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
New Font: Burd Ellen
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.
The Dark Shadows Font Project
My name is Victoria Winters…
For almost five years those were the words which greeted me when I got home from school at 4:30 and sat down infront of the small black and white television in our kitchen to watch with wonder as the convoluted gothic narrative of the cursed inhabitants of Collinswood unfolded half-hour by half-hour in Dark Shadows. This constant exposure to the world of gothic horror as a middle-schooler clearly had a profound effect on me, turning my thoughts to dark and mystical themes, an interest reflected in many of my font design choices, which explains our Horror Fonts and Art collections.
All Dark Shadows fans harbor a secret hope that some day the series will somehow return to the air. It did have a brief primetime revival with a new cast in the 1990s and there was a failed attempt to revive it in 2004. Hopes for a successful return seemed dashed when producer, writer and director Dan Curtis died in 2006. Now, surprisingly, hope has resurfaced in the form of a new Dark Shadows movie based on Curtis’ original scripts, produced and directed by Tim Burton and likely starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins.
The new Dark Shadows movie is still in that gray area that exists in Hollywood where movies are optioned and even have a script, but are still a long way from getting cast and produced. It seems like a natural project for Burton to take on, and given his age he may have had much the same childhood experience with the series that I did. But there is a lot that can go wrong between starting a project like this and actually getting it to the screen. Right now all we can do is hope optimistically that sometime next year work will start on the film for release in 2011. Everything else is just rumors in fan magazines and websites.
Now, as some readers may be aware, a few of my font designs have been used for other Tim Burton movies. Goodfellow was the title font for A Nightmare Before Christmas, Buccaneer was used for the credits in Corpse Bride and in a weird, roundabout way our Beynkales font became the official Corpse Bride font when they discovered that the custom title lettering which was based on our Tuscarora font was not a complete set so they commissioned us to design an new font based on the movie titles for use on the DVD cases and promotional materials. Through all of this, communicating with Tim Burton and his staff has always been problematical. Burton himself is reclusive and the process through which he gets graphic design work done is an utter mystery. When they used Buccaneer I even went through an elaborate stalker-like campaign to try to get them to update to a newer and better version of the font to no avail.
However, with two years to prepare and plan out a campaign I think I might be able to get Burton to actually pay attention and work with us in advance to get just the right font for the Dark Shadows movie. That’s what the Dark Shadows Font Project is all about.
The idea is that I will start to design an original font with input from our customers and fans of the TV series and chronicle the process as I do the work, with the hope that this will attract some attention and perhaps get input and direct participation from Burton or his design staff. It’s worth a try and even if it doesn’t work, it’s going to be fun to try and something new and interesting to promote on the website.
The starting point for the project is the original title font from the first four years of the series which is visible in the first video clip to the right. The second video clip shows the alternate titles from the final season of the series. The third video shows the titles from the 1991 primetime series which is an updated variant of the original title style. The fourth video shows the titles from the spinoff movie House of Dark Shadows. All of these titles will to some degree inform the final design, especially the initial D and S characters from the original.
My first inclination is to follow the idea of the original titles where the initial letters are in a gothic style and the other letters are in more of a text style, possibly drawn from the style of the House of Dark Shadows movie titles. It also occurs to me that because a part of the story is set in the 1790s drawing on colonial typeface design makes a lot of sense, so it seems logical to move towards more of a woodcut look for both the initial capitals and the main text letters. I’m also thinking about borrowing some ideas from the original lettering in the titles of Burton’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow to give the font a rougher and more edgy look. And before you even ask, I do hate the titles from the last season of the series and don’t plan to incorporate them in the design. The idea would be to pull all of these inspirations together into an original font which draws on the tradition while being original and new at the same time. It should be a font which people look at and immediately think of Dark Shadows but if anything even more of an embodiment of the gothic atmosphere of the series.
This is where the project starts. Look for updates and the first sample character drawings soon.
Dave
Classic Font: 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. We originally wanted to name the font Brigida after the more familiar spelling of the Irish goddess, but another font with the same name already existed, so we went with the more unusual variant Brigidis.
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.
We’ve Got Tote-Bags!
Stylish yet functional, there’s nothing quite so essential as a fine-quality, durable, canvast tote-bag. They’re just what you need for eco-conscious shopping or carrying around your junk. I like to fill mine with antique books from our library and wander around looking erudite.
We’ve added tote-bags to our selection of custom printed items on our page at CafePress. Designs include some of our classics like the Queen Mab and Horns of Elfland designs which feature classic poetry and beautiful art, plus we’ve introduced a new line of designs which sport the art of Walter Crane, which happens to be just the right shape for the side of a bag. Three different Crane design bags are available.
Stop by and check them out.
Dave
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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.
