Chris Dickman (bio)

New from FontShop
FontShop announced the addition of several interesting faces, plus an entire collection from ARS Type. Vialog, designed by Werner Schneider and Helmut Ness, is based on the forms in an unpublished typeface designed by Schneider in 1988 for the German Federal Transportation Ministry. For Vialog, Schneider made legibility studies of existing European transportation fonts, combining and adapting the best features to make a new information system font family.

Relato, from Emtype, is the work of Eduardo Manso, and is available as a font package containing five styles or in individual weights. The expressive nature of its design should lend itself to display usage, where its not-quite-straight lines, expressive serifs and organic use of curves is more in evidence.

Just added is a collection of families from Angus R. Shamal’s ARS Type, currently a FontShop exclusive. These run the gamut from serious sans serif faces, such as Region or Maquette, through some highly individual designs, including District, Twenty and Zero Rate, shown below.

Currently available for download in FontShop's Free Fonts area is the Light weight of Nick Shinn's Preface, described as "a sans serif that is also sans diagonals."

Altered Ego Fonts Releases Lil Milton AEF
Are there a lot of typefaces named after musicians? I hadn't thought of this until encountering Lil Milton, a new release from Brian Sooy's Altered Ego Fonts. Named after Chicago bluesman Little Milton Cambell, the condensed font admittedly exudes energy, thanks to its use of irregular counters and outlines. It's currently available for purchase on the Veer site.

Monotype Imaging Introduces Soho
The Soho typeface family, created by Sebastian Lester of Monotype Imaging over a period of three years, is an ambitious release including no less than 40 fonts, spanning a wide range of weights and widths, and including in an astonishing 32,668 characters. This slab serif typeface also makes good use of the OpenType format, not only for its ability to provide an extensive character set, but by supporting 24 OpenType features, such as stylistic sets (this lets designers choose from up to 20 different stylistic variations in an OpenType font). Soho can be purchased in individual weights or bundled in a range of "packs."

Die Gestalten Verlag Releases Free Naiv-Fat
Last year Die Gestalten Verlag released Timo Gaessner's Naiv family on its dgv Font Label, and it has now added to this with Naiv-Fat, which is available as a free download. As with all of the dgv fonts, this one is quite extreme, and is designed for high-contrast headline usage. You can snag it from the Free Fonts area of the dgv site, which I noticed has also added Lund Sundson's Neon Glow since my last visit.

ArchiveType Site Redesign
Finally, I've mentioned the treasure trove of old, obscure faces to be found on the ArchiveType site before, so I was glad to hear that the site had been completely redesigned, something it desperately required. The redesign makes it much easier to see what's available and has added the ability for visitors to display sample text, something no font site should be without. There's also a free font area, although this requires registration for access. If you're a fan of wacky old commercial faces like Archive Antiqua Extra Condensed, shown below, then it's worth dropping by ArchiveType from time to time.

Chris Dickman
Graphics.com