LinoLetter 2009/03

Linotype has supplied customers with the two DIN 1451 fonts since 1980. DIN 1451 Engschrift and Mittelschrift – whose names mean “condensed” and “regular” in German – are top-sellers. Customers regularly ask for additional weights, so Akira Kobayashi directed the development of a new Linotype DIN family. DIN Next ships in seven weights (Ultra Light to Black); each weight in Regular, Italic, and Condensed. Linotype drew four additional DIN Next Rounded fonts, bringing the new family’s total up to 25. DIN is a truly industrial face. The original letters are still found all over Germany on street signs and house numbers, as well as on the Autobahn. After becoming a digital font, it was adopted by designers in other countries, establishing a global reputation. There are many subtle differences between the letters of DIN Next and DIN 1451. While DIN 1451’s corners are sharp, DIN Next has rounded them all slightly. But even this softening is a nod to part of DIN 1451’s past: many of the signs originally set in DIN 1451 were cut with routers, which do not make perfect corners anyway.

Diotima® Classic is a total upheaval of Gudrun Zapf von Hesse’s mid-20th-century Diotima, one of the most beautiful types ever cast in metal. The wife of Hermann Zapf, Gudrun Zapf von Hesse has been a type designer in her own right since the 1940s. Previous digital versions of Diotima had only a Regular weight; this looked great in display sizes but was too thin for text setting. Diotima Classic rectifies this problem by offering three additional weights. The new Regular has more robust serifs and thicker hairlines, which is more appropriate for text sizes. Diotima Classic’s letterforms are more harmonious and balanced. And its Italic letters have a consistent rhythm, too.

Now you may purchase and download the two newest font families from Doyald Young – renowned lettering designer, typographer, and teacher – at Linotype.com. The first of his new font families, the Home Run family, has two variants: Home Run Script is made up of narrow, baseball-style letters that are economical in width and have a large x-height that commands attention; and Home Run Sans Script combines the same baseball-style script with sans serif caps. Doyald Young’s other new family, Young Finesse, is a light, legible, serifless Roman. Its design is sophisticated, elegant, and graceful. The Italic bows to the 16th century, with a modest four-degree slant and alternate swash caps. If you like Home Run and Young Finesse, you might like his earlier Young Baroque™ face. Also, take a look at Doyald Young’s books on lettering in the Linotype Bookstore.

As Europe’s countries grow closer together, with products and services moving more seamlessly across borders, designers and corporations demand fonts to help grease these wheels. Linotype is pleased to introduce a new set of pan-European OpenType families. When you install a Linotype OpenType font with the “W1G” suffix, you may be certain that it covers all of the essential European languages using the Latin script, as well as Greek and Cyrillic. W1G stands for “World Glyph Set 1.” The following families now include already OpenType fonts with a W1G character set: Linotype Bariton™ (one font), DIN 1451 Mittelschrift (one font), Frutiger® Next (21 fonts), Neue Helvetica® (25 fonts), and Linotype Really™ 2.0 (14 fonts).