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Al Fresco Font

Font Id: 29282
Font Name: Al Fresco Font
Font Format: TrueType Mac/Win
Font Family: Al FrescoAl Fresco
Glyphs: 1258
Price: $39.00
Description: Al Fresco is a breezy, light, yet expressive typeface perfect for packaging products and titling work that call for a youthful, delectable flair. Its elegance carries a subtle earthiness; its beauty is unconventional, both stylish and exuberant. Al Fresco is made even more versatile when titling is activated (in the OpenType palette,) served along with swash forms, contextual alternates, and ornaments to sweeten this tasty typeface.

As with my other type designs, Al Fresco doesn’t live in isolation, but evokes a special ambience, era, or lifestyle—in this case, an enviably carefree, chic, and organically trendsetting life, authentic and true to oneself and simply delicious. Naturally, each designer who uses my work filters it through their unique interpretation, imbuing the fonts with a wonderful array of results such as those found on menus, food packaging, branding for light colognes, or young, hip, clothing boutiques. Al Fresco was born in my imagination as an emblem of dining outside at twilight under twinkling lights, laughing warmly with friends, sipping signature cocktails and eating tapas—each bite dripping with intense flavor. In the workday setting, Al Fresco represents a style that is pretty but not dressy: swishy bright flowery skirts and cute little flats. “Business casual,” not cubicle prisoner. After all, Al Fresco comes from the 18th century Italian “in the fresh air.”

For those who are familiar with my Hummingbird typeface, Al Fresco has a more loose and unrestrained feel. I created it using faster strokes, and was unconcerned with convention. After the complexity of my Charcuteries family of typefaces, I longed for simplicity. I returned to simple tools: little felt brush pens with fixed tips, fun to use for practicing lettering. To loosen up after hours of intense design, I wanted to play with forms and tools that were refreshing and clean. Starting with the word “Irresistible,” I began filling pages with letters and words. While I usually start with lowercase letters, my initial focus with Al Fresco’s shape began with strong uppercase letters that set the tone for what I then realized would be my next typeface. While lowercase letters are used more frequently, making Al Fresco’s uppercase letters the focal point added an opportunity for variety and an unconventionality—it can’t really be attributed to any one style. That, in turn, colored the lowercase letters, allowing some “fresh air” into the design. Each word in a type specimen is distinctly different from the words alongside it. Each is a little bit unexpected.

Al Fresco, which includes a User’s Guide, makes ample use of Open Type features. If you activate titling, the loops have been removed from the lowercase ascenders and descenders, giving the typeface a cleaner aesthetic and more contemporary feel. This feature provides you with fonts that are almost a style within a style. 157 lowercase swash forms, 46 ligatures (most of which are purely decorative rather than functional), and 16 ornaments are the cherry on top—or in the case of Al Fresco, the marinated Spanish olive in your martini.

As often discovered in my work, there are always more treasures in the package. In this case, two additional sets of uppercase letters are included. When contextual alternates are activated, you’ll find that ending strokes have been minimized. (Software often turns these on by default.) This additional feature offers a more natural look, adding a slight randomness or quirkiness—a special touch that reveals the warmth and uniqueness of the human hand and mind.
Posted by: Laura Worthington
An accomplished and award-winning typeface and lettering designer, my passion for the craft, devotion to precision as I refine my creations along with my desire to provide designers with type that's rich with personality and versatility combine to form a body of work that offers practicality and aesthetic appeal. Each project is a journey that I undertake with enthusiasm and joyful discovery and gratitude that my background in graphic design, calligraphy and typography have given me the opportunity to focus on what I love to do most. My approach is unusual in that everything from original concept and drawings through production is mine. Rather than collaborate or look to historical predecessors, I craft original, lovingly handmade letters which form the base of my typeface designs.
I offer designs that are infused with both personality and the sense of a milieu or era, a moment captured from time or place and then transformed. Yet, rich as they are, I nearly always provide the tools to make the typeface package expansive with an extraordinary number of alternates, ornaments and other Open Type features that a designer can, in effect, combine to make the typeface reflect their own personal style. My home is in the Pacific Northwest. Nothing makes me happier in my professional life than spending my workday experimenting, conceiving, and painstakingly creating hand lettering for typefaces, sitting, dogs at my feet, surrounded by the trees.
Posted on: Nov 19, 2013
Product Ranking: 16793
Highest Rank Achieved: 83
Licensing available: Desktop, WebFont, Mobile App & ePub

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