Art Deco Font Collection
Our new Art Deco font collection includes a remarkable selectiion of fonts from the design movements of the 1920s and 1930s, focusing on the kinds of fonts which were generally associated with the decorative arts movement which developed out of the Arts and Crafts movement. More...Wild West Fonts
Our Wild West font collection features 14 fonts based on designs from the classic days of the American West (1870-1890). They are typical of the type and lettering styles used in signs, circulars, posters and newspapers during that era. The selection includes both decorative, display and text fonts. All the fonts are historically accurate and they are not available from any other source. While they are basically fonts of the Victorian era, they represent a subset of the typefaces popular in that period particularly slanted to the environmnet of the wild west, frontier newspapers and wild west shows.More...Pre-Raphaelite Collection
The art of the Pre-Raphaelites recreated classical and legendary themes, fascination with architectural elements and realistic drapery, and the use of models who fit a particular style and appearance, usually with thick, curly hair and voluptuous figures. Our Pre-Raphaelite collection features select images from the most prominent artists of the movement in high-resolution suitable for use in print.More...The Baby’s Opera Collection
Or latest collection based on one of Walter Crane's childrens book is our comprehensive presentation of The Baby’s Opera, Crane's compilation of childrens songs (including music and lyrics) with detailed illustrations, hand lettering and clever decorations on every page. Many of the designs and motifs can easily be extracted for use in your own designs. More...Text Fonts Collection
You've got to have text fonts, so wny not make them interesting and unique rather than the same old boring set that come with every computer. Our Text Fonts Collection has more variety and more style than you'll find anywhere else. More...Howard Pyle Fonts and Art
Howard Pyle was one of the most renowned illustrators of the 19th century. His work was widely published in adventure novels, magazines and romances. He was the founder of the Brandywine school and artists colony in Chadd's Ford Pennsylvania, where he taught artists like N. C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover and Thornton Oakley their craft. Our Pyle collection includes a large selection of Pyle's art and designs plus original fonts based on his hand lettering. More...Medieval Fonts and Art
In the Middle Ages the demand for written documents required new and better forms of writing, styles which were readable, consistent, efficient to produce, and sometimes decorative as well. This package features a selection of fonts and art based on designs from the Middle Ages, emphasizing the years from 1100 to 1400. The 25 fonts include versions of the major popular lettering styles of this period and the art includes beautiful borders, frames and other decorative elements based on medieval designs. DETAILSThe Lady of Shalott
Howard Pyle’s illustrated edition of Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott is probably the single greatest expression of book design in the American arts and crafts movement of the late 19th century. This early Pyle work combines his vivid illustrative style with exceptional decoration and lettering into a modern illuminated masterpiece. Our Lady of Shalott CD package has every page from the book in high resolution format, including the decorated verses, the full-page illustrations and the embellished titles and flyleaves. It also includes extracted and instantly usable versions of the initials, illustrations background patterns, borders and frames from the book. DETAILSArt Nouveau Collection
This collection brings together all of our best fonts based on Art Nouveau period designs into an extensive collection, with over 30 unique fonts, including text, title faces and even decorative initials. This includes new fonts created just for this package plus classics in the Art Nouveau tradition. It also features a bonus collection of frames and borders based on designs from magazines and books of the period. Altogether it makes the ultimate resource for Art Nouveau style design. DETAILS2009 Sampler
About once a year we release a special sampler package with a collection of selected fonts and art from our most recent and forthcoming packages, including some unique items not available anywhere else, all brought together as an overview of what we've been up to at the Scriptorium during the past year at a special, extremely low price. This latest sampler has four complete new fonts, 15 demo fonts and a special selection of art and graphics which includes a special set of illustrations of Celtic mythology by Katherine Cameron. DETAILSViking Fonts and Art
This collection presents calligraphy and art based on the traditions of historic Germanic cultures. It draws on the broad scope of early Germanic design, from the pre-Christian era through the early middle ages, including not just Scandinavia, but other elements of Germanic culture from the Franks to the Saxons to the Normans and beyond. The main component is a collection of historic fonts which is complemented by a unique set of historic borders and motifs, plus art based on Viking myth and legend. DETAILS.Gothic Fonts
A collection of our best fonts based on gothic type and late medieval calligraphy. It covers the range from the historical styles in which gothic printing had its inspiration to the ornate heights of complex gothic fonts from 19th century Germany. This includes fonts in the style sometimes called 'Old English', as well as what calligraphers sometimes call 'Black Letter'. If you like your fonts dark, angular and complex, this is your dream collection. DETAILSJoyeuse
Joyeuse is one of our earliest developments of a really high-end font. It is based on samples of early 20th century metal type derived from a popular variant of William Morris' Troy Typewhich deviated a lot from the original source design, but has much of the same stylish gothic revival look and feel. We originally released Joyeuse in 1992 and have done several revisions and updates since then. It was developed to fit in our Master Fonts series of fonts designed for expert typography. In the years since then it has seen a lot of use in print publishing and is especially popular for internal titles and chapter headers. Joyeuse includes an expanded foreign language character set, lots of special characters and custom designed bold and italic styles. It is available as a single font or in one of our Master Fonts collections and is also included in our Holiday Fonts and Art package. You can try the demo version for free, or order the full version online. Structura
In these hard times it seemed appropriate to harken back to even harder times, so if you feel a yearning to sit in a freezing garret and contemplate the relationship between art and the state, we have the font to use in the poster for your next exhibit of art made from girders and old boilers. Our Structura font is inspired by the designs of Russian post-futurist artists of the Constructivist movement in the early 1920s, like Sergei Eisenstein and Alexander Rodchenko, who sought to glorify the state and industrialization through their work under the auspices of the Commisariat of Enlightenment. While they rejected the idea that art should be liberating and imaginative, they still managed to produce some striking -- if rather stark -- images in forms like posters and murals which were designed to reach a broad proletarian audience. This is a revised new release of Structura with various tweaks and improvements, an expanded character set including not just foreign language characters, but also some alternative character forms, particularly for the bauhaus-style "w" which some users found confusing. You can get the full version of the new release of Structura from our ordering site or try out the demo version for free to see if you like it.Tuscarora
We first released Tuscarora in the early 90s based on samples of rough hand-drawn poster lettering. It became very popular and ended up being used as the basis of the Beynkales font which was used in the movie Corpse Bride. The original Tuscarora has a more dramatic look than Beynkales and we've enhanced this new release with additional alternate characters and a full set of foreign language characters. But most of all, it remains a fun, wild font which is great for a lot of uses. You can download and try the demo version of Tuscarora in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font with the new characters and features is available from our ordering site.Melusine
Melusine is based on an ornate style of gothic calligraphy used primarily in decorative signs and advertising in Germany around the turn of the century. It has many of the characteristics of a true medieval gothic hand, but is a more elaborate, extreme variaton on the style. It is one of the fonts featured in our Gothic Fonts package. Melusine was first released ten years ago this month, so it was due for an update. This new release has an expanded character set and several improved and tweaked characters. It was quite popular when we first released it and it deserves a second look.You can download and try the demo version of Evadare in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font with the new lowercase is available from our ordering site.Evadare
Evadare is a stylish text font which we originally released in 2002. It is based on a character set which was hand calligraphed by Rudolf Koch, which take a stylized approach to the idea of a classical Roman-style font. Evadare is both readable and full of personality. This new release of Evadare upgrades the original substantially, adding an expanded character set and custom bold and italic versions of the font. The italic is particularly stylish, with some script-like characteristics which make it very distinctive. And now all three styles are available in a single package at a reasonable combined price. The demo version combines the standard uppercase with the custom lowercase from the italic version. You can download and try the demo version of Evadare in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font with the new lowercase is available from our ordering site.Windlass
Since it's original release in 1996 Windlass has been one of our most successful fonts. It has appeared in many publications, from merchandising for Disney's Pirates of the Carribean to the labels of tins of Biscotti. It includes nautical icons as bonus characters, including silhouettes of sailing ships, pirate flags and compass roses, plus lots of alternate character forms with extended swashes. The oriignal version of Windlass was unusual because it included a set of custom small-caps instead of a lowercase character set. This was part of its unique look, but over the years some have lamented the lack of lowercase characters, so with this new release of Windlass we've added a second version of the font called Windlass Lowercase, which as the name suggests has a full set of stylistically compatible lowercase characters. Like the uppercase and the small caps they are rough-cut with an antique poster look. You can download and try the demo version of Windlass in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font with the new lowercase is available from our ordering site.Boswell
We've brought back a lot of classic fonts for a second look, but few of them are as interesting as Boswell, our classic regency-period text font based on extensive samples of type from the first edition of Boswell's Corsica, a very rare book which we happen to have in our library and from which we developed an accurate typeface which includes not only a full multi-lingual character set, custom bold and italic, but also a large and varied set of alternate characters in various degrees of decay and distress. If you want to reproduce the look of antique typesetting, the Boswell font will exceed all of your expectations. If you want to reproduce the look of antique typesetting, the Boswell font will exceed all of your expectations. You can download and try the demo version of Boswell in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.Spiral Initials
It's St. Patrick's day and with all our Celtic Fonts, when it came time to dig up a classic font to present for this week the obvious choice was to look to our large catalog of Celtica. So the best choice was obviously one of several celtic fonts which aren't yet in any of the packages, Spiral Initials. It's an origianl design which combines a bold celtic lettering with classic celtic spiral motifs. As demonstrated in the sample, it's ideally suited to adding color to the initials. Although Spiral Initials is not in one of our current celtic packages it's in a forthcoming third celtic collection which is in development. You can download and try the demo version of Spiral Initials in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.Brigidis
Brigidis is a classic Celtic font with a unique look which is actually somewhat reminiscent of Church Slavonic as seen in our Patriarch font, or late roman rustic calligraphy like our Carinthia font. It's based on hand lettering by Rudolf Koch derived from medieval manuscript sources. It's very stylish and unusual, with especially tall and narrow character forms. The character set includes custom small-caps as well as the basic characters. In addition to being available as an individual font, Brigidis is also included in our Celtic Fantasy package. You can download and try the demo version of Brigidis in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.
MapMaker Collection
Making functional and attractive maps is a very specialized skill, prized by game designers, roleplayers and artists. To make exceptional maps, you need to have the right tools. Our MapMaker font and art package provide the fonts, textures and emblems which make drawing floorplans and developing stylish world and regional maps a breeze. Our map resources are based on the designs of classic cartographers like Abraham Ortelius and Johan Hondius give your maps a unique antique look which will inspire the imagination.
The core of the collection is the extraordinary collection of more than fifteen original fonts specially created for cartographic design. They include fonts for mapping terrain, fonts of complete building plans, fonts for designing buildings and a selection of cartographic lettering fonts.
Basilica is a font of architectural elements fordesigning floorplans of churches, castles, houses and other buildings. It includes a variety of wall thicknesses, windows, doors, stairs and other essential pieces which you can easily assemble in any graphics or desktop publishing program to create impressive, easy to understand layouts for anything from a hut to a palace to a house by house map of a city.
The characters in Ortelius can be combined to make traditional geographical maps in an antique style. They include segments of coastline and rivers which can be combined in thousands of different patterns, plus city, town and fortification emblems, terrain symbols, compass symbols and everything else you need for a high-quality map of your world or key parts of it.
Our Landscape fonts are a pair of fonts containing landscape symbols, images and textures ideal for adding details to your maps and plans, such as trees, rocks, terrain features and other important elements of the environment. It’s excellent for architectural plans and building layouts.
Cityscape is mainly a decorative font, but it can add flair to your maps and plans. Each character is the silhouette of a building and they can be combined to create a complete panorama of a city. Samarkand is a decorative building silhouette font like Cityscape, but with a middle eastern theme. It includes mosques and towers and all the elements of a medieval islamic city.
Our three floorplan fonts include Temples, Castles and Houses. Each font includes a large selection of complete building floorplans which you can access with a few key clicks. Plans include original designs and notable historic buildings, mostly medieval and renaissance designs. The floorplans of temples, churches and cathedrals are particularly impressive.
The package also includes a selection of fonts for doing the titles and labels on your maps, plus several select highly decorative cartographic calligraphy fonts. The six main title fonts were selected for readability and for their historical accuracy for the era of exploration.
Brandywine is based on the lettering of Howard Pyle and is very clear and readable in small sizes, despite having a hand-drawn look. Queensland is a bold, hand-drawn italic font ideal for titles and captions. Windlass is a bold titling font with an antique look ideal for headings and large captions. In some of the alternate character locations it includes decorative map elements with a pirate theme. Buccaneer is based on hand lettering by Howard Pyle for his Book of Pirates. Walsingham is very similar to the lettering style favored by 16th century English mapmakers. Pavane is similar to the style of continental mapmakers like Abraham Ortelius. All six fonts are versatile and are similar to typefaces and lettering styles used on historical maps of the 15th and 16th centuries. Also featured in the package are the new fonts Platthand, John Speed and Hexmap.
The LITE version of the package includes just the fonts for only $59. The PLUS version includes all the fonts, plus a large selection of color design elements and over a hundred antique maps for only $89. The current release is the new 5th edition of the package. Just ORDER ONLINE.
To get an idea of what our MapMaker fonts are like, try out the demo version of our Floorplan fonts. It combines selected floorplans from all three of our Floorplan fonts. You might also want to check out a set of sample maps or try our map design tutorial.
Classic Font: Gaiseric
We first released Gaiseric back in 1998. It was developed from samples of stylized gothic calligraphy, redrawn freehand in a rough style to give an extra antique look. Stylistically it derives from fonts like our more historic Melusine font, but it has a more fanciful, artistic look. Ths makes it perfect for inclusion in our forthcoming Fairy Fonts and Art package which is scheduled for release this Spring. This updated version of Gaiseric includes a full standard upper and lower case character set plus numbers, punctuation and variant versions of many of the upper case characters.
You can try the demo version of Gaiseric for free, or order the full version online.
Poll: Publishing Art Book Reprints
We’ve received a number of requests to do facsimile book reprints of some of our antique illustrated books like Pan Pipes by Walter Crane and The Lady of Shallott by Howard Pyle. The books would be printed in full-color, soft-bound and would be page for page reproductions of the entire text and illustrations of the source works. The books would be between 36 and 60 pages long and similar to the PDF versions which we have available of some of these books already, except in printed form.
Your answer will help us determine whether this is a project worth undertaking. It’s instant market research!
Dave
Percy Jackson: The Lighning ThiefFeaturing the Windlass Font
A few months ago we noted that our Windlass font was being used for the titles on the long-running series of Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan. Now the first movie based on the book series is premiering (February 12th) and the main title is very nicely done with Windlass and featuring some nice customization including a flaming trident in place of the Y. The title graphic appears in both of the currently available previews and I hope that it is also being used in the movie itself.
The movie itself looks like a lot of fun, with very impressive special effects and an excellent cast including Pierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman, Sean Bean and Kevin McKidd. The concept of the books is that the ancient Greeg gods were real and survive undercover in the modern world and that their modern offspring have inherited some of their powers. Jackson and his demigod friends have to fight various mythological foes to figure out who stole the power of Zeus’ lightning bolt. The books were written for teens, but the movie looks so good that it should appeal to a broader audience. The film is directed by Chris Columbus who has had hits and misses, but usually does a decent job with this sort of material as he did with the first two Harry Potter films.
So check out the film when it opens next month, and don’t forget to check out the recently updated and expanded Windlass font as well. It now has an expanded character set, more variant characters and a full lowercase character set.
New Font: Antrobus
Antrobus is a new font based on hand lettering in a style which draws on horror movie title lettering, urban graffiti and even art nouveau poster titles like those by Alphons Mucha. The cahracters are tall and thin and tapered towards the base, with rough outlines and softly squared corners. The look is unusual and dynamic and well suited to things like band posters and grunge album covers. Antrobus includes a full upper case character set with numbers and punctuation, plus a custom designed small caps set with some interesting character form variations.
You can download and try the demo version of Antrobus in TrueType format for Mac or PC. You can also order the full version online for immediate download: BUY IT NOW.
Political Fonts Package
It’s time for politics, with primaries coming up this Spring and the big mid-term elections in the fall. That means that candidates and protesters and marching activists all need posters and we have the fonts to make them look good and draw the eye. Whether you’re standing outside a milk subsidies townhall or marching for ferret liberation or making posters for your campaign for Supreme Overlord of the Universe, these are the fonts you need.
The key to designing fonts for political posters is that they be highly readable from a distance, with good, clear open spaces and relatively bold lines. Most of the time you only want to use one or two fonts on a poster, but it’s good to have some variety to choose from. You want to have access to fonts which are unique so that your posters don’t look just like all the others, but they can’t be too unique because that will make you look peculiar. Most candidates aren’t running on the Freak Power Party ticket or the Feudal Monarchist ticket, so psychedelic fonts and medieval gothic fonts are right out. What you want are fonts which tread the fine line between the ubiquitous and the unique.
The package includes 10 specially selected fonts. These include both serif and sans serif fonts, extra bold fonts, some special narrowly customized fonts as well as two italic fonts stylistically compatible with the other fonts which are included. It also includes a special new image font called Campaign which features a nice selection of political images and emblems.
Madding, Aventine and Bastion are excellent for putting the name of a candidate in large letters in the middle of a poster. All three are hard to ignore and they offer a ncie set of choices. Albatross, Walsingham and Langhorne are well suited to smaller text for information about the candidate or slogans. Alexandrine and Atkinson Egyptian are there if you want something somewhat lighter and more open and Hamilton is a unique bold and narrow font if you need to fit a longer name in smaller space.
The Political Fonts package is available for order right away with immediate online delivery, or you can get it sent on CD the old fashioned way. You can also order any of the fonts individually from the Single Fonts section of our ordering site and you can order the full package HERE. The complete package is only $49.
Demo versions of several of these fonts are available online, including Atkinson Egyptian, Aventine, Alexandrine and Madding.
On the Shelves: New Boardgames
First to catch my eye was the massive box of the fantasy boardgame Descent: Journeys in the Dark from Fantasy Flight Games. It’s another in the great tradition of quest-style games which combine elements of fantasy roleplaying with boards and cards and in this case some pretty fancy miniature figures. The production values are outstanding and part of that is their use of our Valdemar font. Interestingly, even though Valdemar comes with a wide variety of alternate characters, they stuck to the most basic letter forms, though it’s still a good choice for the main and interior titles. Descent has several supplements available, all of which also use Valdemar.
Windlass or Buccaneer fonts, passing over what is really our most piractical font, Captain Kidd. Days of Wonder’s game Pirate’s Cove breaks that trend by making excellent use of the Captain Kidd font. The game is relatively simple and suitable for younger players, but still involves some complex strategy. Days of Wonder also publishes Shadows Over Camelot which uses our fonts extensively, particularly Scurlock.
So head down to your local game store and check out these new games. If the game play lives up to the quality of the graphic design, you can’t go wrong.
Classic Font: Brandywine
Brandywine is one of our favorite older fonts. It’s based on a hand lettering style used by legendary American artist Howard Pyle for a number of his books, including Pepper and Salt and The Lady of Shalott. It’s a uniquely readable style in the Arts and Crafts tradition, with open characters and variations in letter positioning which make it interesting. The font also includes a small set of frames which can be positioned around the capital letters to create decorative initials. Since it was first released in 1998 it has been enormously popular, used in video and board games and in book designs.
This version is a new and revised and much improved release which is available by itself with a standard character set, or in an expanded edition with not only a special character set for Eastern European languages, but also including a complete Cyrillic character set for Russian and related languages.
You can try the demo version of Brandywine for free, or order the standard version or the international version online.
Display Fonts Collection
Starting in the 19th century with the explosion of popular entertainment and popular-oriented art forms, one of new form of art was the design of posters and advertisements intended to catch the imagination and generate special interest in the audience. From the advertising found in magazines and decorative fronticepieces in books to the poster art movement in France, a consciousness emerged that type and lettering could be decorative and artistic and eyecatching in a way which had previously never really been considered.
The concept of display and ornamental type started with newspaper and poster designers taking regular text styles and using them in enormous sizes, or developing italic or slightly embellished styles for emphasis within text. From these beginnings designers began to experiment with what they could do to make titles stand out even more, starting with extra bold or exaggeratedly weighted styles and increasingly more decorative and ornamental styles. Many of these early titling faces took on characteristics of traditional calligraphy, because it was the only decorative lettering which many designers were familiar with, or looked like text faces expanded and transformed.
By the middle of the 19th century type designers were experimenting with all sorts of onramental type, particularly for use in advertising and in specialized books aimed at an increasingly intellectual middle class market. Much of this type partook of the characteristics of calligraphy, but it was increasingly complex and decorative beyond the scope of simple pen-strokes.
One of the innovators in this period was William Morris, who launched the Arts and Crafts movement, which included among its interests the development of new and visually striking styles of lettering and typography, such as Morris’ own Troy type and the unique lettering of artists like Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Walter Crane.
In the last two decades of the 19th century Art Nouveau spread across Europe, emerging from the Arts and Crafts movement, but attracting a much larger popular audience. Decorative type and lettering was a major element of the Art Nouveau movement, which had strong ties to the performing arts and other visual arts which required publicity in the form of advertisements and posters.
The Art Nouveau movement spurred a renaissance in font design, but much of the art of the period was expressed in unique designs which were never made into typefaces at that time. Hand-lettered posters and advertising titles by artists like Alphons Mucha were in great demand, and the Poster Art movement grew out of Art Nouveau and the poster became the major new medium for popular art by the end of the 19th century.
The hand-lettering of Mucha influenced many other artists and designers and when Mucha returned to his native Czechoslovakia he spurred a renaissance of art and design in eastern Europe, which eventually developed into the cubist and futurist movements in art which had a great influence on designers around the world in the period
between the two world wars.
Today there is still a great demand for new and unusual display fonts. They are essential to advertising in every media, because they draw attention and give a product a signature look which sets it apart from the competition. Advances in desktop publishing have also made it possible to introduce a greater variety of fonts for titling in publications, both in print and online. As a result display fonts are available in great diversity, offering every kind of look for every kind of use.
Because the basic function of display fonts is to do titles and label things, they may not have the same character set as traditional text fonts. Display fonts often only have either upper or lower case characters, and usually don’t have extended punctuation beyond what’s normally called for in titles. They are also often designed to be bolder or more ornate than text fonts, often to an exaggerated degree, and as a result they may only really be readable at large sizes and are often poorly suited to text use. Virtually anything can be a display font, from the weirdest degenerated style to the most intricate and complex artistic fantasy.
The Scriptorium’s collection of display fonts offers exceptional variety. We have fonts based on Art Nouveau designs, early Victorian styles, hand poster lettering by artists like Alphons Mucha and unique original fonts you won’t find anywhere else. We offer over 80 display faces, all of which are available in TrueType or Postscript format for Macintosh and PC-compatible computers. They are available singly for between $5 and $15 each, or as part of discounted packages. We currently have 10 display font samplers available for $25 each, with 8 fonts in each package. We are also offering a new display font CD package for only $129. It includes all of our display fonts, including the very latest releases.
Our single fonts and font samplers can be ordered online, by mail or by phone for delivery online or by mail. The special display fonts CD can also be ordered online or by any other means and is deliverable by mail on CD or by convenient download.
To see a large selection of individual display fonts which can be ordered online and downloaded CLICK HERE
To order the complete Display Fonts collection CLICK HERE
To order by phone call 1-800-797-8973.
To get an idea of what our display fonts are like, try out the demo version of our Dromon font. It should give you a good idea of what our display fonts can look like on your computer.
Download Deomon for Windows or for Macintosh.
Bare Shelves and Bleak Futures at Borders
I went into my local Borders bookstore this weekend because I heard that Pyr had just released the latest book by legendary Science Fiction author Mike Resnick. The book is called Flagship
and it is the conclusion of a five-book series of classic space opera set in Resnick’s Birthright universe. The first four books have been extraordinarily well written and a joy to read and I have been looking forward to this final volume for months. Amazon lists the release date as December 22nd and I had heard from the author that it was available in bookstores before Christmas, so I expected to be able to cruise into my local Borders and pick up a copy.
Not so. Much to my chagrin they didn’t have it on the shelves in Science Fiction or in the new releases section — which seemed to mostly be reprints. In fact, it was nowhere to be found. Nor did they have any of the previous volumes in the series, though they are still in print. When I went to ask a clerk whether they had copies on order and when they might be getting them, he didn’t just tell me they were delayed by the holiday or backordered, he explained that for reasons which were above his level someone had made the decision not to carry Flagship
Ok, so now I’m just bitching because they didn’t have my book and I’m going to have to order it from Amazon and wait two days and be mildly inconvenienced, boo hoo. But there’s more to it than that. As I wandered the stacks in dismay I noticed some changes at my local Borders. First off, there were far fewer actual books on the shelves. They’ve expanded the space for non-book products and reduced the space for actual books. Then there’s a problem with what’s actually on the shelves. Apparently there’s no room for Flagship
When one type of book comes to dominate the market every other genre and preference in literature suffers, and I’ve never before seen the kind of market dominance which has been seized by supernatural romance novels, especially those involving vampires. Some of these novels are good. My wife and daughter read them and I’ve even read a few. But most are not. I suppose it’s the Twilight effect, and like that series most of them are not terribly well written, imaginative or interesting. They’re just the same old formulas dressed up with a little magic, fangs and a cape. And it’s not just that they’re squeezing marginal or obscure works off of the shelves. Resnick’s books have been performing well at Amazon by any standard, but if you look at the list of top-sellers in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres, out of the top 100 books at least 65 fall into the sub-genre of supernatural romance. That’s really an unprecedented share of the market. Like a lot of great science fiction authors, Mike Resnick used to make ends meet writing adult novels and romances. Maybe he’ll have to don a pseudonym and purple pen again if he wants to stay on the shelves.
Of course, the key to the changes at my local Borders is that these novels are profitable. They sell regardless of the quality, on the strength of the cover and the name of the author and the popularity of the genre. It leaves us nerdy middle aged guys grousing around the store muttering about the decline of literacy and ending up looking for solace in the non-fiction section or going home and thanking the internet gods for the existence of Amazon where we can buy anything we want. I’m also thankful for print-on-demand which has let small, specialty publishers keep some excellent but less commercially viable authors in print in an unfriendly market. So for now I can still get my books, even if wandering the stacks and reading the flyleaves has become obsolete.
Clearly internet shopping also plays a role in this. Publishers aren’t working quite as hard to sell second-tier writers to the bookstores when they know they can sell to the established fan base through online outlets. Some publishers like Tor and Baen have become really masterful at this, building online communities and essentially mentoring new writers in the process.
We’re also on the verge of seeing substantial market impact from electronic books which are now available from Apple and Amazon and other sources to be viewed on your Amazon Kindle or Sony Book Reader or even your iPhone. I think this is a great boon to optometry and the sale of reading glasses to younger and younger audiences, but the things actually seem to be popular. Someone has been working on this for a while and there’s already a huge back-catalog of classic literature and everything new also comes out in this format when it is released. The growth of this technology is getting a big boost from Amazon which is offering scads of new releases for free if you download the Kindle version, which helps offset the somewhat inflated cost of the readers.
With this new techology, those of us who don’t want to read about busty vampire hunters and their dark and forbidden lovers, are going to be even farther out in the cold, as books that aren’t at the top of the sales lists are going to be harder and harder to find in printed form. A printed book is so much more expensive to produce than an electronic edition that there has to be an enormous pull for financially strapped publishers to move in that direction. It won’t be long before I have to read the books I want to read in that format, but I’m going to miss holding a printed work in my hands and feeling the rough paper on my fingers and the solidity of the boards and binding. Hey, that gives me an idea. I can hollow out obsolete printed books and turn them into holders for Kindles. You’ll still have the feel of your real book and women who like vampire romances will think you’re all antique and literary in a dark and sexy way. We can hope, anyway.
Borealis Font
Borealis is based on samples of advertising lettering from the 1930s with a strong Art Deco influence but a unique almost futuristic look. The characters are formed from very fine hand-drawn lines reminiscent of our Ducatus and Broadley fonts. Drawing a font like this with such regular lines and curves is extremely challenging and demands a great deal more attention than traditional fonts where broader strokes and heavier weights give some room for variation. With lines this thin and precise everything has to be perfect from the width of the lines to the balance of the curves. The end result is a stylish and distinctive font with a look that's great for logos or custom title designs. You can download and try the demo version of Borealis in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available if you want to BUY IT NOW.Alexandrine Font
I keep trying to come up with the perfect title font and while I'm not sure I'll ever accomplish it, the process produces a lot of interesting fonts. The latest of these is Alexandrine. It was inspired to some degree by our recent Madding font, and also by the character forms in Illuminata. The idea was to take the general look of Illuminata, tone it down and make it less extreme and more usable for titles and even some text uses. In doing this I borrowed some ideas from Madding, but moved away from the Art Deco look of that font towards the cleaner look of Illuminata. The result works well. It's attractive, readable and very modern. You can download and try the demo version of Alexandrine in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available if you want to BUY IT NOW.Cascade Font
In looking through our fonts for something to use on a project my teenage daughter complained that we don't have enough fonts which feature characters with decorative inside the character form. We have a lot of decorative initials, but only a few fonts where the decoration is inside the character rather than surrounding the character. The two most notable examples are the medieval font Florimel and the celtic font Padstow which only has selected decorated characters. You can download and try the demo version of Cascade in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available if you want to BUY IT NOW.Madding Font
We're in an ongoing quest to make the perfect poster font — something bold and hard to ignore, but also different and with character. We had some success with Aventine, but it was too generic. So we kept working on the concept and the result is the new Madding font, a bold poster font with a bit of an art deco look. It has what it takes to get noticed and enough character to stand out from the crowd. It's available now as a single font, but will also be featured in our forthcoming Art Deco fonts package. You can download and try the demo version of Madding in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available if you want to BUY IT NOW.Glastonbury Font
Glastonbury is a font we custom designed for St. Albans School. It is named after the Glastonbury Thorn, an unusual tree planted at the front entrance of the school, which legend says grew from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea when he arrived in England. The current tree at St. Albans is a cutting from an older tree planted there many years ago which came from a cutting of the original tree in Glastonbury in England. With the thorny spurs on the font, naming it after the legendary tree seemed appropriate, plus the story of Joseph of Arimathea and his association with the holy grail fit well with my fascination with Arthurian legend. You can download and try the demo version of Glastonbury in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available if you want to BUY IT NOW.Changeling Font
Changeling is based on Fanny Railton's caption lettering from her illustrated edition of Midsummer Nights Dream. It has two complete sets of variant uppercase characters plus additional variants of a number of key characters. It's stylistically reminiscent of Howard Pyle's caption lettering in the Brandywine font with the same kind of arts and crafty hand-penned look. You can download and try the demo version of Changeling in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available if you want to BUY IT NOW.Krasny Mir Font
Working on revisions to Structura a few weeks ago brought the whole topic of Russian poster art to the surface and it seemed like a good time to do a font based on typical poster lettering from soviet-era propaganda posters. The result is Krasny Mir, a new font which combines the look of super-bold cyrillic letters with some nice special features, including a set of capital initials with star embellishments and selected alternate character forms. We were going to name the font Red Star, but discovered there was already another font with that name, so we went with Krasny Mir which is fun because both words have double meanings in Russian, which means they combine into four different possible names. You can download and try the demo version of Krasny Mir in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available if you want to BUY IT NOW.Rockne Font
Rockne is based on samples of mid-20th century wood type in a style which was clearly an influence on the poster lettering of the 1960s as demonstrated in our Butterfield, Harbinger and Pantagruel. It clearly comes out of the Art Nouveau tradition, and with wood type already obsolete at the time the font was made, it presents a chronological anomaly and seems to fit in the gap between the art nouveau period and the psychedelic art movement. You can download and try the demo version of Rockne in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.Rasael Font
We started work on the Rasael script font early last year, but because of the complexity and fine lines of the characters it took a long time to complete, with some breaks to work on easier projects. The end result is worth the wait, with an elegant combination of calligraphic and script elements which make it rather like a more refined cousin of our Pavane and Azariel fonts, which are part of the Script Fonts Package, which Rasael will eventually be added to. Like almost all of our script fonts, Rasael takes its name from the name of a minor angel. You can download and try the demo version of Rasael in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering siteFoundry Ornaments
It's been a dog's age since we featured an art font, so here we go. Foundry Ornament is a decorative art font based on cast metal type printers ornaments. The images have a heraldic theme, with gryphons and lions and other mythical creatures. They include images suitable for marginalia and page decoration as well as for use as repeating borders. The font is very compatible in style with our Monumental Gothic font and also fits well with some of our other ornament fonts like Medieval Tiles and Caswallon Ornament. You can download and try the demo version of Agravain in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.Agravain Font
Agravain is a very attractive speedball-style hand lettering font with elaborate and stylish character forms, expecially in the upper case which feature unique characteristics of the type of traditional calligraphy from which it derives. It has nice, clean lines and a high readability factor and would be excellent for posters, menu designs or theatrical programs. It's compatible in style and character with some of our past fonts like Valentin, Ganelon and Gaheris. You can download and try the demo version of Agravain in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.Pencraft Initials
Pencraft Initials is an early 20th century sign-letteirng initials set developed from a set of early 20th century type. The initials are decorated with a motif of stylized flowering vines which is uniquely varied in each character box. They look similar, but each one is different. It also includes regular caps and a full number and punctuation set. This is the first of several related Pencraft fonts which we are developing, including a full text font, a swashed script letter set and custom ornaments which will be released later this year. You can download and try the demo version of Pencraft Initials in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.Amphitryon Font
Amphitryon is based on a set of nameless hand lettering samples by Lewis Day. It has a bit of a classical look and a hint of romance. Stylistically Amphitryon is a fine lined artist's pen lettering font, reminiscent of some of the other artist's lettering fonts we've done like Sylphide and Sprite and it fits in the general category of Art Nouveaufonts. It features a complete character set with upper and lower case, symbols and numbers. You can download and try the demo version of Amphitryon in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering siteWalter Crane Font
The Walter Crane font is based on a sample of his lettering which falls into the category of fairy book lettering like our Folkard and Rackhamfonts. Interestingly, unlike most of Crane's other lettering, which is very much in an arts and crafts style, the samples on which this font is based are more traditional and calligraphic in style. You can download and try the demo version of Walter Crane in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.Art Deco Stencil
Art Deco Stencil is based on samples of Art Deco stencil lettering by Pedro Lemos. It's in the general mode of some of our other Art Deco fonts like Falmouth, Advertising Gothic and Spoonbill, but the characters are broken up into segments so they could be used to cut a stencil for painting. It's functional, but it also makes for a stylish variation on the theme. As with some of our other Art Deco fonts the upper case character set is done as block initials. You can download and try the demo version of Art Deco Stencil in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.Burd Ellen Font
Burd Ellen is a decorative hand-lettered font based on early 20th century artists lettering. It has a number of unique features characteristic of arts and crafts period lettering, including decorative flourishes which can be applied to many characters, complete alternate versions of many of the characters, and decroative dots which can be placed in five different positions relative to any character. The name comes from the classic rhyme Childe Rowland about a girl named Burd Ellen who is kidnapped by fairies. If you like the style of Burd Ellen and would like to see other fonts in a similar style you might want to check out Summerisle and Berenicia which come from the same tradition. You can download and try the demo version of Burd Ellen in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.Atkinson Boomtown
Boomtown is based on hand lettering by early 20th century sign artist Frank Atkinson. It's a classic wild west style font with super wide and bold look. It's in the tradition of some of our other "circus" style fonts like Plowright and Atkinson Eccentric -- perfect for poster and sign design. Although the source characters were hand lettered, we went through very carefully while developing the digital outlines to make sure that the characters are as regular in weight and shape as possible. The end result is very clean looking, but still has a lot of personality. You can download and try the demo version of Atkinson Boomtown in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.Verne Font
Verne is an original design developed specially for our new collection of Steampunk fonts, which lacked a heavy-weight title font which fit with the theme. It has the look of wrought iron with rough edges, with elements of gears and machinery built into the characters. The heavy weight makes it excellent for incorporating textures and metallic patterns to create interesting titles. You can download and try out the free demo version of Verne (will work on Mac or PC). If you like it you can buy the complete character set with all the extra features from our Ordering Site.Goldwork Font
Goldwork is a new font based on lettering designed for metalworking inscriptions in the 17th century. It's in the tradition of other fonts we've done based on engraved letters like Monumental Initials and Engravers Gothic. It has some quirky characteristics which are unusual for late gothic lettering, as well as some strange carryovers from earlier styles, not surprising for a style which appeared in the early modern era contemporary with the transition from hand copied manuscripts to printing, leading to changes in lettering styles which carried over into other media. Goldwork has a full character set with capitals and lowercase letters, plus numbers and punctuation. You can download and try out the free demo version of Goldwork (will work on Mac or PC). If you like it you can buy the complete character set with all the extra features from our Ordering Site.
Atkinson Egyptian Font
Our latest font based on the lettering of Frank Atkinson is Atkinson Egyptian, which bears that name despite the fact that the only relationship it has to what most people call 'egyptian' type or lettering is that it originated in the same time period when discoveries in Egypt were influencing font designers. It is a plain font, but it has a pleasant appearance and nicely balanced character shapes. It's kind of a utility font -- something you need to have around even if it's not terribly exciting -- but it's full of potential and adaptable to many purposes. You can download and try out the free demo version of Atkinson Egyptian (will work on Mac or PC). If you like it you can buy the complete character set with all the extra features from our Ordering Site.
Crane Gothic Font
Crane Gothic is the first font completed for our forthcoming collection of fonts and art by legendary Arts and Crafts period artist Walter Crane. It is based on samples of a style of his lettering which offers a unique take on late gothic alphabets characteristic of 16th century monumental brasses and inscriptions. It has a full character set with capitals and small caps, plus numbers and punctuation. You can download and try out the free demo version of Crane Gothic (will work on Mac or PC). If you like it you can buy the complete character set with all the extra features from our Ordering Site.Waldeck Font
Waldeck is a gothic font based on 17th century German calligraphy. It has elaborate, decorative uppercase characters and stylish but fairly simple lowercase characters, plus some unique features, including custom decorative descending flourishes for several of the characters. It's a nice change from some of our recent releases. Ultimately it will probably end up in a future expansion for our popular Gothic Fonts collection. Download and try out the free demo version of Waldeck (will work on Mac or PC). If you like it you can buy the complete character set with all the extra features from our Ordering Site.
Stampwork Font
We've done a lot of fonts lately based on antique type and lettering, so here's something brand new, a font designed to look like the output of a rubber stamp. It's in the tradition of our Draughtwork and Roughwork fonts, with a sort of technical look. Stampwork has two versions of the uppercase character set. One set features over and underline artifacts like those produced by the edge of a rubber stamp which is pressed down too hard. The other set is plain. There are also alternative line artifact characters to add variation. Download and try out the free demo version of Stampwork (will work on Mac or PC). If you like it you can buy the complete character set with all the extra features from our Ordering Site.
Woburn Initials Font
It's been quite a while since we did an initials font, so here is Woburn, a lovely set of floriate initials based on an early woodblock design which uses late gothic characters and adds nice, clean floral embellishments. As a bonus we've added a full lowercase character set in a compatible style. It also works well in combination with our classic Cymbeline font. Woburn will be added to the next release of our Decorative Initials collection. Download and try out the free demo version of Malvern (will work on Mac or PC). If you like it you can buy the complete character set with all the extra features from our Ordering Site.
Malvern Font
Malvern is a new Celtic-style font with upper case letters which are an attractive variant on insular minuscule lettering but with a unique lowercase character set which is stylistically compatible but not really part of the Celtic tradition. It fits well with the style of the fonts from our Celtic Fantasy collection, which it will probably eventually be added to. The uppercase characters are somewhat similar to our classic Durrow font, but with some additional flourishes. Download and try out the free demo version of Malvern (will work on Mac or PC). If you like it you can buy the complete character set with all the extra features from our Ordering Site.
Orford Font
Orford is based on samples of hand lettering from a 1693 manuscript collected by Lewis Day in his classic book on historical paleography, Alphabets Old and New. It is stylistically similar to our Allegheny font, but cleaner and clearer. It has characteristic clubbed ascenders on many of the lowercase letters, and alternate versions of a large selection of characters. It's an excellent example of colonial period calligraphy and works quite well as a font. It will eventually be incorporated in an updated release of our Colonial Fonts package. Download and try out the free demo version of Orford (will work on Mac or PC). If you like it you can buy the complete character set with all the extra features from our Ordering Site.Tangle Font
Tangle is a fun font drawn by hand to have the look of twining vines, reminiscent of a grape arbor in the winter. The inspiration is from my front gate which is twined with an endless tangle of mustang grape vines. It was designed on a whim, but turned out pretty well. It has a full upper and lower case character set, plus numbers and punctuation and special characters. Maybe some clever vintner will notice it and put it to use on a wine label. You can try out the free demo version of Tangle for either MacOS or Windows. It features just the upper case characters. The full version of Tangle is available on our Ordering Site.
Valentin Font
Valentin is an Art Nouveau font with an eccentric, stylized look. It has the same fixed-weight characteristics as Ganelon and Gaheris, but the character forms are dramatically different. It's clean and clear and very readable, very much the kind of lettering you'd have seen on 1920s vaudeville playbills. The graphic with the letter sample to the right isn't part of the font, but seemed to fit stylistically. It's a bit of decorative marginalia from a book illustrated by Clara Peck which is just full of Arthurian theme illustrations and decorative motifs which are going to be included in our forthcoming Arthurian Fonts and Art package. You can try out the free demo version of Valentin for either MacOS or Windows. It features just the characters of the standard set. The full combined version of Valentin is available on our Ordering Site.Posada Font
José Guadalupe Posada was a Mexican printer, engraver, cartoonist and illustrator of the late 19th and early 20th century who was enormously influential on the development of Mexican Folk art styles which continue today. Posada is best known for his Calavera cartoons and illustrations which satirized his fellow Mexicans as skeletons in the tradition of Dia de los Muertos. Many of Posada's cartoons were published as single-sheet handbills and included original hand-lettered captions and titles in a style reminiscent of period newspaper headlines. We've previously collected many of Posada's Calavera lithographs in our Macabre Fonts and Art Collection and now we're releasing our first font based on Posada's lettering, somewhat unimaginatively tagged with his name. It's a rough and bold all-caps character set with alternative caps on the lower case keys, with an offset positioning which Posada used in a number of his cartoons, as demonstrated in the sample to the right. You can try out the free demo version of Posada for either MacOS or Windows. It features just the characters of the standard set. The full combined version of Posada is available on our Ordering Site.
More New Fonts
