It's been a few years since we last refreshed our website, and with the growth of our own Exclusives library, some sections had become burgeoning with information, but unjustifaibly hidden away.

Our fresh new design, with revised site structure and navigation, allows us to bring key tools, such as an opportunity to try out our fonts with TypoGFX, and key resources, such as our Exclusives library and project portfolio, to the fore.

Our library is now the primary reason that many of you visit our site, so we're proud to show it off to the full. It's a vital resource for many modifications and customizations, so please do contact us if you would like to discuss the possibilities for something off-the-shelf, something modified, or even a brand new custom commission.

We have long felt that our Exclusives library lacked bold and brash fonts – fonts that are really in your face. So, we decided to create some really, really heavy weights of designer-favourites Lexia and Plume, for use at titling and display sizes.

We've designed Lexia Advertising for the designer who likes to set dense headlines, to leave as little space unused as possible. The character set includes true small caps and extra numerals, and to top it all we have added non-descending alternates for all the capitals and small caps, and, if that were not enough, accented characters have alternates that allow for non-ascending/descending setting. All of these alternate characters can be accessed through OpenType features, so to make sure you get the most out of the fonts we have created a small PDF explaining how to use OpenType features in InDesign, Illustrator and Quark 8.

Plume Advertising is not as elaborately equipped as Lexia, but it does not need to be. This font is brash and not suited to the same dense treatment as Lexia. Despite the bold weight, Plume Advertising has lost none of the family's elegance and quirkiness. Use Plume Advertising in your work and you will have no trouble attracting attention.

In contrast to the boldness and brashness of the Advertising weights, Verveine is a casual and brisk handwritten font, based on a design by French designer Luce Avérous. We worked closely with Luce to refine the lettering style, being careful to not lose the nervy energy, or the rapid, casual appearance, and to extend the character set to cover Greek and Cyrillic. Our in-house design team also added alternate characters to enhance and enforce the handwritten feel.

As with all Dalton Maag Exclusives the three fonts above feature at least our Standard character set supporting over 100 languages which use the Latin alphabet. Lexia Advertising is available only in a Typographic Edition as any less would seriously diminish the font's functionality and defy its intention. Licences for all our Exclusive fonts are available to buy online. Please contact us if you'd like to discuss volume licensing, OEM licensing, or modification.

The upgrade of Manchester's tram network was an ideal opportunity to also look at refreshing the look and feel of the system as a whole. Not only is Manchester receiving brand new trams, but the livery, station design, and signage, developed by Manchester design consultancy Hemisphere, is bright, fresh, and symbolizes this positive step forward.

Hemisphere invited Dalton Maag to design fonts that complemented the other elements of the new identity. In initial discussions we decided that a sans-serif font would be used for station naming and way-finding, and a serif font for secondary signage and text usage - this clear definition of usage set the parameters for the design work. The fonts needed to be slightly condensed to allow for a higher letter count, and the x-height to be kept deliberately high to retain good legibility despite the condensed appearance. The regular weight of the sans was hinted to allow for use on low resolution devices, such as ticket machines.

The serif design retains the same condensed appearance but its spacing is more relaxed allowing for small size usage. As with the sans, the x-height is kept tall to retain legibility at very small sizes, such as timetables. Many individual design features, such as the capital M with its raised center are applied to both font styles allowing us to retain a very strong family resemblance between the two distinct styles.

The Metrolink font family has been designed with expansion in mind. The design concept allows for growth into more weights and widths, answering the needs as the new identity grows across the different parts of Metrolink’s service.

After the success of the dual-script Latin and Arabic custom font project for Transport Dubai, we have teamed up with Professor Rayan Abdullah of Markenbau to help us develop and deliver more Arabic fonts. We believe that Dalton Maag can make a significant contribution by designing high quality Arabic typefaces which coordinate with their Latin equivalents, but are sympathetic to this rich culture. We already have two font families in development which extend our Co and Cordale font families to the Arabic script, and aim to release both in the coming months.

If you need advice or would just like to know a little more about Arabic fonts and their use please do not hesitate to contact us. We are especially interested in extending our Exclusives library to include more Arabic versions, and in developing dual script custom fonts.