Alba Calderón

Madrid-based designer of the display typeface Quirou (2013). [Google] [More]  ⦿

Anna Postum

Moscow, Russia-based designer of the decorative caps typeface Paul Klee (2016). [Google] [More]  ⦿

Digifonts

Type foundry based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Their typefaces are all related to Letras Latinas 2002: Chill Out (organic sans), Newine, Predec (experimental serif placement), Corporation (organic italic sans), Galas (outline headline face), Literal (display), Metropolis (octagonal style), Tecno Funk (grunge), Baldosas (3d cubes, stacked), Klee, Overexpose Bi (grunge), Overexpose Tri (grunge), Air Bag (grunge). [Google] [MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Emil Ruder

Swiss typographer (b. Zürich 1914, d. Basel, 1970), and type guru in the 50s and 60s. Ruder taught at the Basel School of Design (Kunstgewerbeschule), and founded the International Center for the Typographic Arts in New York, 1962.

Author of Typographie: Ein Gestaltungslehrbuch - A Manual of Design - Un Manuel de Creation (Teufen: Niggli, 1967), and Typographie. Ein Gestaltungslehrbuch. Mit über 500 Beispielen (7th edition in 2001, Niggli). The Road to Basel (Helmut Schmid) is an homage to Emil Ruder by Helmut Schmid, one of Ruder's students, who headed a group of other ex-students and organized their contributions. The former students who participated are Harry Boller, Roy Cole, Heini Fleischhacker, Fritz Gottschalk, André Gürtler, Hans-Jürg Hunziker, Hans-Rudolf Lutz, Fridolin Müller, Marcel Nebel, Åke Nilsson, Bruno Pfäffli, Will van Sambeek, Helmut Schmid, Peter Teubner, Wolfgang Weingart, and Yves Zimmermann. Karl Gerstner and Kurt Hauert also contributed. Paul Shaw reviews this book and Ruder's contributions.

Quotes from Shaw's piece:

• It is clear that those lucky enough to study under Ruder found him as exciting and demanding as they had expected. With a few exceptions these former students quickly and permanently fell under the sway of the charismatic and ambitious Ruder.
• Ruder promised a new functionalism derived from the Bauhaus. His was a new approach to typography that went beyond the technical fundamentals of metal type composition to embrace modern art (especially that of Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian). Ruder focused on the point, the line, the plane, and the way in which typography activated space. His article Die Flache (the plane or the space), following lessons he had learned from The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura and from modern art, stressed the activation and destruction of space as the goal of typography as well as of art and architecture.
• Ruders typography is defined by asymmetry and an emphasis on counter, shape, and negative space.
• Harry Boller writes that Ruder and his students were Puritans on a mission, serious, humorless. We had been led to a morality, and strong convictions remain. Banality, lack of imagination, and swiping of ideas were all ridiculed, while sincerity of expression was encouraged. Gottschalk says that Ruder taught courtesy, ethics, and modesty as much as he taught typography.

IDEA Mag's special issue #332 entitled Ruder Typography Ruder Philosophy (2009), with articles by Leon Maillet (Tessin), Armin Hofmann (Lucerne), Karl Gerstner (Basel), Kurt Hauert (Basel), Lenz Klotz (Basel), Wim Crouwel (Amsterdam), Adrian Frutiger (Paris), Hans Rudolf Bosshard (Zurich), Andre Gutler (Basel), Juan Arrausi (Barcelona), Ake Nilsson (Uppsala), Fridolin Muller (Stein am Rhein), Harry Boller (Chicago), Maxim Zhukov (New York), Taro Yamamoto (Tokyo), Fjodor Gejko (Düsseldorf), Helmut Schmid (Osaka), and Susanne Ruder-Schwarz (Basel).

Article on Ruder by Shane Bzdok, 2008. [Google] [MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Fidel Peugeot
[Fontdesign by Fidel Peugeot]

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Fontdesign by Fidel Peugeot
[Fidel Peugeot]

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Fontek (Letraset Fontek)

Collection of typefaces at Letraset. Newest typefaces include Donaldson Hand (Tim Donaldson), La Gioconda (based on letters from Giovanni Francesco Cresci, done by Richard Dawson and Dave Farey), Spidercave (Michael Gills), Locomotiv (Phill Grimshaw), Bobbysox (Alan Dempsey), Bouchon (Roselyne and Michel Besnard), Eplica (Yvonne Diedrich), Uffington (Tim Donaldson). The fonts: Aachen Bold, Aachen Medium, Academy Engraved, Agincourt, Algerian Condensed, Ambrose, Aquinas, Aquitaine Initials, Aristocrat, Arriba, Arriba-Arriba, Artiste, Augustea Open, Avalanche Script, Avenida, Axis Bold, Balmoral, Bang, Banner, Becka Script, Belwe Mono, Belwe Mono Italic, Bendigo, Bergell, Bertie, Bertram, Bible Script, Bickley Script, Bitmax, Blackmoor, Bluntz, Bobbysox, Boink, Bordeaux Display, Bordeaux Family, Bordeaux Italic, Bordeaux Roman, Bordeaux Roman Bold, Bordeaux Script, Bouchon Bold, Bouchon Light, Brighton Bold, Brighton Light, Brighton Medium, Bronx, Burlington, Buzzer 3, Cabaret, Cabarga Cursiva, Campaign, Cancellaresca Script, Carlton, Carumba, Caslon 540 Ital/Swash, Caxton Light Italic, Caxton Roman Bold, Caxton Roman Book, Caxton Roman Light, Chalkline Bold, Challenge Bold, Challenge Extra Bold, Champers, Charlotte Bold, Charlotte Book, Charlotte Book Italic, Charlotte Family, Charlotte Medium, Charlotte Sans Bold, Charlotte Sans Book, Charlotte Sans Book Italic, Charlotte Sans Family, Charlotte Sans Medium, Charlotte Sans Small Caps, Charlotte Small Caps, Chiller, Chipper, Choc, Chromium One, Citation, Claude Sans, Claude Sans Bold Italic, Claude Sans Italic, Collins, Comedy, Commercial Script, Compacta, Compacta Bold, Compacta Italic, Coptek, Corinthian Bold, Corinthian Bold Condensed, Corinthian Light, Corinthian Medium, Crillee Bold Italic, Crillee Extra Bold Italic, Crillee Italic, Crillee Italic Inline Shadow, Cult, Dancin', Data 70, Dave Farey Display Fonts, David Quay Display Fonts, David Quay Scripts, Demian, Demian Bold, Design Font Attitudes, Design Font Calligraphic Ornaments, Design Font Celebrations, Design Font Commercials, Design Font Delectables, Design Font Diversions, Design Font Diversities, Design Font Eclectics, Design Font Energetics, Design Font Expressions, Design Font Incidentals, Design Font Industrials, Design Font Inspirations, Design Font Journeys, Design Font Mo' Funky Fresh Symbols, Design Font Moderns, Design Font Naturals, Design Font Organics, Design Font Organics II, Design Font Primitives, Design Font Radicals, Design Font Urbans, Design Font Well Beings, Design Font Wildlife, Digitek, Dolmen, Donaldson Hand, Doodlebug, Dynamo Shadow, Edwardian Medium, Elysium Bold, Elysium Book, Elysium Book Italic, Elysium Family, Elysium Medium, Elysium Small Caps, Emphasis, Enviro, Eplica Bold, Eplica Bold Italic, Eplica Book, Eplica Book Italic, Eplica Family, Eplica Medium, Eplica Medium Italic, Epokha, Equinox, Etruscan, Faithful Fly, Fashion Compressed No. 3, Fashion Engraved, Figural Bold, Figural Book, Figural Book Italic, Figural Family, Figural Medium, Figural Small Caps, Fine Hand, Flamenco Inline, Flamme, Flight, Fling, Follies, Forest Shaded, Frances Uncial, Frankfurter, Frankfurter Highlight, Frankfurter Inline, Frankfurter Medium, Freestyle Script, Freestyle Script Bold, Gigi, Gilgamesh Bold, Gilgamesh Book, Gilgamesh Book Italic, Gilgamesh Family, Gilgamesh Medium, Gilgamesh Small Caps, Gilgamesh Titling, Gill Display Compressed, Gill Kayo Condensed, Gillies Gothic Extra Bold Shaded, Glastonbury, Globale, Globale Bold, Globale Bold Italic, Globale Family, Globale Italic, Goo Goo Gjoob, Gravura, Green, Greyton Script, Hadfield, Hand Drawn, Harlow, Harlow Solid, Harvey, Hazel, Heliotype, Helvetica Bold Condensed, Helvetica Medium Condensed, Highlight, Hollyweird, Ignatius, Impakt, Indy Italic, Informal Roman, Inscription, Iris, Isis, Jazz, John Handy, Jokerman, Kanban, Katfish, Katytude, Klee, La Bamba, La Gioconda, La Gioconda Bold, Lambada, Laser, Laser Chrome, Latino Elongated, Laura, LCD, Le Griffe, Lexikos, Lightnin', Limehouse Script, Lino Cut, Locarno Italic, Locarno Light, Locomotiv, Magatama, Malibu, Marguerita, Martin Wait Display Fonts, Martin Wait Scripts, Mastercard, Mekanik, Mekanik Italic, Milano, Mistral, Mo' Funky Fresh, Montage, Neo Neo, Oberon, Odessa, Old English, One Stroke Script, One Stroke Script Bold, One Stroke Script Shaded, Orange, Orlando, Pablo, Papyrus, Party, Pendry Script, Phill Grimshaw Display Fonts, Phoenikia, Pink, Plaza, Pleasure Bold Shaded, Pneuma, Potato Cut, Prague, Premier Lightline, Premier Shaded, Princetown, Pristina, Pritchard, Pritchard Line Out, Pump, Pump Demi Bold, Quadrus, Quixley, Rage Italic, Ragtime, Rapier, Refracta, Regatta Condensed, Retail Script, Retro Bold, Retro Bold Condensed, Riva, Robotik, Robotik Italic, Romic Light, Romic Light Italic, Roquette, Ru'ach, Rubber Stamp, Rundfunk, Santa Fe, Savoye, Scratch, Scriba, Scriptease, Scriptek, Scriptek Italic, Scruff, Shaman, Shatter (op-art), Sinaloa, Skid Row, Slipstream, Smack, Smudger, Spidercave Bold, Spidercave Book, Spidercave Book Italic, Spidercave Family, Spidercave Ornamented, Spooky, Spotlight, Squire, Squire Extra Bold, Strobos, Superstar, Synchro, Tag, Tannhauser, Teknik, Telegram, Tiger Rag, Tim Donaldson Display Fonts, Tim Donaldson Scripts, Tiranti Solid, Trackpad, Tropica Script, Twang, Uffington, Ulysses, University Roman, University Roman Bold, University Roman Italic, Van Dijk, Van Dijk Bold, Varga, Vegas, Vermont, Victorian, Victorian Inline Shaded, Vienna Extended, Vivaldi, Wade Sans Light, Wanted, Waterloo Bold, Westwood, Wild Thing, Willow, Xylo, Young Baroque, Zaragoza, Zennor, Zinjaro. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Imby Gaidia Aryati

Graphic designer in Batam City, Indonesia, who created the artsy display typeface Cabeza (2016) based on a painting by Paul Klee. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Keith Bates
[K-Type]

[MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

K-Type
[Keith Bates]

K-Type is Keith Bates' (b. 1951, Liverpool) foundry in Manchester, UK, est. 2003. Keith works as an Art&Design teacher at a Salford High School. They custom design type, and sell some of their own creations.

Commercial typefaces:

• Adequate (2012). A basic geometric monoline sans family.
• Adventuring (2010, comic book style)
• Alan Hand (2005, based on some blobby lettering, handwritten by printer and mail artist, Alan Brignall)
• Alex (2002-2004)
• Alright (2004, cursive script)
• Anna (2002-2007).
• Argot (2019). Characterized by square counters, this typeface family exhales brutalism and industrialism. See also Argot Machine (2019).
• Artist Hand (2019).
• Axis
• Bank of England (2012, blackletter): Bank of England is loosely based on blackletter lettering from the Series F English twenty pound banknote introduced in 2007. The font also takes inspiration from German Kanzlei (Chancery) typefaces and the 17th century London calligrapher, John Ayres.
• Banks & Miles (2018). Inspired by the geometric monoline lettering created for the British Post Office in 1970 by London design company Banks & Miles, a project initiated and supervised by partner John Miles, which included Double Line and Single Line alphabets. The new digital typeface is a reworking and extension of both alphabets.
• Barbica (2015). A glyphic typeface.
• Bricola (2020).
• Brush Hand New (2013): Brush Hand New is a full font based on a copy of Flash Bold called Brush Hand marketed by WSI in the 1990s and more recently distributed through free font sites. Brush Hand was an anonymous redrawing of Flash which simplified, slightly lightened, smoothed out ragged edges, and improved the legibility of the original classic created by Edwin W. Shaar in 1939.
• Building&Loan (2007, engaved face)
• Bigfoot (2005, a Western font based on the slab capitals used by Victor Moscoso in his 1960s psychedelic rock posters)
• Bolshy (2009)
• Bolton750 (2003, a mechanical typeface done with John Washington).
• Chancery Lane (2021). An italic text typeface that is based on chancery scripts.
• Charles Wright (2016). A set of fonts based on the UK license plate fonts.
• Chock (2009)
• Circa (geometric sans)
• Cloudbuster (2019). Inspired by Imre Reiner's Corvinus Skyline of 1934.
• Club.
• Coinage Caps (2017). Coinage Caps is a trilogy of small caps fonts based on the roman lettering used for the designs of British coinage. Coinage Caps Eric Gill is a regular weight, spur serif style drawn by Eric Gill for silver coin designs in the 1920s which were rejected by the Royal Mint. Coinage Caps Humphrey Paget is a medium weight serif based on the lettering of Thomas Humphrey Paget, designer of the Golden Hind Halfpenny first struck in 1937. This font simulates the soft, slightly rounded corners of the minted letterforms. Coinage Caps Kruger Gray is a glyphic, flare serif font typical of the bold style engraved by George Kruger Gray for numerous British and Commonwealth coins during the 1920s and 30s. This font also simulates the slightly rounded corners of the minted letterforms.
• Collegiate (2009)
• Component (2012). A font for lost civilizations and dungeon rituals.
• Context (experimental)
• Credit Card (2010, font for simulating bank cards)
• Curwen Sans (2018). A monoline sans from the early 1900s originally created for in-house use at the Curwen Press in London.
• Cyberscript (2006, connected squarish face)
• Deansgate (2015). Deansgate and Deansgate Condensed are based on the clearest and most distinctive of the sans-serif letterforms used on Manchester street nameplates, and easily identified by a pointy Z and pointed middle vertices on M and W.
• Designer
• Digitalis
• English
• Enamela (2013). Keith writes: Enamela (rhymes with Pamela) is based on condensed sans serif lettering found on vitreous enamel signage dating from the Victorian era and widely used in Britain for road signs, Post Office signs, the plates on James Ludlow wall postboxes, railway signs, direction signs and circular Automobile Association wayfinding plaques throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The original model goes back to Victorian times, ca. 1880.
• Engravia (2018). Engravia is a didone display typeface supplied in three varieties of engraving---Inline, Shaded and Sawtooth---plus a plain basic font.
• Example (2017). A workhorse neo-grtesque typeface family.
• Excite
• Flip (2011), a western grotesk billboard face.
• Flyer (2009, techno)
• Frank Bellamy (2009, an all-capitals family based on the hand lettering of English artist Frank Bellamy, who is most famous for his comic art for Eagle and TV21, and his Dr Who illustrations for Radio Times)
• Future Imperfect
• Gill New Antique (2003)
• Greetings
• Helvetiquette
• Hapshash (2010): an all capitals font inspired by the 1960s psychedelic posters of British designers Hapshash and the Coloured Coat (Michael English and Nigel Waymouth), in particular their 1968 poster for the First International Pop Festival in Rome. A dripping paint font.
• Irish Penny (2016). An uncial typeface based on the lettering from Percy Metcalfe's influential pre-decimal coinage of Ireland, the Barnyard Collection.
• Ivan Zemtsov (2009)
• Kato (2007, oriental simulation face)
• Keep Calm (2015). A geometric sans inspired by a British war poster from 1939.
• Keith's Hand
• Klee Print (2010, Klee Print is based on the handwriting of American artist Emma Klee)
• Latinate (2013). A vintage wedge serif wood style typeface, and a rough version.
• Lexie (an improved or "adult" version of Comic Sans) and Lexie Readable (2006, modified in 2015). Keith writes: Lexie Readable (formerly Lexia Readable) was designed with accessibility and legibility in mind, an attempt to capture the strength and clarity of Comic Sans without the comic book associations. Features like the non-symmetrical b and d, and the handwritten forms of a and g may help dyslexic readers.
• Licencia (2016). A blocky typeface inspired by the tall, soft-cornered lettering on vehicle licence and registration plates world-wide.
• Londinia (2016).
• Matchbox
• Max
• Ming
• Modernist Stencil (2009).
• Monterey Pop (2020). A psychedelic / popart typeface based on Tom Wilkes's poster lettering for the Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967.
• Mythica (2012). A slightly condensed lapidary roman with copperplate serifs.
• Modulario (2010): a contemporary sans.
• New Old English (2010, blackletter)
• Norton (2006)
• Nowa (2004, a play on Futura)
• NYC (octagonal)
• Openline (2008, an art deco pair)
• Oriel Chambers Liverpool: A Lombardic small caps font based on the masonry lettering on Peter Ellis's 1864 building, Oriel Chambers, on Water Street in Liverpool.
• Pentangle (2008, based on album lettering from 1967)
• Pixel
• PixL (2002-2004)
• Plasterboard (2004-2005)
• Pop Cubism (2010) is a set of four texture fonts, combining elements of cubism and pop art.
• Poster Sans (2006). A wood type family based on Ludlow 6 EC. See also Poster Sans Outline.
• Rick Griffin (2006, more psychedelic fonts inspired by a 1960s Californian artist)
• Rima (2020). A stencil typeface with heavy slabs.
• Roundel (2009, white on black)
• Runestone (2010, runic).
• Sans Culottes (2008, grunge)
• Serifina
• Solid State (2008, art deco blocks)
• Solus (2004, a revival of Eric Gill's 1929 typeface Solus which has never been digitized; read about it here)
• Stockscript (2008, down-to-earth script based on the pen lettering of the writer, Christopher Stocks)
• Susanna (2004)
• Ticketing (2011): pixelish.
• Total and Total Eclipse (2004, squarish display typefaces based on the four characters of Jaroslav Supek's title lettering for his 1980s mailart magazine, Total)
• Transport New (2009: a redrawing of the typeface designed for British road signs. In addition to the familiar Heavy and Medium weights, Transport New extrapolates and adds a previously unreleased Light weight font originally planned for back-lit signage but never actually applied. Originally designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert beginning in 1957, the original Transport font has subtle eccentricities which add to its distinctiveness, and drawing the New version has involved walking a tightrope between impertinently eliminating awkwardness and maintaining idiosyncrasy.)
• Union Jack (octagonal)
• Victor Moscoso (2008, psychedelic)
• Wanda (2007, art nouveau)
• Waverly
• Wes Wilson (2007, psychedelic, inspired by 1960s psychedelic poster artist Wes Wilson).
• 3x5
• Zabars (2001): a Western face.

His free fonts:

• Blue Plaque (2006: a distressed font based on English heritage plaques)
• Blundell Sans (2009)
• Celtica (2007) has Celtic influences
• Dalek (2005, stone/chisel face: Dalek is a full font based on the lettering used in the Dalek Book of 1964 and in the Dalek's strip in the TV21 comic, spin-offs from the UK science fiction TV show, Doctor Who. The font has overtones of Phoenician, Greek and Runic alphabets). See also Dalek Pinpoint (2018).
• Designer Block (2006)
• Flat Pack (2006)
• Future Imperfect (2006, grunge)
• Gommogravure (2005)
• Greetings (2006), Greetings Bold (2006)
• Insecurity (2005, experimental) won an award at the 2005 FUSE type competition.
• International Times (2006, inspired by the masthead of the International Times underground newspaper of the 1960s and 1970s)
• Keep Calm (2011). Related to London Underground.
• Kindersley Sans (2017). A modernized version of David Kindersley's 1950s type used for many street name plates in Britain, about which Bates writes: Kindersley Sans is a humanist sans-serif that conserves the Gill-inspired character and some of the calligraphic qualities of Kindersley's lettering, it retains the Roman proportions and its Britishness, but traditional prettiness and intricacy are discarded in favour of a clean modernity.
• Klee Capscript (2005: based on the handwriting and capitals drawn by artist Emma Klee (USA) for her Color Museum Mail Art invitation. The upper case is based on Emma's capitals and the lower case is freely adapted from her script)
• Lexia and Lexia Bold (2004)
• MAGraphics (2004)
• Magical Mystery Tour (2005, outlined shadow face), Magical Mystery Tour Outline Shadow (2005), Magica (2015, a serifed titling typeface family).
• Mailart (2004), Mailart Rubberstamp (2004), Mailart Rubberstamp Sans (2018).
• Mandatory (2004, a UK number plate font based on the Charles Wright typeface used in UK vehicle registration plates).
• McKnight Kauffer (2021). A retro poster font in the style of poster artist Edward McKnight Kauffer.
• Motorway (2015), a companion typeface to Transport, the British road sign lettering. This is an extension of an original design by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert: The Motorway alphabet was created for the route numbers on motorway signage, and is taller and narrower than the accompanying place names and distances which are printed in Transport. However, for Motorway Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert created only the numbers 0 to 9, the capitals A, B, E, M, N, S and W, ampersand, slash, parentheses and a comma. So, although the lettering made its first appearance on the Preston bypass in 1958, K-Type Motorway is the first complete typeface and contains all upper and lower case letters, plus a full complement of punctuation, symbols and Latin Extended-A accented characters. As with the Transport alphabet the starting point was Akzidenz Grotesk, Motorway taking inspiration from condensed versions. Changes were mainly driven by a quest for legibility, resulting in some reduced contrast between horizontal and vertical strokes, and Gill-esque straight diagonal limbs on the 6 and 9, and high vertex for the M.
• Penny Lane (2014). A a sans serif derived from twentieth-century cast-iron signs displaying Liverpool street names.
• Possible (2020). A 10-style mini-serif typeface.
• Provincial (2014). A Victorian set of outline fonts.
• Ray Johnson (2006-2008)
• Roadway (2005, based on New York roadside lettering).
• Romanica (2017). A humanist sans.
• Sam Suliman (2020). A condensed squarish typeface which was inspired by lowercase lettering on a Sarah Vaughan album cover designed by Sam Suliman in 1962. Suliman was born in Manchester, England in 1927. After working for McCann Erikson in London, he moved to New York where he took on freelance work designing album covers, particularly celebrated are his striking minimalist designs for jazz records. He moved back to England in the early 1960s, designing many book jackets, film titles and fabrics, also working in Spain and India before settling in Oxford in the 1980s.
• Savor (2011). An art nouveau family.
• Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club (2014).
• Sinkin Sans (2014, free) and Sinkin Sans Narrow (2015, commercial). Open Font Library link.
• Soft Sans (2010)
• Subway Ticker (2005)
• Taxicab (2016). A squarish style.
• This Corrosion (2005).
• Toppler (2018). A modern and full range top-heavy cartoon font family that includes a Popdots style. Bates was striving to improe on 1990s clasics such as Baby Kruffy (Ben Balvanz), Comix Heavy (WSI) and Startling (Dave Bastian).
• Wildcat (2016). An athletics typeface family.
• Zinc (2018). A monoline sans with diagonal nubs.
• Colnage Caps Kruger Gray (2018). Coinage Caps is a trilogy of lapidary small caps fonts based on the Roman lettering used for the designs of British coinage.
• Dalek Pinpoint (2018). Based on Dalek comic book lettering from the 1960s.
• Icky Ticket Mono (2018). IckyTicket Mono is a monospaced font based on the coarsely printed numbering from 1960s bus tickets.
• Sexbomb (2018). A psychedelic typeface family.
• Mancunium (2019). A monoline sans family.
• Straight Line (2020). An outlined font with chamfered corners and straight edges, possibly useful as a blackboard bold type.
• We The People (a blackletter font based on the peamble of the American constitution).
• Bowdon (2021). A six-style warm, Bodoni-inspired English Modern, influenced by the 1930s lettering of designer Barnett Freedman.
• Oxford Street (2021). A condensed grotesque with horizontal and vertical stem terminals; it is a street a signage font that began as a redrawing of the capital letters used for street nameplates in the borough of Westminster, which in turn were designed in 1967 by the Design Research Unit using custom lettering based on Adrian Frutiger's Univers 69 Bold Ultra Condensed.

Custom / corporate typefaces: With Liverpool-based art director Liz Harry, Bates created a personalized font, loosely based on Coco Sumner's handwritten capitals, for the band I Blame Coco. Medium and Semibold weights of Gill New Antique were commissioned by LPK Design Agency. Stepping Hill Hospital and Bates created Dials, a pictorial font to help hospital managers input data about improvements. A custom font was designed for Bolton Strategic Economic Partnership.

Abstract Fonts link. View Keith Bates's typefaces. Dafont link. Yet another URL. Fontspace link. Fontsy link. Behance link. [Google] [MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Max Bill

Influential Swiss graphic designer, sculptor, painter and architect, b. 1908, Winterthur, d. 1994. He studied at the Bauhaus from 1927 until 1929 under Josef Albers, Paul Klee and Oskar Schlemmer, and moved to Zurich after that. In 1944, Bill became a professor at the school of arts in Zurich. In 1953, along with Inge Scholl and Otl Aicher, he founded the influential Ulm School of Design, which closed in 1968. Bill was a professor at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg and chair of Environmental Design from 1967 to 1974. He lived in Zurich in the later years of his life and died at the Berlin Tegel airport of a heart attack.

Max Bill created the typeface Bill (1949-1950) which is characterized by straight-edged glyphs (the o excepted).

Digital typefaces based on his work include the geometric Max Bill (2014, Jack Harley Szukalski), Architype Bill (The Foundry), Bill Corporate Narrow (2015, Oliver Jeschke), Bill Corporate (2015, OGJ Type Design), Bill Display (2015, Oliver Jeschke: Greek simulation style) and Sequel Sans (Oliver Jeschke), Sequel Geo (2022, Oliver Jeschke).

Swiss Type Design link. [Google] [MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Paul Klee

Paul Klee (b. 1879, Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, d. 1940, Locarno, Switzerland) was a Swiss-German artist. His style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, futurism, cubism, and surrealism. Wikipedia: Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and eventually deeply explored color theory, writing about it extensively. His lectures "Writings on Form and Design Theory" (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre), published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are held to be as important for modern art as Leonardo da Vinci's "A Treatise on Painting for the Renaissance". He and his colleague, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the Bauhaus School of Art, Design and Architecture. His works reflect his dry humor and his sometimes childlike perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality.

As often happens with influential artists, some typefaces were either named after him or influenced by his style. These include work by Anna Postum (2016), Alba Calderon (2013) and Rmbo Dsgn (2012). Commercial typefaces include Klee (Timothy Donaldson, ITC), Klee Print (K-Type), Swiss 921 (Bitstream), Bill Display (OGJ Type Design), and Octin Vintage (Typodermic).

View some digital typefaces related to Paul Klee. Monoskop page on paul Klee. [Google] [More]  ⦿

RGB107,6

RGB is Radio Galibasel. The site carried DIE GUTE FUER ALLE font collection by Fidel Peugeot (Vienna), Karl Rottweiler (Basel), Peggy Boon, Robi Watt, Hermine Demoriane, Quentin Magnus, Christian Anders, Betti Sauter, Feit F. Stauffer, Nadja Z, Cosima v. Gestern and the RGB107,6 crew (Vienna-based outfit): nice handwriting fonts for general use. It seemed like it was a free collection, but the download page was not operational. All this is moot now, as the original font site disappeared.

The list of typefaces: Omen (Karl Rottweiler) is great, Gabel (by Fidel Peugeot) is a grunge font, Stukkie (by Peggy Boon) is normal handwriting, Ling (by Fidel Peugeot) is curly handwriting, Cuisinette (by Hermine Demoriane) is childish handwriting, Kanguruh (by Robi Watt) is hurried, HerrKlee (by Fidel Peugeot) is for graffiti, Mokka (by Fidel Peugeot) is for 8-year olds, the Waldmeister family (by Veit F. Stauffer) is for writing with chalk on trees, Sticker (by Christian Anders) is a disaster, Quentin Magnus der Wilde (by Fidel Peugeot) is so-so, Pirona (by Babette) is open and inviting hand-titling, BettisHand (by Betti Sauter) and Dr. R (by Dr. R) are regular handwriting fonts, Erdbeere (by Cosima von Gestern) is a doodling food-based dingbat font, Nadja's Trolle is so-so, and Trompete is Fidel Peugeot's Trumpet dingbat font. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Ricardo Crespo

Argentinian designer with Roberto Fernandez of Predec, Chill Out, Ano 84 (1993), Acustic Font (1995), Air Bag (1995), Baldosa, Bad Taste (1992), Casla Font (1995), Bitmapon Font (1994), Egolatra (1993), Gen Font (1994), Indy Car Font (1993), Galactic Groove Font (1995, for Startrek style work), Klee Font (1992), Metropolis (1996), Literal Font (1999), Overexpose Font (1994), People Font (1993), Pencil Font (1992), Raver (1998), Que Te Pasa (1993), and Tecno Funk Font (1993). [Google] [More]  ⦿

RmboDsgn

Freelance graphic designer in Bandung, Indonesia. Creator of the ornamental alphabet Paul Klee (2012). Behance link. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Roberto Fernandez

Argentinian designer with Ricardo Crespo of Predec, Chill Out, Air Bag (1995), Ano 84 (1993), Bad Taste (1992), Acustic Font (1995), Baldosa, Bitmapon Font (1994), Casla Font (1995), Egolatra (1993), Gen Font (1994), Galactic Groove Font (1995, for Startrek style work), Indy Car Font (1993), Klee Font (1992), Literal Font (1999), Metropolis (1996), Pencil Font (1992), Overexpose Font (1994), People Font (1993), Raver (1998), Que Te Pasa (1993), and Tecno Funk Font (1993). [Google] [More]  ⦿

Shapes for Cash
[Timothy Donaldson]

British calligrapher, signwriter, lettering artist, and type designer. He teaches typography at Stafford College and is a Research Fellow at the University of Lincoln. His typefaces:

• At ITC: ITC Cyberkugel, ITC Digital Woodcuts, ITC Farmhaus Normal, ITC Farmhaus Not So Normal (he says that Farmhaus is where Neil Young meets Paul Renner), Flight (1995), Pneuma, Scruff, Spooky, Telegram, Trackpad, ITC Humana Serif, ITC Humana Script Light, Medium, and Bold, John Handy, ITC Klee, ITC Talking Drum (1990s, interpreted in 2007 by Nick Curtis as Monkey Business), ITC Musclehead, ITC Riptide, Ruach, Ulysses, ITC Airstream, ITC Angryhog, Etruscan, Green, ITC Jellybaby, Neo Neo, Orange (1995, a liquid font).
• At Letraset: Pink (Peter Hanley's review of Pink), Uffington, TwangLetPlain (scribbly).
• At FontFont: Fancy Writing (or: FF Fancy, 1996).
• At Adobe: Immi 505, Postino, Banshee, Coriander.
• At the Indian Type Foundry: Rozha One (2014, free Google web font). This is a heavy didone typeface with large x-height, high contrast, and a harmonious balance between its Devanagari (designed by Tim Donaldson and Jyotish Sonowal) and Latin (designed by Shiva Nallaperumal). Github link.
• At his own type foundry Shapes for Cash (est. ca. 2018): Donaldsans Code (2019: a programming font), Billy Mozz (2019), Amadeo (Timothy: this is a 20-year old design that won a prize in a Morisawa competition in the 1990s. It is a deliberately crude, unevenly weighted set of simulated incisions that now attempts to challenge the chocolate-box hegemony of perfect Instagraphy, and maybe to invoke the spirit of Imre Reiner), Cowgirl, Hipsterpotamus (a chubby puppy, a chunky monkey, a bestially bloated beauty of corpulent cuteness), Pointyhead (an exercise in absurdity; to create the most atrociously spiky, thorny blackletter; to give it a set of roman uppers along with brutal fraktur majuscules).
• Other fonts: Cult.

At ATypI 2004 in Prague, he spoke about The world's even bigger Hamburgefonts. At ATypI 2008 in St. Petersburg, he spoke about the resurrection of the pencil. He states in the abstract: During research for my recently published book, "Shapes for sounds", I investigated the Glagolitic alphabet created by the brothers Cyril and Methodius. This alphabet was the mother of Cyrillic. I learned to write the letters, an activity that took on a life of its own and led to a body of interpretation bordering on the obsessive. My talk will focus on the history, development, and subsequent abandonment of the Glagolitic alphabet and will show the new drawings, sculptures, scripts and typefaces I have produced as a result of this investigation. Speaker at ATypI 2010 in Dublin. Speaker at ATypI 2011 in Reykjavik.

In 2012, he won the Akashi award in the Latin category of the Morisawa Type Design Competition for Jara (a fat signage script).

Klingspor link. Linotype link.

View Timothy Donaldson's typefaces. [Google] [MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Tazul Arifin

Based on Paul Klee's Castle and Sun, Tazul Arifin (Bandung, Indonesia) created the hexagonal-grid typeface Trekant (2012). [Google] [More]  ⦿

Timothy Donaldson
[Shapes for Cash]

[MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Walter Friedrich Haettenschweiler

Swiss type designer, b. 1933, Zug. He studied at Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich, and from 1957 onwards he ran a design studio in Zug. His typefaces, often published in the Lettera book series (Lettera2, 1961; Lettera3, 1968 and Lettera4, 1972) all printed by Teufen.

• Abschattierte
• Africaine
• Aleman con Adorno
• Allshadow 1969
• Alphabet Art Nouveau
• Alphabets Capitale&Romain Penches en....
• Alphabet Capitales de Fantasie
• Alphabet Majeur d'Anglaise Rubannee
• Alphabet de Broderies (with Armin Haab)
• Alphabet de L'Amour
• Arnold Boecklin
• Audrey Hepburn 1951
• Bauhaus 1952
• Beggarstaff 1961
• Black'n white 1960 (with Armin Haab)
• Blues (with Armin Haab)
• Boris Vian (with Armin Haab)
• Box-Letter 1972
• Breitfette Etienne 1960
• Breitfette Unziale 1968 (with Armin Haab)
• Broad
• Busride 1969
• Calder 1952 (with Armin Haab)
• Carnaby 1967
• Caron 1952
• Chelsea Type 1967
• Coal 1969
• Cocteau 1951
• Congo 1952
• Disney 1952
• Driving 1975 (with Armin Haab)
• Eckmann-Schrift
• Edelgotisch-Initialen
• Eleanora 1970
• Ella forever (with Armin Haab)
• Ellington (with Armin Haab)
• End 1972
• Expo 1967 (with Armin Haab)
• Für das Alter
• Fancy Letter 1957
• Fantail
• Favorit
• Flat Letter 1967 (with Beat Frick)
• Fraktur-Bastard
• Gaité 1961
• Girlish Face
• Green Leaves 1960 (with Armin Haab)
• Grotesk
• Haettenschweiler 1954 (Microsoft, Linotype). He is most famous for the black headline typeface Haettenschweiler (1954)---a renaming of schmalfette Grotesk by Photoscript in the photo font era---, which made it to the Microsoft library in 1995 as part of Microsoft Office. Haettenschweiler was used by Paris Match for headlines. The soccer team Nottingham Forest has a logo based on it as well.
• Haettenschweiler Display 2006
• Haettenschweiler Face 1970
• Haetti-Antiqua 1972
• Halbstarke Pica 1960 (with Armin Haab)
• Happening 1967 (with Armin Haab)
• Historismus
• Jugendstil-Unziale
• Kalligraphia
• Klee 1952
• Knock out 1967
• Lawless Type 1961 (with Armin Haab)
• Lefthand drive lineale 1975 (with Armin Haab)
• Leslie 1952
• Lettre coupée
• Lettres Ombrees
• Lichte
• Lichte Italienne-Kursiv
• Lima
• Maidenform 1960
• Maotse (with Armin Haab)
• Marino Marini 1952
• Metropolitaines
• Mira
• Mondrian 1952
• New Fashion
• Nouvelle Vague
• OP-Letter 1968
• Oberoy 1971
• Ornamentale Antiqua
• Picasso 1952
• Plastische Verzierte Italienne Toscanienne
• Polyp (with Armin Haab)
• Roaring Twenties 1967 (with Armin Haab)
• Romantique
• Sacral Letter 1960
• Schenk ein Buch 1953
• Schmale Mediaeval 1960
• Schmalfette Grotesk 1954
• Schraffiert+abschattiert
• Schraffierte Etienne
• Sezession S 1967
• Shark 1974
• Siegfried
• Smoke
• Soutache
• Strada 1967
• Subway 1971
• Symphonie 1952
• TV-Letter 1973
• Teutonia
• Thalia
• That bad Eartha
• The Ugly American 1972 (with Armin Haab)
• Timeless 1971
• Tropic (with Armin Haab)
• Umrandete
• Unziale 1967 (with Armin Haab)
• Vanishing Letter
• Verzierte Antiqua 1961
• Verzierte Unziale
• Walhalla
• Wir Wunderkinder (with Armin Haab)
• Wornout 1972
• Wotan
• Yardley 1967
• Zierliche Antiqua 1961 (with Armin Haab)

Revivals of his typefaces include Capital Ideas 2 NF (2012, Nick Curtis), which is based on Breitfette Unziale (1958). Schmalfette CP (Jason Walcott and Rob King) revives Walter Haettenschweiler's original titling sans from 1954. [Google] [MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Xanti Schawinsky

Alexander Xanti Schawinsky was born in 1904 in Basel, Switzerland, to a Jewish family of Polish descent. He died in 1979 in Locarno, Switzerland. He worked for three years in Theodor Merrill's Köln architecture office before enrolling at the Bauhaus in 1924 where he studied with Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Josef Albers, Oskar Schlemmer and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Schawinsky had a significant presence at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau. He was particularly active in the theater department and strongly inspired by Schlemmer, whose position as teacher he took on and developed further. Photos from the early years of the Bauhaus show Schawinsky as a dynamic personality in many of its experimental extra-curricular activities. Among them was the influential Bauhaus Jazz Band where Schawinsky introduced his Step Dance versus Step Machine style of mechanical music and dance to pounding rhythms coupled with dramatic lighting effects and performance elements. At the Bauhaus Schawinsky began developing his ground-breaking concept of Spectodrama. Spectodrama represented an early idea of total theater where all aspects of the stage become independent agents. Schawinsky continued the work on Spectodrama at the Black Mountain College in the United States after his immigration, and he revisited this work in the 1960s and 70s in Europe. The original concepts and scripts are located in the archive of the Estate of Xanti Schawinsky in Zurich, as well as an extended body of work of stage photographs and sketches.

Anke Kempkes provides a full biography, from which I quote this passage: When the Bauhaus closed in 1933 Schawinsky first went to Italy. In Milan he worked for [Antonio Boggeri's] Studio Boggeri, the newly founded state-of-the art advertising studio. He designed outstanding poster and product designs for Motta, Illy coffee and Cinzano. He also co-designed for Olivetti the typewriter Studio 42. Schawinsky's posters and products were to become classics of commercial design of the 1930s. Philipp Johnson gave his collection of Schawinsky posters in later years as gift to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In Nothern Italy the artist met Marinetti and Giorgio de Chirico, whose work co-influenced the growing Surrealist tendency in Schawinsky's work of the 1940s. During this time Schawinsky remained in close exchange with Walter Gropius. He actively promoted the Bauhaus ideas and planned to bring out a book about the Bauhaus years, which remained unpublished. In 1935 the political situation in Italy forced him to leave once more. Schawinsky went to London where he married Irene von Debschitz, the daughter of the director of the Debschitz-School in Munich, an art school having anticipated some of the Bauhaus ideas. In 1936, Hans Albers secured Schawinsky and his wife safe passage to the United States to teach at the later legendary Black Mountain College in North Carolina. In charge of theater arts, Schawinsky expanded his ideas for experimental theater to a multi-media "total experience." His production of Spectrodrama and Danse Macabre at the Black Mountain College demonstrated these ideas and importantly laid the foundations for the work of John Cage and others at the College in the post-war time. It can clearly be argued that Schawinsky brought the radical and avant-garde Bauhaus theater to the United States, a relation that has been receiving special attention recently. Irene Schawinsky also contributed to the College. She collaborated with Anni Albers on clothes designs and she create paper sculptures which became iconic props of Xanti's Spectodrama plays (in the following years Irene used these paper sculptures for shop window designs in New York).

He designed a high-contrast ball terminal-laden typeface in 1932 that was revived in 2016 by Luca Pellegrini as Xanti32 in his graduation thesis, Forgotten typeface, Xanti Schawinsky designer di caratteri. Pellegrini's typeface was published as Xants by Adobe Originals.

In 2021, CAST released the wonderful monospaced Bauhaus-inspired typewriter family Xanti Typewriter by Gianluca Sandrone.

Wikipedia link. [Google] [More]  ⦿