Process

We’re excited to announce the release of two new typefaces, Scandia and Scandia Line. Although they’re siblings deep down, their differences are more apparent than their similarities. Designed first, Scandia Line is a skeletal sans serif made entirely without curves. Scandia came next, taking Line’s circular proportions but abandoning the all-angle policy for generous curves instead.

Each family has four weights with Scandia offering corresponding italics. As if that weren’t enough, Scandia and Scandia Line also include a stencil variant and several alternates for added versatility. The family’s matching proportions make them a perfect typographic pair but their distinct personalities allow them to function nicely on their own.

Available now, you can license Scandia and Scandia Line in web and desktop formats. For more about each family, visit their respective pages or take a look at their PDF specimens.

More good news on the rendering front. As we promised last May when we improved Colfax Web, Klavika Web, and Klavika Condensed Web, we had other webfonts to refine. And in September we updated several other families with new, manually-hinted versions.

Elena, each Bryant family, and Stratum 1 & 2 have all been significantly improved for screen rendering. These new fonts eliminate many of the irregularities that stem from a browser and operating system’s translation of a font’s design to screen. Now, the design of these typefaces is upheld more consistently when viewed in a browser and readability — a paramount concern — is enhanced.

Elena Web, Before & After

The auto-hinted (top) and manually-hinted (bottom) versions of Elena Web rendered at 24, 20, and 16 pixels by IE 11 in Windows 8.1. A few noticeable improvements: at 24px, the contrast of the ‘a’ is fixed; at 20px, the ‘g’ is truer to the original design; and at 16px, the loopy ‘e’ is straightened.

If you licensed or downloaded any of these webfonts after September, you don’t have to do anything — you’re using the new fonts. Otherwise, log in to your Account and re-download the fonts. Those of you using Typekit, republish your kits that contain these webfonts and the latest versions will be served.

Over the years, we’ve been refining our webfonts for better performance but today we’re happy to announce significant improvements to select fonts. Colfax Web, Klavika Web and Klavika Condensed Web are now manually hinted — for ClearType and greyscale — providing a high degree of readability across browsers. In addition to manual hinting, some character shapes were adjusted to render nicely down to 14 pixels.

So what does this look like? Although auto-hinting can do a decent job, it often fails to describe the nuances of certain character shapes across a range of sizes leaving a typeface perfectly readable at some sizes while leaving others muddy. The examples below show where auto-hinting failed the hardest (on the left) with manual hinting to the rescue (on the right).

Before hinting, on the left; after, right.
From top to bottom: Klavika Web Condensed Regular, Klavika Web Medium and Colfax Web Bold. All samples are set at 14px and rendered by Firefox 28 on Windows 8.

How can I take advantage of the updates?
Download the new fonts. For previous webfont purchasers, start by logging into your account. The font packages have been updated so simply re-download your order. Or, send us a quick request for the new fonts and we’ll email them to you (be sure to include your order number).

Republish your kit on Typekit. If you’re using Typekit, republish any kits containing the updated fonts to use the latest versions.

Up next
The web versions of Colfax, Klavika and Klavika Condensed were the first in line for the updates, but Elena Web, Stratum 1 & 2 Web and Bryant 2 Web are on deck.

We’re pleased to announce the long-awaited release of Elena from type designer and Process Type Foundry partner Nicole Dotin. Designed specifically for text and extended reading, Elena is a contemporary text face well suited for magazines, books and editorial design. Pairing the inspiration of the broad-nibbed pen with a desire for a modern page color, Elena is a face of economical proportions, moderate x-height and spare details.

Available in Regular and Bold with accompanying Italics, each style of Elena is replete with the necessary features one would expect for proper text work like small caps, case sensitive forms and a diverse range of numeral styles including those specifically for small caps. Basic versions start at $39 and full versions at $75.