Illuminated Initials from Early Manuscripts
In the mid-19th century Owen Jones undertook to catalog historic design and decoration in phenomenal detail and with exacting thoroughness in a series of beautifully illustrated books. The most famous of these is his Grammar of Ornament, which provides an overview of design and ornament from ancient times to the Renaissance. His next most notable work on historic design is his collection of Illuminated Initials from Early Manuscripts, a magnificent work on historic calligraphy and illumination which we are now making available in digital form, prepared with the same kind of care and attention to detail as our digital edition of the Grammar of Ornament.
The collection consists of all the original illustrations in the Jones book, including hundreds of initials and decorative calligraphic letters. It includes a large selection of ornate initials from different historic periods, plus several complete historic calligraphic alphabets and a selection of decorative borders and embellishments. The designs are extraordinarily detailed with brilliant colors and include examples of illumination from the early medieval period through the gothic period of the high middle ages, including outstanding Celtic, Gothic and Frankish styles.
You can see some samples of individual initials of several different styles here, or click on the sample page to the right to download a PDF with reduced-size versions of all the pages from the original book. The PDF can give you a good idea of the content of the collection, but not the quality of the images in the full package, which are in high resolution and large size with vivid colors and painstaking digital clean-up and color adjustment. These are great examples of the highly detailed, full-color initials which look great, but just can’t normally be turned into fonts. With a few exceptions, as the package also includes a bonus – two original fonts based on alphabets from the collection, Alcuin and Leodegar.
The complete Illuminated Initials from Early Manuscripts collection is available for purchase online and can be downloaded or delivered on CD for just $69 from our ONLINE STORE.
New Font: Leodegar
| Leodegar is based on samples of 7th century Frankish hand lettering. The characters draw on the minuscule calligraphic tradition, but are a bit more decorative and somewhat whimsical. They occupy an appealing position somewhere between calligraphy and decorative initials, perfect for titles which need a dark age look or for low-impact initials in an antique looking document. The name of the font comes from one of the many Merovingian Frankish kinds of the period. The upper case characters follow the original outline-style of the lettering and the lowercase is a solid style compatible with the uppercase but more suitable for text. You can try the DEMO version of Leodegar for free with a limited character set. Or you can ORDER the full version for only $24 online and download it right away. |
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New Font: Serenissima
| Serenissima takes its name from a nickname for the city of Venice which means “The Serene One.” It’s a particularly inappropriate name considering what a huge and absolutely unserene effort went into the creation of this digital version of the lovely sample of 16th century lettering which it is based on. Serenissima may be the most demanding design I’ve worked on in years. The complex outlines and fine divisions between sections of the capital letters required unusual exactitude, so much that many of the character outlines had to be redrawn multiple times and then extensively tweaked and fine tuned to get them to look just right. It was an awful lot of work, but I think the results are worth it. The upper case characters are complex and unique and the lowercase is elegant and provides excellent balance for the overall look of the font.You can try the DEMO version of Serenissima for free with a limited character set. Or you can ORDER the full version for only $24 online and download it right away. |
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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 1864. We have a lovely copy which was originally in the library of a Catholic monastery in England, which adds a touch of romance and history. The project involves preserving the color lettering and borders in high resolution digital format and also creating selected fonts based on those alphabets which have the necessary characteristics for adaptation as fonts.
The first of these is Alcuin, which is based on a set of 13th century illuminated initials. The letters in Alcuin are typical of early illuminated manuscripts with Irish-influenced uncial lettering, but with the addition of unusual abstract decorations which make each letter unique but are not overly complex, making them perfect for adaptation to font format. Alcuin includes a full upper case of decorated characters, a lower case of the plain characters and several extra variant versions of some of the characters. You can try the DEMO version of Alcuin for free, but it includes only one version of each character. Or you can ORDER the full version online and download it right away. |
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New Font – Woburn Initials

It’s been quite a while since we did an initials font, so here is Woburn, a lovely set of floriate initials based on an early woodblock design which uses late gothic characters and adds nice, clean floral embellishments. Woburn is big and decorative, but the characters are very clear and clean.
As a bonus we’ve added a full lowercase character set in a compatible style. It also works well in combination with our classic Cymbeline font. Woburn will be included as one of the new fonts in the next release of our Decorative Initials collection.
Download and try out the free demo version of Woburn (will work on Mac or PC). If you like it you can buy the complete character set with all the extra features from our Ordering Site.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 








