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
The Fonts of Spiderwick
Spiderwick Chronicles movie opening this weekend a lot of people are out looking for the evocative fantasy-style fonts used in the movie and in the books. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that almost all of the fonts used in both the original books, the movie and the books based on the movie are from the Scriptorium.
In the original books the interior illustrations by Tony DiTerlizzi include lettering done in our Rackham font and captions done in Caswallon. Several other fonts are also used for titles, and while they don’t appear to be our fonts, they are very similar to fonts in our Arts and Crafts collection, including Adresack and Palmyra. Some of the books also feature a font very similar to a widened version of our Rosemont font on the covers.
So if you like the arts and craftsy look of Spiderwick, you need look no further for resources to recreate it, since you’re at the source.
Fonts Playing Pirate
The designers at Disney know good fonts when they see them, and they’ve regularly used fonts from our Colonial Fonts package in various projects related to Pirates of the Carribean. Their latest appearance is in the new online game based on the movie series. It is a graphically rich massively multi-player online roleplaying game. You can download the basic application from their website in a free trial version with limited functionailty. Then, if you like the game you can subscribe and get unlimited access. The game is periodically expanded with new settings and scenarios, like the new Avarica vs. Le Porc module currently advertised on the main page sampled to the right.
Scriptorium fonts are featured in the lavish design of the web page, in the display graphics throughout the site, and in the interface of the game application itself. The two main fonts used are Buccaneer and Carmilla. Buccaneer is used for the main titles and for the headers in the sidebar. Carmilla is used for subtitles and decorative titles in the game and for the section titles in the Player’s Guide (shown to the right). The two fonts go together surprisingly well, though chronologically Carmilla is characteristic of a somewhat later historical period than Buccaneer. The only notable font used on the site which is not from our Colonial collection is the main logo font for the Pirates of the Carribean franchise, though it does have some similarity to our Capitain Kidd font. Other PotC products have also used our Windlass font, which was the primary title font for the product line before they came up with the new custom-designed logo for the movies.
The game is complex and varied with room for lots of player initiative, but it is very bandwidth intensive so if you want to play make sure you have a good high speed connection.
New Font: Valentin
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.
John Stossel on Graphic Desgn
Not necessarily profound, but amusing and I can’t argue with his first point. This aired last year on 20/20 in case you missed it, which would be pretty easy given its brevity.
There we go. Now the site is all hip and cool with video.
Dave
Digital Coloring Books
The Scriptorium’s Digital Coloring Books are collections of classic illustrations idealy suited for coloring on computer or with crayon, pencil or pen. Unlike a traditional coloring book, the digital format allows you to color on your computer or to print out multiple copies of images so they can be colored again and again.
Our Digital Coloring Books are designed for aspiring artists from 5 to 11, but the images are sophisticated and well suited for parents who want to color with their kids. Unlike many contemporary coloring books which feature simplistic and uninspiring ‘generic’ art, these images are exciting, romantic and challenging to color, drawing on themes from traditional legends and fairytales. Among the artists featured in our Digital Coloring Books series are Howard Pyle, Arthur Rackham, J. D. Batten, Louis Rhead, Milo Winter, Charles Folkard and other fairytale illustrators whose style has the openness and contrast appropriate for coloring. All of the illustrations are in large size and will print clearly. We particularly recommend using them on the computer with programs like KidPaint to increase computer skills while undertaking challenging coloring projects.
Our first Digital Coloring Book is Fairytale Animals. It features illustrations of fantastical animals in whimsical and humorous storybook scenes, including a number from the classic animal stories in Howard Pyle’s book The Wonder Clock. The collection features art by Howard Pyle, J. D. Batten and H. J. Ford. There are over 20 illustrations, plus a colorable initial plate featuring a poem and great art by Howard Pyle from Pepper and Salt.
Our
second Digital Coloring Book is Knights and Heroes. It features illustrations of heroic characters from a variety of legendary and fairytale sources, including Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood and Pyle’s various collections of Arthurian legends. It also features art by several other artists. There are over 18 large-size illustrations, plus a colorable initial plate featuring a poem and great art by Howard Pyle from Pepper and Salt.
Our third Digital Coloring Book is Ladies and Magic. It features illustrations of romatic characters from a variety of legendary and fairytale sources, including Howard Pyle’s King Arthur and other 19th century sources. There are over a dozen large-size illustrations, plus a colorable initial plate featuring a poem and great art by Howard Pyle from Pepper and Salt.
These packages can be ordered for just $18 each through our online ordering system: ONLINE ORDERING.
If you would like to try out one of our Digital Coloring Books for free, we have some excerpts from our collection of Arabian
Nights illustrations available here for free. These six pieces are all by J. D. Batten, but the full collection also features the work of Louis Rhead, Milo Winter and other artists. To download this sample package just CLICK HERE.
Welcome to the Scriptorium Beta Site
Welcome to the beta version of the new Scriptorium/Fontcraft site. Almost everything is working, though there’s still some tweaking to be done. In the beta process we’d welcome comments and suggestions. You can leave them at the end of this post.
Dave
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.
Credit Where Due
One of my perennial complaints about the font business is how little recognition fonts get for the contributions they make to books and other media. In books you’ll usually see a credit for the cover art and for the editing, but how often do you see a credit for the design of the fonts which appear on every page? Even books which make heavy use of fonts to enhance and decorate the pages rarely credit the designer or the font foundry. The same is true in movies and other media. They’ll give a credit to the caterer but won’t credit the font designer whose work appears in the opening titles or the closing credits or on every poster and piece of promotional material for the film.
Efforts to encourage publishers and movie production companies to recognize the sources of the fonts they use generally fall on deaf ears because they’ve been doing things the same way for years and it’s very difficult to force them to print an acknowledgement. Font designers and foundries don’t have a powerful union like the Screen Actors Guild to make sure that credit is given where it is due. We just have to rely on the kindness and conscientiousness of the occasional fan. Designing fonts doesn’t pay terribly well, so it would be nice to get some recognition once in a while.
That’s more than enough whining from the poor neglected artiste.
It seems only fair to give some credit and some promotion back to those few who do go out of their way to recognize the sources of the fonts they use. A recent stroll through the many listings of Amazon turned up some surprise discoveries of books I had never heard of which used our fonts and gave a credit or acknowledgement. Most of them come from smaller publishers who don’t have to answer to a corporate publishing template which doesn’t allocate room for extra acknowledgements, but they do include an interesting selection of publications.
Chainmail Armored Knight
Another nice small press offering is Small Graces
One of my favorites is The Secret World of Fairies
And, of course, I’ve always got a fondness for roleplaying games, and the Artesia
I wish there were more examples to mention here. There are probably many others that I just can’t find. But it’s nice to see book designers who care enough about the work of those who contribute to their final product to provide an appropriate credit and I hope you’ll check out their works and try them out if they seem appealing.
New Ivan Bilibin T-Shirt Available
Our newest t-shirt design is based on the unique folktale art of Russian master Ivan Bilibin. It was released in conjunction with our updated version of our Russian Folk Art package a few months ago. The shirt design is a preview of what’s to come in the new package, which includes over 60 new images including full page illustrations and new frames and borders. The design has the look of one of the title pages from a Bilibin book.
The new design (shown at left) features examples of Bilibin art from the folktale Mareya Moreyevna and selected borders and frames from other works, as well as one of our fonts based on his lettering. It is available along with all of our other shirt designs, on a variety of shirt styles from our CafePress Store.
New Font: Broadley
Yorkshire-born architect and designer C. F. A. Voysey was one of the preeminent figures of the later period of the Arts and Crafts movement. He was England’s answer to his more famous American contemporary Frank Lloyd Wright. Voysey’s designs were ambitious and comprehensive and included not only basic architecture, but also interior design, decoration and furniture. Voysey’s work was reminiscent of the design work of William Morris. He is particularly remembered for his unique fabric and wallpaper designs which echo the work of Walter Crane. His houses featured white rough rendered walls with horizontal ribbon windows and huge pitched roofs, and are recognized for their simplicity, originality and total abandonment of historical tradition. Voysey did detailed plans and elevations of all of his houses, and labelled them in a unique hand lettered style which we have preserved and turned into a new font called Broadley. The font was developed from lettering samples on several of his plans and includes features typical of arts and crafts period lettering such as nesting and joining characters. It has a very special period look and will ultimately be included in our Arts and Crafts font collection. You can try out the free demo version of Broadley for either MacOS or Windows. The full font of Broadley 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.
