Headline Heads Up — No. 23

September 16, 2014 at 9:15 am

One Tues­day every month, I’m going to round up a cou­ple (maybe a few) awe­some dis­play type­faces to show­case and give a lit­tle break­down on each one. If you have a sug­ges­tion you want me to take a look at, drop me a line. Let’s jump straight into some head­line goodness.

 

Stringfellows

Foundry : Nicky Laatz
Designer(s) : Nicky Laatz
Cost: $20

Stringfellows Typeface by Nicky Laatz - Alphabet Example, hand lettered, ink, script

First up this month is a pen and ink script with plen­ty of hand-lettered quirk­i­ness. Rough edges and an uneven base­line rein­force the let­ter­ing aspect of the font. The uneven­ness also gives it a good bounce so it flows nice­ly. It could use some more alter­nate glyphs to help the hand-lettered idea, but Stringfellows does come with an orna­ment com­pan­ion font that has a few catch­words to use. Its look makes it pre­fect for wed­ding invi­ta­tions, thank-you cards, and other per­son­al cor­re­spon­dence need­ing a lettering-esque touch.

 

Voltage

Foundry : Laura Worthington
Designer(s) : Laura Worthington
Cost: $19 per style

Voltage Typeface by Laura Worthington Alphabet Example, angular script, block script

Now for a slight­ly dif­fer­ent script. Voltage by Laura Worthington is a struc­tured, util­i­tar­i­an, and angu­lar entry in the script genre. Given its solid con­struc­tion and rhythm, the type has great bal­ance and good read­abil­i­ty for dis­play uses. It does have a slight indus­tri­al feel but with some of its more fun alter­nates and swash­es can break free of feel­ing machined. Voltage then becomes even more ener­getic and sign-painterly.

 

Ridewell

Foundry : Intelligent Design
Designer(s) : Kostas Bartsokas
Cost: $25 per style

Ridewell Typeface by Kostas Bartsokas - Alphabet Example, wood type inspired, tall serif

In the mid­dle of the pack this month is a vin­tage, wood type inspired type­face by Kostas Bartsokas called Ridewell. Besides the clean ver­sion shown above, there is also a dis­tressed print­ed ver­sion. In the spir­it of old block posters, the fonts come packed with lig­a­tures and alter­nates to cre­ate stacked let­ter effects. It’s com­pressed size gives it char­ac­ter and will help fit­ting it in small head­line spaces. You don’t need much. Ridewell is def­i­nite­ly a dis­play face where a lit­tle goes a long way.

 

Marker Aid

Foundry : Pintassilgo Prints
Designer(s) : Ricardo Marcin and Erica Jung
Cost: $24 per style

Marker Aid Typeface by Pintassilgo Prints - Alphabet Example, broad nib marker, drawn typeface, sketch font

There’s plen­ty of sketchy, mark­er fonts float­ing around the Internet so why pick this one? Because it’s like four fonts in one. There are four vari­a­tions for each let­ter and two vari­a­tions for each num­ber built in through OpenType alter­nates. Marker Aid is bold and expres­sive. That makes it per­fect for music posters, organ­ic pack­ag­ing, and any­thing need­ing a live­ly atmosphere.

 

Elise

Foundry : Context
Designer(s) : Alex Liebold
Cost: $42 for all six styles

Elise Typeface by Alex Liebold - Alphabet Example, letters efghij, layered type, ornamental

Oh, I’m a suck­er for lay­ered type. I only did a hand­ful of let­ters above because you need to see Elise in action to real­ly under­stand how awe­some it can be. In the image below you can see the let­ter ‘A’ being built sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ways given the four parts Elise has — 3D, fill, ribbed, and flour­ish. All put togeth­er it is cute and charm­ing typog­ra­phy per­fect for invi­ta­tions and announce­ments. Dialed back a bit with only the 3D or ribbed styles, you have a great retro poster face. That ver­sa­til­i­ty makes Elise an excel­lent tool to have. (Also, if you just want the orna­ments, they’re avail­able for free.)

Elise Typeface by Alex Liebold - Layering Example, Letter A in pieces, solid, outline, shadow, ornaments

Headline Heads Up — No. 22

August 19, 2014 at 8:15 am

One Tues­day every month, I’m going to round up a cou­ple (maybe a few) awe­some dis­play type­faces to show­case and give a lit­tle break­down on each one. If you have a sug­ges­tion you want me to take a look at, drop me a line. Let’s jump straight into some head­line goodness.

HWT Artz

Foundry : Hamilton Wood Type Foundry
Designer(s) : Erik Spiekermann
Cost: $24.95

HWT Artz by Erik Spiekermann Alphabet Example, wood block type, digital version, all uppercase characters

Everything old is new again. HWT Artz is a dig­i­tal ver­sion of wood type designed by Erik Spiekermann and cut by the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. It’s built for large, blocky head­line work and would be per­fect for posters and large dis­play sig­nage. Its round­ed cor­ners are a nod to the pro­duc­tion process of wood type; sharp cor­ners would require more hand-finished pro­duc­tion time. You can also feel good about your pur­chase because pro­ceeds of sales ben­e­fit the museum’s ongo­ing operations.

 

Peaches and Cream

Foundry : Fenotype
Designer(s) : Emil Karl Bertell
Cost: $35 per style

Peaches and Cream Typeface by Fenotype Lowercase, brush script, connected lowercase letters

I’m always a suck­er for a good brush script, espe­cial­ly one with plen­ty of OpenType alter­nates. Peaches and Cream has styl­is­tic, swash, and titling alter­nates for every glyph. It also has quite of few unique lig­a­tures. All that com­bines to make a dynam­ic type­face per­fect for build­ing head­lines, logos, and other cus­tom feel­ing pieces with­out pulling out the pen and ink.

 

Grandstander

Foundry : Tyler Finck
Designer(s) : Tyler Finck
Cost: $19

Grandstander Typeface by Tyler Finck Alphabet Example, handmade block letter font, numerals

Last on the list this month is Grandstander by Tyler Finck. This hand­made block type con­sists of four fonts. There is a clean ver­sion, a dis­tressed print ver­sion, the indi­vid­ual shad­ow ver­sion, and final­ly the full ver­sion lay­ered for your using plea­sure. It’s fun, boun­cy and play­ful which makes it per­fect for laid back com­mu­ni­ca­tions and chil­dren’s appli­ca­tions. Oh, and you can get the clean ver­sion for free which is awesome.grandstander_versions

Headline Heads Up — No. 21

October 16, 2013 at 11:04 am

One Tues­day every month, I’m going to round up a cou­ple (maybe a few) awe­some dis­play type­faces to show­case and give a lit­tle break­down on each one. If you have a sug­ges­tion you want me to take a look at, drop me a line. Let’s jump straight into some head­line goodness.

 

Brand

Foundry : Lián Types
Designer(s) : Maximiliano Sproviero
Cost: $37

Brand Typeface by Maximiliano Sproviero - Soft Chancery Cursive Script Example

It’s no mis­take the sam­ple above is all about food; Brand is the per­fect pack­ag­ing script for tasty morsels. It has vari­ety with OpenType lig­a­tures and alter­nates to help it grab atten­tion, but leg­i­bil­i­ty and read­abil­i­ty remain high when glanc­ing on a store shelf or adver­tise­ment. There are also inline and shad­ed ver­sions that would work great for warm, invit­ing invitations.

 

Braxton

Foundry : Fontfabric
Designer(s) : Evgeny Tkhorzhevsky
Cost: $95

Braxton Typeface by Evgeny Tkhorzhevsky Alphabet Example - Pointed calligraphic upright script

On the other end of the script spec­trum is the point­ed, cal­li­graph­ic Braxton by Evgeny Tkhorzhevsky. Available in five weights, the delib­er­ate style of the strokes give the let­ters strength. However, the rep­e­ti­tion of the angle and ver­ti­cal stroke weight destroy read­abil­i­ty in any kind of longer sen­tence set­ting. With a few extra lig­a­tures and styl­is­tic alter­nates, Braxton would work well in pack­ag­ing or an iden­ti­ty system.

 

Levi Rebrushed

Foundry : Levi Szekeres
Designer(s) : Levi Szekeres
Cost: FREE for personal use

Levi Rebrushed by Levi Szekeres Alphabet Example - Rough, raw brush design font

Similar to Braxton, Levi Rebrushed is built on very delib­er­ate strokes. The rough, painter style isn’t for every project, but for the right grunge, punk, or edgy poster it is per­fect. You will also need to check that you have all the glyphs you need as this is far from a pro­fes­sion­al font with full lan­guage support.

 

Brush Up

Foundry : Pintassilgo Prints
Designer(s) : Ricardo Marcin, Erica Jung
Cost: $24

Brush Up Typeface by Pintassilgo Prints Alphabet Example - Hand painted brushed font with alternate characters

Sticking with brush style type­faces, next is Brush Up by the duo at Pintassilgo Prints. This hand-painted type con­tains three vari­a­tions of each let­ter, two vari­a­tions of numer­als, a cou­ple of extra punc­tu­a­tion glyphs, and even a few squig­gles. Its style floats between grunge, hip­ster, and play­ful depend­ing on how it is paired with imagery and even its color. That makes it a very ver­sa­tile tool when need­ing a hand made touch.

 

Sketchnote

Foundry : Delve Fonts
Designer(s) : Mike Rohde
Cost: $99

Sketchnote Typeface by Mike Rohde Alphabet Example - Hand drawn type

We’re stick­ing with hand made for the last three type­faces on this mon­th’s round up. First up is Sketchnote from Mike Rohde. Mike is the guy behind the whole sketch­note idea and he even wrote a book about it. When he need­ed a hand-drawn type­face to set his book, he cap­tured scans of his own hand­writ­ing and dig­i­tized them. The edges keep the slight­ly rough tex­ture of ink on paper while the strokes show the slight vari­a­tion of the human hand as it moves across a page. Great ideas and a great typeface.

 

Charmante

Foundry : Juraj Chrastina
Designer(s) : Juraj Chrastina
Cost: $59

Charmante Typeface by Juraj Chrastina Alphabet Example - Charming handwritten font

The sec­ond hand-drawn type­face on this mon­th’s list is Charmante. It’s elon­gat­ed pro­por­tions give it a ton more char­ac­ter and quirk. Shown above for K‑S the bold style adds even more inter­est­ing fea­tures by uneven­ly increas­ing only cer­tain stroke weights. All of it com­bines to make a charm­ing, casu­al font for invi­ta­tions, greet­ings, and cof­fee shop menus.

 

Lango Px

Foundry : Pixilate
Designer(s) : Kemie Guaida
Cost: $24

Lango Typeface by Kemie Guaida Alphabet Example - Fun, playful handwritten font

Last up this is month is Lango Px. This hand-drawn type­face is avail­able in four weights; it has tons of bounce and play­ful­ness in its tall, lean let­ters. Its casu­al and dare I say an excel­lent replace­ment for when a client demands Comic Sans on a project. Lango Px would also be per­fect for baby announce­ments, chil­dren’s birth­day cards, and other juve­nile pieces. Pixilate also has sev­er­al other hand­writ­ing style fonts worth check­ing out.

 

Headline Heads Up — No. 20

May 21, 2013 at 7:47 am

One Tues­day every month, I’m going to round up a cou­ple (maybe a few) awe­some dis­play type­faces to show­case and give a lit­tle break­down on each one. If you have a sug­ges­tion you want me to take a look at, drop me a line. Let’s jump straight into some head­line goodness.

Trend Hand Made

Foundry : Latinotype
Designer(s) : Daniel Hernández, Paula Nazal Selaive
Cost: $5 — $20

Trend Hand Made Slab by Latinotype - Alphabet Preview, rough hipster font, hatched dropshadow, slab and sans-serif typeface
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Headline Heads Up — No. 19

March 19, 2013 at 11:05 am

One Tues­day every month, I’m going to round up a cou­ple (maybe a few) awe­some dis­play type­faces to show­case and give a lit­tle break­down on each one. If you have a sug­ges­tion you want me to take a look at, drop me a line. Let’s jump straight into some head­line goodness.

Salt and Foam

Foundry : Anna Karatcheva
Designer(s) : Anna Karatcheva
Cost: FREE

Salt & Foam Font by Anna Karatcheva - Alphabet Example, Wavy Unicase Surfing Typeface

Inspired by the design­er’s first time surf­ing, Salt and Foam is a great trib­ute to the ocean and waves. Shown above is Foam — with Salt being a straight-lined ver­sion of the same shapes. It cap­tures the essence of water so per­fect­ly that it would make a great head­line font for any beach themed party, surf shop, or tiki bar. It’s fun, laid back, coastal cool.

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Headline Heads Up — No. 18

January 22, 2013 at 9:53 pm

One Tues­day every month, I’m going to round up a cou­ple (maybe a few) awe­some dis­play type­faces to show­case and give a lit­tle break­down on each one. If you have a sug­ges­tion you want me to take a look at, drop me a line. Let’s jump straight into some head­line goodness.

Thirsty Rough

Foundry : Yellow Design Studio
Designer(s) : Ryan Martinson
Cost: $9 (introductory offer)

Thirsty Rough by Yellow Design Studio - Alphabet Example, Distressed Wood Type Script

First up this month is anoth­er great release by Yellow Design Studio called Thirsty Rough. It is a pick your poi­son of dis­tressed fun. With four weights and four lev­els of increas­ing weath­er­ing for each weight you get six­teen fonts to play with. Then there is an off­set shad­ow ver­sion for each weight, plus a fun set of tex­tures to round out the font count at 21. The block print­ed feel rein­forces the vin­tage qual­i­ty of the script mak­ing it per­fect for retro appli­ca­tions in pack­ag­ing and poster design. (If dis­tressed type isn’t your thing, there’s also Thirsty Script to check out.) Continue read­ing

A Spare Update — No. 4

December 18, 2012 at 10:23 pm

I start­ed writ­ing this for last mon­th’s Headline Heads Up and did­n’t fin­ish, but here it is now. Feeling bad, I decid­ed to throw in an early Christmas present for those that cel­e­brate. (I recent­ly sort­ed out my RSS and got it loaded into Google Reader so now time just gets away from me as I con­tin­u­al­ly have inspir­ing things to look at and resources to read and eval­u­ate. I guess it’s time to work on some cura­to­r­i­al dis­cre­tion and time man­age­ment.) But here’s to get­ting back on track with a wrap up of awe­some fonts and fun links to check out.

 

Desk

Foundry : UPPERTYPE
Designer(s) : Pedro Lobo
Cost: €10

Desk Typeface by UPPERTYPE - Alphabet Example, Narrow Shadowed

Desk by UPPERTYPE makes the list this month because it’s a bold state­ment. It does­n’t try to be a lot of things; Desk is built for dis­play pur­pos­es — end of dis­cus­sion. It has upper­case, numer­als, and punc­tu­a­tion. There isn’t a filled in vari­ant, just the shad­owed ver­sion shown.  The nar­row­ness leans slight­ly art deco but the curves and shad­ow update it a bit. Somehow I read both high fash­ion cat­a­log and emo band nos­tal­gia album cover.

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Headline Heads Up — No. 17

September 26, 2012 at 10:39 pm

One Tues­day every month, I’m going to round up a cou­ple (maybe a few) awe­some dis­play type­faces to show­case and give a lit­tle break­down on each one. If you have a sug­ges­tion you want me to take a look at, drop me a line. Let’s jump straight into some head­line goodness.

Primus Script

Foundry : Katharina Putick
Designer(s) : Katharina Putick
Cost: FREE

Primus Script Alphabet - Typeface by Katharina Putick, Pixel Script Font

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