Hidden Gems

ITC Chivalry
ITC Chivalry is a calligraphic hybrid built on the tradition of combining roman capitals with italic lowercase letters. Drawn by Missouri lettering artist Rob Leuschke, who used a flat-nib pen on textured watercolor stock and then converted the drawings into a digital font, the design combines an “old world” feel with “new world” legibility.

Zemestro
A highly legible sans serif with a friendly demeanor and space-efficient habits - that’s the attractive and utterly practical Zemestro, from Dave Farey. Four weights, plus two weights of complementary italics, make Zemestro a versatile family that will perform beautifully in a wide range of applications.

ITC Benguiat
In If at first you don’t succeed, design, design again. At least that’s what Ed Benguiat did. The result was ITC Benguiat, a typographic classic that almost didn’t make it out of the reject pile.

ITC Oldbook
In ITC Oldbook, designer Eric de Berranger succeeds in doing two things at once: simulating the weathered look of antique printing while remaining unusually readable at text sizes.

Mosquito Formal
Mosquito Formal is the dressier, more-sophisticated version of the earlier Mosquito, which means Éric de Berranger’s design is now equally comfortable in tuxedo or jeans. What’s more, its three weights with complementary italics, small caps and old style figures are available as a suite of OpenType fonts.

Fairbank
Rising like a phoenix from the ashes of earlier disappointment, the elegant Fairbank started life as a rejected Bembo italic. In a careful and creative revival by Robin Nicholas, Fairbank has been improved and expanded until its Italianate beauty is on full, sumptuous display.

ITC Tactile
Innovative yet highly legible, ITC Tactile is not afraid of paradox. Designer Joe Stitzlein has given this unusual typeface a range of seemingly contradictory design features that come together in a versatile, distinctive whole. In three weights, with complementary italics and small caps.

ITC Souvenir
ITC Souvenir waited decades to go from painful obscurity to wildly overexposed. This ninety-years-young design is finally free to be its charming, affable self.

Felbridge
Felbridge, by Robin Nicholas, was designed to be a versatile and powerful communication tool. This strong, clear sans serif is exceptionally readable and attractive in low-resolution environments, and works wonderfully in traditional print applications as well.

Laurentian
A truly versatile and eye-pleasing text face, Laurentian was commissioned by the Canadian newsmagazine Mclean’s as part of a total make-over. Designer Rod McDonald used well-chosen design models to create a legible, attractive and utterly usable text face.

Sabon
The problem of finding a typeface that works across a wide range of imaging technologies is hardly new to the digital age. Jan Tschichold’s greatest design achievement, the Garamond-inflected Sabon, was commissioned to achieve “core font” status in the days of metal typesetting. It remains a versatile classic to this day.

Perrywood
Perrywood is a masterful example of thoughtful design goals set and achieved. Oldstyle warmth? Got it. Streamlined for excellent results at low resolutions? No problem. Thanks to designer Johannes Birkenback, Perrywood offers all this and more.

Alisal
A long time in the making, Matthew Carter’s Alisal was well worth it in the end. This handsome text face retains the calligraphic feel of its Italian old style influences, but it also has some ideas of its own.

Perpetua
Tortoise and hare comparisons are in order for the aptly-named Perpetua. This timeless design by Eric Gill remains a classic seventy-five years after its creation, yet the road to its release was bumpy and filled with delays.

ITC Korinna
Master designers Ed Benguiat and Victor Caruso are to thank for the four weights and sturdy italics that now comprise this legible and distinctive design.

Rockwell
Rockwell is a fine example of this appealing and eminently usable style. Its nine weights comprise a robust and adaptable typeface family.

Centaur
The genius of fifteenth-century master printer and designer Nicholas Jenson served as the inspiration for Centaur, itself a classic of twentieth-century type design. In Monotype’s digital version, the beauty and communicative power of this classic typeface by Bruce Rogers is brilliantly preserved.

ITC Galliard
One quality of a true classic has to be endurance. This virtue appears in spades in the tale of ITC Galliard, which had its origins in a sixteenth-century design by Robert Granjon, and was a secret dream of both Mike Parker’s and Matthew Carter’s for decades before its ultimate release.

Monotype Garamond
You would think that asking who designed the original Garamond is a bit like asking who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb. It’s not that simple. Learn how a centuries-old case of mistaken identity gave Garamond’s name to a generation of revivals based on – well, a revival.

Garth Graphic
Spending a decade in a box would not bring out the best in most of us, but for Matt Antique it proved to be just the right cocoon from which to emerge, ready to be revised, expanded and metamorphosized into Garth Graphic. This versatile type family is named after William Garth, Jr., the founder of Compugraphic.

Albertina
Albertina was a typeface ahead of its time. It was in the early 1960s when designer Chris Brand, an accomplished calligrapher, aspired to draw a typeface based on the principles of calligraphy. Unfortunately, typesetting machines of that era put many restrictions on designers. Characters had to be drawn within a very coarse grid, which also defined their spacing.

Bembo 
At the beginning of the 1920s, Monotype entered a period of achievement that, today, is seen as one of the most important in modern typographic history. It was during this time that, under the direction of Stanley Morison, Monotype developed what was to become the foundation of its current library.

Cachet
There’s more than meets the eye in David Farey’s design, Cachet. It appears to be monospaced—but isn’t. Letters seem to be constructed from straight strokes—but are not. One thing that is not deceiving: this is an especially reader-friendly design.

Cartier
The beginning of Canada’s centenary year, January 1, 1967, is generally given as the date for the introduction of that country’s first important typeface. This isn’t close to the correct date.

Charter
When Matthew Carter drew ITC Charter in 1987, his goal was to create a typeface that was equally at home in an office memo, a fine book or an advertising headline. That meant the face had to perform well on both high-resolution imagesetters and the low-resolution printers that were available at the time.

Columbus
Much more than a tribute to early Spanish printing, the Columbus typeface family is a versatile and beautiful design that offers a touch of archaic charm. Based on historical sources, the Columbus family was created by Patricia Saunders, under the direction of Robin Nicholas and with ornaments by David Saunders.

Dante
Dante was first created as font of metal type in the mid-1950s. Unlike later typesetting technologies, metal type made an actual impression into the paper during printing. In other words, Dante was originally a typeface that was intended to be impressed into paper – not onto it.

Ellington
Ellington, by stone carver and lettering artist Michael Harvey, has the grace and sophistication of Bodoni combined with a calligraphic zest. Harvey drew his initial sketches for the design in 1983. After seeing the renderings a number of foundries showed interest in the project, but it was Monotype Imaging that finally won out and worked with Harvey in finalizing the design.

Goudy Sans
ITC Goudy Sans is different from most sans serif typefaces, which tend to have a quiet, conservative structure. Instead, ITC Goudy Sans is friendly, almost playful, with an unusual cursive italic. Unlike the obliqued roman italics that are typical of its sans serif cousins, Goudy Sans italic has a light, flowing quality that both complements and enhances the roman design.

ITC Eras
Designed through the collaboration of two French designers, Albert Boton and Albert Hollenstein, ITC Eras has charm, distinction, and a lively quality rarely seen in sans serif typefaces.

ITC Fenice
(pronounced fe-nee-chay) is a neoclassical design in the tradition of Didot and Bodoni, and that’s quite a tradition to live up to. Its 18th century predecessors exhibit a highly sophisticated design philosophy, and represented the ultimate refinement of the typographic letter at that time. Improving on the Bodoni style has been a challenge to type designers for the past two hundred years.

Joanna
Joanna has been called the most engaging of Eric Gill’s typefaces. The design was drawn by Gill and first cut in 1931 by the Caslon foundry for the exclusive use of Gill’s printing firm, Hague & Gill. This hand-set version of the typeface was only made available in two sizes and, fittingly, the first use of the font was to set Gill’s own “Essay on Typography.”

Ocean Sans
It’s uncommon for a sans serif to have relatively high contrast between thick and thin strokes, but that’s exactly what designer Chong Wah hoped to achieve with Ocean Sans. “The most important criterion in my mind was the need for an obvious contrast between the stroke weights to achieve a fresher and more modern design,” he explains.

Plantin
Christopher Plantin should be remembered and honored, but not for designing Plantin. This important printer was instrumental in helping to create the rich typographical tradition we enjoy today. He was largely responsible for making type and typography The Netherlands the model of 16th century printing. Plantin, however, did not design or use the types named after him.

Scripps College Old Style
The story of Scripps College Old Style is a heartwarming and inspiring chronicle about a young librarian, a handful of students, a wealthy grandmother, a dedicated educator — and two eminent American type designers.