Four New Linotype Font Families

Theresa Stone

Linotype is highlighting four recent additions to its type library.
Libelle
Jovica Veljovic plays a special role in the world of typeface design. Originally hailing from Serbia, he has been educating generations of new designers at the university in Hamburg since the early 1990s. Jovica Veljovic is an accomplished calligrapher; he still performs a number of public commissions. His previous work has been released through the ITC and Adobe libraries. In 1985, he received the coveted Charles Peignot prize, given by the ATypI once every few years to a typeface designer younger than 35. In recent interviews with the German media, Hermann Zapf mentioned him as his successor.
Jovica’s newest typeface release is a Linotype Original. Named Libelle™, after the German word for dragonflies, this feature-rich English copperplate script highlights Jovica’s mastery of calligraphic detail, as the font includes more than 400 alternates – just enough to inject the right amount of irregularity into this rigid genre.

Luba
Berlin-based designer Hendrik Möller created Luba™ as part of his final project at university. The typeface family is an informal sans serif that encompasses both the Latin and the Cyrillic scripts. Möller envisioned that it might be used in language textbooks aimed at helping Western Europeans learn the Russian language or other languages like Ukrainian or Bulgarian that use the Cyrillic script. Luba’s design places significant emphasis on the most necessary identifying elements of each letter, resulting in clear, legible forms. Since learning a language is already stressful enough, Luba’s style is that of an open, informal sans serif, which should relax the student as they read through their exercises.

Neudoerffer Fraktur
For decades, German designer Hellmut G. Bomm has been fascinated by Johann Neudörffer the Elder’s 1538 writing manual. A collaborator of the renowned German Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer, Neudörffer helped develop the Fraktur style of Blackletter. Fraktur types would go on to be among the most-used European typographic styles for centuries. Going back to the roots, as it were, was a driving force for Bomm. His Neudoerffer Fraktur™ design has three separate character sets, offering users more variety than in most blackletter fonts. Depending on your computer applications’ level of OpenType support, you may choose between two versions of OpenType fonts for Neudoerffer Fraktur. If you are using Adobe InDesign CS, you can take advantage of the three Stylistic Sets in Neudoerffer Fraktur Regular. Otherwise, to get the typeface’s full effect, you will need to switch between Neudoerffer Fraktur Regular 1, Neudoerffer Fraktur Regular 2, and Neudoerffer Fraktur Regular 3.

Nautilus Text and Nautilus Monoline
Hellmut G. Bomm has been quite busy recently. These offerings are of a completely different nature than Neudoerffer Fraktur, showing his versatility with letters. Together, Nautilus™ Text and Nautilus Monoline offer document creators a diverse new kit of design tools. The Nautilus type system arose out of an earlier Bomm release: his original Linotype Nautilus, which was published in 1999. Nautilus Text is similar to Linotype Nautilus, but more finally tuned to the needs of immersive reading. Nautilus Monoline is completely new, and feels quite contemporary. Its letterforms share the same proportions as those in Nautilus Text, but without the calligraphic modulation. Nautilus Monoline is a refreshing headline type to pair with body text set in Nautilus Text, or any other condensed serif design.