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About this entry

New FontFonts: Release 49

Due to a rigorous acceptance policy and extremely high production values, new FontFonts are rare and widely anticipated. This batch of four new typefaces — each one a unique addition to a different genre (slab, grotesque, handwritten, and casual sans) — is no exception. Eight existing FontFont families also get language or style extensions in this release.


FF Dagny In Use

Image: LiveSurface®

FF Dagny

FF DagnyOpenType

In 2002, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) changed from broadsheet to tabloid — a change that came along with a major impact on DN’s journalism, editing, and design. Pangea design’s Creative Director, Örjan Nordling, had already worked with DN as a design consultant in 1996. In 2000, DN had been redesigned under the leadership of Mario Garcia. For the new design Nordling created DN Bodoni exclusively for Dagens Nyheter. The change to tabloid called for a more compact setting and Pangea design was commissioned to produce a matching sans serif for Sweden’s largest daily newspaper. With assistance from Nordling’s colleague Göran Söderström, DN Grotesk has evolved into FF Dagny.

For the FontFont library several adjustments were made. The contrast in stroke thickness was reduced for better legibility in small sizes and characters were redesigned together with the FontFont type department. The family now includes a range of consistent weights from Thin to Black making it perfect for use in body text and all kind of other applications. The name Dagny is an abbreviation of Dagens Nyheter as well as an old nordic female name meaning “new day”.

The Pro version of FF Dagny includes Extended Latin support for typesetting the news of Central Europe and Turkey.

Free Font: For a limited time, try one weight of the FF Dagny family for free. Download FF Dagny OT Thin »

Download FF Dagny Spec Sheet
Download FF Dagny Info Guide

FF Unit Slab In Use

Image: LiveSurface®

FF Unit Slab

FF Unit SlabOpenType

When Kris Sowersby, Christian Schwartz, and Erik Spiekermann were designing the parameters for FF Meta Serif, they spent quite some time on details like the thickness and the shape of the serifs — should the face veer towards a slab with blocky, heavy serifs or should it be more of a traditional book face? In the end, they went for a “normal” serif face with fairly solid serifs, but some thick-thin contrast and counters that aren’t totally parallel to the outside shape of the letters. Stronger and thus more useful than Times New Roman while not as constructed as Rockwell.They did, however, like some of their explorations into a “humanist slab” so much, that they asked Sowersby to develop the initial sketches further as a companion for FF Unit. That, in fact, is FF Meta’s more serious sister, and it looked good with heavier serifs.

FF Unit Slab is a fairly condensed slab which pulls a punch in bold headlines and looks surprisingly good in text with its typewriter-like discipline. It can be mixed with FF Unit, of course, but also works as companion to FF Meta, while FF Meta Serif looks good when mixed with FF Unit — whether for headlines or small text like captions. The two families share a common heritage and like to hang out with each other.

FF Unit Slab Pro adds Central European, Turkish, and Extended Latin character sets.

Download FF Unit Pro Spec Sheet
Download FF Unit Slab Info Guide

FF Duper In Use

Image: LiveSurface®

FF Duper

FF DuperOpenType

Martin Wenzel’s original idea from 1998 evolved into a kind of informal FF Profile. FF Duper has a homemade touch, but provides all typographic qualities of a modern OpenType font. FF Duper consists of Regular, Bold, Regular Italic and Bold Italic weights, supports more than 60 languages (in the Pro version), has several figure sets and fractions, and includes alternative forms for ‘a’, ‘g’, and ‘y’ as well as a set of arrows, bullets, and ornaments. And there is a special extra: all weights contain three versions of each glyph and via an OpenType feature the three alternatives are used in succession, treating vowels and consonents separately and recognizing even spaces between words for a lively and hand-made appearance of the typed text. Preliminary versions of the typeface have already been successful in education and school projects, but there are surely more areas where FF Duper’s friendly personality fits in.

Download FF Duper Spec Sheet
Download FF Duper Info Guide


FF Kava In Use

Image: LiveSurface®

FF Kava

FF KavaOpenType

FF Kava began as a free typeface called Kaffeesatz, published by Yanone in 2004 during the early stages of his type design career. The bold weight was reminiscent of coffee house grotesk typefaces of the 1920s, while the lighter versions bridged the gap to contemporary type design. The current FF Kava family is a carefully revised, more rounded version of the old Kaffeesatz fonts. A black weight has been added as well as small caps and more figure sets to complete an attractive and functional sans serif type family.

FF Kava Pro adds Central European, Turkish, and Extended Latin character sets.

Download Spec FF Kava Sheet
Download FF Kava Info Guide

FF Tisa

FF Tisa 2OpenType
Mitja Miklavic has added a Thin and Light weight to his award-winning FF Tisa.

Typestar

FF Typestar OTOpenType
Now available in OpenType.

FF Avance

FF Avance OTOpenType
Now available in OpenType and OT Pro with Central European and Turkish support.

FF Jackie

FF Jackie OTOpenType
This underused roman/script is now much easier to use with all its swashes, ligatures, and alts intelligently combined into a single OpenType font for each style.

FF Meta 3

FF Meta 3OpenType
The lightest weights of the FF Meta family are now available in OpenType. The Pro version supports Greek, Turkish, Central European, and other Extended Latin languages.

FF Dax Compact

FF Dax Compact OTOpenType
Now available in OpenType and OT Pro with Central European and Turkish support.

FF Gateway

FF Gateway OTOpenType
Now available in OpenType.

FF Luggagetag

FF Luggagetag OTOpenType
Now available in OpenType.

Live Surface

The “in use” examples at the top of this newsletter were created with LiveSurface image templates — high-res, pre-masked, multi-layered images with built-in 3D surfaces. They make creating finished photographic images from your artwork as quick as cut + paste. Highly recommended.
Visit LiveSurface.com to learn more »

 

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