FontShop Newsletter | November 7, 2012

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Cinemascope by Sideshow

Cytia by Mint Type

New foundry: Alan Meeks

New foundry: Mint Type

New foundry: James Todd Design

More new fonts: Nyte, Cinemascope, Rehn

Best of 2012 coming soon: 5 Newish Typefaces & People’s Choice

Special discount: 50% Off all NeubauLaden packages

TYPO San Francisco: Registration opens soon

Festive Fonts: Type for the holidays

Alan Meeks started out as a commercial letterer in the 1970s. His knack for adapting the freely drawn forms of lettering alphabets to the rigid constraints of type opened the door to a career in typeface design. Alan is the face behind a number of ITC and Linotype releases, as well as several Letraset designs previously available only as analog letters or non-retail digital typefaces. Alan’s work largely fits within the display category, with a few dedicated faces made to set long texts.

Astoria Sans

Confessing its debt to Eric Gill, et al, Astoria Sans and its slightly more stylized forebear, Astoria, play up the painterly nature of the British humanist sans. The face comes in six weights, each with companion italics, and an additional Roman-only condensed width. Its middle weights perform decently at text sizes.

Colosseum

Alan Meeks’ Colosseum has roots in Imperial Rome, evidenced by the construction of capitalis monumentalis, inscriptional Roman capitals used for marking architectural works. Cooling its tone by rendering the face sans serif, the designer then extends the style to include lowercase and expands the face over four weights, each with italic.

Kestrel Script

Kestrel’s contrasty, quick strokes demonstrate what comes of a lettering master relaxing the hand a bit and allowing the loaded brush to casually slink across the page. Use this script face to full effect at comfortably large display sizes.

Mint Type, the personal foundry of Andriy Konstantynov, primarily focuses on developing multi-language typefaces. This independent type designer, born in Moscow, moved to Tallinn, Estonia, then to Kiev, Ukraine's capital city. An alumnus from the National Technical University of Ukraine, he has been a web designer since 1998. As all the major languages in Ukraine use the Cyrillic script, Andriy’s main priority in font development is the inclusion of the Cyrillic character set amongst other scripts.

Cytia

Cytia Pro is a contemporary sans-serif type family with hints of geometric and gothic designs. While it is standard-equipped with obliques, Cytia offers optional true italic shapes in both the upright and italic styles, wrapped in OpenType “stylistic alternates” features. The typeface is fully featured with small caps, several sets of numerals, alternates, and features the Cyrillic and Greek scripts. With eight weights ranging from Thin to Black this versatile family can be used in magazines, posters, advertising, corporate identities, and more.

James Todd used to be a tailor. That profession required attention to staggering amounts of detail, so it was a perfect springboard for his next career: designing type. One of the driving forces behind his work is the attention to craft. Focusing on the craft inherent in drawing and spacing the letters and providing tools useful throughout a variety of languages and situations, he issues practical typefaces with extensive language support. He works with P22 Type Foundry and also releases typefaces under his own name.

Garvis

Inspired by turn-of-the-19th-century Neoclassical forms and Dutch Fleischmann Type, Garvis is designed to bring the character of those typefaces into modern times by increasing the sturdiness of their forms without sacrificing their character. At display sizes, this typeface whispers the subtle inconsistencies commonly found in traditional metal type printing. In text size, this detail practically disappears, leaving Garvis with a warm, human quality.

Garvis Specimen PDF

Nyte

Designed in 2009 for The New York Times Magazine, Nyte is based on the skeleton of the previously released Esta Pro. With his customary Latin flair, Dino dos Santos lovingly crafted a sturdy oldstyle serif family of modest width, with a generous x-height and sensual curves. Each of the 14 OpenType fonts comes with swashes, display alternates, extended ligature sets, and many playful surprises.

Cinemascope

This vintage-looking, Hollywood-themed display face gives your designs that marquee touch. Cinemascope combines a smart Art Deco look with a striking inline effect and jagged stroke endings. Recreate a retro-chic atmosphere in posters and invitations, headlines and logos.

Rehn

Rehn is a confident, modern sans serif with a number of spurless characters, most noticeably the lowercase “a”, and a typical two-story “y”. This open and balanced design forms a dependable, hard-working type family in a wide range of weights, ideal for branding and publication design.

Our annual wrap-up of the 2012’s best releases will be here next month! This much-anticipated final newsletter of the year highlights the crème de la crème from our foundries and offers an insightful glimpse into the direction the industry is moving. In addition to our selections, we also want to hear from you, our readers.

To get your picks into the People’s Choice category, drop your comment on our “Best of” blog post. Get inspired by the five newish typefaces below!

Trim by Letters From Sweden

Winco by ReType

Storefront by Sudtipos

JAF Bernini Sans by Just Another Foundry

FF Chartwell by FontFont

Now through Nov. 30 all NeubauLaden font packages are priced at 50% off. Find a set with just the right feel for your next project before time runs out. Might we recommend just one?

View all NeubauLaden packages at 50% off »

TYPO returns to San Francisco April 11 & 12, 2013 with the theme Contrast. Early-bird registration opens very soon, watch your inbox for an announcement.

FontShop is pleased to once again be a presenting sponsor. Join leaders in the design world including Christoph Niemann, Marian Bantjes, Armin Vit, Matthew Butterick and more for two days of design, culture, society, and a little bit of kerning.

In the run-up to the holidays we select festive fonts to give you inspiration for your seasonal greetings and other design items. Here are four more typefaces guaranteed to enliven your holiday graphics.

Create your own Festive Engraved Type with this tutorial on The FontFeed »