Classic Font: Stuttgart Gothic

Stuttgart Gothic is a super-bold gothic calligraphy font which we first released in 1998. It is based on samples of German poster lettering from the early 20th century, which were in turn based on historical samples from 16th century manuscripts. It’s a very strong font, with lots of ornamental features. For this new release we’ve added some new special characters and useful refinements. Stuttgart is featured in our Gothic Fonts package along with many other fonts from the gothic tradition.

You can try the demo version of Stuttgart Gothic for free, or order the full version online for immediate download.


Rating 3.00 out of 5

February 21, 2010 | Filed Under Classic Fonts, Featured Fonts, Gallery | Leave a Comment 

Font Literacy at the National Gallery of Art

Over the holidays I got to travel with my family to visit my parents in Washington DC. While there, as always, we took time out to visit the National Gallery of Art. We saw some great exhibits. The kids liked the exhibition of Spanish Armor, but I found the strange and melancholy art of The Darker Side of Light to be the most interesting.

Of course, while we were there we spent some time in the gallery’s fantastic gift shops which are loaded with art prints, cards, art-based knick knacks, reproductions and lots of books on art and artists. Inevitably some of those books and products featured our fonts, like Swords: An Artist’s Devotion which used our Kelmscott font for the cover title and a number of our fonts, including Windlassfor interior titles as well. It was also interesting to see our Carmilla font used as the title font for a colletion of art cards of Great Nudes.

What was most striking among the products on sale at the National Gallery stores was the lack of font literacy on the part of the publishers and designers. You would think that when publishing a book or other product based on the work of an artist like William Morris or Alphons Mucha the authors or the designers of the book or product would know enough about the artist whose work they are presenting to be aware that those artists were also notable for their font design or original hand lettering. Yet my eye was caught again and again by examples of products whose designers seemed fundamentally ignorant of the availability of appropriate fonts to compliment the art which they were presenting. A couple of examples stand out. One was a very nice wall calendar from the Brooklyn Museum of Art based on William Morris Arts & Crafts Designs which could have used a William Morris font like our Kelmscott or True Golden, but instead opted for a pretty but unrelated generic art nouveau font. Similarly, a collection of William Morris Giftwrap opted for a plain text font when a Morris font would have been much more appropriate.

Along the same lines, but perhaps somewhat less of a failing were the collections of postcards based on the work of various artists which use their signatures for a title. That’s reasonable in some cases, but it seems like a failing when the artist is Alphons Mucha who did so many lovely hand lettered posters and whose work has been made into some very popular fonts including the eight included in our extensive Mucha collection. That package would have looked much better with Slava or Moravian on the cover.

I may be hypersensitive to this issue, but it just seems logical to me to use the most appropriate fonts possible when presenting the work of an artist, and if that artist was a calligrapher or did remarkable and unique lettering or even designed type, then what excuse does an author or designer who is presenting his work have for not being aware of that and using appropriate fonts? It seems like a disservice to the artist’s legacy and to the public to overlook that aspect of his art. It’s probably too much to expect, but it also seems like a failing on the part of the museum store. Shouldn’t their buyer, who probably got a nice degree in Art History from a respectable college, also be aware of this issue, and when faced with a choice between products pick the one packaged with appropriate fonts rather than with some random alternative?

There seems to be a lack of basic font litreracy here. Are the art and design schools not teaching anything about the history of typography or the work of these artists beyond the most obvious? Morris was the biggest figure in the Arts and Crafts movement. He wrote and painted and designed furniture and fabric and books and typefaces. No one of those things presents a full picture of his talent, so if you’ve studied Morris at all  you ought to know about all of them and use that knowledge. I suppose the average consumer won’t know the difference, but they have the excuse of not having an education or working in the merchandising of art. And when the occasional knowledgeable person does see your work they may notice the flaw and then get grumpy and produce an article like this, for whatever that’s worth.

Rating 3.00 out of 5

February 17, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

Mister Slaughter by Robert McCammon

After a career as one of the preeminent horror writers of the 1990s and a break which lasted for several years, Robert McCammon has come back with a vengeance, completely reinventing his career, with an impressive series of historical mysteries set in the American colonies in the early 18th century. The stories center on the adventures of legal clerk and freelance investigator Matthew Corbett which began in Speaks the Nightbird, an extraordinary novel which McCammon had not intended to make into a series, but he liked the setting and the characters so much that after making a few chronological revisions he followed it with The Queen of Bedlam and now with a third installment in Mister Slaughter.

Mister Slaughter. Continues the story of Corbett’s work for the Herald Agency based out of New York City, working in partnership with the gruff but formidable Hudson Greathouse. This book picks up directly where The Queen of Bedlam ends, with Corbett and Greathouse taking a commission to retrieve notorious mass murderer Tyranthus Slaughter from a madhouse in Pennsylvania and bring him to New York for transport to England to face justice. Of course, the task of retrieving and delivering the abhorrent Slaughter doesn’t work out as expected, and the story developes into a grueling pursuit through frontier settlements, indian villages and the centers of colonial civilization, uncovering a shadowy criminal network of which Slaughter is just a part.

The story of Mister Slaughter is engaging and moves along quickly, but what really makes the book stand out is McCammon’s attention to developing interesting and complex characters, including his exploration of the nuances of the historical environment which plays a very large role in making the novels in this series as interesting and unique as they are. Corbett gets a lot of development, with his flaws and his virtues placed in striking contrast. He’s heroic and capable yet flawed and troubled at the same time. The book is very much a journey towards a new level of maturity for Corbett as a character. Slaughter also makes an unexpected kind of villain who turns out to be both more and less than you expect him to be by the time the book is done. There’s room in the book for a couple of interesting subplots, some curious secondary characters and a bit of a surprise ending which clearly sets up the next book in the series.

All of this is held together by McCammon’s masterful writing skills, which have evolved and adapted to his material, with undertones of James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving which give the novel an authentic period feel which should make better known and well established historical novelists jealous. Though I heartily recommend Mister Slaughter both as a work of historical fiction and as a mystery novel, I have to warn squeamish readers that there are scenes and situations which are quite graphic and disturbing on the level of the works of Richard Laymon and Clive Barker and if that sort of gore and violence bothers you, read something else. As for me, I’m looking forward to McCammon’s next novel of adventure and mystery in Matthew Corbett’s world.

And for the record, the book features excellent cover art with the title done in our Allegheny font.

Rating 3.00 out of 5

February 16, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

New Font: Andrano

Once again I have fallen under the influence of my fashion conscious teenage daughter, who tells me that I absolutely must produce more “shabby chic” fonts like the trendy scrapbookers and hip fashion label designers use. On showing her examples this turns out to mean more circus style fonts with wide ascenders and decoration. We did this dance once before the the Cascade font and she wasn’t entirely satisfied. It was too Art Deco and not crude enough looking.

So, against my natural inclination to tweak everything to perfection I found some sample letters from a 19th century poster and developed a full alphabet from them without pushing too hard for perfect lines and symmetry. The result is the new Andrano font with a name picked because there’s something sort of Italian looking about the font. It features wide and ornate characters with jewel-like internal embellishments and a subtle built-in shadow to give the illusion of depth. The upper case characters are somewhat skewed and misaligned versions of the standard character set. So far my teenaged adviser is fairly pleased with it and she claims that because of her influence it will be a sure bestseller, so here it is.

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.

Rating 4.33 out of 5

February 10, 2010 | Filed Under Featured Fonts, Gallery, New Fonts | 2 Comments 

Charles Folkard’s Ring of the Nibelungs

We’ve been working on a collection of art and fonts based on the designs of classic illustrator Charles Folkard — best known for illustrating Pinnochio — for a very long time. It’s been a slow process becaust good examples of Folkard’s art and lettering are relatively hard to find. Although he was a contemporary of Arthur Rackham, he wasn’t nearly as well known, nor did he develop the kind of intense fanbase which Rackham still enjoys today. Nonetheless, Folkard was an excellent artist and arguably much more creative as a calligrapher and page designer than Rackham was.

Of course, our Folkard collection has already produced one of our most successful fonts. The Folkard font has appeared everywhere, in movies and on book titles and product packaging. We’re also working on several other Folkard fonts, including one based on his lettering from The Jackdaw of Rheims.

We’re also adding new art to the collection as we find it and are getting close to the point where we ought to be able to release the package commercially sometime this year. Much of the art is mythological and on Germanic and Scandinavian themes. You can see samples and download large-size versions of four illustrations here. They are from the Folkard illustrated edition of Ring of the Nibelungs, which is perhaps less ambitious than Rackham’s illustrated edition of the Wagner opera, but has some good examples of Folkard’s vivid color and clearly drawn characters.

Look for the Folkard font and art package to premiere sometime this Summer.

Rating 3.00 out of 5

February 10, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

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.


Rating 3.00 out of 5

February 2, 2010 | Filed Under Classic Fonts, Featured Fonts, Gallery | Leave a Comment 


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