The 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.

Pyle’s Lady of Shalott has been out of print for 120 years and is extremely hard to find in any printed form, but we have it in our library and have carefully digitized the complete book to produce a unique graphic arts resource. The book is rather like a medieval illuminated manuscript. Not only are there full page illustrations, but each verse is illuminated with its own unique decorative intiial and theme decoration.

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. The samples shown here are only a fraction of what’s in the collection. The package also features a complete PDF format recreation of the book as it was originally presented, so you can go through it page by page as Pyle intended.

The Lady of Shalott is a great poem made greater by a great illustrator, and now it is available to you in a format you can use and enjoy forever.


Because our Lady of Shalott package includes so many high-resolution images it can only be purchased on CD or downloaded with a broadband connection. It is available for PC and Macintosh computers for only $59. It can also be purchased in combination with our Howard Pyle font and art package at a discounted price of only $89.

The fastest and easiest way to order is through our online store which will let you make the purchase and even download on the spot or take delivery on CD. Just CLICK HEREto order online, or you can call us at 1-800-797-8973 to place an order.


If you have an interest in illumination and richly detailed decorative art, visit our Book of Kells page

To see details on our Howard Pyle fonts and art and get some background on this great American illustrator, visit our Howard Pyle



n either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro’ the field the road runs by
To many-tower’d Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.


illows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro’ the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.


y the margin, willow-veil’d,
Slide the heavy barges trail’d
By slow horses; and unhail’d
The shallop flitteth silken-sail’d
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?


nly reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to tower’d Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers “‘Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott.”


here she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.


nd moving thro’ a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.


ometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower’d Camelot;
And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.


ut in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often thro’ the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed;
“I am half sick of shadows,” said
The Lady of Shalott.


bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.


he gemmy bridle glitter’d free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon’d baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.


ll in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn’d like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro’ the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.


is broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash’d into the crystal mirror,
“Tirra lirra,” by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.


he left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro’ the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.


n the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower’d Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.


nd down the river’s dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance –
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.


ying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right -
The leaves upon her falling light -
Thro’ the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.


eard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken’d wholly,
Turn’d to tower’d Camelot.
For ere she reach’d upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.


nder tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.


ho is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross’d themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”


————–Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Rating 3.00 out of 5

March 28, 2011 | Filed Under Collections, Historic | 2 Comments 

New Font: Suspicion

I recently wrote a brief article on pulp novel book cover art and lettering as a source of inspiration. Inevitably this led me to actually work on developing some fonts based on the lettering styles featured on the covers of some of these genre classics from the 1950s and 1960s. The archive of covers I tracked down had lots of good source material, but I decided to make my first project the title lettering from a series of novels by John D. MacDonald published by Fawcett Books. They all featured titles in a fairly similar style, though with some subtle variations, and I decided to use as my primary sources the examples featured on three novels: The Girl the Gold Watch and Everything, Area of Suspicion and On the Run.  

PURCHASE
DEMO

One of the characteristics of the titles was that they used multiple variations of the same basic letter forms to create unusual variations in character placement and to allow nesting of certain characters in special relationships with other characters. Simulating this effect required the creation of three complete sets of characters, representing three possible positions and forms for each letter. A few letters even have a fourth variation. For the user this means that hitting the any letter key in combination with shift or option will produce different versions of the letter. As you can see by comparing the image of the original book cover to the sample graphic of the font, the end result is a pretty good match for the overall style, if not identical in every particular. The variations from the specific character forms on the cover of Area of Suspicion come because in some cases I opted to use better formed or more interesting versions of those characters from the cover lettering on one of the other novels in the series. The font ended up being named Suspicion and it captures the kind of paranoid out of control feel of the cover lettering pretty well.

You can try the DEMO version of Suspicion for free, but it includes only one version of each character. Or you can ORDER the full version online and download it right away.

Rating 4.00 out of 5

March 27, 2011 | Filed Under Featured Fonts, Gallery, Modern Fonts, New Fonts | Comments Off 

Flatstock 29: A Plethora of Posters in Austin

For the second year in a row I braved the crowds and the chaos which is the South by Southwest festival in Austin to check out the Flatstock poster show at the Austin Convention Center. It was a great experience last year, and I was not disappointed to find much more of the same this year. As a graphic designer with a particular interest in posters it’s right up my alley, and it falls on my birthday, so that makes it a special part of the birthday celebration.

I consider myself pretty lucky that Austin is one of the five cities hosting a yearly Flatstock show. I’m not quite so happy about the fact that it’s held during SXSW, which is becoming more and more of an inconvenience for anyone who wants to travel anywhere downtown in Austin while it is going on. SXSW gets larger every year and even on the last day the crowds were unbelievable. No parking, even at inflated rates, lines of hipsters a mile long to get in to see bands, and this year the convention center had new events jammed into every nook and cranny.

Despite what appeared to be a smaller exhibit hall there were actually more exhibitors at Flatstock than there were last year. Not a huge number more, but some new ones as well as many who were returning. The layout of booths was more economical and the booths were jammed closer together, but there was certainly a lot to look at. The downside was that the crowds were larger by an even greater proportion. There was less room to move around, fewer opportunities to talk to the artists and people were selling out of posters and running out of business cards. The upside was that with more of a crowd and more of an assurance of sales the prices for posters were considerably lower overall – a pleasant surprise at a time when the price of so many things seems to be going up.

There’s no way I can go over everything I saw at the show in detail. There were a lot of great designers there, including many who were not there last year and a few I covered in my previous article. I’ll skip those I hit last year and hit the highlights of what I saw this year, some of which was very good and some of which was somewhat mystifying. There were fewer of the stock efforts to reproduce the design styles of the sixties and the Art Nouveau era, which was probably a plus, but the level of creativity of those trying to define a more contemporary style was not always impressive. Too many designers seemed willing to substitute complexity for creativity or to neglect text and design and let illustration carry work which seemed incomplete. Flatstock should be about posters as coherent works of design, not about great illustrations with a few words in a boring font hidden in a corner.

Two other interesting trends also stood out. A lot more of the designers were local to the Austin area, though there were still some from places as far away as England and Germany. There were also more exhibitors whose main business was something other than posters, but who produce posters as part of that business, including record labels, illustrative artists, publishers and clothing companies. One example which combined both of these trends was Austin-based Rural Rooster which was selling posters, but also selling the graphic fashion t-shirts which are their main stock and trade.

Also notable this year was a strong presence for art and posters with a psychedelic theme. The art prints and poster designs of Charlie Hardwick certainly fell into that category with their day-glo colors and floral motifs. Pop-art psychedelia with a somewhat sterilized commercial look. Like posters you’d have found at Sears a few years after psychedelia went mainstream. More visceral were a few posters which strayed into the domain of early 1970s blacklight poster design style, a style which seems dated, but was a nice change from the usual attempts to copy the classic Fillmore and Armadillo show posters. The example to the right really stood out. I haven’t been able to figure out who the artist was from the zillion business cards I collected, but I like the effect and it uses my Butterfield font, so it deserves a mention.

I also have to throw a nod to Vrooooom Press, a letterpress printing company showing off some creative applications of a venerable printing technology. You know I love letterpress and last year there was very little of it to be seen at Flatstock, so their work was nice to see. Unfortunately their website doesn’t show much of their poster work, but they had some great examples on display at the show. Also showing some good retro letterpress style work at Flatstock was Spoke Art. They represent a number of artists whose work ranges from the traditional 60s style show posters to letterpress to much more modern designs. I particularly liked their pieces by Chuck Sperry and Emory Douglas. Unlike most of the posters at the show, theirs were quite expensive, so I didn’t end up taking any home.

I overlooked him last time, so I have to mention the comic-book inspired art of Flynn Prejean of Bad Moon Studios. He’s known most for his posters for The Misfits, but he does a great job combining vivid art with creative use of type and lettering. He uses a lot of my font designs (Semiramis, Ligeia, Ironwork, Spoonbill) or variations derived from them, which predisposes me to like his work, but what really impresses me is his composition and the way he brings art and type together to produce an integrated whole without being too derivative of traditional styles, though obviously drawing on 70s era horror comics for inspiration. He’s also one of the few artists who is clearly working in a digital format to recreate a slicker version of a classic look, which I find appealing.

I can’t wrap up without a couple of more vague mentions. One goes to an artist who had run out of cards and who I can only identify as SBPW. His stripped down style for posters for shows at the Beachland Ballroom in Ohio was really eye catching, and I liked the fact that he kept things simple and clean and had the audacity to silkscreen his posters on unusual paper stock, including butcher paper and construction paper. I actually paid (not very much) to pick up a couple of his posters, and if I had any idea how to track him down I might buy more. I don’t know who he is, but I like what he does.

And finally a nod to Clint Wilson, another Austin local who had the kindness to pose for a photo with his poster for a Ministry show which features my Captain Kidd font, and who also does some very nice poster work, including a set of super cute dinosaur cards for kids. A lot of his work has a cool, distressed-punk look and a childlike quality which I find engaging.

I’ve just touched on a handful of the many great artists and designers who were at Flatstock 29 in Austin this year. But viewing the show in snippets like this is kind of like the experience of actually attending, where the crowds were too large and posters were selling out and it was hard to get to what you wanted to see. To really get an idea of the diversity Flatstock has to offer, find the show which is nearest where you live and take a few hours to walk through the hall and really experience it.

 

Rating 4.33 out of 5

March 25, 2011 | Filed Under Found Art, Posters, Review, Sightings | Leave a Comment 

St. Patrick’s Day Bonus Font: Coverack

Some years ago, while traveling in Cornwall I saw some unique hand lettering on a signboard outside of a pub and later I reconstructed the fanciful Celtic lettering style from memory to produce what became the Coverack font. Coverack is in the tradition of Celtic uncial lettering, but is extra bold and has some fantastical embellishments and special symbol characters.. The name comes from a lovely little town on the Cornish coast where we stayed during the trip.

This updated version of Coverack has some additional special characters and improved kerning and character positioning. It features different versions of each character in the upper and lower case positions as well. It’s really a remarkable font with a lot of unique Celtic character. You can try the DEMO version of Coverack for free (limited character set), or you can ORDER the full version online and download it right away.
 

BUY IT NOW

TRY the DEMO

Rating 4.00 out of 5

March 16, 2011 | Filed Under Calligraphy Fonts, Celtic Fonts, Classic Fonts, Display Fonts, Gallery | Leave a Comment 

Celtic Font and Art Collections

he Celts have been acclaimed for their remarkable artistic legacy – far more substantial than that of other ancient societies of Western Europe. They left behind a fascinating tradition of visual and literary art,and can be credited with the preservation of culture and literacy in Western Europe after the fall of Rome. Their imprint is strongest in the British Isles which were spared much of the chaos and cultural collapse of the so-called Dark Ages.

The Celts produced exceptional hand-decorated books and works of calligraphy. Among the most famous products of Celtic scriptoria are the Book of Kells, the Book of Durrow and the Lindisfarne Gospels, all of which have been used as sources in our celtic designs. The various forms of Celtic Uncial calligraphy preserved sophisticated writing techniques so that they could be reintroduced to Europe at the time of Charlemagne, leading to a reawakening of writing and literature.

Today, Celtic culture remains a powerful source of inspiration in music, art and design. Musicians like Clannad, The Chieftains and Lorena McKennit preserve traditional Celtic music and adapt it to modern sensibilities, while Celtic visual art influences show up in every medium and continue to shape the work of contemporary designers.

The Scriptorium’s Celtic Collection is a remarkable digital archive of the design arts of the Celtic world. The collection features several CDs focusing on different aspects of the Celtic tradition in art and design. Celtic decroative designs, mythological art, religious symbolism and calligraphic lettering are preserved as high resolution (300dpi or more) graphics and unique original fonts (Postscript and TrueType) so that you can incorporate the vision of the Celts in your designs. All CDs are both MacOS and Windows compatible. All of the packages are kept in stock and can be ordered by phone from 1-800-797-8973 or ONLINE (<--Click Here) with an immediate download.

See the descriptions below for details on our Celtic packages and some samples of the fonts and graphics which are included.

THE CELTIC VISION PACKAGE

ur Celtic Vision package is our oldest and most basic collection of Celtic resources. It is oriented towards historical and traditional Celtic design, featuring fonts based on historical calligraphy, plus borders, emblems and decorative elements which are primarily geometrical and in the tradition of Celtic knotwork design. It is a great starting point for any Celtic design project. This is our original Celtic collection and is now in its fourth release, with many modifications and improvements over earlier versions.

The frames, borders and emblems in the Celtic Vision package come from a number of sources, including ancient Celtic manuscripts, Victorian renderings of classic Celtic designs, and original Celtic designs by Arts & Crafts period artists like Evelyn Paul and Louis Rhead. The Rhead and Paul borders are particularly interesting, because they effectively adapt medieval Celtic imagery to formats and page sizes which are still used today. Many of the graphics included in this package are color renderings of traditional designs. The package also includes some lovely Celtic initials by Louis Rhead.

Eight fonts are included in the Celtic Vision package. They were selected for their historical accuracy and general usefulness, while more bizarre fonts were reserved for the Celtic Fantasy package. The fonts include the Durrow font, which is an absolutely traditional rendering of Insular Minuscule calligraphy, Glendower which is based on the most common lettering in the Book of Kells, Knotwork which features fanciful characters decorated with Celtic knots, Alba which is a modernized text font based on Celtic uncial lettering, Lindisfarne which is based on a square uncial style, Stonecross which is derived from Celtic cross and gravestone inscriptions, the decorative Celtic Spirals font, and the Celtic Borders font which lets you combine key strokes to form unique, fully scalable decorative borders.

The Celtic Vision package is where you should start your journey into Celtic design. All of the images are high-resolution (300dpi) and suitable for printing, and they are licensed to you for use in your design projects. The fonts come in both Postscript and TrueType formats. The CD is fully compatible with the MacOS and all versions of Windows. The Celtic Vision CD is only $49 and can be ordered by phone from 1-800-797-8973 or ONLINE (<--Click Here). It can also be ordered in combination with our other Celtic packages at a special discount (see below).

THE CELTIC FANTASY PACKAGE

ur Celtic Fantasy package is the newest addition to our collection of Celtic resources. It is oriented towards more fanciful approaches to Celtic design and to Celtic mythology and fairy tales. It features fonts derived from the Celtic design tradition, but with unusual variations, and a great set of borders and decorations based on designs by Arthur Rackham. It also includes a selection of illustrations of Celtic mythology by several artists. It balances out the more practical contents of the Celtic Vision package with an assortment of more imaginative and unusual resources.

The frames, borders and emblems in the Celtic Vision package are mostly drawn from Arthur Rackham’s illustrated collections of Irish and British folk and fairy tales. They include both color and black and white borders, frames and
emblems, including many unique floral and zoomorphic designs. The package also includes a selection of color and black and white illustrations of scenes and characters from Celtic myth and legend by artists like Rackham and J. D. Batten who illustrated Joseph Jacobs classic Celtic mythology books. The Rackham illustrations are of exceptional quality and incorporate beautiful Celtic design elements which can easily be extracted and used in your own designs.

Eight fonts are included in the Celtic Fantasy package. They were selected for their Celtic qualities and visual originality, while more mundane fonts were reserved for the Celtic Vision package. Many of them are historical, but they are based on the more fanciful historical lettering styles. The fonts include Brigidis, which is based on Rudolph Koch’s interpretation of a squared uncial, Coverack, which is a heavy non-traditional uncial, Dahaut which is an modernized uncial, Morgow which is a nice spiral uncial, Teyrnon which is an elaborate spurred uncial, Padstow which is a heavy uncial with a Gallic influence, Sualtim which is based on 19th century artists rendering of Celtic lettering and Columba which is a set of decorative initials
based on characters fount in the Book of Kells. These fonts let you take Celtic design a step beyond to add some real visual impact.

The Celtic Fantasy package is a great resource for fanciful Celtic design, either on its own or in combination with the Celtic Vision package. All of the images are high-resolution (300dpi) and suitable for printing, and they are licensed to you for use in your design projects. The fonts come in both Postscript and TrueType formats. The CD is fully compatible with the MacOS and all versions of Windows. The Celtic Fantasy CD is only $49 and can be ordered by phone from 1-800-797-8973 or ONLINE
(<--Click Here). It can also be ordered in combination with our other Celtic packages at a special discount (see below).

THE BOOK OF KELLS

lso of interest to Celtophiles is our Book of Kells CD. This is a special compilation of full pages and excerpted design elements from the greatest work of Celtic illumination. This is the only legal digital source for reusable images from the Book of Kells which we know of, with extraordinary images based on turn-of-the-century lithographs of the book which are actually more vivid and in better shape than the Book of Kells is today. The package is entirely in color, and includes more than 20 full pages plus initials, emblems and borders which have been taken out and cleaned up for easy use. You can get more details on our Book of Kells package by going to its own page. Just CLICK HERE It can also be ordered in combination with our other Celtic packages at a special discount (see below).

ORDERING CELTIC COLLECTION CDs

You can order any of our Celtic packages by phone or through our online ordering system. To order by phone just call 1-800-797-8973. To order online with an immediate download go to ONLINE ORDERING.

If your main interest is just fonts or art, we now also offer special smaller packages. The Celtic Fonts sub-package is only $49 and includes all the fonts from both the Celtic Vision and Celtic Fantasy packages, but no art. The Celtic Art sub-package is $49 and includes just the art elements from the Celtic Vision and Celtic Fantasy CDs. These can also be ordered by phone from 1-800-797-8973 or online from ONLINE ORDERING.

You can also order the Celtic Vision and Celtic Fantasy CDs together at a special combination price of only $89, or add in the Book of Kells as well for a total of only $129 – saving $20 overall. This combination can be ordered online or by phone.

If you want to try out one of our Celtic fonts, just download the demo version of our new Owen Jones Cletic Borders font using the link below. The full version can be found on our Celtic CD or ordered individually. To try the demo just click on the image below.

Rating 4.00 out of 5

March 15, 2011 | Filed Under Collections, Historic | 6 Comments 

Classic Font: Ulalume

Ulalume was one of our earliest text fonts. It was originally designed in 1993 and then substantially modified in 1996, but since that time it was kind of allowed to languish in our back catalog with little attention, which was a shame because there is always a need for stylish text fonts with strongly contrasting weights, and the ultra thin and very bold elements of Ulalume really make it stand out, especially for titles and poster uses where you need something more dramatic than a standard text font.

For this new release of Ulalume we’ve expanded the character set, adding more foreign language characters and more special characterts. We’ve also cleaned up and sharpened the outlines and addressed problems with several characters which were slightly out of position or had an off look to them. The result is a really outstanding new version of an older font which we think people will find very useful. You can try the DEMO version of Ulalume for free, but it includes only one version of each character. Or you can ORDER the full version online and download it right away.

BUY IT NOW

TRY the DEMO

Rating 4.00 out of 5

March 9, 2011 | Filed Under Classic Fonts, Featured Fonts, Fonts, Gallery | Leave a Comment 

Owen Jones’ Illuminated Gray’s Elegy

homas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is probably one of the greatest poems in the English language and certainly of the 18th century. On its hundredth anniversary, legendary book designer and illustrator Owen Jones produced a special illuminated edition of the epic poem with detailed page borders, decorative initials and original lettering of the verses, which stands as one of the finest examples of his book design work.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimm’ring landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand’ring near her secret bow’r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

ur Gray’s Elegy design package preserves Jones’ book with all of the pages of text and decorations in digital form (as a PDF), as well as extracting all of the decorations, frames and initials so that they are ready to use for your design projects in high-resolution, full-color format. This has all been collected in a package which is now available for purchase and download. It can be ordered for just $49 from our ONLINE STORE and downloaded right away, or you can download and examine some of the contents in the free PDF PREVIEW featuring selected pages from the book.



Rating 4.00 out of 5

March 9, 2011 | Filed Under Art Collections, Collections, Historic | Leave a Comment 

Old Films on Printing

There are all sorts of peculiar things on YouTube, and recently my daughter directed me to the first in what turned out to be a treasure-trove of old educational films about printing and related retro technology. The three short films which I picked out to share here are from the 1940s and early 1950s.

The first provides an informative overview of the process of printing books with details of the process of setting hot type with a linotype machine and making copper plates from the soft metal type, a technology which was still widely used when I was a kid and which has virtually vanished today.

The second is a vocational education film on the printing business which shows the various jobs in a printing company and includes a good look at compositors setting cold type, as well as more hot type setting with both linotype and monotype machines. It also shows a variety of different types of presses and explains terminology fairly well.

The third film is a typesetting training film with good step by step instructions for setting cold metal type by hand. It’s quite detailed and took me back to my days apprenticing in typesetting on an old letterpress set-up at Applewood Books when they were just starting out doing old school reprints of classic works.

Modern typesetting and printing have become so sterile and high-tech that I think it’s rather instructive to look back at the techniques and technology of earlier eras. Pick up an old book printed with these methods and you’ll see how different the look and feel of it is from the modern equivalent. We can’t duplicate all of that unique character, but one of the things we try to do with many of our fonts is to preserve as much of that character as we can.
Overview of Book Printing

Vocational Film on Printing Business

Typesetting Training Film

Rating 4.00 out of 5

March 8, 2011 | Filed Under Articles | Leave a Comment 

Display Fonts Collection

Starting in the 19th century with the explosion of popular entertainment and popular-oriented art forms, one of new form of art was the design of posters and advertisements intended to catch the imagination and generate special interest in the audience. From the advertising found in magazines and decorative fronticepieces in books to the poster art movement in France, a consciousness emerged that type and lettering could be decorative and artistic and eyecatching in a way which had previously never really been considered.

The concept of display and ornamental type started with newspaper and poster designers taking regular text styles and using them in enormous sizes, or developing italic or slightly embellished styles for emphasis within text. From these beginnings designers began to experiment with what they could do to make titles stand out even more, starting with extra bold or exaggeratedly weighted styles and increasingly more decorative and ornamental styles. Many of these early titling faces took on characteristics of traditional calligraphy, because it was the only decorative lettering which many designers were familiar with, or looked like text faces expanded and transformed.

By the middle of the 19th century type designers were experimenting with all sorts of onramental type, particularly for use in advertising and in specialized books aimed at an increasingly intellectual middle class market. Much of this type partook of the characteristics of calligraphy, but it was increasingly complex and decorative beyond the scope of simple pen-strokes.

One of the innovators in this period was William Morris, who launched the Arts and Crafts movement, which included among its interests the development of new and visually striking styles of lettering and typography, such as Morris’ own Troy type and the unique lettering of artists like Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Walter Crane.

In the last two decades of the 19th century Art Nouveau spread across Europe, emerging from the Arts and Crafts movement, but attracting a much larger popular audience. Decorative type and lettering was a major element of the Art Nouveau movement, which had strong ties to the performing arts and other visual arts which required publicity in the form of advertisements and posters.

The Art Nouveau movement spurred a renaissance in font design, but much of the art of the period was expressed in unique designs which were never made into typefaces at that time. Hand-lettered posters and advertising titles by artists like Alphons Mucha were in great demand, and the Poster Art movement grew out of Art Nouveau and the poster became the major new medium for popular art by the end of the 19th century.

The hand-lettering of Mucha influenced many other artists and designers and when Mucha returned to his native Czechoslovakia he spurred a renaissance of art and design in eastern Europe, which eventually developed into the cubist and futurist movements in art which had a great influence on designers around the world in the period
between the two world wars.

Today there is still a great demand for new and unusual display fonts. They are essential to advertising in every media, because they draw attention and give a product a signature look which sets it apart from the competition. Advances in desktop publishing have also made it possible to introduce a greater variety of fonts for titling in publications, both in print and online. As a result display fonts are available in great diversity, offering every kind of look for every kind of use.

Because the basic function of display fonts is to do titles and label things, they may not have the same character set as traditional text fonts. Display fonts often only have either upper or lower case characters, and usually don’t have extended punctuation beyond what’s normally called for in titles. They are also often designed to be bolder or more ornate than text fonts, often to an exaggerated degree, and as a result they may only really be readable at large sizes and are often poorly suited to text use. Virtually anything can be a display font, from the weirdest degenerated style to the most intricate and complex artistic fantasy.

The Scriptorium’s collection of display fonts offers exceptional variety. We have fonts based on Art Nouveau designs, early Victorian styles, hand poster lettering by artists like Alphons Mucha and unique original fonts you won’t find anywhere else. We offer over 80 display faces, all of which are available in TrueType or Postscript format for Macintosh and PC-compatible computers. They are available singly for between $18 and $24 each, or as part of discounted packages. We also offer a complete collection of all of the Display Fonts for only $129. It includes all of our display fonts, including the very latest releases.

Our single fonts and font samplers can be ordered online, by mail or by phone for delivery online or by mail. The special display fonts CD can also be ordered online or by any other means and is deliverable by mail on CD or by convenient download.

To see a large selection of individual display fonts which can be ordered online and downloaded CLICK HERE

To order the complete Display Fonts collection CLICK HERE

To order by phone call 1-800-797-8973.

 Fonts in this collection. Click on name to see sample.

Abaddon
Academy
Acadian
adamantine
adresack
alcalde
angelus iii
apollyon
ariosto
asphodel
asrafel
atkinson eccentric
averoigne
bad acid
balsamo
baphomet
basileus
bassackwards
bastion
beaumarchais
beauvoir
bedegraine
bentham
bernhardt
big iron
bilibin
black cow
brandegoris
bruges
bucephalus
butterfield
buzzhead
caesario
chambord
chelsea studio
cibola
cipango
circuit
coloma
corpus
culdrose
curetana
del norte
dementia
dementia swash
descant
desctructura
dromon
dunsany
earthpig
eglantine
elphinstone
elysian
engravers gothic
engrossing
ereshkigal
flaubert
fortinbras
fortress
ganelon lowercase
ganelon
gargantua
gehenna
goddard
goodfellow
harbinger
helzapoppin
hermia
hideous
hubbard
hyacinth
illuminata
ironclaw
irzuley
jambon
joyeuse
louisbourg
lysander
maginot
manegrim
manquo
marmyadose
mayhem
mazarin
mephisto
midian
mondial
moravia
munich
necromantic
niederwald
norumbega
oberon
odeon
orlock
paleos
pantagruel
parika
perdido
phaeton
plakat
plowright
praitor
primer
pullman
purcell
quicksilver
reggio
reynard
riudoso
rochambeau
rossetti
rousseau
samaritan
samedi
sanguinary
sanhedrin
schoolhand
semiramis
setebos
slava
slither
sprite
squiffy
starfield
stonehouse
structura
taranis
tenebris
titania
tuscarora
vafthrudnir
valdemar
vasilisa
vrubel
walhall
waziri
windlass
yazata

To get an idea of what our display fonts are like, try out the demo version of our Dromon font. It should give you a good idea of what our display fonts can look like on your computer.

Download Deomon for Windows or for Macintosh.

Rating 3.00 out of 5

March 6, 2011 | Filed Under Collections, Font Collections | Leave a Comment 


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