David Nalle is the founder of The Scriptorium and is our lead designer of original fonts and adapter of historical source material. Dave got his start in calligraphy when he was a child, studying old manuscripts and duplicating the lettering he liked. In college he paid expenses by lettering bizarre things, including signs for fraternity parties and even pledge paddles. His typographic education began with an apprenticeship at Applewood Books (www.awb.com), a specialty reprint press in Boston. There he learned to set metal and wood type and took courses in Compugraphic typesetting. After graduating from Franklin & Marshall College, Dave pursued a career in publishing, including editing small magazines like What's Next, Liberty and Abyss, and working in game and book design. He moved to Austin in 1982 and attended graduate school at the University of Texas, studying Medieval History, including extensive work in Paleography, Codicology and Medieval literature. In 1991 Dave started designing fonts based on his own hand lettering from old magazine titles, hand lettered signs and maps. In 1992 he released the first of these crude but unusual designs as shareware fonts through America Online. The enormous success of his first shareware font based on a historical typeface (Kelmscott, from Morris' Troy font) convinced him there was a market for his typographic work, and led to the creation of the Scriptorium as a commercial outlet for his type designs. Since that time he has produced scores of completely original fonts, plus a huge selection of fonts based on historic type and unique hand lettering, creating the backbone of the Scriptorium collection. Dave now lives in Manor Texas with his wife Patricia, his daughter Caroline, two dogs, a cat, a goose and four ducks. He enjoys swimming, disc golf and tennis and teaches the occasional college history course as well.

William Morris was born in 1834, attended Marlborough College and later Oxford where he studied Medieval history. In 1861 he founded the design firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., specializing in the production of original furniture, fabric and architectural designs. During this period Morris began hand-lettering and decorating manuscripts of his own poetry and translations from the classics in a Medieval style as gifts for friends. From this hobby came the formation of the Kelmscott Press which began publishing complete illustrated and decorated books, including the famous Kelmscott Chaucer. Morris designed the original typefaces used in these books, including Troy and Golden, hand-drew titles and borders and hired sympathetic artists like Edward Burne-Jones to do the illustrations. He also dabbled in painting, creating several powerful works and influencing the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Morris was one of the first modern designers to integrate art, decoration and typography to produce books in which every page was essentially a unique work of art. Morris was also a prolific poet and author, credited as the father of modern fantasy, his charming poetry has an enduring romantic quality, and his translations of classic works from Latin and Old Norse are still considered among the best. He is probably the most influential design artist of the 19th century, influencing entire schools of art for generations after his era. Scriptorium fonts based on Morris' designs include True Golden, Kelmscott (based on Troy), Morris Black Letter, Chaucerian Initials, Morris Initials and the forthcoming Morris Manuscript font.

Arthur Rackham was born in 1867. He began drawing at an early age and trained with Herbett Dicksee and then later at the Lambeth School of Art, while working at the Westminster Fire Office as a clerk. By the 1890s he had had several watercolor exhibitions and was selling illustrations to magazines frequently enough to leave his job and embark on an artistic career full-time. By the end of the 1890s his work had moved increasingly away from journalistic illustration onto more fanciful themes and children's book illustration. Among his most recognized illustrated books are Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, Midsummer Night's Dream, Irish Fairy Tales, Rip Van Winkle and Undine. Rackham is probably the most recognized and emulated children's illustrator of all time. Rackham's mature work was unusual in his focus on not just illustrating, but decorating the books he worked on. His most notable works include hand lettered titles, decorative marginalia, hand-drwan headers and borders, as well as color plates. Scriptorium fonts based on Rackham's work include Rackham and Rackham Italic based on his distinctive title lettering, plus numerous art fonts based on his decorative marginalia.

Alphonse Mucha was born in Moravia in 1860. He began his artistic career painting theatrical scenery and doing murals for public and private buildings. In 1885 he began a course of study at the Munich Academy of Art and then moved to the Academie Julian in Paris. During a long career in Paris he took commissions for illustrations, portraits and decorative projects, but became most famous for his poster designs for plays, particularly under the patronage of Sarah Bernhardt in the 1890s. The success of his posters led to a commercial career in decorative design for commercial and advertising products. Eventually Mucha branched out into other areas, including jewelry design, portraiture and a brief career teaching art in New York. In 1910 Mucha returned to Prague to work on nationalistic art, including remarkable murals, postage stamps, stained glass and bank notes. The Scriptorium's Mucha fonts are mostly based on the unique stylized hand lettering found in his theatrical posters. The names are derived from the names of the productions which his art promoted, such as Hyacinth based on the poster for Princess Hyacinth, Samaritan from the poster for La Samaritan and our forthcoming Gismonda based on the poster for the play of the same name.

Michael Scarpitti has become one of the most prolific designers of fonts based on Latin inscriptions in the world. He became interested in Latin inscriptions as source material after seeing Carol Twombly's Trajan font. He has recently branched out into fonts based upon medieval manuscripts with his Pontifica, which derives from a 12th century British manuscript. Mike has designed more than 20 typefaces based entirely on ancient historical materials. In high school, Mike began his career in photography, in which he has excelled. Mike graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in philosophy. He has pubished scholarly articles about translation problems in the journal Semiotica. Mike enjoys playing sports, especially tennis and soccer.