The second release from our Dutch foundry partner Bold Monday is Trio Grotesk. And it is one with an interesting Dutch background, too.

While studying in the Netherlands, Trio Grotesk’s designer Florian Schick discovered the only two remaining printed copies of Dutch modernist Piet Zwart’s influential essay Van oude tot nieuwe typografie (From Old to New Typography) in book museum Meermanno in The Hague. It was printed by Drukkerij Trio and set in an early 20th-century sans serif — Kaart Antiek. Schick decided to revive the typeface, and very closely that is, incorporating the typical rounding and ink spread of the 7 point letterpress printed text in his model. The result is Trio Grotesk — a charming rounded sans serif of broad proportions with a discreet modernist feel.

The fonts are optimized for our medium size range (14 px+) and lend themselves particularily well for all-caps settings. The character set consists of as many as 688 glyphs with Latin 1 and 2 language support as well as numerous symbols like arrows, manicules, various sets of figures, and a series of Dutch countryside themed pictograms, accessible via their unicode value. If you don’t want to make use of the full character set, you can subset the fonts in your account settings to reduce the file size. Trio Grotesk combines well with many text fonts, for instance the similarly round Apres RE or old-style Poynter Serif RE.

As with all fonts on Webtype, Trio Grotesk can be tested free of charge for 30 days. For more details, see the Trio Grotesk webfont page. For information about the desktop fonts and images of Trio Grotesk’s lovely printed specimen book, check out Bold Monday’s website.

Of all the typefaces Griffith designed and directed throughout his career, he considers Bell Gothic his most original design. Commissioned by AT&T especially for the use in telephone directories, its open, economical forms are drawn to stay highly legible in small sizes and under demanding printing conditions. The serifs on ‘I’ and ‘1’, deep notches to prevent joints from filling in, as well as the overall sharp corners and tapered terminals became Bell Gothic’s signature features.

For his revival under the name Griffith Gothic, Tobias Frere-Jones removed obsolete remains of old typesetting systems but retained the characteristic thinning of joints as a salient trait. Initially drawn as the house sans serif for Fast Company, he developed the typeface into a full series in six weights, accompanied by a condensed variant and italics for the regular width.

Although originally designed for text and listings in small sizes, Griffith Gothic is well suited as a strong headline face where its distinct features are allowed to stand out in display sizes. It combines well with all genres of serif typefaces, such as Poynter Serif RE, Harriet Text, or the equally edged and economical Proforma.

As with all fonts on Webtype, Griffith Gothic can be tested free of charge for 30 days. For more details, see the Griffith Gothic webfont page.

With the release of all serif variants, we are proud to now offer the full Freight Series by Joshua Darden as one of the most extensive contemporary type series available for the web. Freight’s four size-specific designs — Big, Display, Text and Micro — and their sans-serif companions, each in six weights with distinct italics, add up to a total of 72 styles, making Freight an exeptionally comprehensive system for a wide variety of applications.

While the Text styles are suitable for mid-range reading sizes, the Display styles feature increased stroke contrast and finer details adapted for headlines and display typography. The Big styles with their even tighter spacing and sharpness shine in the very largest uses — the bigger the better. At the other end of the spectrum are the Micro styles with their coarse, exaggerated traits and sturdy shapes for better performance at small font sizes. Although not quite the design intention, try Freight Micro for large sizes, too, as the chunky forms become interestingly expressive and striking in headlines. The sans-serif styles complement the set with their adaptable, unobstrusive appearance.

As with all fonts on Webtype, the Freight families can be tested free of charge for 30 days. For more details, see the Freight webfont pages.

Our latest addition from Font Bureau is Proforma, a typeface by Petr van Blokland with an interesting background. Initially designed in 1983 for Purup, a Danish company specializing in forms (hence “pro forma”), it was one of the first typefaces developed specifically for low and medium resolution output. Proforma features classic oldstyle shapes and proportions, but swellings on stems are achieved by straight lines with distinct edges. These, as well as the simple, tapered serifs, are much easier to render than the smoothly modulated curves of traditional text faces. Today, this makes Proforma especially suited for screen typography and the web.

Proforma’s six weights are comparably close to each other, originally to enable compensation of different stroke weight on different papers, colors, or inverted text. This can be just as useful on the screen in order to take into account backlit surfaces and multiple resolutions. The roman styles are accompanied by pronounced true italics that give distinction in text sizes and reveal their interesting angularity in large sizes. If you want to combine Proforma with a sans serif, try Alright Sans, Amplitude or Salvo Sans. (Petr van Blokland designed Productus as a matching companion, available on Webtype in the near future.)

As with all fonts on Webtype, Proforma can be tested free of charge for 30 days. For more details, see the Proforma webfont page.

While the Freight series’ serif styles exist in several size-specific variants, from Micro to Big, Freight Sans is designed as a versatile, all-purpose sans serif fitting a large variety of applications. The six weights, light to black, plus italics provide sufficient styles for legible body copy as well as delicate or beefy display typography. We also offer the recently added condensed styles as webfonts for extra punchy headlines.

The family’s spacing is attuned to work well in most sizes, from medium to large, while the rendering is optimized for font-sizes down to 14 px. If you are looking to combine Freight Sans with a serif for body copy, try Harriet Text or Giza RE. In larger sizes, Whitman Display, Prensa or Trilby may compliment the sans in an interesting way. Or, for a perfectly harmonious pairing, just wait a few more weeks until the serif members of the Freight series are ready for release on Webtype.

As with all fonts on Webtype, Freight Sans and Freight Sans Condensed can be tested free of charge for 30 days. For more details, see the Freight Sans webfont page.

In a quest for readable and functional fonts optimized for today’s newspapers, the Poynter research institute commissioned a comprehensive type series comprised of serif and sans serif fonts for text and display, designed by Tobias Frere-Jones. As part of this series, Poynter Old Style Display draws on the 17th-century romans of Fleming Hendrik van den Keere, who is known for his stronger, more stalwart letterforms than the elegant French designs of the Renaissance period. The typefaces are large on the body and economical in fit — the condensed and narrow styles in particular — which makes the family especially suited for all kinds of headlines in editorial environments.

Poynter Old Style Display is available in three weights and three widths. The normal widths are accompanied by matching italics. Besides the obvious compatibility with its partner for small sizes — Poynter Serif RE — the display styles combine well with almost all sans serifs, such as Antenna RE, Apres RE or Alright Sans.

Poynter Old Style Display Narrow Bold with Poynter Serif RE

As with all fonts on Webtype, Poynter Old Style Display can be tested free of charge for 30 days. For more details, see the Poynter Old Style Display webfont pages.

Designed by David Berlow and initially released in 1989 as Bureau Grotesque, the typeface has come to be acknowledged as the quintessential interpretation of the English 19th century sans serif. Inspired by the grotesques of Stephenson Blake, Berlow harmonized the greatly differing character shapes of his model and expanded the design into a family of several matching weights and widths. At the same time he kept the typical lively character and idiosyncrasies of the early sans serifs intact, which lend the series much of its flavor.

The family was met with great success and soon grew as several publishing houses commissioned more styles. In 2006, Jill Pichotta, Christian Schwartz, and Richard Lipton rounded it out into a systematic series of 27 styles and managed to retain Bureau Grot’s strong signature character over the wide range of five widths and six weights. With its narrow styles, Bureau Grot is an ideal headline face for compact columns and large display typography. The lighter weights of the normal and wide styles are suited for sizes down to 14 px. If you’re looking for a fitting serif companion, try combining Bureau Grot with Harriet, Turnip or Benton Modern.

As with all fonts on Webtype, Bureau Grot can be tested free of charge for 30 days. For more details, see the Bureau Grot webfont page.

Bold Monday’s first release on Webtype is their celebrated and recently expanded Nitti. The monospaced type family is best known for its prominent role in the popular iA Writer desktop and iOS writing applications. In light of this prolific use, the small preliminary family was expanded and thoroughly optimized for screen rendering.

While Nitti only makes an appearance in the light and medium weight in iA Writer, we are happy to offer the full, extensive family: five weights — light to black — with true italics and very broad language support. Nitti not only speaks all languages using the Latin alphabet but also Greek and Cyrillic. If you don’t need the full character set and want to minimize bandwidth, you can subset the fonts in your project settings.

Unlike many monospaced typefaces, Nitti doesn’t feel overly mechanical, but is approachable and contemporary. The quirky, idiosyncratic shapes of the early “grotesque” designs of the 19th century lend Nitti its humanity and warmth. Optimized for font-sizes down to 11 px, Nitti is well-suited for code samples or technical notes where a more casual atmosphere is desired, or as a reader-friendly alternative when setting longer passages of monospaced text. It combines well with other grotesque-inspired typefaces like Titling Gothic and Salvo, or with sturdy serif typefaces like Benton Modern or Harriet Text.

As with all fonts on Webtype, Nitti can be tested free of charge for 30 days. For more details, see the Nitti webfont page.

At the other end of the spectrum, we added two options for very large sites that receive over 15 or 20 million page views per month. And remember, if you don’t find a license that suits your needs, please don’t hesitate to contact us — we can surely find a solution that works for you.

On this day for type lovers, we are delighted to announce webfonts for the especially lovable Harriet Text and Harriet Display by Jackson Cavanaugh at Okay Type. The elegant serif series draws inspiration from text faces of 19th and 20th century American and English design, but is unburdened by any particular historic model. With rational form and a good portion of grandeur, Harriet manages to combine exuberance with practical versatility.

The series is comprised of a stalwart text family and a sophisticated display family. The text styles with their moderate stroke contrast and stability are suitable for copy sizes down to 12 px. The display styles, on the other hand, play out their refined detailing in headlines and other large applications — from the sparkling Thin to the vigorous Black, with particularily enticing italics.

Top: Harriet Display has finer features and elaborate forms which shine at large sizes. Bottom: Harriet Text is more rugged, with more simplified forms that stay clear at smaller sizes.

If you need to cover a large variety of content but don’t want to stick to one type series only, Harriet combines well with almost all sans-serif typefaces, for example Alright Sans or Nobel. For extra-small font sizes try Benton Modern RE. To experience the Harriet Series in all its webfont glory first hand, be sure to also check out Okay Type’s splendid specimen site.

As with all fonts on Webtype, the Harriet Series can be tested free of charge for 30 days. For more details, see the Harriet Text and Harriet Display webfont pages.