Półtawski Nowy is a digitization project the Antykwa Półtawskiego typeface. A key aspect of the design of the digital version of the typeface from 1928 was the approach to the issue of developing the shape of characters from sources. Historical research was carried out in parallel with the preparation of the computer version, which allowed us to learn about the unique story of this most recognizable Polish font design. The Półtawski Nowy type family is intended for typesetting in sizes from 10 to 18 pt. It includes 6 instances (3 upright and 3 italic weights). The project is implemented thanks to the support of the Digital Culture 2020 program of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
In the Półtawski Nowy digitisation, the source of the study were scans of a type specimen book from the Idźkowski i S-ka foundry, a set of drawings, punch patterns and punches made by Monotype in Salfords, Great Britain in 1934-1955. They were made available to us by the Type Archive London. Thanks to the standardization of characters and the balancing of the typographic rhythm, in the digital version, the typeface retains its ornamental character, while working well in smaller text sizes. The basic character set available in the sources has been extended with further variants of diacritics, small caps, subscript and superscript, variants of numbers (tabular, proportional, nautical) and a set of OpenType features.
