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.
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.
Cicely Mary Barker Fairies Mini-Package
Along with Arthur Rackham and Kate Greenaway, Cicely Mary Barker was one of the three great fairy illustrators of the early 20th century. Her Flower Fairies books were enormously popular and influential on illustrators of the period. willy Pogany even produced a series similarly titled knock-off books.
Barker’s use of rich colors and her delicate rendering of playful fairy figures and botanically accurate flowers distinguish her work and set it apart from the more undisciplined work of many of her contemporaries.
Barker’s illustrations are widely available in reprint editions of her books, but not generally in high resolution digital format licensed for reproduction, which is what we have to offer in this mini-package of her Spring flower fairies, an appropriate item to debut at this time of the year.
The package includes 12 color and 2 black and white images for just $10. You can order it and download it immediately from our ONLINE STORE.
Who Killed Cock Robin?
        Silhouettes by Charles Folkard from Land of Nursery Rnyme |
Who killed Cock Robin?
I, said the Sparrow,
With my bow and arrow
I killed Cock Robin.
Chorus:
All the birds in the air
Fell a’sighing and a’sobbing
When they heard of the death
Of poor Cock Robin.
I, said the Fly,
With my little eye
I saw him die.
I, said the Fish,
With my little dish
I caught his blood.
I, said the Bull,
Because I can pull
I’ll toll the bell.
I, said the Owl,
With my little trowel
I’ll dig his grave.
Who’ll be the parson?
I, daid the Rook,
With my little book
I’ll be the parson.
I, said the Dove,
For I mourn for my love,
I’ll be chief mourner.
Protected: Christmas Gift Font: Candlemass
Holiday Bonus: Present Labels
As a special holiday gift to our customers we’ve put together a special selection of Christmas present labels using traditional art from our collection. There are 13 labels in PDF format, perfect for printing out and using to label your presents.
To download the labels click on the image of a sample label above and to the right and then print them out from the PDF file. Ideally you should print the labels out on adhesive backed sheets of label paper (available at OfficeMax, Office Depot, Staples and similar stores). Then cut out the individual labels and stick them on your presents. If you can’t get adhesive backed label paper you can always use a glue stick or tape, which works just about as well.
Merry Christmas, Joyous Yule, Happy Holidays, etc.
Dave
PayPal Financing and Bonus
PayPal would really like you to buy more of our font and art products and use their service to do it. They’ll make it worth your while with interest free credit for 6 months and even a $5 kickback on your first purchase. PayPal is available as one of our standard checkout payment options. It’s worth a look.
Louis Rhead Floral Borders
At the start of the previous century the Rhead brothers (Louis, George and Frederick) were leading figures in the California Arts and Crafts movement. They were heavily influenced by William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites and are best known for their unique book design in large folio works like their Pilgrim’s Progress and Idylls of the King.
Louis Rhead was the primary artist of the group, and one of his specialties was incredibly detailed stylized depictions of nature, used to illustrate works on fishing, hunting and gardening. His animal and flower depictions are extraordinary examples of the adaptation of natural motifs to decorative applications. As an introduction to Rhead’s work, which will be featured more prominently in some forthcoming packages, we’ve put together a mini-package of a set of 9 of Rhead’s extraordinary floral borders, featuring stylized sunflowers, roses, morning glories and other flowers in high resolution perfect for use in book or web design.
The mini-package can be ordered online and downloaded immediately for just $10. Just go directly to our ONLINE STORE.
Introducing Halloween Fonts
For many years one of our most popular collections has been our three package set of Horror Fonts and Art. Although that collection contains a lot of unique art, its real backbone is the extraordinary collection of 36 original fonts with horror and supernatural themes, including some which have become very successful like Abaddon (Godsmack logo), Beynkales (Corpse Bride font), Orlock (original Nosferatu poster font) Valdemar (Age of Misrule font), Goodfellow (Nightmare Before Christmas font) and many more. As you can see, our Halloween fonts have been extremely popular in movies and in publishing.
Halloween is coming up and that means people are working on their posters and t-shirt designs for Halloween parties, haunted houses and festivals, so it’s time for our Horror fonts to shine. It’s also a great opportunity to showcase the new Typeshow type preview tool. We’ve got samples of some of the top fonts in the package here, but using Typeshow you can see custom samples of all the fonts.
Even better, we’re now making all of our horror fonts available together as a special package without the art. It includes all 42 of our Horror Fonts for a temporary reduced price of just $89. It’s a quick download and you’ll have all the stylish, spooky and original horror fonts you’ll ever need. It includes all 36 fonts in the original font and art packages (Dementia Swash, Dementia, Diabolus, Goetic, Guede, Malachim, Mephisto, Necromantic, Netherworld, Sabanak, Sepultura, Veve, Abaddon, Black Cow, Corpus, Gehenna Extreme, Gehenna, Ghost Gothic, Halloweenies, Ironworks, Mayhem, Paleos, Sanguinary, Veronique, Boneyard, Carmilla, Golgotha, Irzuley, Ligeia, Malagua, Moravia, Samedi, Skull and Bones, Summerisle, Valdemar), plus six bonus fonts only available individually or as part of this special set (Witchery, Posada, Monstrous, Nostromo, Witchhunt and Orlock). All of these are now viewable with Typeshow. You can purchase the package in our ONLINE STORE and all of the fonts are also available individually.
,
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 from Tarrantino as a director and a producer we’re already seeing a lot of attention being paid to the graphic presentation of the film, with the use of period design elements reminiscent of the films whose legacy Django Unchained borrows from, the spaghetti westerns of the 1960s and early 1970s.
The first official poster release shows this dedication to retro design, though the minimalist cut-out style seems much more characteristic of novel cover design from the late 60s or early 70s than it does of spaghetti western posters. But there’s no question it’s a striking and evocative design. And there is a clear parallel to one classic film poster, the poster from the similarly themed 1971 western The Skin Game (shown to the left), whhich also uses silhouettes and bold contrasting colors.
The theatrical preview also shows the same kind of design aesthetic, with the use of letterpress style fonts, including the use of what appears to be a somewhat distressed version of our Caelian font as the main titles between the cuts in the trailer, which works well because the font is so bold.
Of course, if you want to see really bold vintage font choices and retro design style in a period film, keep an eye out for the trailer for The Man with the Iron Fists brought to us by Tarrantino collaborator Eli Roth and rapper/actor RZA, a film which seems to have no official Tarrantino association but sure looks like something he would have produced.
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 and it now seems to be the moment of ascendancy for Carmilla.
Last week I discovered Carmilla on a poster at Central Market. This week I spotted it on the cover of two cute pop-up books for kids, Where’s the Dragon and Where’s the Dinosaur. Not sure why the designer of these books decided that an antique script font went with giant lizards, but the font does look pretty good on the covers.
Pop-up books are a unique art form and these ones are pretty well done. They’re great for younger kids because they have an interactive element to them, but in recent years there has been an effort to design pop-ups for an older audience, including some very ambitious ones designed to present 3D art for adults. These books are more traditional, but are good examples of the traditional form, which dates back to the 19th century or earlier.
