Ellington Alternatives

From alphabets created for book illustrations in the 1970s to lettering created for a book jacket in the 1990s, the Mentor family of typefaces has developed along its own slow and circuitous path. Always present in its evolution, though, has been the influence of three 20th century design giants: Eric Gill, Reynolds Stone, and Hermann Zapf, as filtered through the meticulous sensibility of... Read More

Rayuela (Argentine Spanish for Hopscotch) is inspired by the homonymous novel by celebrated Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar, whose writings are considered key to 20th century avant-garde literature. Rayuela is the result of a 2-year working process, at two postgraduate courses followed by Alejandro Lo Celso at the University of Reading, UK (1999-2000) and later at the ANRT Atelier National de... Read More

I began my work on Emona while still struggling with Birka. I took the superellyptic form as the basic shape, and that gives the typeface some of its characteristics. It is strictly vertical. It is easy to classify it in the same section as Bodoni & Company.Emona is what Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, was called in the Roman days.Emona was released in 1992.

ITC Cheltenham font in its present form is the work of designer Tony Stan. Originally designed by architect Bertram Goodhue, it was expanded by Morris Fuller Benton and completed by Stan in 1975 with a larger x-height and improved italic details. ITC Cheltenham font is an example of an up-to-date yet classic typeface.

ITC Esprit is the work of designer Jovica Veljović and blends the classic proportions of a serif typeface with the grace and charm of calligraphy. Highly legible even in small point sizes, the font can also be used as an impressive display face for use with sans serif text.

Omnibus is one of my absolute favourites. My intention was to design a typeface as easy to read as Baskerville, without being a copy of it. It is easy to see that I was influenced by Baskerville, e.g. in the open lowercase g. I had in mind to design a Baskerville with the looks of the Baskervilles used in earlier typesetting. I put aside those plans for a while (but fulfilled them later on) and... Read More

Rotis is a large typeface family consisting of, Serif, Semi Serif, Semi Serif and Sans Serif font styles. Agfa Rotis was created for Agfa... Read More

Méridien™ was developed in the mid-1950s, and released by the French foundry Deberny & Peignot in 1957. After studying a typeface from the sixteenth century, the Swiss designer Adrian Frutiger was inspired to create an alphabet without any completely straight strokes, and he hoped the reader of a text set in this typeface would feel as though wandering through a forest. The designer of more... Read More

It was only after seeking the help of fellow type designers Christian Schwartz and Kris Sowersby that Erik Spiekermann was able to... Read More

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older... Read More

Digi Antiqua font was designed by the Hell Design Studio in 1968. Its basic forms were influenced by the slab serif fonts produced at the beginning of the industrial era in England around 1820. Its clear and timeless forms are extremely legible even in small point sizes.

Maclean's is a weekly Canadian newsmagazine with a broad editorial mission. A typical issue covers everything from violence on the other side of the globe to the largest pumpkin grown in a local county. In 2001, Maclean's invited Rod McDonald to become part of the design team to "renovate" the 96-year-old publication. The magazine wanted to offer its readers a typographic voice that was... Read More

As its name implies, Photina was created specifically for phototypesetting, the technology that preceded digital and laser typesetting. Photina was designed by Jose Mendoza y Almeida in 1971 and was the third face made by the Monotype Corporation for phototypesetting systems. Its high typographic quality, robustness, and refined detail have made Photina popular for magazine and book text.

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned a new text type design from Stanley Morison and the Monotype Corporation, after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The new design was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older... Read More

Claude Garamond (ca. 1480-1561) cut types for the Parisian scholar-printer Robert Estienne in the first part of the sixteenth century, basing his romans on the types cut by Francesco Griffo for Venetian printer Aldus Manutius in 1495. Garamond refined his romans in later versions, adding his own concepts as he developed his skills as a punchcutter. After his death in 1561, the Garamond punches... Read More

John Baskerville (1706-1775) was an accomplished writing master and printer from Birmingham, England. He was the designer of several... Read More

Sabon was designed by Jan Tschichold and released in 1967. Sabon was created in response to the specific needs of a group of German printers who wanted a typeface that would be identical in form when produced by three different metal-casting technologies. Named after Jacques Sabon, a sixteenth century typefounder whose widow married another typefounder, Konrad Berner, who is credited with... Read More

Utopia, created by Robert Slimbach and presented by Adobe in 1992, was intended to solve a number of typographic problems related to... Read More

FF Avance’s most notable characteristic is its use of asymmetrical serifs in the upright styles, something normally seen only in italics. Uppercase as well as lowercase letters have serifs in the upper left and lower right corners, vestiges as it were of the connection to earlier, handwritten letters. Evert Bloemsma’s focus on contemporary design made it difficult for him initially to consider... Read More

FF Zine is a fine example of Berlin-based designer Ole Schäfer’s logic. Art Directors often have trouble finding coordinated typefaces across several different styles. The design began with a related project. In 1996, Schäfer drew a two-weight headline face for Dresden’s Sächsische Zeitung newspaper. The brief called for a display system offering multiple “atmospheres.” The solution he came up... Read More