Restraint, designed by Marian Bantjes & Ross Mills is an ornament font which happens to contain letterforms.
By applying a precise structure of repetition, be it in multiples of two, three, four, six or eight, concentrically or diagonally, these relatively simple elements support each other into units of higher complexity. In turn, the composed units create ever more complex patterns when repeated in various combinations, which can further be composed into macro patterns. This evolution of elements into structures into patterns yields images analogous to those seen when viewing the world through a microscope, telescope, and kaleidoscope.
This collection of 152 Whirligigs contains 126 concentric illustrations, ten sets of symmetrical borders, and six connecting illustrations. Repeating the connecting illustrations creates an interlocked pattern, which serves as an embedding framework when combined alternately with any of the concentric ones.
Since each illustration, as well as the space bar, is the same width, any combination will yield a perfectly aligned block; borders can be composed by typing the appropriate number of space bars to fill out the void in the frame. This, of course, is just a starting point for Whirligig usage; use your imagination to create a virtually endless variety of textures by combining repetitions of different illustrations."
Says Licko: "I've always been intrigued by patterns; the abstract dot compositions of blown-up halftone photographs, the interference patterns of superimposed grids known as moire, and the shadows of tree leaves on the sidewalk. These were some of the inspirations for the Puzzler patterns."
Some Puzzler elements started as dot grids of various sizes and frequencies, while others started as leaf or floral shapes that were arranged into interlocking compositions. In fact, many came about as happy accidents; some elements looked too random or uninteresting until their repetitions surprised her with unexpectedly fluid patterns.
The elements are arranged into three categories of fonts: Puzzler Halftone, Puzzler Geometric and Puzzler Floral. Each element is accessed through a letter on the keyboard, making it easy to repeat elements with precise scaling and positioning.
These examples show some of the patterns that can be composed with the Puzzler fonts; but the variety is endless."
Dalliance by Frank Heine, 2000
"The additional Flourishes font (Created with inspiration from the 1956 Dover release "Handbook of Early Advertising Art, Typographical Volume." The floral ornaments are based upon the specimens of Wagnerische Buchdruckerei, Ulm, Germany 1765 - 1777, reprinted 1982.) offers a complementary source for enriching texts with ornaments, flowers, rules and lines. The left- and right-hand elements can be easily set in various combinations. Most of these characters can be connected to any Dalliance Script character starting or ending with a link."
