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
Walter Crane: The Hind in the Wood
As we continue development on our collection of material by Arts and Crafts master Walter Crane we get to share little tidbits of the contents before they are released. The latest example is a selection of art from the chapbook The Hind in the Wood, a smaller work than most of the Crane books we’ve been digitizing. The book is in a large format and basically consists of a single lavishly illustrated folktate, with four full-page illustrations, a two-page spread, endpapers and a cover. We’ve put it all together in a handy PDF you can download for review. The high resolution images will be in our Crane master package when it is relesed.
If you like Walter Crane’s art you should check out some of our Walter Crane resources like Pan Pipes, The Baby’s Opera, Queen Summer and The Baby’s Own Aesop. Plus we have two Walter Crane fonts available, Crane Gothic and Walter Crane.
Special Font: Turkey Day
Thanksgiving is a great time to celebrate family and the harvest and remember some history, and part of that history is told in the form of unique fonts, including many which were created for special occasions to add decoration to holiday cards or invitations. Printers have been ornamenting for the holidays for centuries, and many of the images are just as useful today as they were when our country was much younger.
The Turkey Day font is a selection of printers ornaments from the early 1900s featuring turkeys, pilgrims and harvest images perfect for the holiday.
You can purchase Turkey Dayonline and get a special discount of $5 off the cost by using the coupon code MAYFLOWER when you order.
Fonts With Style
At the Scriptorium we’re celebrating our 20th year designing original fonts and unique revivals of antique typefaces with over 600 fonts in circulation and new releases appearing twice a month. For those who aren’t familiar with our products — which include not only fonts but also unique collections of vintage illustrations and graphic arts resources — this is a short overview of some of our interesting recent releases.
Two of our newest font releases are Vambrace and Letterpress Gothic.
Back in March we held a poll to see which of five fonts we should put at the top of our development list and we ended up with three close contenders. Coming in third in that race was the design which we used as the basis for our new Vambrace font. Vambrace is basically a display and titling font which features a heavy outline style design. It’s very regular, but the characters are in a style which you might create with a Speedball style pen with a rounded nib for a poster or display card. The look is unusual and appealing and works well as a font. You can download and try the demo version of Vambrace in TrueType format for Mac or PC. The full version of the font is available from our ordering site.
With all the coverage we did of the Hatch Show Print exhibit it seemed only appropriate to develop a font which embodied that design look. The result is our new Letterpress Gothic font which embodies one of the quirks of letterpress printing, the occasional combination of characters which are very similar, but don’t quite match. To do this we took characters from a number of different letterpress gothic style fonts, distressed them to give them the look of being printed from old blocks, and combined them together to form two complete alphabets, along with some special characters, particularly filled-in Em and En spaces for crude line balancing. The end result is surprisingly effectrive, with a lot of character and a good representation of the feel of primitive printed posters. It’s actually aimed somewhat below the sophistication of a lot of the fancy letterpress work Hatch produces, but it’s an excellent example of what you might have found on an early 20th century playbill or show poster from a smaller press. You can download and try the demo version of Letterpress Gothic 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.
One of our most popular new collections is our Steampunk font package. It’s a new set of 10 fonts, many of which are new or in no previous collection, plus more than 20 original high-resolution metallic textures. It’s everything you need to create unique graphics with a grungy, retrograde, victorian low-tech look characteristic of the Steampunk movement. The font set includes a combination of art, decorative initial and display fonts with an edgy art nouveau and victorian looks and specialized features. One of the key new fonts is the Gears font which is a brand new font created specially for this package which features more than 60 different gear silhouettes based on clockwork and old machinery ready to be combined with textures to create a great retro-mechanical look. Another new font is the Jules Verne title font, a heavy-weight title font which combines the look of wrought iron with elements of gears and clockwork. The package also includes our classic Goodfellow font is included because it fits so well and was featured on the cover of the James Blaylock’s recent steampunk short story collection The Adventures of Langdon St. Ives. If you want to download a sample font from the package, try our our Jules Verne font. In addition to the fonts the collection includes a great selection of new and original textures which include samples of pure and oxidized and extremely deteriorated metals, including silver, gold, copper, bronze and iron in various states and with different sorts of finishes. Combine them with the fonts as we’ve done in the title graphic here (which uses Verne and Gears) and you get an amazing look. If you want to try a sample texture, try downloading the Heavy Rust texture. For more information on this package just Click Here.
Also worth a mentionm among our recent releases is the unusual Posada font based on the lettering designs of José Guadalupe Posada, Posada is best known for his Calavera cartoons and illustrations which satirized his fellow Mexicans as skeletons in the tradition of Dia de los Muertos. Many of Posada’s cartoons were published as single-sheet handbills and included original hand-lettered captions and titles in a style reminiscent of period newspaper headlines. We’ve previously collected many of Posada’s Calavera lithographs in our Macabre Fonts and Art Collection and now we’re releasing our first font based on Posada’s lettering, somewhat unimaginatively tagged with his name. It’s a rough and bold all-caps character set with alternative caps on the lower case keys, with an offset positioning which Posada used in a number of his cartoons, as demonstrated in the sample to the right. You can try out the free demo version of Posada for either MacOS or Windows. It features just the characters of the standard set. The full combined version of Posada is available on our Ordering Site.
We also recently released a new edition of our very popular Valdemar font, which is a big hit at Halloween. Valdemar started as a set of embellished uppercase characters with bits of clockwork and odd design motifs worked into the character forms to give them a unique, archaic look. Eventually we developed two companion fonts, one a version with a lowercase character set and the other a set of alternative uppercase characters. The set also includes small-caps and foreign language characters. Valdemar has been very popular for book designs, movies and merchandising. It was selected as the official title font for merchandised products for the Harry Potter movies, but the similarity between the name Valdemar and the character Lord Voldemort is coincidental. The name Valdemar actually comes from a story by Edgar Allan Poe and the font was released before the movies came out. You can download and try the demo version of Valdemar. The full Valdemar family set is available from our ordering site.
There’s a lot more to see on the site. Try some of the links from the pull-down menu at the top of this page and you’ll be amazed at what you can discover.
The Colonial Fonts Collection
                 
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In our imaginations we associate the colonial period with images of idealism, revolution and adventure. It was a time of great men and ideas and of rogues and villainy. Colonial history has been immortalized tales of pirates, highwaymen, heroes and great statesmen. It was also one of the most fertile periods in the development of type and printed arts. The publishing industry in the American Colonies was energetic and ambitious, publishing all sorts of books, maps and periodicals for a growing literate population.
Our new Colonial Fonts package draws on several of the most fertile areas of publishing in this era. Fonts like Platthand and John Speed are derived from the ornate, decorative lettering on maps from the 17th and 18th centuries by cartographers like Oretelius and John Speed. Carmilla, Allegheny, Queensland and Malagua are based on hand lettering from deeds, letters and other period documents. Guilford is based on samples of colonial lettering reproduced by historian and artist Eric Sloane. Buccaneer is based on hand poster lettering done by legendary artist Howard Pyle for his Book of Pirates. Boswell, Cochin Archaic, Octavian and Ruffian are based on book and newspaper print of the 18th century. The package also includes several special variant fonts, like the John Speed Ornamental font, Boswell Italic and the small caps version of Guilford. This package was recently updated with the inclusion of several new fonts from the period. These include the Hesperides calligraphic font, the Caswallon printed script font, Caswallon Archaic Text, Caswallon Antique ornaments, our new Antique Border Ornaments font and the Bridgeport font based on another sample of colonial style lettering by Eric Sloane. We’ve also substantially revised several of the collection’s original fonts including Guilford and Allegheny. As a special bonus for Thanksgiving we’ve also added the novelty font Turkey Day, which has a selection of colonial silhouettes and Thanksgiving related images accessible by simple keystrokes. All the fonts are historically accurate and they are not available from any other source. They’re an excellent and comprehensive selection of print and lettering styles for any project which needs the look of the colonial era, from a revolutionary political document to a wanted poster for a pirate. The package is available for Windows or the MacOS, and includes both TrueType and Postscript fonts. The total price is only $69 for all the fonts. You can order the collection for delivery on CD or for immediate download from our ONLINE STORE. You can also order any of the fonts individually by searching for them by name in our store. |
Letterpress Font Collection
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Letterpress printing is one of the oldest and simplest forms of printing, using letters carved into wooden blocks or cut from a rubbery material and attached to the blocks and then printed as a whole page composed of multiple elements. Today it is used primarily for poster printing by presses like Hatch Show Prints which have preserved the old type and presses and continue to print the way they did a hundred or more years ago.
Stylistically, letterpress printing is characterized by the use of large, block type, simple printer’s ornaments and sometimes limited attention to making all of the characters match in exactly the same style. Substitution of letters from a vaguely similar font into a line of type by accident or intent is quite common. Because of the primitive printing methods and the age and wear on the type flaws like nicks and faded areas are also quite common, plus there are rarely sharp corners or small serifs as they tended to degrade or tear off. It’s also common to see Letterpress posters where the type has been set with virtually no white space, with the entire printing space filled with type or with solid blank spaces. Because the technology is old, a lot of the font styles are also antique looking, reminiscent of those found in our Wild West font collection.
Our new collection of letterpress fonts is based on type commonly used in letterpress printing, derived from old posters and in some cases directly from letterpress type blocks. It includes a variety of weights and styles and many of the fonts are brand new releases developed specifically for the package. In addition to several of the typical bold sans serif fonts like Caelian and Letterpress Gothic, it includes a couple of “circus” style fonts with Boomtown and Big Show, a couple of heavy weight serif fonts with Plymouth and Bastion, a couple of lighter weight fonts with Stampwork and Atkinson Egyptian and finally two more ornate fonts from the German tradition popular in the midwest at the turn of the last century with Plakat and Wolfram. It’s a nice variety of fonts and everything you need to make good letterpress-style designs like those we’ve features in our recent articles on Hatch Show Prints
All of our letterpress fonts are available individually – just click on the image shown here – or you can get the complete package with all the fonts for an introductory price of only $49. The package is available for Windows or Macintosh, including both TrueType and Postscript fonts. The special introductory price is only going to last only through the end of November. You can order our Letterpress Fonts collection online and dowload it immediately. Just CLICK HERE TO ORDER
New Font: Big Show
We’ve been working hard on developing a new package of fonts based on classic Letterpress designs and that package is almost complete. Rounding out the collection is our new Big Show font, which is a kind of a swanky 1960s take on the classic circus fonts of the 1890s which have come to be associated with the wild west era. It has the giant block serifs of that style, but rounder lines which give it a look that seems more 1960s than 1890s.
Big Show has a full uppercase character set, plus a set of variant characters with more distressed versions of the main character set. It also has numbers and punctuation. The overall effect is rough, but attractive and it creates a strong impression.
You can download and try a demo version of Big Show, in TrueType format for Mac or PC. You can also order the full version of Big Show online for immediate download: BUY IT NOW.
East Austin Studio Tour
At the risk of doing a little too much promotion of things going on in Austin, I have to put in a plug for the East Austin Studio Tour which is going on all this week.
If you’re lucky enough to live in the Austin area, this tour of over 100 studios and events is not to be missed if you have an interest in any aspect of the arts. There are live music events, traditional art studios, street markets, folk art and even a blacksmithing competition – something for everyone at a time of year when the weather is beautiful and perfect for wandering the streets of converted warehouse studios which have become the home of a thriving artists community in east Austin.
The interractive online map is an essential if you want to check out the activities, because there’s an awful lot going on, a lot of it in venues you might not recognize without a guide.
It’s a great opportunity if you’re in Austin and maybe worth a trip if you’re not too far away.
Folkard: The World of Warcraft Font
For several years World of Warcraft has been the dominant multiplayer online computer game on the market. It is moving into a new era this week with the release of Wrath of the Lich King an expansion which opens up more realms and new opportunities to players, adding to the depth and variety of the world to keep players involved and enrich the playing experience for the large and still growing community of players.
One of the things which has made World of Warcraft so remarkably successful is the graphically rich environment and excellent artwork which bring the game world to life. This rich look and feel carries over to the software interface, the packaging and their online resources and website. One important element of that graphic presentation is their choice of fonts, and I’m very pleased to note that our popular Folkard. font is central to their designs. In fact, Folkard has become so closely identified with World of Warcraft that we are now actually getting customers coming to us looking for it specifically as “the World of Warcraft font” rather than by name.
If you visit the World of Warcraft website you’ll encounter Folkard almost immediately, in use for all of the decorative section headers and titles as shown in some of the screen samples accompanying this article. It’s also used for the names on the different character class emblems in the Talent Index, for sections in the FAQ and for sections in other areas of the website. When you launch the game you’ll also find it on launch screens and options screens and just about everywhere else. It’s inescapable.
Folkard is a great font choice for a fantasy game because it is the essence of classical fantasy. It is based on hand lettering done by Charles Folkard in the early 1900s for a collection of fairy stories from Scandinavia. It was developed into a font by Dave Nalle in 1993, some years before it was discovered and used in World of Warcraft. Charles Folkard is best known today for his classic illustrations for Pinnochio, but most of his work was in illustrating classic myths and legends from different cultures, with each book including unique hand lettering for the titles and picture captions. This particular style of lettering was also popular with other fantasy artists, but Folkard’s variation with the combination of celtic-style lowercase letters and swashed capital letters is particularly striking, which is why we made a font of it and why Blizzard chose it to use in World of Warcraft.
Folkard is available for purchase as a single font from our online store or you can get it as part of our Fantasy Fonts and Art package, which also includes other fonts and selected fantasy-theme art by Folkard and other artists.
Letterpress Poster Design for “Fight” in Austin
Austin has a rich and diverse artistic community and the different elements of it feed on each other. The many clubs and theatres provide great opportunities for graphic designers to produce unique show posters and all around town in restaurants and coffee houses and ice cream shops there are poster walls where the work of these designers is on view advertising the show of the week.
My thespian daughter drew my attention to the poster for an upcoming play called “Fight” because she new the letterpress-style design would appeal to me. It’s really very nicely done. It has the bold contrasts and worn character forms which are typical of real letterpress printing. I don’t know if it was really printed by that method, but if it wasn’t it’s a very clever simulation, which is even better in a way. It looks very much like the classic fight posters of the 1960s and 1970s. The attention to detail is impressive. Aside from the requisite information at the top, the rest of the design is very true to the style.
If you take a close look at the fonts you’ll see similarities to a number of our letterpress-derived styles, including Letteroress Gothic, Caelian and Stampwork, all of which will be featured in our forthcoming Letterpress Fonts package. The designer of the “Fight” poster doesn’t seem to have actually used any of our fonts, but they’d fit right in.
The St. Nicholas Font Put to Good Use
Recently, one of our customers who goes by the nom de net of Ghostfire, contacted us about some minor improvements she had in mind for our St. Nicholas font. In the process, she brought to our attention an example of some work she had done with the font, and I thought that her work was worth sharing as a clever bit of art and an excellent use of this font, which is based on Victorian period lettering, in a very appropriate context.
It also doesn’t hurt to give St. Nicholas a little plug at this time of the year, as it’s an excellent font for Christmas card design and that season is now upon us. It’s also included in our Holiday Fonts and Art package.
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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.
