Publisher: Catharsis FontsMaestrale is a paradigm-breaking new take on calligraphy, developed around a compact, serif-style core and outrageously long, flamboyant extenders. At large sizes, its positive, charming lettershapes are preferably matched for branding and decorative uses, whereas longer texts at smaller sizes naturally weave themselves into a streaming texture. The font comprises 1299 glyphs, consisting of lots of stylistic alternates, ligatures, little capitals, and initial, terminal, and linking kinds, and offers extensive OpenType programming to support them. The calligraphic kind of Maestrale is complemented by a matching text font style (Maestrale Text) with brief extenders, available in three cuts (a serif-style Roman, an upright Cursive, and a slanted Italic).
.Maestrale is everything about the lowercase; its capitals are deliberately understated so as not to take the spotlight. In reality, the font style works extremely well when set exclusively in lowercase. Maestrale's small capitals are suited the core space of the lowercase, enabling them to be freely interspersed with lowercase characters. At the same time, an OpenType feature is available to change a and e in small-caps text with their lowercase equivalents for a fresh unicase look.
.Since alternates and ligatures play such a crucial function, Maestrale offers three various modes of usage. The most simple approach is just to begin typing using Maestrale Pro-- the substantial OpenType programs will guarantee that collisions in between extenders are avoided and appealing ligatures are alternatived to common glyph combinations.
.A more interactive technique is provided by the font Maestrale Handbook, which permits the user to manually choose alternate types and ligatures even in typographically unsavvy applications, such as PowerPoint (as long as basic ligatures are supported). Stylistic alternates are just represented as ligatures of their base forms with several instances of the rarely-used by easily-accessed characters "~" (ASCII tilde) and "'" (spacing tomb accent); linking forms are constructed with "_" (highlight), multi-character ligatures with" |" (pipeline), and initial and terminal types with the "less than" and "higher than" characters. For example, the Maestrale wordmark in the posters above was just typeset with the string (' ma`est|r_a"' l"' e)|in Maestrale Manual (The parentheses represent "less than" and "greater than" characters here.) Do not hesitate to type this string into the test line listed below and see what happens! Ensure Basic Ligatures are enabled. An instruction sheet noting all alternate kinds and their accessibility is readily available from the Gallery tab on this page.
.The third mode of use is focused on expert designers, who make use of advanced software application with substantial OpenType assistance. These power users are recommended to utilize the font style Maestrale Pro again, where all glyphs are available as stylistic alternates.
.Maestrale Text is a less elegant but more flexible variation on the style of Maestrale, replacing Maestrale's swashes with efficiently compact extenders. It is intended to work as a perfectly matching text companion to Maestrale calligraphy, however makes up a full-fledged typeface in its own right. It is equally in your home at display screen sizes as it remains in pull quotes, titles, and high-impact blocks of text. Maestrale Text can be found in 3 complementary faces: A serif-style Roman, an upright Cursive, and a tilted Italic.
.Maestrale is the Italian word for "skillful". It is likewise the traditional Italian name for the northwesterly mediterranean wind, much better known by its French name, Mistral.
.Acknowledgements: I am grateful to the practical souls on the Typophile online forums for extensive feedback and support on Maestrale, and to the TypeDrawers online forum for feedback on Maestrale Text. This typeface is devoted to Simone.
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