is based on a logotype that Japanese designer Ryuichi Tateno created for a packaging design project in 1999 – a shampoo container, at that! Already Tateno's original design experimented with overlapping swash italic letterforms. These experiments grew outside out their initial packaging project, taking on a life of their own. Eventually, they developed into the Pirouette typefaces, which were honored with a first place finish in the 2003 International Type Design Contest, sponsored by Linotype GmbH. The Pirouette Type family contains six different elements. Pirouette Text is a beautiful, finely drawn Italic hand, which can set long passages of text. Pirouette Regular is more formal, with elaborate Swash capitals. The Pirouette Regular font can also set whole lengths of text on its own, and its letters may be freely interchanged with those from Pirouette Text. The letters contained in Pirouette Alternate, Pirouette Separate 1, and Pirouette Separate 2 do not constitute complete character sets. These additional decorative letters may be further interchanged with those in Pirouette Text and Pirouette Regular to create splendidly ornate text. Border letterforms in these artful text creations may be further augmented by the last member of the Pirouette family, Pirouette Ornaments. . The Pirouette type family, which represents Tanteno's first commercial font design, is greatly influenced by the calligraphic and typographic work of the German master designer, , especially his recent collection. Pirouette is part of the Linotype Library. Pirouette and Zapfino are trademarks of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, which may be registered in certain jurisdictions, exclusively licensed through Linotype GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG.