The purpose of the original DIN 1451 standard was to lay down a style of lettering which is timeless and easily legible. Unfortunately, these early letters lacked elegance and were not properly designed for typographic applications. Ever since its first publication in the 1930s, several type foundries adopted the original designs for digital photocomposition.
DIN Text® Compressed Pro
Copyright ©2002
Designer: Panos Vassiliou
The purpose of the original DIN 1451 standard was to lay down a style of lettering which is timeless and easily legible. Unfortunately, these early letters lacked elegance and were not properly designed for typographic applications. Ever since its first publication in the 1930s, several type foundries adopted the original designs for digital photocomposition. By early 2000, it became apparent that the existing DIN-based fonts (which were limited to a few Latin-only styles) did not fulfill the ever-increasing demand for additional styles as well as support for languages other than Latin.
Parachute® was set out to fill this gap by introducing the PF DIN Text type system in 2002, which ever since has become one of the most functional, reliable, convenient and sophisticated DIN series. Based on the original standards, it was specifically designed to fit typographic requirements.
Its letterforms divert from the stiff geometric structure of the original and introduce instead elements which are familiar, softer and easier to read.It was completed in 2002 as a group of 4 families which included condensed and compressed as well as a special display version. In 2010, Parachute® released 4 new families DIN Monospace, DIN Stencil, DIN Text Arabic and DIN Text Universal. Altogether, the Parachute DIN series is a set of 8 original superfamilies with a total of 102 weights. With its vast array of weights, the extended language support, but most of all its meticulous and elaborate design, it has been proved valuable to numerous design agencies. Ever since its first release, it has been used around the world in diverse editorial, packaging, branding and advertising campaigns. It was quoted by Publish magazine as being “an overkill series for complex corporate identity projects”.
The latest compressed version 3.0 includes new glyphs such as the German capital sharp s, Russian rouble, Ukrainian Hryvnia, Azeri and Kazakh letterforms, kerning and enhanced language support in all family variations. The whole PF DIN Text type system includes 51 weights from Hairline to Extra Black including true-italics. Additionally, every font in the Pro series is powered by 270 very useful symbols for packaging, environmental graphics, signage, transportation, computing and fabric care.
Fractions : Figures separated by slash, are replaced with diagonal fractions.
Ligatures: Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph, creating a professional-looking text with no peculiar collisions among letters. This feature covers the standard f-ligatures, as well as few other ones used in normal conditions.
Discretional ligatures: Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph. It differs from the previous feature in the fact that it activates special (non-standard) ligatures for Latin and Greek.
Oldstyle figures : Changes selected figures from the default lining to oldstyle i.e. numbers of
varying height. These are appropriate for use with lowercase text. They come in two different styles:
tabular and proportional. Tabular figures have equal widths (useful for tables, so that numbers line
up from one line to the next) whereas proportional have varying widths and are basically used within a sentence.
Lining figures : This feature changes selected figures from oldstyle to the default lining form. Lining figures are numbers which fit better with all-capital text and they are of the same height as capitals or a bit smaller. They also come in two different styles: tabular and proportional.
Proportional figures : Replaces selected figure glyphs which are set on tabular widths (lining or oldstyle), with corresponding glyphs set on proportional widths (lining or oldstyle).
Tabular figures : Replaces selected figure glyphs which are set on proportional widths (lining or oldstyle), with corresponding glyphs set on tabular widths (lining or oldstyle).
Ordinals : Contextually replaces default alphabetic glyphs which follow numbers with superscripted glyphs and the sequence ‘No’ with the numero character (No). This feature includes Latin as well as Greek lowercase and capital ordinals.
Small Caps: This feature formats lowercase text as small caps. These are not computer generated scaled-down versions of capitals, but rather glyphs which have been designed to match the weight and proportions of the rest of the family characters. They are often used in combination with oldstyle figures, for acronyms and abbreviations and stylistically at the beginning of a paragraph (this feature includes Latin, Greek and Cyrillic small caps).
Small Caps from Capitals: Replaces capital glyphs with small caps (this feature includes Latin, Greek and Cyrillic small caps).
Stylistic Alternates: Replaces non-standard glyphs with alternate forms purely for aesthetic reasons.
Superiors : Replaces lining and oldstyle figures with superior figures and lowercase letters with
superior letters. These superior glyphs are not computer generated scaled-down versions but are rather
redesigned to match the weight of the regular glyphs. Superior figures are used mainly for footnotes
and superior letters for abbreviated titles (this feature includes Latin as well as Greek superior
lowercase and capital letters).
Scientific inferiors : Replaces lining and oldstyle figures with inferior figures. They have been
designed to match the weight of the regular glyphs and sit lower than the standard baseline. Used
primarily for mathematical and chemical notations.
Ornaments/Various Symbols : This feature may replace the bullet or other characters with any of the available ornaments/symbols. All of them are best accessed from the program’s ‘Glyphs Palette’ when available. There is a total of 270 ornaments/symbols included for packaging, public areas, environment, transportation, computers, fabric care, urban life.
1206 glyphs /font
Small Caps, Standard f-Ligatures, Discretionary Ligatures, Oldstyle Figures (tabular/proportional), Lining Figures (tabular/proportional), Superiors (numerals/lowercase letters), Scientific Inferiors, Fractions, Ordinals, Numerators / denominators, Capital spacing, Stylistic alternates, Ornaments/various symbols.
family: €625.00
single weight: €65.00