Branding and Identity

The family that became FF Meta was first called PT55, an economical typeface made for easy reading at small sizes created for the West German Post Office in 1985. Erik Spiekermann later improved and expanded his design to include more weights and styles, and prepared its release as FF Meta, one of the first and truly foundational members of the early FontFont library. As desktop publishing... Read More

Forget that hipster coolness for a minute and design something cute and charming with LiebeLotte! Go ahead and make beautiful things with her: birthday cards, wedding invitations, love letters, new signage for your deli—so many things look sweeter when you use this well-crafted handwriting font. We’ve put all of our heart and soul into this typeface—it took us a whole year to draw, refine, and... Read More

FF Aad is a modern sans serif typeface with humanist touches. The terminals end horizontally, making the negative shape in between letters more open and simplified, resulting in clean and easy to read compositions. The family consists of five weights, each with genuine italics. Note the distinctive italic lowercase Y. Its neutral but elegant appearance makes it an ideal choice for corporate use.

On the way back to the airport from the 1994 ATypI conference in San Francisco, Albert-Jan Pool and Erik Spiekermann discussed Pool’s prospects, Spiekermann knowing that his friend’s employer had just gone out of business. He suggested that if Pool wanted to make some money in type design, that he take a closer... Read More

Sporting a convincing texture typical of the uneven ink seen in polymer plate letterpress work, Trend Rough offers a full chromatic set of stackable effects, including solid, inline, two shaded sets, and combined solid with hatched shadow. Times two—Sans and Slab, plus an additional set of filled and outlined geometric shapes and catchwords.

The friendly technical sans has gotten friendlier. Eduardo Manso has gone to great lengths in expanding the family to make Ciutadella Rounded, a face with truly round terminals in every weight—no small feat. Compact and display-focused, this one’s definitely a prominent pick among the DIN Alternatives.

Xavier Dupré designed FF Tartine Script and FF Jambono in 2000–2001, while he worked as a type designer in a packaging design agency in Paris. Dupré just wanted to have a complete font up his sleeve when he needed to whip up a logo for someone. FF Tartine Script is an informal face specially developed for food packaging, but it is also good for logos, or in short texts, or wherever you like.

The first cuts of Trade Gothic were designed by Jackson Burke in 1948. He continued to work on further weights and styles until 1960 while he was director of type development for Mergenthaler-Linotype in the USA. Trade Gothic does not display as much unifying family structure as other popular sans serif font families, but this dissonance adds a bit of earthy naturalism to its appeal. Trade... Read More

FF Cocon’s designer, Evert Bloemsma (1958–2005) described it as a “serious typeface.” Despite first impressions, the description holds up well. Since its 2001 release, FF Cocon has been used in an astoundingly wide variety of design applications. At large sizes, FF Cocon works as a display face, with beautiful detailing. And at small sizes, it remains surprisingly readable. The lowercase... Read More

Arial was designed for Monotype in 1982 by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders. A contemporary sans serif design, Arial contains more humanist characteristics than many of its predecessors and as such is more in tune with the mood of the last decades of the twentieth century. The overall treatment of curves is softer and fuller than in most industrial style sans serif faces. Terminal strokes... Read More

Frankfurter font is the work of designer Alan Meeks. The most distinctive feature of this informal, sans serif typeface is its curved or rounded terminals. The letters look best when set closely together. Frankfurter Medium is well-suited to a variety of display applications and comes in four weights, regular, medium, highlight and inline.

The branding agency's client wanted an "ultra modern" typeface that was "futuristic without being gimmicky or ephemeral," according to the design brief. Designer Sebastian Lester took on this intriguing custom font assignment, but soon, a bureaucratic decision cancelled the project."I was left with a sketchbook full of ideas and thought it would be a shame not to see what came of them," says... Read More

Alternate Gothic was designed by Morris Fuller Benton for the American Typefounders Company (ATF) in 1903. A version for the Intertype machine was released in 1958. The style of Alternate Gothic is in the 19th Century manner. All three weights of Alternate Gothic are bold and narrow. In fact, this face is essentially a condensed version of Benton's other well-known sans serif types, like... Read More