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Greek Font Society 33 Sp. Merkouri Str. 116 34 Athens Greece T: +30 210 725 1979 F: +30 210 725 1979 E: gfs[at]greekfontsociety.gr
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| GFS Didot Didot’s type was the base for a new font, GFS Didot (1994) which was designed by Takis Katsoulidis, and digitised by George Matthiopoulos. The typeface is accompanied by a matching latin alphabet based on Hermann Zapf’s Palatino. |
Download GFSDidotOT updated: 07.September.06 |
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| GFS Bodoni Bodoni’s Greek types were the base for the first experimental font by Greek Font Society, GFS Bodoni (1992-1993), which was designed by Takis Katsoulidis, and digitised by George Matthiopoulos. The typeface is accompanied by a matching latin alphabet. |
Download GFSBodoniOT Download GFSBodoniTT Download GFSBodoni Specimen |
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| GFS Olga In Greece the terms italic and oblique have the same meaning since they are borrowed from the latin typographic practice without any real historical equivalent in Greek history. Until the end of the 19th century Greek typefaces were cut and cast indepedently, not as members of a typefamily. The mechanisation of typecutting allowed the transformation of upright Greek typefaces to oblique designs. Nonetheless, the typesetting practice of a cursive Greek font to complement an upright one did not survive the 19th century. The experimental font GFS Olga (1995) attempts to revive this lost tradition. The typeface was designed and digitised by George Matthiopoulos, based on the historical Porson Greek type (1803) with the intention to be the companion of the upright GFS Didot font whenever there is a need for an italic alternative. |
Download GFSOlgaOT Download GFSOlgaTT Download GFSOlga Specimen
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| FS Neohellenic The design of new Greek typefaces always followed the growing needs of the Classical Studies in the major European Universities. Furthermore, by the end of the 19th century bibliology had become an established section of Historical Studies, and, as John Bowman commented, the prevailing attitude was that Greek types should adhere to a lost idealized, yet undefined, greekness of yore. Especially in Great Britain this tendency remained unchallenged in the first decades of the 20th century, both by Richard Proctor, curator of the incunabula section in the British Museum Library and his successor Victor Scholderer. In 1927, Scholderer, on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Greek Studies, got involved in choosing and consulting the design and production of a Greek type called New Hellenic cut by the Lanston Monotype Corporation. He chose the revival of a round, and almost monoline type which had first appeared in 1492 in the edition of Macrobius, ascribable to the printing shop of Giovanni Rosso (Joannes Rubeus) in Venice. New Hellenic was the only successful typeface in Great Britain after the introduction of Porson Greek well over a century before. The type, since to 1930’s, was also well received in Greece, albeit with a different design for Ksi and Omega. |
Download GFSNeohellenicOT updated: 08.May.06 have added alternate characters for Greek delta, zeta, Epsilon, Xi, Omega Download GFSNeohellenicTT Download GFSNeohellenic Specimen |
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| GFS Artemisia
The type family GFS Artemisia was designed by the painter-engraver Takis Katsoulidis and reflects his style and typographic acumen. It is largely his effort to offer, from a different perspective, a type face which, like Times Greek, would be applicable to a wide spectrum of uses and equally agreeable and legible. The typeface has been digitised by George D. Matthiopoulos. |
Download GFSArtemisiaOT Download GFSArtemisiaTT Download GFSArtemisia Specimen |
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| GFS Theokritos
Yannis Kefallinos (1894–1958) was one of the most innovative engravers of his generation and the first who researched methodicaly the aesthetics of book and typographic design in Greece. He taught at the Fine Arts School of Athens and established the first book design workshop from which many practising artists of the 60's and 70's had graduated. In the late 50's Kefallinos designed and published an exquisite book with engraved illustrations of the ancient white funerary pottery in Attica in collaboration with Varlamos, Montesanto, Damianakis. For the text of Kefallinos' Δέκα λευκαί λήκυθοι (1956) the artist used a typeface which he himself had designed a few years before for an unrealised edition of Theocritos' Idyls. Its complex and heavily decorative design does point to aesthetic codes which preoccupied his artistic expression and, although impractical for contemporary text setting, it remains an original display face, or it can be used as initials. |
Download GFSTheokritosOT Download GFSTheokritos Specimen
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| GFS Elpis
Elpis has been designed in order to be functional even at poor printing conditions. Baring this in mind, Elpis is a robust typeface with a rather tight and clean design so as to be suitable even for inferior paper or low resolution printing. With short ascenders and descenders thus increasing counter size, rounded, sturdy serifs and a humanistic axis, slight antithesis between thick and thin strokes, and its horizontality, Elpis incorporates rhythm and smoothness. The typeface is also accompanied by a set of non-lining figures and supports open type features such as ligatures, small capitals, old style figures, tabular figures and case-sensitive forms. |
Download GFSElpisOT Download GFSElpis Specimen |
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| GFS Pyrsos
This typeface first appeared in the late 20s and was used as an alternative italic type to the most commonly used Greek italics at the time, coming from Germany (Leipsig). The name commemorates the edition of the Greek encyclopaedia Pyrsos (1927-1933) from which the types were taken. |
Download GFSPyrsosOT Download GFSPyrsos Specimen |