The script version of the typeface Viabella introduces us to the calligraphic side of the Berlin type designer and typographer Karl-Heinz Lange. The sketches for this script typeface, which resulted from the close cooperation with Veronika Elsner and Günther Flake, found their roots in sketch drawings which Karl-Heinz Lange had already drawn in the 1980’s.

For the Viabella design, Karl-Heinz Lange drew the basic letterforms of the Black and Regular cuts with a brush. He then re-worked the drawings and transferred them on to tracing paper. The design studio Elsner+Flake in Hamburg cut these typeface extensions and later digitized them manually with the help of the IKARUS Sustem. With the Regular cut as a basis, Elsner+Flake extended the family with the Light version and interpolated and re-worked the Medium weight. The completion of the family was taken over by the type designer Björn Gogalla who had done the same kind of work on Rotola, a design which Karl-Heinz Lange had also created for Elsner+Flake.

While Viabella was originally conceived as a headline typeface, its lighter weights can certainly be used for shorter text applications. The Black version creates powerful headlines with highly effective accents. With the help of swashes, which are available for all weights, the user can lighten up longer texts and add special character to titles.

In contrast to pure headline fonts, Viabella has been enriched by an extensive complement of special characters. In addition to the Europa-Plus character set which allows setting type in over 70 latin-based languages, the user will find multiple versions of numerals as well as oldstyle figures, tabular and proportional lining figures, diagonal fractions, and a complete set of superior and inferior figures and fractions (60%).

With such a rich character set, Viabella is not only ideal for many different uses in the areas of newspaper, magazine and advertising but it will surely be chosen for the design of greeting cards, invitations and other design projects within the privat sphere.