After examining extensive type specimens from wood type, metal type, phototype and digital type, I was not able to find a single design possessing a majority of Baltra's characteristics. Copperplate Gothic, on the other hand, has minimal contrast and uses small capitals for its lowercase. Baltra also has a subtle flair in its otherwise traditional lowercase, while possessing a larger than average lowercase x-height. The font I ended up designing was semi-condensed, with more contrast between thicks and thins than in Copperplate. That level of usage gave me the inspiration to design a display font possessing subtle characteristics of Copperplate Gothic, and various Latin Condensed designs. Caltic (and Lentzers) are the result of seeing what else I could do with the inspiration that sprang from that 1932 newspaper.Īfter researching the type styles contemporary graphic designers have been using over the past few years, I noticed a consistent use of Copperplate Gothic, and its derivative designs, for various corporate advertising campaigns.

My inspiration for them is older, in a newspaper from 1932 that led to the typeface family PoultySign. As long as the user has a word processor that supports the contextual alternatives feature, there is no need for the user to alternate letters the calt feature does it automatically.Although the fonts seem similar to hand-drawn lettering that was done on posters and signs during the hippie era of the 1960s and 1970s, I can find nothing quite like them.

When the letters on the upper-case keys alternate with the letters on the lower-case keys, they fit snuggly together. The Calt refers to the calt or contextual alternative OpenType feature that makes this typeface work. All three come in two widths, regular and wide, giving the Caltic family six members.Caltic has nothing to do with Celts. None are suited for text and with their built-in spacing will not work as all upper-case or all lower-case. Caltic-Straight has letters based on trapezoids with straight sides.

Caltic-Holiday and Caltic-Festival base letter shapes on trapezoids with curved sides but with curves that are reversed going from one to the other. Caltic-Holiday, Caltic-Festival, and Caltic-Straight are three eye-catching, very bold typefaces that are suitable for posters and signage.

Arial baltic font