off and the next begins. They may be combined or alternated to vary the texture of a background pattern.
ITC Luna
Akira Kobayashi turned to the designs of the 1930s for his inspiration for both ITC Luna and ITC Silvermoon. "Luna is designed to fill the gap between a pure Art Deco display face and an ordinary text face," says Kobayashi. "It has an Art Deco style but is still fairly easy to read. It can be used in short passages of text. As for individual characters, I especially liked the distinctive O, shaded only on one side. Lowercase a and g are also unusual, but they are somehow legible enough in text matter." And for a finishing touch on his Luna, Kobayashi added the charming moon face as an extra character.
Optima™ nova
Optima™ was designed by Hermann Zapf and is his most successful typeface. The font was produced in matrices for the Linotype typesetting machines and released in 1958. With the clear, simple elegance of its sans serif forms and the warmly human touches of its tapering stems, this family has proved popular around the world. In 2002, when it was finally possible to produce digital alphabets without technical limitations and compromises, and more than 50 years after the first sketches, an expansion and redesign of the Optima family was completed and released as Optima™ nova .
Hermann Zapf and Akira Kobayashi collaborated on the project, which included re-working of the existing weights and the addition of several new weights for a total of 40 fonts. Small caps, oldstyle figures, light, heavy, and condensed fonts have been added.
The original Optima™ was never manufactured with a real italic, only an oblique version of the roman. Optima™ nova has a complete range of beautifully designed real italics; the new italic forms , of the e, f and g are especially notable.
The titling face includes capital letters with special and unusual letter combinations and ligatures, making it an excellent choice for headlines, logos and advertising purposes. Optima continues to be an all-purpose typeface; and Optima nova works for just about anything from book text to signage.
Optima nova is part of the Linotype Platinum Collection .
ITC Scarborough™
ITC Scarborough was designed by Akira Kobayashi in 1998 to be reminiscent of the typefaces in advertisements of the 1930s. The special written form of the font has no connection between the letters and follows the principles of the brush scripts often used in the headlines and film trailers of this time. Kobayashi chose dynamic forms for his font, small yet robust with contrast between the strokes. ITC Scarborough is available in regular and bold weights and is best used for headlines and short texts.
ITC Silvermoon™
ITC Silvermoon was designed in the style of the advertisements of the 1920s. Art Deco was the artistic movement which marked the years between the two world wars, combining elements of Jugenstil, futurism and east Asian influences. This font carries on in that tradition. The small, high reaching figures with their elegant forms and reserved but distinguishing loops give Silvermoon its unmistakable look. Kobayashi designed this font in two weights, regular and bold. To retain the elegance of the bold weight, the consistent stroke width of the regular weight was exchanged for contrasting strokes. This gives the weight more weight without detracting from its grace. The nostalgic, romantic ITC Silvermoon is best used for headlines and short texts in point sizes of 12 and larger.
Skid Row™
Skid Row is named after a song from Akira Kobayashi´s favorite film, Little Shop of Horrors. It is an informal script typeface whose unique, streaky appearance was first drawn with a brush and then refined to give the typeface an even texture. Skid Row is particularly effective in large display applications.
ITC Woodland™
ITC Woodland is based on Kobayashi’s hand lettering with a flat brush or square-edged pen. "I wanted to design each weight to act its own part," says the designer. "The light version tends to look almost fading in small sizes, but the heavy weight is as black as Cooper Black." The cheerful ITC Woodland is ideal for graphics, greeting cards, correspondence, and other applications requiring a light touch.
ITC Japanese Garden™ Ornaments
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."
ITC Seven Treasures™ Ornaments
ITC Seven Treasures is a symbol font for use in patterns and textures. The interlocking patterns, usually circular or oval, are taken primarily from motifs used in Japanese textiles. Most of these designs are known as komon, or "tiny patterns," and they are often applied to kimono and other textiles, although their use is not limited to fabrics. They also appear carved in wood in traditional architecture, and painted in pictures as background patterns. Each of the individual designs in ITC Seven Treasures Ornaments is carefully sized and spaced so that it will fit together into a continuous pattern. Most overlap slightly but precisely, so that when you type a row of them you can’t tell where one leaves off and the next begins. They may be combined or alternated to vary the texture of a background pattern.
Linotype
