Typeface: Cloister Black

The typeface's name is Cloister, but I'll only write about the decorative font Cloister Black. It's based on the gothic scripts that were in common use until the 17th Century. Cloister's roots lie in Venice in the 1470's, and it's distinct in style from the Germanic Fraktur script.

I confess, this is a font that I have never used nor have any intention to use. It's one of the first Bitstream fonts that I encountered in 1989, and all I have done with it is print samples to admire its beauty.

There's an unusually large contrast between the capital letters and the small letters. The capitals are almost twice as wide as the small letters.

Maybe I ought to use Cloister Black. Just look how beautiful my name is. It highlights that some of the capital letters, like the K, the H and even the M have the shape of the small letters.

The capital F, P and Y even have descenders.

The small I and J are dotted with small triangles, while the German special characters are dotted with small squares. Personally, I would have preferred the I and J to have squares as well.

I find it attractive that whoever designed the font for Bitstream made a unique Euro symbol, rather than just adding one or two bars to the capital C.

This is a beautifully artistic font. I could stare at the letters for hours, especially the capitals.