Ascender Fonts

April 1, 2011 – The type enthusiasts at Monotype Imaging are pleased to announce the Comic Sans® Pro typeface family.

Featuring elements such as speech bubbles and cartoon dingbats, Comic Sans Pro extends the versatility of the original Comic Sans, designed by Vincent Connare for Microsoft in 1994. “Hats off to Monotype Imaging for enlivening Comic Sans and getting it back to its roots as a comic book lettering face. Now everyone can write with more panache – and look even more like a pro using swashes, small caps and other typographic embellishments,” said Connare.

“Every day, millions of people rely on Comic Sans for countless applications ranging from scrapbooking to school projects,” said Allan Haley, director of words and letters at Monotype Imaging. “Comic Sans is also a favorite in professional environments, used in medical information, instructions, ambulance signage, college exams, corporate mission statements and executive reprimands – even public letters from sports team owners to their fans. Breaking up with your spouse? Why not write a letter in Comic Sans Pro, embellished with a typographic whack!, pow! or bam! Comic Sans is everywhere, and now it’s even better.”

The Comic Sans Pro family includes regular and bold fonts, in addition to two new italic and bold italic fonts drawn by Monotype Imaging’s Terrance Weinzierl. “Our aim is to put the ‘fun’ back in ‘functional.’ We can’t wait to see Comic Sans Pro used in everything from second wedding announcements to warning labels,” said Weinzierl. “Long live Comic Sans!”


Comic Sans Pro contains a versatile range of typographic features including swashes, small caps, ornaments, old style figures and stylistic alternates – all supported by the OpenType® font format. In addition, Comic Sans Pro includes a set of ornaments and symbols, including speech bubbles, onomatopoeia and dingbats, pre-sized to work well as bullets.

Based on the OpenType cross-platform format, Comic Sans Pro is available as individual fonts or as a complete four-font family pack. Each font contains more than 1,000 characters. In addition to the OpenType features, the fonts include the WGL Pan-European character set, which supports western and eastern European, Cyrillic, Greek, Turkish and Baltic languages. An OpenType-savvy application is required to access the OpenType advanced typographic features.


Comic Sans Pro fonts be viewed, purchased and downloaded directly from AscenderFonts.com: http://www.ascenderfonts.com/font/comic-sans-pro-family.aspx

We are thrilled to add the wonderful collection of fonts from Sudtipos to AscenderFonts. Sudtipos is most well known for its amazing variety of script typefaces, most of which contain extensive OpenType typographic features. Based out of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sudtipos features the work of four talented co-founders: Ale Paul, Ariel Garofalo, Claudio Pousada and Diego Giaccone.

View the Sudtipos font collection

Steve Mehallo is a graphic designer, illustrator and educator based in Sacramento, Calif. His favorite subject is graphic design history. “It’s all there. Everything one could possibly draw from to create something totally new. All my fonts are small history projects. The research is my favorite part — it’s why I end up spending a year or two on each design.”

We are proud to showcase the fonts of Steve Mehallo, and happy to announce this special offer:
25 percent off each of Steve Mehallo’s fonts now through March 5, 2011.

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The Jeanne Moderno ™ type family has nine fonts in total. It is a synthesis of Bodoni Italic and 19th century ultra-bold “fat faces”.



In Steve's own words: “Jeanne Moderno – named after my wife – had its roots in a hand drawn title I saw back in 1996. It was on a monograph of the work of Adolph Loos. It was very German, with roots in 19th century fat faces. Over the years I kept finding elements of this approach – including (much later) Paul Renner’s drawings of a Bodoni Poster-like version of Futura™ Black face. Another inspiration was the film MAX (2002), written and directed by one of Emigre magazine’s founders, Menno Meyjes.”



“I decided Jeanne would be a fictional typeface that was released in 1918, the timeframe from the movie. I had many starts and stops in development – including an eventually rejected mess of letters created in 1999. Finally in 2008, I started drawing my idea and it all came together. Today, I’m working on a matching text version.”



Jeanne Moderno can be used for magazines, advertising, posters, flyers, fashion reports, letterpress experiments, silkscreen endeavors, exhibitions, signage, paper money, revolutionary political statements as well as formal declarations of peace or war. Jeanne Moderno is about the future, the past. The avant-garde. Humanist geometry + vintage footwear. Form, function, style, art and life.

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The Martini at Joe's™ retro style font allows you to loosen your tie and enjoy the happy hour feel. Steve Mehallo created this entertaining font as a modern redrafting of a vernacular style of boomerang and amoeba-shaped lettering style. Martini at Joe’s has a sturdy and cool look that is perfect for party invitations and decorations.

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The Chandler 42™ face is a one of the first typewriter fonts of its kind — capturing the typographic eccentricities of a 1940s portable typewriter. Chandler 42 was designed by Steve Mehallo and compiled with forensic care.



Each of the characters in Chandler 42 features edges meticulously redrafted by hand, including uneven baselines and a few broken letters. It is an extremely versatile font and can be used to express a variety of themes: from vintage to modern, grunge to organic and business to pleasure.

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The TwentyFourNinetyOne™ [2491] typeface is a reinterpretation of the alphabet of 1919 by Theo van Doesburg. It is the original a true rendering of the thinking of the Dutch-based art movement ‘de Stijl.’  2491 has horizontals and verticals that inspired and synced with the work of artists of the period, planting the seed that would become the modernist “look” of the 20th century. TwentyFourNinetyOne is a futuristic rethinking of letterforms by Steve Mehallo, making its use in headlines and display sizes fun and bold to read.

We've worked hard to enhance the tools on AscenderFonts.com to make it easy to search and browse for fonts.

One of the areas we've upgraded is the Fonts by Language options. Today we added Greek fonts as a separate category. We now have 25 different language/scripts that you can select from in order to refine your font searches.



Combine that with the ability to change the type sample string, and you now have a very powerful way to find exactly the right font to meet your needs.

We hope you find this helpful, are always looking to at ways to improve our site (so send us any comments !)

We're proud to announce a fresh set of new fonts from the Hallmark™ Design Collection . This expanding collection contains a vibrant range of script and display fonts. These new releases showcase some exciting styles that offer distinctive ways to enhance your headlines. All Hallmark fonts are available for instant download in TrueType® and OpenType® formats, and also for use as Web Fonts !

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The Fultoon™ HMK font is an energetic, quirky script typeface from Hallmark. Fultoon has a fun handwritten style with the appearance of ink blobs. Its uneven strokes creates a sense of excitement and joyful energy.

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The Baa Book™ HMK font family is a clever set of fonts that comes in regular and bold weights. Baa Book HMK has a youthful appearance with sprightly letterforms. Its hand lettering style is great for everything from scrapbooks to greeting cards.

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The Sandy Text™ HMK typeface family is a fresh, graceful design from the talented lettering artists at Hallmark Cards. Sandy Text HMK is a casual script with an engaging, flowing handwriting style. It comes in both regular and bold weights for added flexibility and contrast.

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The Twizot™ HMK font is an engaging, alternative roman font with a unique, organic lettering style. Twizot HMK has a has an uneven baseline that gives it plenty of energy and bouncy letterforms that make it a fun font to work with.

All these new Hallmark Design Collection fonts are available now at AscenderFonts.com and as web fonts at FontsLive.com

As we we welcome in the new year we wanted to acknowledge the craftsmanship, technical skills and creativity that can be found in so many wonderful fonts introduced in 2010 by our type designer and font foundry partners.

While it is easy to compile a 'top 10' list based on sales or downloads, we thought it would be better to highlight what we feel are the most innovative fonts from 2010 available at AscenderFonts. We hope you find inspiration in this list and welcome your comments at the AscenderFonts.com blog !

Top 10 Innovative Fonts of 2010:
Hallmark Design Collection by Hallmark Cards
St Ryde by Sascha Timplan
Rebus Script by Terrance Weinzierl and Steve Matteson
Wagner Grotesk by Johannes Wagner and Canada Type
Yana by Laura Worthington
Alegria by Ricardo Esteves Gomes
Museo Slab by Jos Buivenga
Coming Together - Font Aid IV font
Ford's Folly by Jim Ford
Webfonts

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Hallmark Design Collection by Hallmark Cards



2010 saw the introduction of a delightful range of typefaces created by the talented lettering artists and designers at Hallmark. This wonderful font collection was influenced by art, fashion and popular culture, and was originally intended for proprietary use in greeting cards, framed sentiments and other forms of social expression. Hallmark fonts can bring just the right personal touch to any kind of creative project.

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St Ryde by Sascha Timplan



The St Ryde™ design is a refreshing humanistic sans serif family by Sacha Timplan of Germany-based Stereotypes. St Ryde breaks new ground with its slight touch of a script typeface. The complete St Ryde font family comes with five weights with small caps, old style figures and other desirable OpenType® features.

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Rebus Script by Terrance Weinzierl and Steve Matteson



The Rebus Script™ font uses advanced OpenType features to create rebus puzzles by automatically replacing certain words or syllables with pictures. Rebus Script was developed by Terrance Weinzierl and is based on the Louisville Script™ handwriting font designed by Steve Matteson. To use Rebus Script you simply type a word like 'sun' or 'son' and those letters are automatically replaced by a picture of the sun. There are over 70 pictorial symbols in Rebus Script that make up the 'vocabulary' for automatic substitution, based on more than 300 different syllable/word combinations in the English language.

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Wagner Grotesk by Johannes Wagner and Canada Type



This is the elaborate digital version of the original 1914 typeface by Johannes Wagner, which was later adopted by European and American type foundries. The Wagner Grotesk™ typeface is an extraordinarily versatile and functional headline face with biform letters and small caps. It is bold, condensed, clear and legible, and is good for cramming information into tight spaces To address the widest audience, Canada Type developed both regular and Pro versions (for users with OpenType-savvy applications).

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Yana by Laura Worthington



The stylish Yana™ headline serif family is a remarkably versatile typeface by Laura Worthington. It features a delicious assortment of swash and small cap options that can be used from simple to complex styling. Its letters have both classic and modern touches, with a friendly formality that allow it to adorn everything from headlines to logos.

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Alegria by Ricardo Esteves Gomes



The new Alegria™ font family was designed by Ricardo Esteves Gomes of Outras Fontes in Brazil. Alegria is an inspired set of fonts with a variety of special options and character sets to create multidimensional and colorful effects. The Alegria family consists of Alegria Roman, Alegria Caps, Alegria Bright and Alegria Fill.

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Museo Slab by Jos Buivenga



The popular Museo™ family received a big boost in 2010 with the introduction of Museo Slab. Designed by Jos Buivenga of exljbris Font Foundry, it is a robust slab serif with Museo's approachability. This powerhouse font family contains six weights with italics. Each font contains approximately 455 glyphs with extensive OpenType features including ligatures, fractions and figure styles.

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Coming Together - Font Aid IV font



Coming Together is a special font containing over 400 ampersands contributed by almost 400 different type designers from 37 countries around the globe. The Font Aid IV Project is a charitable endeavor organized by the Socitety of Typographic Aficionados (SoTA). All money raised from the sale of the Coming Together font is donated to Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to help the people of Haiti recover from the devastating earthquake of 2010. Why ampersands? Because they can be used as a graphical element to add panache, elegance and dimension to a design or document.

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Ford's Folly by Jim Ford



The lively and sophisticated Ford's Folly™ script font captures the spirit of the designer's handwriting using a Sharpie® extra fine felt pen. Designed by Jim Ford, this casual font evokes an energetic feeling and has very legible letterforms without quirky distractions. It features a massive multilingual character set and advanced typographic features for use with OpenType-savvy applications.

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Webfonts



The year 2010 will probably best be remembered for when Web fonts saw adoption by more than 95 percent of the Web browser applications on desktop computers. New Web font services such as Fonts.com Web Fonts ,  the FontsLive ™ service and Webtype ™ are quickly bringing high-quality commercial fonts to Web designers and developers to use with CSS @font-face. Web fonts allow websites to stop using graphics to display custom fonts in headlines, and instead link to real fonts so the text is accessible, scalable and searchable.