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
Classic Font: Stonecross
Stonecross has been one of our most popular celtic fonts since it was released back in 1997. It has the look of letters cut in rough stone, reminiscent of the inscriptions on celtic crosses, hence the name. In fact, it was so popular that we also created a companion font with more of a squared uncial look called Newgrange. The two fonts work great together. This updated version of Stonecross includes special foreign language characters and a selection of special decorative characters with celtic motifs.
You can try the demo version of Stonecross for free, or order the full version online for immediate download.
The Fairytale World of Chagford
Designing fonts puts me in touch with interesting projects and artists who are working in various media. With fonts needed for movie titles, book covers, and play programs among other uses, designers come to me for fonts; as a result, I get to find out about the projects they are working on. Because a lot of the fonts I design are historical or fantasy themed, I’m particularly tied into the fairy-fan subculture, and that’s where I discovered Chagford Filmmaking Group.
Chagford is a specialized little film company which has been making short films based on classic British fairy tales since 2004. The group is the brainchild of Elizabeth-Jane Baldry and is financed primarily with grant money and through the efforts of volunteers. Their short films use relatively unknown actors, a lot of kids and some of the most beautiful parts of the British countryside to create evocative and faithful adaptations of familiar and unfamiliar folk and fairy stories.
Chagford is a non-profit organization located in the lovely medieval town of Chagford in Devon on the edge of Dartmoor. They use mostly local talent and community resources, though they are getting more ambitious and their latest film had auditions in London and grant money from the European Programme of Cross Border Cooperation, which is making it possible to film part of the film in Brittany. The villages and countryside of Devon and Cornwall provides ready-made fairytale settings and the look of their films is rich and beautiful as a result.
So far they have done six films with a seventh in production. Each successive film has been more ambitious than the last, with more special effects and improvements in production quality. They’ve also gotten somewhat longer, though they have yet to undertake anything feature-length. Elizabeth-Jane Baldry is the primary director and composer for the films. In fact, the whole project got its start in her kitchen, with the group having then planned their first few films there.
They started with a short film called Woodwose in 2004 and followed it with an very short film of the story Pottle o’ Brains in 2005. No clips of these films are available on their site or on YouTube. However, a short musical clip from their half-hour film of the ballad Childe Rowlande is available on YouTube (see above). The 38-minute film Cherry of Zennor is their first somewhat commercial venture and it is available for sale on DVD. Several clips can be found on their YouTube page.
Their fifth film is based on the Orkney folktale Peerifool and had a recent theatrical premiere on March 28th. It has not yet been released on DVD, but it looks as good as Cherry of Zennor, so hopefully it will be available for sale as well. Production has already been completed for The Laidley Worm, which is now in post-production.
They are currently in production on their most ambitious film yet, a version of the Breton Arthurian tale, Sir Lanval, made in cooperation with the Arthurian Society of Brittany and scheduled to premier in Rennes in October. They have yet to release much in the way of footage or previews for these upcoming films, but from stills and clips on their website they look promising.
What the Chagford Filmmaking Group is doing is fascinating from both an artistic and business point of view. Some of it is also a bit mystifying. They are making interesting films and making creative use of great material, but so far they don’t seem to quite have a handle on what to do once the films are made. Their efforts at marketing are sketchy and they’ve made little effort to make past productions available either for free to promote interest, or on DVD or through paid download. They seem to be making the films mostly for the love of the material and for their own entertainment.
Clearly it helps that they have been able to get public funding — and quite substantial funding for Sir Lanval, which has a budget pushing $200,000. But I hope at some point they will take the logical next step and put forth a greater effort to make their work available to a broader audience. I think there is a real commercial market for well-made short films of these little known but entertaining stories. Right now the DVD of Cherry of Zennor isn’t even available on Amazon UK, much less Amazon US.
With all the work that they’ve done on these films and the quality of the results Chagford Filmmaking Group not only owe it to their actors and crew but also to their potential audience to get them out more widely. Hopefully that will happen with Peerifool, The Laidley Worm and Sir Lanval. With three productions coming into release in one year, they’ve stepped up their efforts to a new level, which I hope means they’ll be making a bigger commercial effort once they have a larger body of work to market.
Our fonts appear on Chagford’s site and in the titles and packaging for their films, including Carmilla, Ereshkigal and Brandywine.
New Font: Ormandine
We got over 100 responses to our poll to pick our next new font, and the winner by a neck was the font now known as Ormandine, which is our new featured font as promised. It’s a gothic lettering font with a bit of an Art Nouveau flare and with outlined characters very appropriate for sign and poster design. The uppercase character set has the outlined characters and the lowercase has a non-outline version.
Ormandine turned out to be much more difficult to develop than expected. Getting the outlining of the characters exactly right required a great deal of tweaking and adjustment, but it was what the masses voted for, so we did the work and the result is pretty satisfactory. Two of the other fonts in the poll also got very high marks, so we’ll probably start working on them for our next new releases.
You can download and try the demo version of Ormandine in TrueType format for Mac or PC. It includes a mix of characters from the different variants of the font. You can also order the full version online for immediate download: BUY IT NOW.
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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.
