The Typekit Blog

This is the eighth post in a series highlighting foundry partners who will offer fonts for desktop sync, including Dalton Maag, FontFont, Mark Simonson Studio, TypeTogether, ParaType, exljbris, and URW++.

Adobe’s first retail product, back in 1985, was type. Building its business around its PostScript page description language, Adobe depended on the Type 1 font format to give PostScript its powerful typographic capabilities. Soon after, the Adobe Originals program was conceived to make new typefaces specifically for desktop publishing. Adobe’s primary goal was to create full-featured, timeless typefaces with a high degree of technical care—combining thoughtful type design with an awareness of how best to engineer those fonts to perform well in any conditions. Now, with over 60 typeface families available for desktop sync from Typekit, there is a wide range of Adobe type available for work spanning print, digital documents, and the web. Let’s look at a few of them.

Adobe Garamond, designed by Robert Slimbach, was one of the first Adobe Originals released (in 1989). At the time, it sought to revive an historic and well-known design and adapt it for contemporary desktop publishing. By including an “expert collection” of old style figures, small caps, ligatures, and other typographic alternates, it also expanded the meaning of the word “revival” by re-introducing these advanced typographic features to a new generation of designers. Despite its elegant forms, the font outlines were carefully constructed for the best performance on the hardware of its day—which, conveniently, has also made it excellent for screen rendering.

Adobe Garamond Pro

Minion, also designed by Robert Slimbach and first released in 1990, was in some ways a sequel to Adobe Garamond. For Slimbach, it emerged as an idea during the extensive research and development of Adobe Garamond, and became a distinctive, original typeface inspired by the old style type forms of the late Renaissance but carefully modernized for digital use. It eventually expanded into Cyrillic and Greek scripts, and is now considered one of the high watermarks of the first “golden age” of digital type. Although ideal for book typography, it is more economical in its proportions than the typical old styles, making it useful for magazines and other formats where space can be limited. Like almost every other Adobe Originals text face, today’s OpenType version of Minion has a complete range of old style figures, small caps, fractions, ligatures, and other alternates—all easily accessed in desktop applications like Adobe InDesign.

Minion Pro

Another great revival for the Adobe Originals program, Adobe Caslon was carefully adapted by Carol Twombly from the time-honored types of William Caslon. Also released in 1990, Adobe Caslon is an amalgamation of what Twombly found in examining various specimens of Caslon’s original metal type from the 18th century. Through the design process, she worked to preserve its characteristic idiosyncracies while blending different examples into a single text design suitable for modern use.

One particularly appealing aspect of the Adobe Caslon typeface family is the ornamental quality available through its swash capitals and ornaments, based on those found in Caslon’s original specimens and other contemporary sources. They can be used to emphasize Caslon’s true personality through initial caps, energetic italic settings, and borders.

Distinctive and sturdy, Caslon long ago proved itself as a workhorse, and Adobe Caslon has already proven popular in new media like the web—a testament to Twombly’s skill and the universal appeal of Caslon’s original types.

Adobe Caslon Pro

Kepler, first released in 1996, was conceived as a typeface family to cover an expansive range of text and display typography. A modern typeface with humanist, transitional elements, Kepler has a distinctive personality at large sizes in display settings, but gracefully serves at text sizes as well, avoiding the tedium that can come with reading long text passages set in more severe modern faces like Bodoni. Its vertical stress, a feature of all modern style typefaces, can often be the perfect choice for screen rendering.

Typekit offers sixteen variations of Kepler for desktop syncing, covering text and display designs in regular and semicondensed widths, and in roman and italic styles—making it a particularly flexible and powerful choice for a wide range of projects.

Kepler Std

Below is a complete list of the families from Adobe that we’ll be making available for desktop sync. Add them to your favorites so you can find them quickly when we launch the desktop sync feature, and use them on the web today. If you’ve never given Typekit a try, sign up (it’s free!), and upgrade to a paid plan when you’re ready.

• Adobe Caslon
• Adobe Garamond
• Adobe Jenson
• Adobe Text
• Alexa
• Arno
• Banshee
• Bell Centennial Address, Bold Listing, & Name & Number
• Birch
• Blackoak
• Brioso & Poster
• Brush Script
• Caflisch Script
• Chaparral
• Charlemagne
• Cooper Black
• Copal Decorated, Outline, & Solid
• Cottonwood
• Cronos
• Fusaka
• Garamond Premier
• Giddyup
• Graphite
• Hobo
• Hypatia Sans
• Immi Five Of Five
• Ironwood
• Juniper
• Kepler, including Display, Semicondensed, & Semicondensed Display
• Letter Gothic
• Lithos
• Madrone
• Mesquite
• Minion and Condensed
• Minion Std Black
• Myriad, including Condensed, Sketch, & Tilt
• Mythos
• Nueva & Condensed
• OCR-A
• Orator
• Pepperwood & Fill
• Ponderosa
• Poplar
• Prestige Elite
• Quake
• Rosewood & Fill
• Sanvito
• Shuriken
• Source Code
• Source Sans
• Stencil
• Strumpf Contour & Open
• Tekton, including Condensed & Extended
• Trajan Pro 3
• Trajan Sans
• Utopia & Headline
• Viva
• Warnock
• Willow
• Zebrawood & Fill

This is our seventh post in a series highlighting foundry partners who will offer fonts for desktop sync, including Dalton Maag, FontFont, Mark Simonson Studio, TypeTogether, ParaType, and exljbris.

Founded in 1972 as URW (Unternehmensberatung Rubow Weber—from the founders’ names) in Hamburg, Germany, then re-imagined as URW++ in 1995, this foundry has been a pioneer in the digitization of type. In addition to crafting many popular original typefaces, URW also develops software for professional font production.

The Typekit library includes several classic fonts from URW++ for web use; Nimbus Sans is frequently featured in the list of your favorite fonts. We are excited to make them available for use in desktop applications as well.

Franklin Gothic spec sheet

Designed by Morris Fuller Benton for the American Type Founders in 1902, Franklin Gothic was created to be a workhorse. An early geometric sans, the font was designed to work within the grid-based layout system used by newspapers, and for other high-content print material such as train tables.

The simple, unadorned face is highly legible, and in its legibility lies its flexibility. Franklin Gothic pairs well with other types, and is highly tolerant to variations in line and letter spacing. At its heavier weights, it can be read from across the room; at its lightest, it presents content with refreshing clarity.

Typekit is offering URW’s version of the font with a full eight variants—as well as Condensed and Extended versions, each with 2 variants.

Alternate Gothic No. 2 D

Alongside Franklin Gothic, we’re also offering URW’s version of Alternate Gothic.

Designed in 1903, also by Morris Fuller Benton, Alternate Gothic is a condensed variation of Franklin Gothic that is distinguished for its height versus width dynamic. The M height is greater than its width, making it a great font for copy-fitting. Also, its height-to-width ratio makes every character read like an exclamation point—the words almost shout from the page.

The three traditional widths of Alternate Gothic are available: No. 1 D (the narrowest option), No. 2 D, and No. 3 D (the widest of the three).

Additionally, the Alternate Gothic OpenType Features include Numerators and Denominators for mathematical notation. Pretty swank.

Below is a complete list of the families from URW++ that we’ll be making available for desktop sync. Add them to your favorites so you can find them quickly when we launch the desktop sync feature, and use them on the web today. If you’ve never given Typekit a try, sign up (it’s free!), and upgrade to a paid plan when you’re ready.

• Alternate Gothic No. 1 D, No. 2 D, & No. 3 D
• Franklin Gothic URW, including Condensed, Compressed, & Extra Compressed
• Nimbus Sans, including Condensed & Extended

This is our sixth post in a series highlighting foundry partners who will offer fonts for desktop sync, including Dalton Maag, FontFont, Mark Simonson Studio, TypeTogether, and ParaType.

Jos Buivenga has been designing type for nearly twenty years, beginning in 1994 with a font named Delicious. Pleased with the favorable response to his first designs, Jos posted the fonts on his website for free downloading, and continued with his typography hobby on the side of other work. After about a decade of this, and in response to his growing popularity, he opened the exljbris foundry and transitioned into full-time type design.

Throughout his years of designing type, Jos has continued to make many of his completed fonts available for free download online—a relaxed business model for a foundry, to be sure, and one which has won him a great deal of interest and popularity. The price point isn’t the only reason we see his type in so many places, though; Jos keeps the quality high as well, and works to continually expand and improve upon the font families his foundry offers. We’ve especially enjoyed the immensely popular Museo superfamily, and after seeing some fantastic use of this and other exljbris fonts on the web, we’re excited to begin offering them for desktop sync later this month.

Calluna, shown as a font option in Microsoft Word.

One of the first “serious” versions of a text font from exljbris, Calluna is an attractive option for longer blocks of text that need to be easy to read even at small sizes. Subtle details—like the long descenders on capitals Q and J—give Calluna a distinct personality without becoming distracting. It looks great on screen, and translates nicely to desktop word processing programs as a refreshing alternative to your system default serifs.

Anivers in Keynote.

Designed as tribute font for Smashing Magazine’s first anniversary, the distinctive shape of Anivers immediately grabs readers’ attention. Since its release in 2007, Jos has worked to expand it into a robust and reliable font family that is suitable for several different uses; while it really shines as a display font, it also makes for an attractive and very readable text font at smaller sizes. We’ve sampled it here in Keynote; in presentations, this is a typeface that the back row should have no trouble deciphering, and it’s stylish to boot.

Below is a complete list of the families from exljbris that we’ll be making available for desktop sync. Add them to your favorites so you can find them quickly when we launch the desktop sync feature, and use them on the web today. If you’ve never given Typekit a try, sign up (it’s free!), and upgrade to a paid plan when you’re ready.

• Anivers & SC
• Calluna
• Calluna Sans
• Diavlo
• Fertigo & Script
• Museo
• Museo Sans, including Condensed & Rounded
• Museo Slab

Please join us in welcoming the storied Berthold Types to Typekit! Similar to our partnerships with FontFont, Process Type Foundry, and ARS Type, you can now purchase web licensing for your favorite Berthold fonts and use them on Typekit alongside your library subscription.

Without a doubt, Akzidenz-Grotesk is Berthold’s most well known typeface. First published in 1898, it has inspired other typeface designs for more than a century — Helvetica itself was designed as a reaction to Akzidenz. And now, in 2013, we’re happy to report that Akzidenz-Grotesk is available for web use at a level of quality that properly reflects its 115 years of popularity and usefulness.

License Akzidenz-Grotesk and many other typefaces – like AG Book, Akzidenz-Grotesk Next, City, Corporate ASE, Formata, Futura BQ, Imago, and more – directly from Berthold Types, and host them on Typekit with any of our plans (including our free plan). Here’s how it works. Just follow a link to Typekit once you’ve completed your purchase at the Berthold Types website. Your new fonts will be instantly transferred to your Typekit account, can be added to a kit just like any other Typekit font, and will be linked through the simple line of code you’ve already added to your site.

Fonts licensed elsewhere and hosted on Typekit will automatically work in every browser that supports @font-face, including those that don’t support WOFF or EOT. Plus, you can look forward to seamless upgrades in the future, whenever your fonts are updated and as web browsers evolve.

This is our fifth post in a series highlighting foundry partners who will offer fonts for desktop sync, including Dalton Maag, FontFont, Mark Simonson Studio and TypeTogether.

Established in 1989, ParaType specializes in developing fonts for high-quality display on screen, with a particular skill for working across different alphabets. In 1995, ParaType introduced Futura PT, which was re-formatted to support multiple languages, including a set of Cyrillic characters. Superior hinting makes Futura PT a reliable font that can handle a wide range of screen resolutions.

Cyrillic character set shown in Adobe InDesign’s Glyph panel.

ParaType’s release is just one of the most recent milestones in the long timeline of Futura’s history. Originally introduced in 1931, Futura was first designed for Bauer Type Foundry by Paul Renner. In a specimen book titled Futura: The Type of Today and Tomorrow, Renner elaborates on his design ideas.

Renner was deeply influenced by the Bauhaus School, and this is reflected in his thinking about Futura. He strove to design a typeface that was timeless, based on form and function, with a look that was more mechanical than calligraphic. Renner explains:

“Futura attempts, for the first time, to present the form of characters in the most abstract manner conceivable… Through the looking glass the letters of Futura are never of quite equal weight… These variations, derived from the recognition of optical illusion, bring about an equal distribution of color.”

Futura PT Speciman: Heavy, Book, Book Oblique, Heavy Oblique

Futura is built from geometric shapes—rectangles, circles, and triangles. Here, Renner used symmetry and proportion to his advantage: the ascenders on the lowercase letters are taller than the caps. The caps themselves are based on classic Roman type proportions. The counters are perfect circles, while the surrounding arcs are elliptical. The vertices on the lighter weight caps, like the ‘M’, descend just below the baseline.

The sum is a typeface that is gently propulsive. Since Futura’s introduction decades ago, it has been in constant use by designers, proving to be as timeless as Renner had hoped. Available in several different styles for the web, Futura PT comes in two distinct weights for desktop syncing—Book and Heavy—as well as their oblique variants.

Adonis.

Also available from ParaType for the desktop is an original face, Adonis. Designed by Natalia Vasilyeva, Adonis is an all-purpose serif with a noble yet affable feel. From the ParaType website: “Adonis is a typeface of classical appearance with slightly oblong proportions, small rounded serifs, and soft letterforms. The face is both space-saving and quite legible in small sizes. The family consists of four standard font styles and proposed for text and display typography.” Adonis includes two weights, plus italics.

Add Futura PT and Adonis to your favorites so you can access them easily when desktop syncing becomes available, and use them on the web today. If you’ve never given Typekit a try, sign up (it’s free!) and upgrade to a paid plan whenever you’re ready.

This is our fourth post in a series highlighting foundry partners who will offer fonts for desktop sync, including Dalton Maag, FontFont, and Mark Simonson Studio.

Launched in 2006, TypeTogether is the creation of José Scaglione and Veronika Burian, who studied together in the Typeface Design program at the University of Reading. Among the foundry’s leading operational principles is the idea of working together on designs, (“hence the name,” they say) and TypeTogether functions as a collaboration space for several other type designers in addition to the two founders.

As a guiding theme for their designs, TypeTogether focuses especially on the professional editorial market and its need for typefaces that allow for extended reading while still exhibiting a high degree of personality.

Tablet Gothic shown as a heading, with body text set in Abril Text. (Source text.)

TypeTogether designed Tablet Gothic with titling in mind—in particular, for publications that have both an online and physical presence. This is a typeface that translates beautifully from screen to print, and now that it’s available for desktop sync, it’ll be even simpler to use in designs intended for multiple media types. With 42 different styles to play with, this is a titling font that easily maintains consistency without ever appearing repetitive.

As a recommended pairing with Tablet Gothic, Abril Text is an attractive typeface well-suited for publications, with the four main text weights all manually hinted to ensure a smooth progression between digital and printed works. Subtle curls in the descenders give the typeface an extra boost of charisma without being distracting.

Bree.

With even more character, Bree is a delightful typeface that was modelled after the TypeTogether logotype and takes a lot of inspiration from handwriting. Its long-form uses are more limited than those of Abril, but it performs beautifully as a headline or subhead font, and would also do nicely for pull quotes. Even with its strong personality, Bree is easy to pair with other fonts.

This powerful flexibility is the real beauty of TypeTogether fonts: they’re built to work hard, and they make it look effortless. Below is a complete list of the families from TypeTogether that we’ll be making available for desktop sync. Add them to your favorites so you can find them quickly when we launch the desktop sync feature, and use them on the web today. If you’ve never given Typekit a try, sign up (it’s free!), and upgrade to a paid plan when you’re ready.

• Abril Text & Abril Fatface
• Adelle
• Adelle Sans
• Alize
• Athelas
• Bree
• Cora
• Coranto 2
• Coranto 2 Headline
• Crete & Crete Rounded
• Edita
• Eskapade
• Eskapade Fraktur
• Givry
• Iskra
• Karmina Sans
• LFT Etica & LFT Etica Display
• Maiola
• Pollen
• Sirba
• Soleil
• Tablet Gothic (including Compressed, Condensed, Semi Condensed, Narrow, and Wide)