Jana Thork harks back to the uncial, a Roman and Celtic style of writing that was the forefather of our lowercase. It also has elements of stone-engraved capital letterforms, which makes it a font with a pretty complex pedigree. A smart combination of familiar and unexpected shapes, Jana Thork meets our “needs for freedom in a post-historical world” – that’s how designer Ricardo Esteves Gomes sees it. Mixing upper- and lowercase is a tested way of breaking conventions, and Jana Thork does it very elegantly. What makes the font truly impressive, and fun to use, is its wealth of extras, including ligatures and swashes. Jana Thork Pro offers all these alternates in one font for use in programs with full OpenType functionality.

If we had to think of a label for Black Swan, it would be “neogothic”. Like the neogothic architecture and lettering from the 19th century, Black Swan has roots in medieval times, but there’s a frivolousness about it that lends it a touch of Art Nouveau. Its basic forms are stern and black, its swirls and swashes are charming and seductive. It could be on a heavy metal t-shirt, a fancy shop window or a tongue-in-cheek art catalogue: Black Swan is as ironic as you choose it to be. It is beautifully produced, with tons of alternates and ligatures, which allow you to create unique word settings with a custom look.
 

Max Miedinger was the Swiss designer who, under the direction of Eduard Hoffman, drew a typeface called Neue Haas Grotesk that became famous as Helvetica. In 2007, as Helvetica turned 50, the graphic world was swamped by Helvetica-mania: millions of blog pages, declarations of love and hate, even a movie. Canada Type’s Patrick Griffin took a closer look at the mysterious Miedinger, whose name had remained virtually unknown for decades, and discovered another vintage Miedinger typeface. Drawn for the Haas foundry in 1964, Horizontal was a fine display font of extended proportions with some unconventional solutions that made it more interesting than your average set of geometric sans-serif caps. Published under the name of its original designer, Griffin’s digital version has saved Miedinger’s forgotten display face from being a “Haas-been”. True to their more-is-more style of doing revivals, Canada Type added a new, lighter weight and special characters for a wide range of languages.

No Rising Stars newsletter is complete without an informal script, and this month’s Sweetheart is gorgeous. It is also number one on the Starlets list of fresh fonts at the moment of this writing. Since publishing her first script face Sketchley in 2000, Canadian designer Ronna Penner has developed a confident style of handwriting and brush script fonts. Sweetheart Script is her most successful creation so far. It’s definitely 1950s–early ’60s in atmosphere: it could be an advertising headline, a film credit font, or the lettering on a greeting card. What is particularly nimble about Sweetheart Script is the way the letters connect into a perfect flow. A beauty.