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
Featured Font: Melcheburn
| Melcheburn is a really handsome calligraphic font which we first released in 2000 and which has been revised twice since then. It has character forms which are more decorative than classic black letter fonts, with embellished capitals and some decorative variants of selected lowercase characters as well. It stands out with a distinct style which is different from other fonts of its period of origin in the late 14th and early 15th century. The font is named in memory of the Melcheburn brothers who gained fame in the late 14th century for stealing back the English crown jewels from the Hanseatic bankers to whom Edward III had pawned them.
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Arts & Crafts Collection
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The new second edition of our Arts & Crafts font collection features 15 fonts based on designs from the Arts & Crafts movements of the late Victorian period. They are derived from designs from several branches of the movement, and demonstrate the unique aestheitc vision of great designers like William Morris, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Elbert Hubbard. The Arts & Crafts movement was enormously influential on the works of designers, artists and architects of the 20th century, and inspired the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements.
The package includes early Arts & Crafts fonts like William Morris’ Kelmscott and True Golden, fonts from the Glasgow branch of the movement like Chelsea Studio, based on Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s lettering, fonts from the Roycrofters of New York like Semiramis and Ganelon, and even fonts from the California Arts & Crafts period of the early 1900s like Coloma. The newest additions to the package include Palmyra, Hyacinth Initials, Spoonbill and Advertising Gothic. They are shown in red on the left. Also included in this new edition of the package are a selection of floral frames, borders and decorations developed from Roycroft publications from the early 1900s. All the fonts are historically accurate and they are not available from any other source. The package is available for Windows or the MacOS, and includes both TrueType and Postscript fonts. The price is only $69 for all the fonts and the borders and decorations. You can order the Arts & Crafts font and art package directly for delivery on CD by phone from 1-512-656-8011, or you can purchase the package online – just – CLICK HERE TO ORDER with an immediate download. |
If you want to try out a font from this collection, try out the Palmyra demo. Palmyra is reminiscent of the lettering style found in many books and pamphlets from the Roycrofters – the arts and crafts design community founded by Elbert Hubbard. It has a constructed look with rounded ends on the letters characteristic of pen-lettering. It has multiple versions of many of the letters to allow variations in your designs. Click here to download the demo of Palmyra for either WINDOWS or MacOS. You can purchase the full font ONLINE.
The Hot Retro Design of the “Burly Q”
When I go browsing in our local vintage shops I always check out the racks of flyers and promotional cards for various local bands and businesses. Sometimes I find a graphic design treasure, and last weekend that treasure was a half-page, two-sided promo card for a movie called Behind the Burly Q which is coming out on DVD next spring.
The card, which I suspect is also the DVD cover, has the look of an aged poster from the period in the 40s and 50s when Burlesque was at its height, which makes sense as the film is a documentary history of Burlesque from its origins in Vaudeville to the reminiscences of surviving stars of the era. The design is pretty bold in its use of creative paper yellowing and texturing. It’s not perfect, but it does get the look of cheap high-acid paper which is a couple of decades old about right. The font choices are pretty good with a clear awareness of the kinds of fonts available for cheap letterpress printing 50 years or so ago.
What I think stands out most is the use of overlapping graphic elements, with photos and blocks of text arranged where they share space but still stand on their own and remain distinct enough to read or view, all in an overall design which doesn’t seem too crowded or unbalanced – especially on the front of the card, much less so on the back. Bringing all those elements together into a coherent whole and making them work together takes a special eye, and I’m a little envious of how well it’s done here, as it’s something I often have trouble with myself. I tend to be afraid to use odd angles and asymetrical placements, afraid that the final result won’t have the balance which it ought to. So I’m keeping the “Burly Q” card around for reference to remind me to be bold in my placements and not fall back on too many predictable positioning.
New Font: Criterion
| Criterion is a classic Art Deco style font designed based on poster lettering samples from the 1920s. It has a strong, bold look and although it is all caps, it offers both a basic character set and an outline version for variety. The name comes from the name of the famously preserved and restored Art Deco style Criterion Theatre in Bar Harbor, Maine. It’s the kind of font which would have been used there in its heyday. If you like this style of font you should check out our Art Deco font collection for more in the same vein.
You can try the DEMO version of Criterion for free by registering. Or you can ORDER the full version for only $24 online and download it right away. |
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Ancient and Arcane Fonts
While developing more traditional fonts based on historical material, we have occasionally hit upon historical oddities or lettering styles of exceptional antiquity which have interesting qualities and in which there is enough interest to justify the effort needed to make them into fonts.
As a result, our collection has come to include a substantial number of fonts based on the earliest ancient languages as well as fonts based on a variety of magical, fantastical and arcance lettering styles.
Languages like Ugaritic, Chaldean and Phoenician may have become extinct long ago, but they are still of interest to scholars and have a suprising attraction for many graphic designers who want to use lettering in a decorative way to create an arcane appearance without using any comprehensible modern language. Ancient scripts are perfect for this, because they give the appearance of genuine writing, while not being recognizable to the lay viewer. Our selection of ancient scripts is large and growing, focused on the more obscure lettering styles, though we also offer fonts for more familiar languages like Greek, Coptic and Cyrillic.
Down the centuries, mystics and kabbalists have sought to understand the universe by learning the secret scripts which would unlock the door to arcane knowledge. We have a number of fonts based on the languages of demons, angels and mad alchemists of one kind or another.
In addition, we have several fonts which
feature regular characters, plus arcane symbols as special characters, and art fonts with mystical images, including fonts like our Marseille Tarot font where ever letter is a card from the Major Arcana of a classic Tarot deck.
The worlds of the ancient past and magical aracana are not that far from the worlds of pure fantasy, which explains why we have such a large selection of completely fantastical fonts.
Most of these are drawn from the intricately developed background of the Ysgarth roleplaying game, which has gone farther than most games in exploring the details of fantasy world language and society. You can find out more about Ysgarth at the
Ysgarth website.
Regardless of the use you put them to, there is a special fascination to these strange and arcane fonts. We’re planning on developing more of them in the future, including heiroglyphic, demotic and other lost languages. Plus, if you like this sort of font, check out our calligraphy page, because at there is a point at which calligraphy crosses over a line into the bizarre and magical when the artistry of the lettering overwhelms the pure representational aspect of the characters.
These fonts are all available collected together in our Arcane Fonts package which you can ORDER ONLINE and download immediately for only $59. You may also be interested in our Russian and Cyrillic fonts collection. All of the fonts are also available individually. Just do a search for them by name.
To get an idea of what our arcane fonts are like, try out the shareware version of our new Malachim font. It’s based on an alphabet which purports to be a version of the script used by angels. It should give you a good idea of what our fonts can look like on your computer: Download Malachim
Valdemar Font on Harry Potter Wands
With the dramatic opening of the last film in the Harry Potter series opening this weekend it seemed appropriate to mention a little bit of the history of the relationship between the movies and Scriptorum Fonts. Way back when the first movie came out we were cotacted by the merchandising team and a deal was struck where a set of six of our fonts would be the official merchandising fonts for all consumer products associated with the films. The title would remain the standard hand-drawn logo derived from the book title, but the titles and captions on all packaging for action figures, toys, games and novelties would be done with our fonts, with a special emphasis on the Valdemar font.
A memo was circulated to all of the associated manufacturers and promoters about the special font set and the idea was that they would purchase those fonts and by using them they would produce a consistent look and feel for the packaging on all the merchandise associated with the movie. It was a great pan, but it was largely a failure. With no real effort at enforcement most of the vendors decided to replace most of the fonts with whatever they had already purchased which was similar and so instead of using Buccaneer for the text they used whatever text font they had around and instead of using Guilford for captions they just dragged out whatever brush script they had on hand. The one font they really couldn’t replace was Valdemar because its look is so peculiar and so unique that there’s really no other font which can come close to passing for it.
So the deal ended up being a lot less exciting than it appeared at the time, and though it was a good idea, execution kind of fell through and in the early years of the films the merchandised product came out with a very inconsistent and haphazard look to them, rushed into production without serious attention to details like using the right fonts. We were disappointed, but the whole thing had basically just dropped in our laps and there had never been any real guarantees, so we shrugged and moved on.
Now, as we’re reaching the end of the movies and really the height of Harry Potter frenzy among the fans, high-end merchandising items are being released and they are being produced with much more of an eye to quality packaging design, including the return of extensive use of the various versions of the Valdemar font for titles and headers on the packaging. I spotted one great example of this in my local Barnes and Noble last week when I found several items in a series of high end souvenir wands manufactured for fans of the movies.
This series of collectible items from the Noble Collection features the wands of all the major wizard characters in the movie with tips which light up in response to motion. They sell for $35 each. Interestingly, although Valdemar is used prominently on the box cover and the interior for the main titles on the package as you find it in the store, all of the advertising materials for this product line not only omit any of that text but also show different art on the boxes, so if you order one of these off of Amazon.com don’t expect it to look like what you saw on their site when it arrives.
Though I wish the merchandising guidelines on Harry Potter products had actually been followed more consistently and we’d seen a lot more of our fonts in use, these wands are a high-end product with very nice production values and an excellent showcase for Valdemar so I can’t complain too much.
Featured Font: Vergennes
| Vergennes was originally released in 2001 and is a stylish font which combines a simple lower case character set with highly decorative calligraphic initials. It is based on samples of lettering collected in Germany in the early 1900s, though the style of the letters seems more typically French than characteristically German. Vergennes in more complex, but has characteristics in common with several of our other fonts. For comparison or possible companion fonts take a look at Linthicum, Prelude and Interlude.
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An Excellent Source for Vintage Poster Art
In my periodic random wanderings of the internet I stumbled on a rather excellent source for examples of vintage poster and book cover art and lettering at MovePosterShop.com. While their business seems to focus primarily on selling posters from contemporary movies, they have all sorts of interesting material in their catalog, from posters of pulp novel covers to vintage movie posters. Most appear to be reproductions, but the color and image quality seem to be excellent. And for someone primarily looking for visual inspiration and examples of cool lettering for future fonts, the fact that they have high-quality relatively large size preview images is a great thing.
A couple of things particularly caught my eye as I looked around. For one thing they have a poster of a cover from G8 and His Battle Aces which was my father’s favorite pulp series back in the 1930s. They also have a great selection of Weird Tales and Startling Stories covers. They also have an outstanding selection of foreign language versions of famous posters. There’s lots of obsura, like their surprisingly large selection of hard to find lesbian bondage novel covers – interesting to see though they certainly may not be to every taste.
Independence Day Special
The United States is 236 years old this week, so we’re offering everyone a birthday present on our two most patriotic font packages, our Colonial Fonts and Political Fonts packages.
The Colonial Fonts collection features historic type and calligraphy from the period of the Revolutionary War and the Political Fonts package has fonts specifically designed for making political posters and logos – something which could be very useful in the upcoming election year.
Through the end of the week (the 10th) you can order either or both of them online with $15 off by using the coupon code LIBERTY when you check out in our ONLINE STORE.
A Guide to Lettering by Pedro Lemos
In the past we’ve put together several special ebooks on various aspects of design excerpted from Pedro J. Lemos textbook Applied Arts, including one on Bookbinding and another on Color Harmony. Our new addition to that collection is A Guide to Lettering which looks at the history of letters and how to do basic calligraphy and design of letters for posters or type design.
Guide to Lettering is longer than our previous releases and it is profusely illustrated in both color and black and white. It’s not an advanced book on lettering and type design but it does provide a nice introduction in a way that’s clear and easy to understand.
You can download the ebook HERE in PDF format.
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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.
