Somewhere out there a true Guitar Hero is warming up for the riff of the century. To him or her I say: High Voltage is the font for you. High Voltage knows who it is and where it wants to be.

Designer Tobias Sommer has brought blackletter and calligraphic script to play under one chart-topping label. Although built using an earlier version of Rob Meek's Fontstruct, the 80 TrueType characters are crisp enough to drop down to 30 points without the lowercase letters filling in. Full caps, lower case, numerics, and punctuation are included, along with handy fi and fl ligatures--which marry two letter combinations that might mate disastrously on their own. But Sommer didn't stop there. A student in international affairs in Geneva, Switzerland, this designer writes in four languages. Diacritic versions of ä, ö and ü have been added along with the mysterious ß (aka the German Sharp S), which to our eye is a band name waiting to happen.

This font is not destined to play quietly. The calligraphic nature of the forms, paired with a condensed width, makes individual letters hard to distinguish in words longer than six characters and smaller than 48 point. To appreciate what High Voltage can do, turn up the volume past 72 points. Set the word Sacrametalfragilistic, then embellish it with the two ziggy embellishments found by typing # or + . Oh yeah, you're rocking now!

A word on usage: Use this download to brand a dream tour poster or custom cast the chrome detailing for your favorite axe, but remember that High Voltage is covered by a Creative Commons license that specifies non-commercial use only. Thinking something larger? The designer awaits your inquiries.

Note: To use this font, unzip the folder and install the .ttf file in the folder C:\Windows\Fonts. Note that the font won't appear in your applications until you close and re-open them.

--Kate Godfrey