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.
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[...]
New Font: Fougasse...
Fougasse is a bold title font which has a unique combination of elements, including an unusually heavy weight, some unusual Art Deco period character forms and rough outlines to the character which are not too pronounced, but give i[...]
Featured Font: Circuit...
Circuit was designed for a project back in the late 1990s and has languished in our back catalog since then because of its very specialized look, though it is featured in our Futuristic Fonts collection. We were reminded about it rec[...]
Featured Font: Potsdam...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Potsdam was one of our earliest font releases, first produced in 1992 based on samples of 19th century decorative German type. It was one of our first fonts designed for MacIntosh computer users and fol[...]
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[...]
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[...]
Classic Font: Paleos...
We originally released Paleos back in 2002. It was inspired by kinds of titles used for B grade movies in the cavegirl/junglegirl genre. Movies so bad that they're good in a way that appeals to cult movie fans. The concept is that the[...]
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[...]
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: 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: Langdon...
Langdon is our first new font of 2012. It's based on samples of hand-rendered poster lettering from the early 1900s by J. M. Bergling. It has a strong, distinctive look with demi-serifs and an art nouveau or art deco look. It's very m[...]
Featured Font: Munich...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Our Munich font was first released in 1998 and has been revised several times since then. This latest version includes substantial improvements in the outlines of the characters and a new set of simple upper [...]
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 [...]
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 sha[...]
Classic Font: Goodfellow...
Goodfellow was first released in the spring of 1993. It was based on Art Nouveau period metal type designed for titles and logos. It became a surprise hit when Tim Burton used it as the title font for his hit animated film A Nightmare Bef[...]
New Font: Treadway...
Treadway is a new, original design in the tradition of futuristic advertising scripts of the mid-20th century, inspired by fonts like Kaufmann and Gillies, but with a stronger, more clearly defined look, stripped down to its most st[...]
New Font: Bosphoros...
We don't normally like to follow the same theme too much with our new font releases, but because we wanted to put together a special package of fonts by J. M. Bergling we're following the release of Beaumains with Bosphoros, another f[...]
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 [...]
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[...]
Featured Font: Gloriana...
Gloriana was originally released in 1999 based on samples of hand lettering in an illustated childrens book from the early 1900s. It was one of several conceptually similar fonts we did during that period, including Gaiseric, Rosalin[...]
New Font: Monstrous...
It's time for something new and strange, our new and original Monstrous font. Monstrous is a titling font which offers a striking look and special features which make it truly unique. The characters are stylized and super-bold, but[...]
Classic Font: Black Cow...
Black Cow was originally developed back in 1998 as an addition to our Horror Fonts and Art collection. It has since been through several revisions with the addition of lots of alternate character forms. It's a super quirky font with very [...]
New Font - Eisenstein...
Film director Sergei Eisenstein was a major influence on the Constructivist movement through his collaboration with Alexander Rodchenko and by inspiring other artists of the era. Thus it seems appropriate that the final font i[...]
Classic Font: True Golden...
True Golden is one of the cornerstone fonts in our William Morris collection. It is a unique rendering of Morris' Golden type, which he based on samples of early Jensen typefaces. Our rendering of the style has a special, authentic lo[...]
New Font: Gelderland...
Gelderland is a new font based on some very old typography, taken from samples of brass type from the early 19th century. It is characterized by its very detailed decorative capital letters, with multiple overlapping flourishes which[...]
Featured Font: Froissart...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Our Froissart font was first released in 2000 as part of our Medieval Fonts and Art package. It is an accurate recreation of the Littera Bastarda calligraphic style which was popular in the 14th and 15t[...]
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 versi[...]
New Font: Romark...
It's the time of year when we do a lot of design for political posters and some of those projects need special fonts. On this kind of work we already get a lot of mileage out of fonts like Aventine and Atinson Egyptian, but we needed [...]
New Font: Hadrianus Swash...
Hadrianus has been one of our most popular text fonts for a while and it was recently featured here on the site. There has been a lot of demand to expand the features available with Hadrianus beyond the usual bold and italic versions, so t[...]
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 [...]
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: Hadrianus...
Hadrianus was developed in 2001 as an addition to our Master Fonts selection of high-end text fonts. It was created to fill the need for a very formal Roman-style font derived from historic Latin lettering. It's one of our most attractive[...]
Featured Font: Orphiel...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview Script fonts can be a real challenge to design, especially when they are designed to have interconnecting characters which require exacting kerning and character positioning. Whe[...]
New Font: Big Show...
We've been working hard on developing a new package of fonts based on classic Letterpress designs and that package is almost complete. Rounding out the collection is our new Big Show font, which is a kind of a swanky 1960s take on the clas[...]
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: 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 [...]
Featured Font: Mephisto...
Mephisto is one of our more popular classic fonts. It was designed in the mid-90s and has gone through a couple of updates, but it was past due for being revisited and thoroughly revised. This new version includes more unique arcane[...]
New Font: Rodrigo Initials...
Rodrigo is a new font based on a set of 16th century woodcut initials with floral, fruit and animal motifs for decoration. The designs are rather reminiscent of Italian silver work of that period, which brought to mind the lavish din[...]
Classic Font: Swithin...
Swithin was designed to be our featured holiday font for 2003. It is based on samples of advertising lettering from posters produced during the 1920s. The whimsical nature of the characters and the decorative elements make it an exc[...]
New Font: Holly Initials...
It wouldn't be the holidays without a special font designed to capture the mood of the season. As a source for something special I went to our library of rare books on type and calligraphy and found a rare book on calligraphy called Real P[...]
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[...]
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 1900[...]
Classic Font: Gjallarhorn...
Gjallarhorn is based on uncial-style lettering by artist Willy Pogany from his titles for Padraig Colum's classic collection of Scandinavian myths, The Children of Odin. It is reminiscent of runic lettering carved in wood and is evocative o[...]
Featured Font: Bridgeport...
Bridgeport was first released in 2003 and is one of several fonts based on lettering by legendary artist and calligrapher Eric Sloane, including Queensland and Guilford. Bridgeport has the look of hand lettered capitals, with strong [...]
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 [...]
New Font: Rodchenko...
Alexander Rodchenko (1891–1956) was one of the premier artists of the constructivist movement in Russia. Although he was a sculptor, painter and photographer, he is most remembered for his graphic design style in book and poster desig[...]
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[...]
Classic Font: Alecto...
Alecto was originally released in 2002 and was one of the fonts developed for our Futuristic Fonts package. It has a unique science fictional look, combining some of the look of an OCR font with pure fantasy elements. It's just the k[...]
New Font: Death Ray...
When we did a font (and a feature article) recently based on a design by Alexander Rodchenko, the result was a very cool font, but while it was based on Rodchenko lettering, it is not the style most associated with his work. The ta[...]
New Font: Original Django...
In an article last week we explored the origins of the font used in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained and a bit of the history of the Django genre of films. That was part of the process of the development of an original font bas[...]
Featured Font: Guilford...
Guilford is one of several fonts we've released based on the hand lettering of classic American artist Eric Sloane. It fits in with the colonial theme of many of his book designs, with an antique, rustic look. It is one of several Slo[...]
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: Plymouth...
As you may have noticed we've been doing fonts off and on for several years based on the hand lettering of early 20th century sign-painter Frank Atkinson. Past fonts based on his lettering include Atkinson Eccenteric, Atkinson Boomtown and[...]
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[...]
Featured Font: Locksley...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO We have done a number of fonts based on unique, historic movie titles. The most well known and widely circulated is our Captain Kidd font, but we have another historic movie font based on an even more f[...]
Featured Font: Illuminata...
Illuminata was inspired by lettering from a poster from the Fillmore in the 1960s. It was originally released in 2001 as part of the Psychedelic Fonts package and then later further developed for the Oroborosgame project. This latest [...]
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[...]
Featured Font: Malagua...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Malagua was originally released in 1999 and has been revised several times since then, culminating in this new release with improved weighting and additional special characters. MAlagua is based on [...]
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: 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[...]
New Font: Beaumains...
We've done a number of fonts based on lettering by vintage calligrapher and design historian J. M. Bergling, including several with an Art Nouveau flavor like Boetia and Belgravia. Our newest font is in that same tradition, but it [...]
New Font: Moncrief...
In working on graphic design projects I've been repeatedly frustrated by the lack of interesting medium-weight script fonts which are simple enough to be readable, but not too plain to be interesting. So with the latest project which neede[...]
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[...]
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[...]
New Font: San Lorenzo...
For our first font of the new year we're offering up the brand new San Lorenzo font. It's an original hand-drawn font with a rustic decorative look which is reminiscent of the ironwork on Mission Style furniture or decorative lettering cha[...]
Classic Font: Padstow...
In the week leading up to St. Patrick's Day it's all about Celtic design, so our featured classic font has to be something with a Celtic theme. That being the case, there's no better choice than our bold and beautiful Padstow font. It[...]
New Font: Shayne...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview We've featured some articles on the designs of pulp novel covers from the mid-20th century, including s look at the fonts used in those designs. We've also released fonts based on those[...]
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 betwee[...]
New Font: Barnabas...
Our new Barnabas font is the result of our Dark Shadows font design project. It's an original font inspired by the original titles for the Dark Shadows television show, but updated for a more contemporary audience with the upcoming re[...]
Featured Font: Abdiel...
Abdiel originated in 2005 as a custom design for a company logo. All they wanted was a few of the letters done in a flourished Renaissance style, but we decided to expand the effort for our own purposes to create a complete font with[...]
Walter Crane: The Baby’s Own Aesop
We’ve been collecting illustrated books by Arts and Crafts era designer Walter Crane for several years and we’re now reaching the point where we can start to release some of our Crane material in useful packages for contemporary designers who want to incorporate his unique aesthetic into their work.
Our first Crane release is a package based on The Baby’s Own Aesop, Crane’s hand lettered and fully illustrated edition of Aesop’s Fables originally published in 1887. Each page takes one tale from Aesop and presents it with illustrations, initials, borders, embellishments and decorative lettering. Our presentation of the book follows the model of our release of Howard Pyle’s Lady of Shalott. It includes a complete 60-page print-quality PDF facsimile of the book, plus high-resolution graphics of every page and illustration including the end-papers and covers. In addition there are emblems, borders, decorative elements and other resources which we have taken from the book and cleaned up and made ready to use for other purposes. All of this comes with a license allowing you to incorporate the material in your own designs and creations. The package is only $39 and you can order online and download the package immediately — but be warned, it’s a very large download.
We’re going to be following this package with other Crane packages, including a similar treatment of The Baby’s Bouquet and The Baby’s Opera which were companion pieces to The Baby’s Own Aesop. We also have a collection of fonts based on Crane lettering in development, like our recently released Crane Gothic font.
To see a sample of what is in this collection, try out the abbreviated PDF sampler which has lower resolution versions of selected images from the set. To purchase the whole package just order it online.
February 22, 2012 | Filed Under Collections, Content, Walter Crane
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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]
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]
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BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview Bilitis is an original "brush script" style font we designed for a project back in 1998 and released then with some success. It has a strong visual appeal with rough hewn c[more]
Making Maps with the MapMaker Pa...
This is a step by step guide to designing a small map using the elements and fonts of the MapMaker package. This tutorial was done using Adobe Photoshop, but the same tools and commands are available in every good graphics program, includin[more]
New Font: Cantoria Initials...
After quite a few new fonts in a row with a modern look and two based on constructivist designs by Alexander Rodchenko, it seemed like it was about time to do something more antique and historic in character.This set of initials and[more]
Fun With Typeshow...
One of the amusing things about Typeshow, our new font preview tool, is that it logs what people type in as their sample text. This provides an interesting insight into how it is being used and the personalities of the users. The number[more]
Arthur Rackham's Peter Pan in Ke...
In 1906 legendary illustrator Arthur Rackham was commissioned to illustrate J. M. Barrie's prequel to his play Peter Pan. The standard edition features 10 original illustrations, but there was also a very limited edition with 40 additional[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]
More Pulp Art at Pulpcovers.com...
Last year we featured an overview article on pulp novel cover design, and since then we've continued to look for other resources on mass market book and magazine cover design from the 30s, 40s and 50s. In a recent search I stumbled on pulpc[more]
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'sobbin[more]
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]
Byam Shaw Illustrations for Lege...
Byam Shaw was one of the outstanding artist illustrators of the Victorian period in England. Stylistically he inherited many of the characteristics of the Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts artists of the earlier 19th century, putting him [more]
April Fools Highlights...
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Katherine Cameron King Arthur's ...
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American Beauties by Harrison Fi...
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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]
Futuristic Fonts - Updated and E...
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[...] font based on one example of his lettering, and a collection based on his illustrated edition of The Baby’s Aesop. Now we offer our newest addition to the collection, a new font simply titled Walter Crane and [...]
[...] first Crane release was The Baby’s Own Aesop and it was very well received. Now we are offering another book in the same series, The [...]
[...] first Crane release was The Baby’s Own Aesop and it was very well received. Now we are offering another book in the same series, The [...]
[...] first Crane release was The Baby’s Own Aesop and it was very well received. Now we are offering another book in the same series, The [...]