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.
Featured Font: Schoolhand...
Schoolhand was originally commissioned by the Education Department at a major Christian university, which will remain nameless. It was developed to their specifications in order to teach cursive handwriting to children, sharing some charac[...]
Featured Font: Rosalinde...
Rosalinde was first released in 1999 and it was one of our first attempts at an informal handwriting-style font. It is a bit more than just a regular handwriting font. It has some stylized characteristics and unusual character forms[...]
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 [...]
Classic Font: Semiramis...
Semiramis was originally released in 1997. It's an arts and crafts style font based on samples of lettering from books published by the Roycrofters in the early 1900s. It has a truly unique look, the most extreme example of the decorative[...]
St. Patrick's Day Bonus Font: Co...
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[...]
Classic Font: Dromon...
Dromon has been one of our most popular and most successful display fonts. It's a modern, super-bold headline style with some clear ancestry in German gothic type design, but a unique and contemporary look. This new release of Dromo[...]
New Font: Alcuin...
We're working on a number of projects based on designs by legendary 19th century codicologist Owen Jones, who is most famous for his Grammar of Ornament. One of those projects is his book One Thousand and One Initial Letters from 18[...]
Classic Font: Engrossing...
Engrossing is one of our earliest fonts, originally released in the early 1990s. It is based on one of the very first examples of printed type in a script style. The historic source design was derived from common 17th century callig[...]
New Font: Elsene...
Elsene is a new font based on lettering by early 20th century illustrator Clara Elsene Peck, obviously taking its name from her middle name. It's based on her lettering and initials from the book Knocks Witty and Wise. A companion set[...]
New Font: Aerobrush...
I was playing around with some paint at our chicken coop and realized I had an opportunity to do some hands-on design work for a brush-style font, so I did a set of sample brush strokes on a piece of the recycled coroplast which cover[...]
New Font: Drakulon...
When I was a kid I wasn't allowed to buy comic books, so when I began to earn some money of my own as a young teen, I hit that market right at the peak of the 1970s boom in alternative large-format comics which were much more salaci[...]
Special Font: Guilford Crude...
When we were developing the Guilford font there was a whole set of early versions of the characters which ended up being discarded as the font was developed towards a more regular and consistent design. These older and quirkier varian[...]
New Font: Escargot...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview Escargot is based on lettering from the cover of an early pulp novel I came across a couple of months ago. It's a strong example of a distinctive style of sign and poster lettering fro[...]
New Font: Vyones...
On a recent journey to an obscure and near-forgotten French province, I found myself wandering in the storied Forest of Averoigne, just a few miles outside of walled and towered Vyones, near the banks of the sleepy River Isoile. In the da[...]
Classic Font: Lachesis...
Lachesis was one of our earliest text font designs, a unique font deliberately designed to have an antique wood-cut look. It is based on samples of vintage type taken directly from letterpress type blocks found at the type museum in [...]
Featured Font: Chaillot...
Chaillot is based on 12th century gothic calligraphy which has some characteristics of early black letter calligraphy and stylistic holdovers from late Carolingian lettering. It is a very bold and distinctive calligraphic style with u[...]
New Font: Nostromo...
Nostromo is based on a sample of early 1900s period advertising lettering with a particularly dramatic personality and a look which really grabs the eye. The font includes all uppercase characters, with some variants, plus the unique [...]
New Font - St. Ives...
In honor of Cyber Monday, which some people are now expanding to be a whole Cyber Week, we're releasing St. Ives, a new modernistic font with unique riser and descender characters which give it an unusual linear look. It will [...]
Special Font Release: Posada Spu...
I was watching the television show Sons of Anarchy and on looking at the logo for the show I was struck by the similarity between the lettering used for the name of the titular motorcycle gang and our Posada font. Clearly their lette[...]
Classic Font: Black Cow...
Black Cow is a unique original font designed for our Horror Fonts and Art collection several years ago. It's one of the most interesting fonts in the large selection of fonts in that package, but it hasn't had the huge level of popul[...]
New Font: Diomedes...
Once again we are calling on the classic early 20th century lettering work of J. M. Bergling to produce a new font with a timeless look which combines elements of text and titling styles for a versatile and elegant effect. Diomedes[...]
Walter Crane Initials and Orname...
It has taken a lot of hours of development, but we finally have our promised Walter Crane Initials font. Or should I say FOUR fonts, because in the process of developing the font it turned out that we ended up with more [...]
New Font: Scrapple...
Scrapple is a new font based on the idea of constructing characters from a limited selection of wood blocks featuring round and rectangular shapes. Scrapple has a cool, crude and industrial look. It's all uppercase, but the lowercase[...]
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.
July 4, 2011 | Filed Under Design, Pedro J. Lemos | 1 Comment
Wayland, Wayland, Shoe Me My Mar...
Some while ago we added to our library an early 20th century book called Singing Games for Children which contains a dozen sets of detailed instructions for classic singing and dancing games for children - not the ones we're familiar with t[more]
Gothic Fonts Collection...
Our gothic font collection is a compilation of our most interesting 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 heigh[more]
May Day Sale...
May Day comes but once a year to fill our hearts with joy and cheer... In honor of May Day and the coming of summer, through the end of May 1st you can get 25% off of any order with NO minimum by using the coupon code MAYDAY on checkout.[more]
Goodfellow Font in Django Unchai...
I notice from our keyword tracking that we are getting a lot of hits from people looking for fonts from the movie Django Unchained. Not surprising give the striking retro-graphics which are common in Tarantino films. I suspect that most o[more]
Holiday Feature Guide...
Holiday Fonts and Art Collection Classic Font: St. Nicholas New Font: Holly Initials Classic Font: Swithin Classic Font: Offenbach Chancery Design Your Own Holiday Cards Better Holiday Font Choices Holiday Bonus: Pr[more]
Carmilla on Pop-Up Books...
Traditionally certain of our fonts have gotten a lot more public exposure than others have. There was a time a few months ago when I thought I'd go nuts if I saw another book or game with Windlass on the cover. But the pattern is cyclic a[more]
Retro Design in Django Unchained...
We've started seeing previews for Quentin Tarrantino's new film Django Unchained in the theatres. The film looks like a high-octane take on the western genre done with a Tarrantino twist, and as has been the case with other recent films fro[more]
Folkard Font featured in Bard's ...
Bard's Tale is a venerable computer game which has gone through many versions and updates. In its latest incarnation as a multiplayer roleplaying game App for tablets and smartphones it has gone through a look and feel upgrade, and part of [more]
Art Nouveau Font Collection...
Click any font to see a larger sample Our Art Nouveau collection is one of our most impressive font packages. It brings together all of our best fonts based on Art[more]
Constructivist Fonts Package...
Our first new release for 2013 is our collection of Constructivist Fonts based on poster lettering from the early post-revolutionary period in Russia, including designs based on the styles of famous designers of the period like Alexander Ro[more]
Owen Jones "The Preacher" Packag...
One of Owen Jones most interesting illuminated books is his 1849 edition of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes published under the title The Preacher, consisting of 35 hand-colored, fully illuminated pages. It is on[more]
Try Our New Font Preview Tool...
After a long search we've managed to find a new tool called Typeshow which will allow visitors to the site to create custom samples of any of our fonts. It is similar in design to the Texter tool which we experimented with in the past, but [more]
Walter Crane Christmas Bonus...
As a special treat for customers working on holiday card designs, we're making available a special mini-package of Christmas-themed images designed by Walter Crane at a tiny, almost minuscule price. The images are based on Walter Crane's[more]
A Special Offer on Our Font Club...
As a special offer to round out the fall, we're offering a one-time discount on new and renewal memberships in our Font Club. The Font Club is a unique subscription service where you get the complete versions of each of our featured new fon[more]
Medieval Fonts and Art...
Click any font to see a larger sample. // he Middle Ages saw calligraphy and book decoration emerge as significant art forms. The[more]
Christmas Gift Font: Candlemass...
As a special gift for our newsletter subscribers and social media followers we're making the very Christamssy Candlemass font available as a free download through midnight on the 25th. To download Candlemass just CLICK HERE And don't for[more]
Viking Fonts and Art Collection...
For a PDF of art samples click HERE Click any font to see a larger sample. Vafthrudnir is a new, original font design which draws on the tradition of Germanic uncial and early gothic calligraphy. It is desi[more]
The Colonial Fonts Collection...
Click any font to see a larger sample. 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 vi[more]
E. J. Detmold Arabian Nights Ill...
E. J. Detmold was an early 20th century illustrator most known for his nature illustrations, particularly of insects, in books like Fabre's Book of Insects and The Life of the Bee. He also illustrated some fairy tale books, the most notabl[more]
Folkard Spotted in Bar Harbor...
I'm on vacation in Maine with the family and happened to be visiting Bar Harbor, Maine's legendary tourist town. Among the many chic restaurants, my eye was caught by the sign on a brand restaurant called the Lazy Lobster, a little bistro [more]
Carmilla Font at Central Market...
I stopped off for lunch at the cafe in our local Central Market (upscale grocery store owned by HEB) and was surprised to find that among the posters on their walls promoting various events at the store there was a poster for a "Day of the [more]
Recent Comments
- Special Font: Art Deco Borders
- Howard Pyle Fonts and Art Package
- Script Fonts Package
- weight loss supplements: Great post. I used to be checking continuously this blog and I'm impressed! Extremely useful information particularly the last part :) I take care…
- Jurata noclegi: Ciekawy blog! Trudno w tych czasach trafić na taką stronę w internecie. Pozdrawiam.
- tanie noclegi w Juracie: Ciekawa strona, interesujący wygląd i wciągające wpisy. Pozdrawiam.
- Futuristic Fonts - Updated and Expanded
- Cicely Mary Barker Fairies Mini-Package
- Nancy West Johnson: What are the names of the fairies included?
Java Rotator

