The Monotype, ITC, Adobe, and Linotype libraries were all updated last month with new releases and specially priced value packs. Now available at FontShop are convenient family packs of your old favorites like Neue Helvetica, ITC Charter, Frutiger, Univers, and Trajan, along with new takes on the classics like Bembo Book and Garamond Premier Pro.

For something fresh, look to Monotype’s own Sebastian Lester who has followed his extremely popular Neo Sans and Neo Tech with an extensive slab serif family, Soho.

Read more about the update in our June 2008 newsletter.

Discover fresh contemporary type from the Netherlands. A new crop of fonts from OurType is now available at FontShop. New designs like Parry, Neue Sans, Eva, and Amalia fulfill the modern day typographers’ needs and are the perfect alternative to traditional typefaces. Many of OurType’s existing designs got an OpenType Pro update and are now available in full family packages.

Read more about the update in our May 2008 newsletter.

So if you now want to know how a Swiss Army Knife is like our favorite font format, check out the new OpenType page on our support section. Last year we spoke to attendees of the PINC Show about OpenType, so if you prefer to learn in a more visual way, have a look at the slides from that presentation.

• What is OpenType?
• OpenType presentation slideshow
• OpenType presentation slides as a Flickr set

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.

Entertain and embellish with the typefaces of IHOF, Comicraft, and Norwegian Fonts. FontShop is known for workhorse text and corporate typefaces, but these new collections offer something slightly different from standard fare, proving that we are your source for decorative and novelty typefaces, too.

View some of FontShop's new intensive fonts of strong character now in our March 2008 newsletter.

Our new font blog entries have fallen a little bit behind. We won’t point you to all the new releases announced in recent newsletters, but do be sure to check out the issue showcasing the latest FontFonts. Aside from FF Celeste™ Sans’ OpenType version and numerous character set extensions to foundry favorites, three new designs were announced in February newsletter: FF Polymorph™, an exploration of global forms in the FontFont’s experimental tradition, developed by Stefanie Schwarz for her Thesis; FF Unit™ Rounded, in which our founder reveals the softer side of his “strict sans”; and FF Utility™, a hard-working sans serif for text and information design by newcomer Lukas Schneider.

FF Polymorph by Stefanie Schwarz. Click to enlarge.

Type design super heroes Xavier Dupré and Martin Majoor are featured in FontFont’s new Types & Characters brochures. Their excellent typefaces and their approach to design is presented to provide an insight into the work of the people behind the letters. The Types & Characters series, designed by students of University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden, Germany reveals type designers’ sources of inspiration, their sketches and computer work, as well as some very personal statements. The good news? The PDF files are free:

• Xavier Dupré (4.7M PDF)
• Martin Majoor (2.4M PDF)

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.

• printable 11×17 (3.4 MB PDF)
• desktop wallpaper (1 MB)
• widescreen desktop wallpaper (1.1 MB)

UK-based designer Andrew Townsend is in charge of Un.titled’s art direction. As Wig-01 he works on self-initiated art and design projects such as the “Graphic Poetry” book and illustrations for various magazines. The typeface of his simple, dynamic website showcasing these projects is Font Bureau’s Hermes. The typeface does an excellent job both in screen and print media.

Full-featured text fonts include all four figure styles. Click the image above to see figures from
FF Scala Sans Pro, Adobe Caslon Pro and PMN Caecilia™ Std.

Oldstyle Figures

Oldstyle figures are Arabic numerals varying in height and position. Some sit on the baseline while others descend beneath the baseline. The 6 and 8 are commonly the tallest figures and the 3,4,5,7, and 9 descend below the baseline, while the 0, 1, and 2 are roughly the same height of the lowercase letters. This feature allows them to harmonize with other words on a page of text without becoming a distraction to the reader. So oldstyle figures are most appropriate in books or any running text. Oldstyle figures are also known as non-aligning figures, text figures or oldstyle numerals.

Lining Figures

Lining figures are derived from oldstyle figures. They are a modern style with all figures at a common size and position and even height as the uppercase letters (but sometimes smaller and lighter than the capitals). Today, most fonts use these as default. Lining figures sit on the baseline as opposed to oldstyle figures that appear at different heights and positions. They optically align along a height line and the baseline. The best applications are business reports, forms, tables or any place where alignment is crucial. Lining figures are also known as regular numerals or titling figures.

Tabular Figures

Tabular figures are mono-width, they align vertically and thus appear in documents that compare numerical data in columns. Each figure shares the same width and space on both sides.

Proportional Figures

Proportional figures are different in their total character width. They are spaced to fit together more like letters. For instance, the figure 1 is very narrow like the letter l and takes up less width than the number 6. Because their spacing appears more even, these figures are best in texts and headings where columnar alignment is not necessary.

Now that you know the differences between the two figures styles and their two widths, you know what to buy for your particular needs. Fortunately, some foundries (like FontFont) make it simple: every figure style that has been designed for a particular typeface is included in each purchasable package. OpenType, though, makes it even simpler. Most OpenType fonts include all available figure styles within a single font. So there’s no switching between fonts to get to the right figures. Read more about the conveniences of the format on our new OpenType page.