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. DETAILS
Sighting – Joan of Arc Brie
There’s nothing more exciting than going down to the supermarket and finding a product right there on the shelf featuring one of our fonts. Even better if it’s a product that the family likes to consume and I can bring it home and show it to the wife and kids and point to the font as one I designed or had a role in developing.
Earlier this week, while on vacation, I was sent down to the local store to get some Brie for family snacks. Although the selection was limited, my eye was caught by the attractive package of Joan of Arc Brie and especially by the prominent use of our Ganelon font on the cover of the small round of the cheese.
The cheese eaters among us were happy to declare the brie to be quite palatable, so I’m glad to report that it tastes as good as it looks with Ganelon as it’s signature font. And in fact, the makers of Joan of Arc have expanded their use of the font to include a full line of other cheeses under that imprint as well. If you want to try the font, you can get it right here. If you want to try the cheese, the only online source I found is on Amazon.com
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.
Psychedelic Artist Alton Kelley, 1940-2008
Last week legendary psychedelic poster artist Alton Kelley passed away. Kelley was best known for defining the unique styles of the album covers and posters of the Grateful Dead and Journey. He was one of the best known of the artists to come out of the San Francisco scene of the 1960s who got their start designing posters for concerts at the Fillmore. His style was distinctive, and while he may not have been as diverse and productive as his contemporary Rick Griffin, his designs for the Grateful Dead were probably the very best known of the era. His skeleton with roses motif, which draws on the designs of Edmund Dulac, is probably the single most recognized graphic design theme to come out of the psychedelic era.
Like the other poster artists of the psychedelic period, Kelley drew on font designs from the Art Nouveau period for inspiration. A number of psychedelic poster fonts derive from hand drawn styles used by Kelley and his contemporaries. Particularly characteristic of Kelley’s style are the Pantagruel, Bad Acid and Hendrix fonts. Kelley’s illustrative work was also influenced by artists from the Art Nouveau period, particularly poster designer Alphons Mucha. Kelley’s work was a continuation and augmentation of the genius of earlier eras and artists, and his work will live on as part of the legacy of one of the most interesting American movements in the design arts.
There are a number of good, profusely illustrated books on the psychedelic poster art period available on Amazon
Sighting – Abaddon
As I’ve written before, Abaddon is our most overused font. Everyone seems to love it, from fantasy book publishers to heavy metal bands like Godsmack. In its latest appearance it’s coupled with the work of one of the best young writers of fantastic fiction in The Hounds of Ash
New Font and Art Sampler
Our previous font and art sampler has been a pretty popular item for people wanting to check out our offerings for the first time at a low price. It’s now been a couple of years since we released it, so it seemed like time to offer a new sampler put together on the same model.
The 2008 Scriptorium Sampler includes a selection of representative fonts and art. It has includes a set of fonts in their full-release versions and a set of demo versions of recent font releases. The three full fonts included in the package are Aventine, Burnham, Turkey Day and Freebooter. The demo fonts included are Groningen, Gwionbach, Imprimato, Damariscotta, Marfield and Berenicia.
The sampler also includes two art mini-packages. The first is a collection of mermaid images from artists like Pyle, Dulac, Burne-Jones and Pogany. It even includes a couple of sea-themed borders. The second is a collection of images of Arthurian Knights by Howard Pyle which is part of our forthcoming Arthurian Fonts and Art package.
And of course, the best thing about the sampler is that you get all of this for only $9.95. To order the sampler just go to our Online Ordering Section.
New Font: Aventine
It’s a very political year so we’re releasing a political poster font, Aventine. From time to time we’ve been asked to work on some political designs for local campaigns. One offshoot of that is that we have developed some poster font designs specifically tailored to the needs of campaign posters, and as we did with Texas Star back in 2002, we’re making one of those designs available in our general catalog. Aventine is a very clean, very bold, modern-looking font. It’s designed to look like the kind of sans serif fonts you see on political posters all the time, but with a few twists which may be hard to notice by themselves, but which add up to just a tiny bit more of an art deco look than you’d normally expect in a straightforward poster font. If you wonder where the name comes from, it was inspired by the excellent HBO series Rome where, in the final season, the main character entered into a political career with his power base as a captain in the merchant district of Rome called The Aventine. You can try out the free demo version of Aventine for either MacOS or Windows. The full font is available on our Ordering Site.
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New Font: BigBlok
A great many years ago when working in game publishing I had a real fascination with doing titles in a strong, super-bold font called Bolt Bold. The truth is I rather overused it. In doing some research I find it on more than a dozen different game books I wrote in the early 80s, all quite collectable and out of print today.
