The Koorkin family is available as a suite of OpenType Pro fonts, allowing for the automatic insertion of ligatures, old style figures and a bevy of alternate characters. “These support the handwritten style of the design,” says George Ryan, Koorkin’s designer. “For instance, a word such as ‘breeze’ set in Koorkin can have three slightly different e’s.” Pro fonts also include an extended character set that supports most Central European and many Eastern European languages – and, in Koorkin’s case, Vietnamese. Ryan, first quickly drew the letters for Koorkin with a felt-tip marker, ensuring that shapes were free-flowing and spontaneous. The result is a playful, full-bodied handwriting script with fluid forms and bold proportions. Koorkin is a delightful confectionary of a typeface design, awash with swashes and deliciously long ascenders and descenders. While strokes are virtually monotone in weight, an ample x-height combined with generous counters guarantees that, even though a handwriting script, Koorkin ranks high on the legibility scale. To give the design added character, Ryan also created a suite of swash and alternate characters that are available in OpenType format. “I added many ligatures and alternate versions of key characters to the character set,” says Ryan. “For instance, a word with an 'ee’ combination can take advantage of a ligature I designed rather than using two of the same e's to do the job. As a result, a word such as ‘breeze’ will have three slightly different e's in it – making the copy look truly handwritten.” With all this personality, Koorkin is at home in such diverse places as posters, restaurant menus, social announcements and product brochures. The complete Koorkin family is available as desktop fonts from the Fonts.com, Linotype.com and ITCFonts.com websites. It is also available as dynamically downloadable Web fonts. Learn more about Koorkin on Fonts.com: http://www.fonts.com/font/monotype-imaging/koorkin

3. “I originally drew the primary characters with a felt tip marker, scanned them and
then proceeded to noodle on the computer,” says George Ryan of his new
typeface, Koorkin. “Over the years, I’ve designed many original typefaces, but Koorkin
has become one of my favorites. I’ve worked on hundreds of highly structured text
faces. For the most part, the roots of all of them can be found in the handwritten
letterforms we learn as children. I enjoy going back to these shapes whenever the
opportunity presents itself. ”The happy result of Ryan‘s felt tip marker sketches and his
love of simple letterforms is a new family of upright and italic scripts in medium and
bold weights.

4. The Koorkin family is available as a suite of OpenType Pro fonts, allowing for the
automatic insertion of ligatures, old style figures and a bevy of alternate characters.
“These support the handwritten style of the design,” says Ryan. “For instance, a
word such as ‘breeze’ set in Koorkin can have three slightly different e’s.” Pro fonts
also include an extended character set that supports most Central European and
many Eastern European languages – and, in Koorkin’s case, Vietnamese.
The name Koorkin? It’s an homage to Ryan’s Armenian father-in-law’s first name.

6. George Ryan is now in his fourth decade of designing
typefaces. In 1978 he was managing the production side of a
quick print shop on Long Island when he decided it was time
to find a better career. “I went on just one interview,” he
says, “and was hired by Mergenthaler Linotype as a ‘letter
drawer’ – a job title I still like.”
After four years at Mergenthaler, Ryan went to work for
Bitstream, where he stayed for 13 years before joining other
Bitstream employees in starting a new digital type foundry
called Galapagos Design Group. In 2003, Ryan left Galapagos
to join Monotype Imaging where, in addition to drawing
original designs like the Koorkin typeface, he works on
custom typeface design projects. Other typefaces from Ryan
include the Oz Handicraft, ITC Kristen, Givens Antiqua and
Wedding Singer designs.