RensGazet

RensGazet is a decorative blackletter typeface with elaborate upper-case letters and condensed lower-case characters. It was inspired by the masthead of a short-lived weekly newspaper, The Rensselaer Gazette, which was published from 1857 until 1860. I could not find any existing digitized fonts that replicated this old typeface, so I decided to create an interpretation of it. I had samples of few letters in large point sizes and a number of others at a small point size, though these were blurry and not sharply defined. As a result, this typeface is undoubtedly considerably different from the original. Also, my spacing is much tighter than that in the source samples.

RensGazet is available from myfonts.com and fontspring.

NarrowWay & NarrowPath

In November, after seeing a number of highly condensed sans-serif fonts in use, I realized that my catalog was very weak in condensed fonts. I decided to create one and began with an elongated O. The rest of the letters were based on that width and height. This font became NarrowWay Ultracondensed. From there I altered it with thinner stems (Light Ultracondensed) and then widened it and created three weights for a condensed width. Widening this condensed width, I call the results a regular width, though it is still a very condensed font. None of these has a true lower case, but rather have alternative shaped letters, some based on lower-case forms, in place of a true lower case. I could find only a few fonts on myfonts.com that are more condensed than NarrowWay-Ultracondensed. 

After mostly finishing the 18 styles of NarrowWay, I decided to add a true lowercase to the widest of the three weights, and then also added the lower case letters to the other two widths. I spun these styles out as a new family, NarrowPath. Because they were very easy to create and because some people might find them useful, I added oblique styles for all the upright styles.

Previously the most condensed sans-serif font I had created was PeterPierre-Condensed, which I designed in 1992. It is shown below, above two examples of NarrowPath-Medium at the same point size. The first NarrowPath sample uses the font's spacing, which is quite loose. The second tightens character spacing to make it match more closely with the PeterPierre sample. The NarrowPath sample is smoother and more elegant than the PeterPierre sample.

NarrowWay and NarrowPath are available on Myfonts.com and FontSpring.com.

OverUnder

 OverUnder is a two font family that plays with the capabilities of the Opentype feature of Contextual Alternatives to alternate two sets of characters. One set is on tall vertical slabs and the other set is on wide horizontal slabs, and when the sets are alternated, the result is a pattern that has a woven appearance. 

It is available on fontspring.com.

Valsity, a squarish slab serif

Valsity is a squarish slab-serif family with five weights and two widths, each with an italics for a total of twenty members. With negligible  contrast, it is almost monoline. It is for decorative uses; it is too square and lacks the contrast to make it a good choice for extensive text.

Valsity began with a blending of two other squarish slab-serifs, Valgal and Kwersity, and its name reflects that ancestry. From there it took on a life of its own, often diverging from its parents.

Valsity is available from fontspring.

Lunanic

Lunanic is a geometric novelty typeface family with a touch of graffiti. The letters are formed from a circle with a notch or nick taken out, a shape that reminds me of a partial lunar eclipse. Half of the family have the nick on the left and half on the right. The faces are monospaced and there is no space between most of the letters so the filled styles cannot be used alone without tweaking. There are several ways to tweak them to make them readable: adjacent letters can be colored differently, the characters spacing can be increased, or an outlined style can be layered on top of the filled letters. The family does not have a true lower case. Most of the characters in the lower-case slots are alternates for those on the upper-case keys and they can be mixed in whatever way the user finds best. The family has twelve members: two orientations with three weights each and each of these six has an outline style to go with it.

Lunanic is available from fontspring and myfonts.

Font families expanded in 2022 include SJURecord (1 to 4), AbagailJackson (1 to 4), Talloween  (1 to 4), IanSegoe (1 to 2), BetterIngriana (6 to 10), & KampIngriana (5 to 10).

Complements, not compliments

 In the typeface family "Complements" two sets of characters complement each other, so much so that they work together much better than they work separately. The two sets are designed to alternate and this alternating is done automatically in applications that support the OpenType feature Contextual Alternatives. Complements is purely for show and display; it is a horrible choice for text. The spacing is very tight, which works well for very large point sizes. At smaller point sizes the user may want to increase character spacing. The typeface is monospaced. If the spacing between words is too large, substitute the non-breaking space (or the underscore) for the space character. Complements is geometric, bizarre, and hard to read, all characteristics that catch the reader's attention.

Complements comes in two styles, regular and outline. The outline style was designed to be used in a layer over the regular style. It is available from myfonts and fontspring.

Another smooth blend

 Flyoika is a slab serif family with a fairly low x-height, long ascenders, and considerable contrast. The family has five weights, each with an italics and it can be used for either display or text.

Flyoika was not designed to meet a particular need but rather out of curiosity. Years ago I had designed two slab serif families, FlyHigh and Euroika, that I recently noticed had a lot of similarities and I wondered what a blend of the two would look like.  Several corresponding characters in the two families are considerably different and in cleaning up the results, I usually opted for simplicity. The name "Flyoika" reflects these origins.

Flyoika is available from Fontspring and Myfonts.  

In addition to two new text families released recently, I have expanded five other families: BetterTypeRight (9 to 12), Xabced (5 to 7), JasperSqueeze  (6 to 10), EuroikaKamp  (4 to 8), & BetterEuroika (6 to 8).