TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Tue Oct 1 16:42:22 EDT 2024

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Zetafonts (or: Studio Kmzero, or: ZeroFont) [Francesco Mistico Canovaro]

Italian design firm in Firenze consisting of three graphic designers, Francesco Canovaro, Debora Manetti, and Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini. It has evolved into Italy's premier and most prolific type foundry. Canovaro's Behance link. Also called ZeroFont and Zetafonts, this type foundry exhales joy---in every design and presentation, the passion of the designers bubbles to the surface. Blending a delicious sense of humour and a great aesthetic taste, Zetafonts is a typographic delight. Their typefaces:

• Adlibitum (2018). A textura blackletter typeface family.
• Anaphora (2018). Anaphora is a contemporary serif typeface designed by Francesco Canovaro (roman), Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini (italic) and Andrea Tartarelli. It features a wedge serif design with nine weights from thin to heavy. Its wide counters and low x-height make it pleasant and readable at text sizes while the uncommon shapes make it strong and recognizable when used in display size. Anaphora covers Latin, Greek and Cyrillic.
• Aliens and Cows (2016). An ultra-condensed all aps sans family by Canovaro.
• Arturo (2018), by Francesco Canovaro.
• Atlantica (2017). A signage script family.
• Lightstrike (2016). A thin (and free) brush font by Canovaro.
• Byom (2016). A tweetware organic sans typeface family by Francesco Canovaro.
• Adlery (2016, +Cyrillic). A brush script by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini.
• Adlibitum (2016). A blackletter typeface by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Francesco Canovaro.
• Morbodoni (2016). A display didone by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Francesco Canovaro.
• Altair (2016). A display sans by by Francesco Canovaro based on Digitalino.
• Aquawax (2015). A sans family by Canovaro and the Zetafonts team. Extended in 2019 to Aquawax Pro by Francesco Canovaro, Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Andrea Tartarelli.
• Armonioso (2014). A creamy connected signage script.
• A Day Without Sun (2014, by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini).
• Another Shabby (2014, a primitive script by Francesco Canovaro).
• Antipasto (2007, by Matteo Di Iorio). A clean elegant sans by Canovaro.
• Arista (2007) and Arista 2.0 (2010). A simple rounded bold sans typeface designed by Francesco Canovaro and Adolfo Monti. In 2017, Francesco Canovaro updated these to Arista Pro.
• Arsenale White and Arsenale Blue (2009). Children's hands, done by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini, Francesco Canovaro, Andrea Mi, Debora Manetti, Katiuscia Mari, and Jonathan Calugi.
• Beatrix Antiqua (2016, by Francesco Canovaro, Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Andrea Tartarelli). This humanist sans-serif typeface is part of the Beatrix family (Beatrix Nova, etc.) that takes its inspiration from the classic Roman monumental capital model. Its capitals are directly derived from the stone carvings in Florence's Santa Croce Cathedral. Beatrix keeps a subtle lapidary swelling at the terminals suggesting a glyphic serif, similar to Hermann Zapf's treatment in Optima. Some weights are free.
• Bimbo >(2018). A child emulation handwriting font developed as an extension and redesign of the original Arsenale White typeface created with italian illustrator Jonathan Calugi.
• Bistecca (2005). A bellissima extra-condensed serif font created for ego[n] 5 and for the cover of ego[n] 4.
• Braciola (2006). Monospaced and octagonal, with stencil styles added.
• Brushstrike (2015). By Canovaro.
• Byron (2006). Handwriting.
• In 2010, Canovaro designed the plumpish bubblegum typefaces Bubblebody Fat and Bubbleboddy Extra Light. These fonts were discontinued in 2016 and replaced by Bubbleboddy Neue.
• Bulletto (2015). A retro baseball script.
• Cibreo. A basic sans typeface by Canovaro and Monti.
• Cinematografica (2017). An ultra condensed small caps movie typeface used in the advertising campaign for Lucca Comics 2017 Festival. This film noir family features eight weights from thin to heavy with open type alternate glyphs and some full word ligatures.
• The rounded geometric sans family Cocomat (2015, Zetafonts, by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini, Debora Manetti and Francesco Canovaro) was inspired by the style of the twenties and the visions of Italian futurists like Fortunato Depero, Giacomo Balla and Antonio Sant'Elia. Updated in 2019 as Cocomat Pro.
• Cocosignum (2017). Cocosignum Corsivo Italico and Cocosignum Maiuscoletto are both based on Italian art deco styles.
• Codec (2018) by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini, Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli is a geometric sans typeface family in which all terminal cuts are horiontal or vertical. See also Codec Pro (2019).
• Delizioso (2008). Art deco.
• Digitalino (2013).
• Docporn (comic book style).
• Duepuntozero Pro (2006-2008). A condensed rounded sans famly by Adolfo Monti and Francesco Canovaro. The Pro version was released in 2019.
• Filetto (2009). A sans modeled after DIN 1451 done by Canovaro, Debora Manetti and Katiuscia Mari.
• Florentia (2017). An 18-style lapidary typeface family influenced by the renaissance and luxury.
• In 2018, Debora Manetti and Francesco Canovaro designed the brush handwriting font Freehand Brush.
• Handvetica (2005). Arched.
• Happy Frush Zero (2014). A random note font.
• Happy Funghetto (2015). Fifties style lettering.
• Heading Pro (2017). A condensed sans typeface by Francesco Canovaro. Followed in 2018 by Heading Pro Ultra Compressed, Heading Pro Extended, and Heading Pro Text.
• Hello Script (2015). Curly and calligraphic.
• Modulo3 (2008). An artsy beauty.
• New Romantic (curly grunge).
• Panforte (2013) and Panforte Serif (2013): hand-drawn typefaces. Panforte Pro followed in 2017.
• Prozak. Consists of zProzak-Bold, zProzak and zProzakLight (2006). A basic sans typeface by Canovaro and Monti.
• Sala de Fiestas (2005-2006). Free download at OFL.
• Square80 (2009).
• Studio Gothic (2017, by Francesco Canovaro, Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Andrea Tartarelli) is an 8-style geometric sans family based on Alessandro Butti's geometric sans classic, Semplicita.
• Sugo (2007). By Canovaro and Monti.
• Taller (2009, ultra-condensed), Taller Evolution (2009), Tallest (2009, ultra-condensed).
• Targa Monospace. Inspired by license plate lettering.
• Targa (2002), TargaMS (2002), TargaMSHand (2002). Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini, who developed Targa in 2002, based his design on the peculiar sans serif monospace typeface with slightly rounded corners and a geometric, condensed skeleton that Italy had been using for its license plates. In 2022, Francesco Canovaro redesigned this font into a versatile multi-weight typeface, Targa Pro, which includes Targa Pro Mono (which keeps the original monospace widths), Targa Pro Roman (with proportional widths), both in five weights plus italics, the handmade version Targa Hand, and Targa Pro Stencil.
• Tutor (2006). Rectangular, pixelish---what I call a piano key font.
• Zerocalcare is a typeface family created for the branding of Lucca Comics & Games Festival 2016. It is based on the digitised handwriting of italian comic artist Zerocalcare, and it uses open type substitutions to mimick the flow of real handwriting. Free at Dafont.
• Double Bass (2018): A jazzy 4-style typeface family that pays tribute to Saul Bass's iconic hand lettering for Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm film title sequence and other movies, Bass's vibrating, almost brutal cut-out aestethics, and the cartoonish lettering and jazzy graphics of the fifties.
• Another Shabby (2018) is a brush script typeface family designed by Francesco Canovaro for Zetafonts with Cyrillic letters designed by Alina Golovan.
• Sugo Pro (2018, Francesco Canovaro, Andrea Tartarelli). It was designed in 2006 by Francesco Canovaro in two weights (regular and extralight) and later used by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini as base inspiration for the design of the successful Zetafonts' Cocogoose Pro typeface. In 2018 the family was completely redesigned by Andrea Tartarelli, expanding the original glyph set to include Cyrillic and Greek and adding three extra weights and italics. The restored and revamped version is named Sugo Pro Classic. In 2020, Cosimo Pancini, Andrea Tartarelli and Mario De Libero drew the 60-style Cocogoose Pro Narrows family, which features many compressed typefaces as well as grungy letterpress versions.
• Extenda (2018) is a thin-to-wide grotesque advertising or movie credit family with some of the DNA of Impact or Compacta. By Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli.
• In 2019, Blacker Sans (Francesco Canovaro, Andrea Tartarelli) and Blacker Pro (Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Andrea Tartarelli) were released. The 63-strong fashion mag powerhouse Blacker Sans Pro (Francesco Canovaro, Andrea Tartarelli) followed in 2020. Zetafonts writes: Blacker Pro is the revised and extended version of the original wedge serif type family designed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Andrea Tartarelli in 2017. Blacker was developed as a take on the style that Jeremiah Shoaf has defined as the "evil serif" genre: typefaces with high contrast, oldstyle or modern serif proportions and sharp, blade-like triangular serifs.
• The extreme wedge serif and reverse stress typeface family Blackest (2018, Andrea Tartarelli and Francesco Canovaro).
• In 2019, Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini, Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli published the monolinear geometric rounded corner amputated "e" sans typeface family Cocogoose Classic and the condensed rounded monoline techno sans typeface family Iconic.
• Klein (2019) is (in their words) Zetafonts' love letter to the grandmother of all geometric sans typefaces, Futura. Starting from a dialogue with Paul Renner's iconic letterforms and proportions, Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli decided to depart from its distinctive modernist shapes with slight humanist touches and grotesque solutions---with some design choices evoking the softness of humanist sans serifs like Gill Sans. The end result is a workhorse superfamily of 54 fonts with full coverage of Latin, Cyrillic and Greek. The original display-oriented family, developed in nine weights with matching italics (from the hairline thin to the sturdy black), has been paired with a text version (with slightly higher x-height, better readability and maximum legibility at small point size) and with a condensed version, to be used for space-saving display solutions in editorial and advertising formats. With a name that is both a nod to its humble functionality and an homage to French nouveau realiste artist Yves Klein, this typeface aims to become your next trusted companion in all your adventures in print, digital and motion design.
• Kitsch (2019, Francesco Canovaro, Andrea Tartarelli and Maria Chiara Fantini) mixes angular medieval elements and old style letterforms. Thicker (2020, by Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli). They write: A geometric sans typeface on steroids, it was first designed in the muscular extrablack weight with the aesthetics of high-power dynamic typefaces used in sports communication, and then developed in the lighter weights where the shapes show some vintage-inspired proportions and the slightly squared look that nods to Novarese famous Eurostile, eponymous with retro-futurism..
• Stinger (2020, a 42-style reverse contrast family by Francesco Canovaro, Cosimo Pancini, Andrea Tartarelli and Maria Chiara Fantini).
• As part of the free font set Quarantype (2020), Francesco Canovaro designed Quarantype Chillout and Quarantype Sunshine. Sunshine Pro (2020, Zetafonts) was designed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Solenn Bordeau expanding the original Quarantype Sunshine design by Francesco Canovaro, which in turn was designed as a typeface for good vibes against Covid-19. Sunshine Pro is an experimental Clarendon-style font with variable contrast along the weight axis---contrast is reversed in light weight, minimized in the regular weight and peaks in the bold and heavy weights.
• Eastman (2020, by Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli with help from Solenn Bordeau) is a 178-font geometric sans workhorse family with Bauhaus genes developed for maximum versatility both in display and text use, with a wide weight range and a solid monolinear design featuring a tall x-height. It comes with a two axis variable font (weight, italic angle). It was followed by the 46-style font Eastman Grotesque (2020, by Francesco Canovaro, Cosimo Pancini and Andrea Tartarelli), which comprises an interesting Eastman Grotesque Alternate subfamily with daring and in-your-face glyphs, and the 88-style Eastman Condensed (2021, by Francesco Canovaro, Cosimo Pancini and Andrea Tartarelli).
• Garbata (2020). A round typeface loosely based on Windsor and Cooper Black, having a variable type option that offers many weights. Between sans and serif.
• Bogart (2020, Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli). An homage to the low-contrast oldstyle fat faces, like Cooper Black (Oswald Bruce Cooper, 1922), Windsor and Goudy Heavy Face (Frederic W. Goudy and Sol Hess, 1925-1932), and more recently, Bookman.
• Stadio Now (2020). A revival by the Zetafonts team of Aldo Novarese's Stadio (1974), a reverse contrast sans that was published only as a rub-on transfer typeface. It comes with a multi-axis variable font that greatly enlarges the design space.
• Amazing Slab (2021). A 20-style typeface family designed by Francesco Canovaro, Mario de Libero (who did the inline versions), Sofia Bandini and Andrea Tartarelli, developed from the Amazing Grotesk family designed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini. Characterized by outward-pointing top serifs, this typeface is designed for use in athletic lettering, logos and titling. Zetafonts writes: Mixing an Egyptian serif, low contrast approach with the curved endings and open shapes of humanist sans grotesques, it was developed to embody the energetic and friendly nature of the startup scene---a feeling of innovation, information and energy, with a desire for simplicity and straightforward communication. The basic design shapes for the font come from the strong personality of the extrabold letterforms drawn by Francesco Canovaro for his StartupItalia logo, that informed the display design of the four darkest weights (from medium to black).
• Coco Sharp (2021). A 62-style sans feast, and two variable fonts with variable x-height, by Francesco Canovaro, Cosimo Pancini and Andrea Tartarelli.
• Arsenica (2021). A 43-style decorative serif by Francesco Canovaro for Zetafonts, and developed by a design team that included Mario De Libero, Andrea Tartarelli and Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini. It comprises two variable fonts and subfamilies Display, Text, Alternate and Antiqua.
• Asgard (2021). A 72-strong experimental display sans superfamily with a 3-axis (weight, width, slant) variable font, designed by Francesco Canovaro, Andrea Tartarelli ans Mario De Libero.
• Heading Now (2021). A 160-strong titling font (+2 variable fonts) by Francesco Canovaro, Cosimo Pancini, Andrea Tartarelli and Mario De Libero that provides an enormous range of widths.
• Salad and Salad Interlock (2021-2022). These typefacea are based on vernacular signpainting, extending Debora Manetti's Sala de Fiestas.
• Bakemono (2021). Canovaro writes: the design space of fixed vs. proportional width, mixing the lessons of mechanical typewriter technology with the intuitions of eastern brush calligraphy. The name of the typeface comes from the Japanese shape-shifter monsters that could change their form freely between human and animal, and aptly describes the metamorphic nature of this wide superfamily coming in proportional, monospace and intermediate subfamilies. bakemono supports Latin, Cyrillic, Aarabic and kana, and comes with a variable font option.

Corporate typefaces were designed for Lucca Comics and Games, Digitalic Magazine, Kair, Unicoop, and Istituto Europeo di Design.

Behance link. Zetafonts home page. View the Zetafonts library. Abstract Fonts link. I Love Typography link. MyFonts link. Type Department link.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Zetafonts (or: Studio Kmzero, or: ZeroFont)
 [Buy fonts]
 [Designer info]
Fontspring link [Buy fonts]
Dafont page
Fontspace page
Behance page
Creative Market page
Klingspor Museum page
MyFonts search
Monotype search
Fontspring search
Google search

INTERNAL LINKS
Type design in Italy ⦿ Sites with only a few free fonts ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Monospaced fonts ⦿ Handwriting fonts ⦿ Stencil fonts ⦿ Pixel/bitmap fonts ⦿ Octagonal typefaces ⦿ Comic/cartoon fonts ⦿ Children's handwriting fonts ⦿ Art deco typefaces ⦿ Sketched typefaces ⦿ Piano key typefaces ⦿ DIN ⦿ Ransom note fonts ⦿ Letterpress ⦿ Futurism ⦿ Brush script typefaces ⦿ Calligraphic typefaces ⦿ Modern style [Bodoni, Didot, Walbaum, Thorowgood, Computer Modern, etc.] ⦿ Blackletter fonts ⦿ Bubblegum typefaces ⦿ Lapidary typefaces ⦿ Movie fonts ⦿ Film noir typefaces ⦿ Curly typefaces ⦿ Cyrillic type design ⦿ Signage typefaces ⦿ Corporate typefaces ⦿ Cutout or paper-cut typefaces ⦿ Textura ⦿ Variable fonts ⦿ Clarendon ⦿ Typewriter fonts ⦿ Typefaces and type design for Arabic ⦿ Type design in Japan ⦿