Back in the 12th Annual Fall Fonts Festival we introduced you to Michael Doret, world renowned illustrator and graphic designer who also happened to be launching his milestone font "Metroscript" and "Powerstation" fonts. There's no question why it took him almost three years to get back to us with his latest masterpiece Deliscript.

Although initially inspired by the neon sign in front of Canter's Delicatessen in Los Angeles, the design of Deliscript Upright and Deliscript Slant soon took on its own distinctive look. Like its sibling Metroscript, Deliscript has many features that expand its usability such as the the variable length tails which can be accessed in 6 different styles, and the industry groundbreaking crossbars which can be extended outward in either direction from the lower case "t" made possible only by OpenType technology.

Doret has included and entire collection of special sets of characters like this that lets you cross or underline passages of type. Springing from those character combinations you can set special "WordLogos", and flashy passages that look like it took hours and hours to do by hand. (Click on the sample at right go get a much better view of all these ligatures Michael has included!)

Deliscript also boasts page after page of ligatures and foreign accented characters. Once you've read and studied the manual, you have a recipe for typesetting that approaches the true look of hand-lettering -- and the combinations are virtually unlimited!
See: How to incorporate special ligatures (Open)
See: How to work with special styling (Open)

In an interview at Lettercult* Doret comments:

I just started with the letters for the name Deliscript, and created a sample. this is the only drawing I did. I ended up with these certain letterforms that were in the letters of the name. I just started taking the pieces of these letters and started pulling them apart and reconstituting them into other characters. I never really did do a drawing for Deliscript. All the characters would change a bit as I went through a back and forth process of creating all the letters and characters.

All the features are found in Deliscript's two OpenType fonts. Also included in the same package is a folder of fourteen Deliscript fonts (7 Upright, 7 Slant) specifically designed for those who only have applications that are not OpenType compatible. I cannot over-stress the importance of reading the manual! There you'll find all the intricacies of working with the font and its additioinal features.

In a recent interview, Doret chats about the days of hand lettering:

To my way of thinking, the art of hand lettering was at a low point. We'd gone through the '40s and '50s and into the '60s with tons of lettering being done by hand. I think that discipline was being lost because of photo typesetting—the same way that certain disciplines are being lost today because of the computer. There was hand lettering still being done -- but it didn't excite me. There were what I'd call the Lubalin/Carnase and the Rudolph deHarak schools of lettering and typography.

Deliscript

Download the Deliscript Manual Deli_OT_Manual.pdf
Michael Doret's site: www.michaeldoret.com
Michael Doret's Deliscript blog entry and blog

Great thanks to Michael Doret and others for sharing this with us today! Please, don't forget to send in* your masterpieces created with Deliscript! Next time, we'll delve further into Michael's fonts bag and look at another revival font from the Art Deco period Grafika. Until then, keep on fonting, and of course... thanks for reading

The Official Type for the 12th Anniversary Fonts Fest Metroscript Font
Michael Doret's wonderful Power Station Font

Citations above came from:
* Alex Savakis's MICHAEL DORET INTERVIEW at lettercult.com
Visit Alex Savakis's site: www.agsavakis.com