Monotype adds over 100 new fonts

Font provider Monotype has boosted its Monotype, Linotype and ITC font libraries with over 100 designs, ranging from expanded versions of existing classics, to space-saving font families.

The Monotype library has gained fonts including the Slate Condensed, designed by Rod MacDonald, a selection of six space-saving additions to the Slate family. The Givens Antiqua family also joins the Monotype fold.

Linotype gains the Eurostile Next family, designed by Akira Kobayashi, as well as four other typeface families including Kobayashi's Cosmiqua. The design includes five weights, each with an italic counterpart.

Also new to Linotype is the Satero family, created by designer Werner Schneider, a type system that contains complementary sans serif and serif variations. Designed with newspaper and magazine use in mind, the Satero family offers high legibility and slightly condensed proportions to help maximize space limitations.

Calligrapher Gaynor Goffe brings to the Linotype Library the Hamada typeface, a script design that captures the feeling of ink on paper. The font offers many alternate characters and a series of ligatures and swashes for seemingly limitless combinations.

Also new to the Linotype Library is the Frutiger Arabic family, which carries over the friendly, yet professional demeanor of the original Frutiger design to the Arabic alphabet. Created by Linotype designer Nadine Chahine, with the approval of Adrian Frutiger, who designed the Frutiger typeface in the 1970s, the Frutiger Arabic family is intended for use in a variety of applications, from signage to corporate design.

Chahine, Kobayashi and Frutiger are also credited with other typefaces announced this year, including the Frutiger Serif family, designed by Kobayashi and Frutiger, and the Palatino® Arabic design, created by Chahine and Hermann Zapf, who designed the original Palatino typeface more than 50 years ago. The Palatino Arabic typeface was honored for design excellence at the TDC2 2008 design competition held by the Type Directors Club of New York City.

Meanwhile, ITC gains the ITC Franklin family, which evolved from the widely used ITC Franklin Gothic™ design. Designer David Berlow created the ITC Franklin version specifically for use at display sizes. ITC also released OpenType® Pro versions of the popular ITC Stone® and ITC Bodoni™ families.

The ITC Stone Pro collection includes the ITC Stone Serif Pro, ITC Stone Sans Pro, ITC Stone Informal Pro and ITC Stone Humanist Pro families. Each shares an underlying structure that allows the designs to coexist harmoniously. The ITC Bodoni family is intended to serve as a faithful rendition of Giambattista Bodoni's most revered typeface design. As OpenType Pro families, the ITC Stone Pro and ITC Bodoni Pro offerings provide expanded character sets to support most Central European and many Eastern European languages.

The ITC Mattia design from designer Giuseppe Errico is a distinctive handwriting font, with its scrawled letterforms that produce a tense, nervous tone. The ITC Santangeli face, also from Errico, is based on an 18th century manuscript by Italian writer, Benedetto Santangeli. The design includes alternate characters and ink splotches to enable a realistic reproduction of antique lettering.

"We've always placed a high priority on enhancing our typeface selection on an ongoing basis," said Allan Haley, director of words and letters at Monotype Imaging. "It's important that our customers not only enjoy a growing selection of high-quality typefaces but also have the freedom to choose fonts from their preferred source."