The FontFeed » Handpicked Fonts

Award-Winning Fonts

Ivo Gabrowitsch — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:39:20 +0000

Undeniably, both awards – the Type Directors Club’s TDC² and Typographica’s Favorite Typefaces – are always long awaited by the design community. The selection of world’s best published font releases are highly respected for years. While the TDC award is the traditional top dog, Typographica is the aspiring spring chicken, asking 25 high-ranking international designers to pick from the year’s fonts. Both lists give a useful view on what is new and hot in type design. Fortunately, if you’d like to increase the quality of your own projects this year, most of the “Best of 2007” typefaces are available at FontShop:

FF Beowolf OT and FF BeoSans OT, designed by Just van Rossum and Erik van Blokland, published by FontFont, Winner Typographica’s OFT 2007. The OpenType version of world’s first typeface with a mind of its own: with 1,000s of alternates as well, the new Beo are as close to achieving the original idea of randomization as nearly any composer can expect today.

BistroScript, designed by Tomáš Brousil, published by Suitcase Type Foundry, Winner Typographica’s OFT 2007. This contemporary calligraphic script was inspired by promotional art in the 1960s. Thanks to OpenType features, a variety of ligatures and alternative glyphs allow the user to create more authentic and varied connections between letters.

Dancer, designed by Morten Olsen, published by Fontpartners, Winner Typographica’s OFT 2007. The FP Dancer type family combines softness and friendliness with more strength. In comparision to his former FF Olsen the designer tuned-down the serifs, and, in general, gave the whole face more humanity.

Gloriola, designed by Tomáš Brousil, published by Suitcase Type Foundry, Winner TDC² 2008 and Typographica’s OFT 2007. The typeface is a monolinear sans serif with an extremely broad cut range. Their cuts with corresponding italics are suited for the needs of common typesetting thanks to the open character of letters, to the sufficient x-height and clear forms, combined with the full possibilities of OpenType.

Greta Text, designed by Peter Biľak, published by Typotheque, Winner Typographica’s OFT 2007. It is a contemporary typeface family specifically designed for the demands of newspaper printing. Greta Text consists of four primary text weights that each comes in three grades and is optimized for use at small sizes.

Kinescope, designed by Mark Simonson, published by Mark Simonson Studio, Winner Typographica’s OFT 2007. This dashing 1940s-style brush script face was inspired by hand-lettered titles in Fleischer Brothers’ Superman cartoon series. Kinescope comes with beautiful OpenType stylistic sets.

Malaga, designed by Xavier Dupré, published by Emigre, Winner Typographica’s OFT 2007. Named after a port city in southern Spain Malaga is inspired by ideas ranging from blackletter to Latin fonts, and from the Quattrocento’s first Venetian antiquas to brush stroke types. This makes it a richly animated typeface saturated with unorthodox detail.

FF Meta Serif, designed by Erik Spiekermann, Christian Schwartz, and Kris Sowersby, published by FontFont, Winner Typographica’s OFT 2007. Finally the long-awaited serif companion to the most influential sans serif of the digital revolution is available in four weights: Book, Medium, Bold, and Black, each with Italics.

Purista, designed by Tomáš Brousil, published by Suitcase Type Foundry, Winner Typographica’s OFT 2007. The strict, orderly typeface bases on a well-tried principle of geometric sans serifs from mid-20th century. Its obsession with technological precision makes it perfect for use in corporate systems and visual communications of technocratic businesses. Thanks to its broad range of cuts, Purista is also ideal for display advertising.

MVB Sacre Bleu, designed by Mark van Bronkhorst, published by MVB Fonts, Winner Typographica’s OFT 2007. This OpenType release with a raft of alternates and ligatures, is certainly the most flexible and accessible informal script of the last year, and rivals some of the best faces in this vein from the past decade.

TAZ III, designed by Luc(as) de Groot, published by LucasFonts, Winner Typographica’s OFT 2007. The third incarnation of the TAZ family has a shocking 15 weights, more then ever before. The carefully adjusted hairline fonts let you safe ink in small to huge sizes.

2008 FontShop Calendar: April

Ivo Gabrowitsch — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:24:45 +0000

April Featuring P22 Operina Pro and P22 Koch Signs

While we no longer have a monthly calendar offering, there shall be special exceptions, and this fantasy alchemical calendar for April is one of them. James Grieshaber combined his own typeface, P22 Operina Pro, with P22 Koch Signs to conjure this mystical backdrop for your digital wallpaper or physical desktop. Each symbol has an actual meaning that pertains to the month. The two names on the side are the names of actual meteor showers that will be visible on the dates marked. The first shower will be visible from the Northern hemisphere and the second from the Southern.

P22 Operina Pro is a unusually extensive OpenType font from IHOF, a new collection on FontShop. Read more about other new additions in our latest newsletter.

2007 FontShop Calendar: November

Calliope Gazetas — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:04:47 +0000

November Featuring Malaga and Vista Sans

This month’s calendar celebrates Xavier Dupré’s most recent Emigre release, Malaga. Combined with Vista Sans, it’ll help you prepare for your own winter-time plans.

2007 FontShop Calendar: October

Calliope Gazetas — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:59:09 +0000

October Featuring Neutraliser and Phlex

The designers at Identikal bring us their urban, nighttime take on the month of October, complete with one of their own striking New York City photos as a backdrop.

2007 FontShop Calendar: September

Calliope Gazetas — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 17:12:24 +0000

September Featuring Ambroise and Parisine

Take a break from the heat and dust of summer and enter a forest of mist and cool with our September 2007 calendar, featuring Jean François Porchez’s Ambroise and Parisine.

Extra Light, Ultra Thin Fonts: Hairline Type Lends Elegance to the Page

Stephen Coles — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:27:29 +0000

FF Meta Light with PMN Caecilia in Real Simple magazine.

Just as there is often a need for extra heavy type, the delicate stuff on the light end of the spectrum has its place as well. Here, we gather the typefaces in FontShop’s catalog with the thinnest of weights. See the Fine Lines newsletter for a closer look at some of our favorites.

Extra Light Sans Serifs

Sans serif families sometimes include a “Hairline” or “Thin” font meant for large sizes. The following are those sans typefaces with a weight thinner than “Light”.

Humanist

Grotesque/Gothic

Helvetica Ultra Light
Titling Gothic Thin
Interstate Hairline, Interstate Thin, Interstate Extra Light
Benton Sans Thin and Extra Light
Antenna Thin
Griffith Gothic Thin
Paralucent Thin, Paralucent Extra Light
Stratum Thin
Proxima Nova Thin
Ministry Thin
Preface Thin
Parangon (Cyrillic with basic Latin character set)
LTC Goudy Sans Hairline
P22 Underground Thin

Geometric

Kabel Light
ITC Avant Garde Gothic Extra Light + Alternate
URW Futura Light
Bryant Pro Light
Drescher Grotesk Light
Martin Gothic Thin
Regulator Thin
Horatio Light
Purista Thin

Extra Light Slab Serifs

Ultra thin headline and novelty typefaces.

Extra Light Display Faces

Ultra thin headline and novelty typefaces.

Extra Light Scripts

Ultra thin script typefaces.

UPDATE

Extra Light Serifs

There aren’t many book serifs that are as ultra light overall as those in the slab and sans categories. Display versions of text serifs are generally high contrast, so there is usually a mid-to-heavy part of the stroke. Nevertheless, it can be useful to have a list of serif fonts that are very light in color.

Update May 2, 2008 — Several new fonts added.

2007 FontShop Calendar: August

Calliope Gazetas — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:33:18 +0000

August Featuring Bureau Grot and Mayo

A special edition of our FontShop 2007 calendar celebrates David Berlow and his SOTA Award at TypeCon2007 for lifelong achievement in type design. His versatile family Bureau Grot rests among the bright colors and angles of the Seattle Public Library.

Extra Bold, Ultra Black Fonts: Hit Hard with Heavy Duty Type

Stephen Coles — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:26:30 +0000

In an effort to get noticed, a lot of folks turn to the most obvious item in their font menu: Impact™. In concept, it plays the role well. It is heavy and condensed, yet still legible, with short descenders that enable the user to stack headlines big and tight. The problem: overuse. No matter how loud it looks, a typeface can only shout so many times before it loses its voice.

Fortunately, when a powerful vehicle is needed to carry an important message, there are plenty of capable, but less obvious typefaces for the job. Have a look at our Extra Bold newsletter and see more heavy duty headline options in the list below.

Compact Sans Serifs

Tall and narrow, with gigantic x-heights and compact descenders, these space-efficient sans serifs pack in the most words per line.

Impact – yeah, we’ve always got the old standby
Helvetica Compressed
Helvetica Inserat
Anzeigen Grotesk
Hadrian
Compacta
Placard
Plak
Block Gothic Extra Bold
Bee Four
Aura
Aurora – Tom Carnase started with this for his Macworld logo font
Bigticy Narrow
FF Govan
FF Kipp
Tasse
Futura Display
Atrament Bold
PTL Adigio
PTL Fabrik Two
PTL Highbus
Nimbus Sans Black Condensed
Ariergard Heavy
FF Fago Condensed Black

Heavy Sans Serifs

Large sans serif families often include a “Black” or “Ultra” weight at the dark end.

Heavy Slab Serifs

There is no serif tougher than a slab serif.

Chocolate Chunk Serifs

The soft, goopy serifs that often grace candy wrappers or vintage tee shirts.

High Contrast Serifs

Shout with grace. These serif faces get extra dark while retaining their thin hairline strokes.

Didone

Others

Fat and Round

Hot dog type like VAG Rounded taken to a very plump extreme.

Playful and Comical

Bulbous and animated typefaces derived from comics, packaging, and show card lettering.

Blackletters

Here are heavy metal’s heaviest.

Wood Types

Back when type was set by hand, the biggest, boldest letters were made of wood to save costs. Headline typefaces from this era have a particularly warm, organic quality or charming idiosyncrasies.

Other Novelties

Techno types, stencils, retro faces, and other extra bold novelties in the Display type category.

Techno, Futuristic

Retro, Signpainter’s Lettering

Stencils

Others

The Blackest

“How much more black could these be? And the answer is none, none more black.”

Update May 2, 2008 — Several new fonts added.

2007 FontShop Calendar: July

Calliope Gazetas — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 17:31:02 +0000

July Featuring ARS Twenty and ARS Region

Angus R. Shamal designed our July 2007 Calendar with two of his typefaces: ARS Region, the sum of everything he’s “always liked and appreciated in a workhorse sans serif”; and ARS Twenty, a monospaced font built on a 4 x 5 grid. Established in 1994, Shamal’s ARS Type is an independent studio based in Amsterdam.

2007 FontShop Calendar: Feb-June

Calliope Gazetas — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:27:21 +0000

June Featuring Armchair Modern™

With curves inspired by both Scandinavian furniture design and old-school cathode ray tube displays, Armchair Modern shows off its paces in a cool, summery June calendar.

May Featuring Anisette™

Dyana Weissman of the Font Bureau used their Anisette typeface to bring us an unabashedly flowery May. Jean-François Porchez’s font draws from the Art Deco lettering of French poster artist A. M. Cassandre.

April Featuring Freight™

Joshua Darden crafted this ambitious release for GarageFonts in 2005. Freight Serif and Sans are reliable text faces, and the inventive Micro is tuned for tiny print, but every font in the package has headline potential. It’s one of the most refreshing and useful families of the last few years.

March Featuring Mustardo™ and Ketchupa™

Swedish designer Peter Bruhn tells the story of his typefaces featured in this month’s newsletter: “One day at lunch, having a hamburger, I looked at the ketchup package and noticed how the ink in the print had spread and made the small size lettering look very round. Using Corpus Gothic as a template, I’ve tried to imitate this in Ketchupa and Mustardo.”

February Featuring MVB Sirenne™

This month’s desktop wallpaper is from designer Alan Greene, using MVB Sirenne, a typeface he designed with Mark van Bronkhorst. The elegant serif family, inspired by a rare, 18th-century book, brings antique hand lettering to the digital world with a full set of weights, small caps, and swash italics, with separate cuts for large and small settings.