Arthur Rackham’s Peter ...
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 illustrations which is now extremely rare. Remarkably the tipped in plates are included as an appendix to the regular book consisting of nothing …
Read MoreArt Fonts
Art fonts (sometimes called "dingbats") have their origins in early printers ornaments or artistic marginalia used to fill space on a page and break up large blocks of type. Traditionally these ornaments took the form of floral or geometric designs, and were inserted when the page was set, just like letter type.
Retrofuturist Fonts
Our work on fonts from the 1920s and 1930s has focused a lot on Arts and Crafts and Art Deco fonts, but in parallel with those movements, there was a lot of innovation in more mass market design, much of it found in pulp magazines, especially pulp science fiction magazines which had a real renaissance in that period. These pulp …
Read MoreWake Up! It’s a Memori ...
Memorial Day is a great American tradition, recognizing the sacrifices made by those who have served our country in war and in peace. The tradition began during the Civil War as a day when flowers, flags and wreaths were placed on the graves of soldiers or on military memorials by relatives or by the community, an appropriate act of remembrance …
Read MoreTalinn: A New Art Deco F ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Talinn is a new font based on a sample of Art Deco period lettering from Estonia of all places, a reminder of the pervasiveness and wide dissemination of art and cultural themes in the 1930s. Talinn is super bold, with unique character features which are typical of the period, like extended crossbars on …
Read MoreReliquary: A New Font
BUY NOW TRY DEMO We recently held a contest on Facebook to pick the name for an odd new font we had in development. A lot of people thought it had an ancient look, even though it is based on contemporary graffiti lettering. Some even suggested a resemblance to cuneiform lettering from ancient Mesopotamia. After discarding other entries which had …
Read MoreSpecial Font: Demitrius ...
These silhouettes really bring Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” to life!. Demitrius is a decorative silhouette font based on decorations for a Victorian era edition of Shakespeare’s <i>Midsummer Night’s Dream</i>. It includes famous characters and scenes from the play, including Bottom, Titania, Puck and Oberon. It’s a great source for marginalia with a Shakespearean theme. We’ve done a number of other …
Read MoreFurbelow Font
What on earth is a ‘furbelow’? You may have heard the word in the phrase “ribbons and furbelows” and known from inference that it was something having to do with womens clothing. It’s actually decorative ribbon or ruffling applied to a piece of clothing, or in more general usage it’s defined as “something showy or superfluous; a bit of showy …
Read MoreShadowland: American Art ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Now this is something special. We’ve designed a font based on a sample of title lettering based on the American Art Deco magazine Shadowland with a full character set and ready to use. Shadowland was bi-monthly magazine published very briefly in New York City from 1919-1923. It covered design, art, dance theatre and movies with a …
Read MoreHadraniel: A Distressed ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Hadraniel is a new font based on samples of type from the early 20th century. It is unusual in having rough outlines and imperfections which are characteristic of worn and degenerated type, though the overall effect is still quite attractive. Hadraniel is relatively bold for a script font and has a full upper and lower case …
Read MoreAbelarde Font
Abelarde is a classic medieval gothic style font which combines traditional blackletter style lower case characters with more ornate and decorative capital letters with some nice swash features. It was the first font to be featured on our website and has been popular ever since. We’ve done some simpler fonts in the same general vein like Cymbeline, Aneirin and Perigord, …
Read MoreImperial Stencil – A N ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Imperial Stencil is a new font based on stencil lettering from the 1930s. It has some unusual features and very tall characters, including an interesting lower case character set. It also has characteristically rough outlines to create more of a hand stenciled look. It stands out on a sign or poster and while it looks like …
Read MoreNopalito – New Font
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Nopalito is an unusual font based on left-handed calligraphy with a backwards slant. Someone suggested that it would be perfect for Mexican restaurant menus, so we named it Nopalito after the popular food made from the stems of the Prickly Pear cactus. Nopalito would definitely make a great restaurant menu or signage font and it does …
Read MoreBathysphere – An Subaq ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Bathysphere is based on a sample of hand drawn poster lettering from the 1930s. It has an unusual bubbly look, which inspired the name and the choice of graphics which draw on cover art of a Bathysphere from an issue of Modern Mechanix from the 1935. Bathysphere has some elements in common with other fonts we’ve …
Read MoreAltaira – A New Font
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Altaira is a new font which combines elements of Art Deco period lettering wit elements of modern poster lettering for a result which is attractive and has a Science Fictionish look to it. Hence the name, taken from the star Altair and the accompanying graphics which draw on cover art from an issue of Thrilling Wonder …
Read MoreOrford Font: Featured Fo ...
Orford is based on samples of hand lettering from a 1693 manuscript collected by Lewis Day in his classic book on historical paleography, Alphabets Old and New. It is stylistically similar to our Allegheny font, but cleaner and clearer. It has characteristic clubbed ascenders on many of the lowercase letters, and alternate versions of a large selection of characters. It’s …
Read MoreWinterland – New Font
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Back to classic poster lettering. This time our source is posters from the Winterland Ballroom, one of the great San Francisco music venues of the 60s and 70s. It was a ice rink that gradually evolved into a ballroom and concert hall and by the 70s it had become one of the major stops for punk …
Read MoreScattershot: New Font
BUY NOW TRY DEMO In the 1960s posters with inspirational quotes on them were all the rage, usually featuring garish color combinations and rough hand lettering. This is the stylistic inspiration for our new Scattershot font. Scattershot is based on samples of period hand lettering in a similar style taken from an advertising design guidebook. It looks great on posters …
Read MoreGadriel: First New Font ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Gadriel has the honor of being our first font of 2017 and like a number of our recent fonts it was developed to expand our repertoire of script fonts to attempt to satisfy the very particular demands of a picky daughter who is getting married and wants something special for her wedding invitations. Apparently Gadriel did …
Read MoreKnuckleduster: The Last ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Knuckleduster is a rough, bold and highly stylized font. It’s great for titles and display uses where you want to create extra impact and a strong impression. Perfect for punk rock posters. The quote in the image is from the poet Charles Bukowki. You can try out the free limited feature version of Knuckleduster with our …
Read MoreTzaphkiel: New Font
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Tzaphkiel is an italic style font with bold capitals and unusually large lower case characters. It is very readable for use in titles and captions and is very readable for creating quote memes. You can try out the free limited feature version of Tzaphkiel with our DEMO, and the full version of Tzaphkiel is available for …
Read MoreDormart – A New Font
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Dormart is based on a 19th century fantasy alphabet with a Celtic basis an unusual character forms. It departs from a true Celtic uncial character set in that it has both upper and lower case characters. It is unusual but attractive and useful for titles or captions. It is named after the lead hound of the …
Read MoreVer Sacrum Colographs Fo ...
BUY NOW This is the time of the year when we bring out the neat little fonts we designed during the course of the year and didn’t get around to releasing. The first of these is the Ver Sacrum Colograph font, based on the Colograph images used at the end of sections in the legendary Secsssionist movement Art Deco magazine …
Read MoreNew Font – Huyot Art N ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Huyot is based on the lettering of George Auriol, the Art Nouveau designer and poet who produced posters and menus for the popular nightclub Le Chat Noir in Paris in the 1890s. Auriol designed a number of fonts derived from his lettering, but we went to the original hand lettered examples to create a design more …
Read MoreSoiree – Elegant Art D ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Soiree is an elegant font in the Art Deco tradition. It has extremely contrasting weighting, with very wide ascenders on the left of the characters and very narrow lines on the right side of the characters. This produces a very formal look great for menu titles and special event invitations. You can try out the free …
Read MoreRude Beast – A New Fon ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO For Halloween we’re offering a special font inspired by horror comics with an unusual look and some great decorative custom characters. Rude Beast is a rough, bold font with squared character shapes. The font includes two upper case character sets with different versions of the letters, plus bonus characters for making stylistically compatible The font is …
Read MoreMarfield Font
Marfield is a fancy art nouveau era title font with relatively heavy character forms and neat little curled embellishments. The standard character set includes two different versions of most of the characters for nice variety. It’s an excellent font for headers, posters or other decorative uses. It will probably eventually be added to our Art Nouveau collection. You can try …
Read MoreFigurative Initials Font ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Figurative Initials are letters which take the form of a person or thing which has meaning beyond just the letter. They have been very popular over the years for teaching the alphabet to children or as decorative initials. In the early 20th century British calligrapher Vere Foster designed a set of Figurative Initials for one of …
Read MoreWildflower Initials: New ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Wildflower Initials is based on a fully developed artist’s sample of decorative book initials from the late 19th century. Complete alphabets of decorative initials from any period are quite rare because certain letters are almost never actually used in published text. The initials consist of Art Nouveau style gothic letters superimposed on detailed sketches of different …
Read MoreAlmanac – New Font fro ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO We seem to be having a week focused on Eric Sloane, so a featured font based on his characteristic lettering designs seems like a must, and conveniently we didn’t have a font yet based on his more formal italic script style, so we went to work and the result is the new Almanac font, based on …
Read MoreHappy Birthday to CFA Vo ...
Last week was the 159th anniversary of Arts and Crafts pioneer CFA Voysey. Voysey was an architect who worked on the principle of form following function and the idea that designers should engage in the entire process of decorating and furnishing a home, popularized contemporaneously by designers like William Morris and later by Frank Lloyd Wright. Some time ago we …
Read MoreElizabethan Script Font ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO A major design project has finally come to fruition, a special collection of compatible fonts which form a comprehensive survey of variants of Elizabethan era cursive script lettering. This set consists of four fonts which include at least four variant forms of every upper and lower case character, all stylistically compatible so you can mix and …
Read MoreSaxon Initials: New Font
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Well here’s a cool new font. But though the font is new it is based on something very old. Saxon Initials is based on early medieval manuscript lettering recreated by F. G. Delamotte in the mid-19th century. It’s just the basic character set, but it was very challenging to digitize because of the many fine lines …
Read MoreWendingen: New Font
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Wendingen was an architecture and design magazine published in Amsterdam from 1918 to 1932. It was one of the leading influences in the Art Deco movement and the the related Amserdam School of Dutch Expressionism. It featured issues which focused on the work of DeKlerk, Liszitsky, Frank Lloyd Wright and others. Although it was published for …
Read MoreCosmopolis – First New ...
Our first font for 2016 is a stylist super-bold display and title font called Cosmopolis. It has an attractive element of perspective to the characters and a look which would be excellent for advertising posters in an urban environment, hence the name.
Read MoreNew Fonts of 2015
Every year we release a number of new fonts, and at the end of the year we collect them all together and release them as a collection at a great discount price. 2015 was a pretty productive year, with a total of 19 new fonts released, including some really memorable original designs and unique revivals. These 20 fonts were also …
Read MoreRoy Lichtenstein Gothic ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO As you may have noticed we’ve been putting out new fonts at a furious pace to meet an end of the year deadline. So some excellent fonts are coming at you fast and furious and we’ve got one more to go after Christmas. The latest new font is our Lichteinstein Gothic font, based on the comic-book …
Read MoreRykov – A New Font
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Rykov is a Ukrainian constructivist font from the early 1930s. It has some characteristics in common with German Art Deco fonts, like our recent release Bulwark. It’s an excellent font for bold poster design uses. Rykov has both an English language and modified Russian character set, both included in the sames font. The upper case characters …
Read MoreRocksteady – A New Fon ...
Rocksteady is an original font design for pretty specialized applications. It's super bold and irregular, with two different character sets. The upper case just looks like a bold, rough-hewn alphabet, but the lower case looks like the same characters but assembled from stacked, rough stones. Hence the name and the rock themed preview graphics.
Read MoreHolly Initials: A Christ ...
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 PenWork published in the 1880s by Knowles and Maxim. We originally acquired it as a source …
Read MoreCarte du Jour – A Cafe ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Carte du Jour is a font designed to look like the fancy lettering used on the chalkboard outside a sidewalk cafe. It’s just one of the styles which might be used on a chalkboard sign, but it’s very readable and well suited to putting a lot of text in a small space to catch the eye. …
Read MoreCarte du Jour – A Cafe ...
Carte du Jour is a font designed to look like the fancy lettering used on the chalkboard outside a sidewalk cafe. It’s just one of the styles which might be used on a chalkboard sign, but it’s very readable and well suited to putting a lot of text in a small space to catch the eye.
Read MoreNewgrange: A Lost Font
Newgrange is a Celtic style font which takes its name from the Newgrange neolithic site in County Meath in Ireland. It is one of the most fascinating ancient monuments in the British Iseles, older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids. Stylistically it draws its inspiration from Celtic squared uncial lettering, with the same stone-cut styling found in our Stonecross font, to which it makes an excellent companion piece.
Read MoreStarliner: New Font
Starliner envisions what the logo lettering for an interstellar passenger liner would look like in the Science Fiction future of the 1950s pulp magazines. Sort of Art Deco filtered through the vision of Jack Vance. It's been a while since we've done a science fiction font and this one is pretty cool.
Read MoreMannerheim Font
Among our recent acquisitions of source material, we discovered some great samples of German letterpress type from the 1930s. These included a number of interesting fonts in the art deco and constructivist styles. Very modern looking for the period.
Read MoreParis 1925 Font
We developed this lettering into the Paris 1925 font, which will be the centerpiece of our forthcoming second Art Deco fonts collection. The font has a full character set plus special initials as the upper case characters, and unique overlapping kerning which creates many custom character pairs. It also includes original, stylistically compatible custom numerals.
Read MoreNew Font: Vie Moderne
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Vie Moderne is a new font based on Art Deco lettering from the 1920s. It is typical of the French Art Deco influenced fonts which were featured in association with the International Exposition of Modern and Industrial Art in Paris in 1925. Vie Moderne includes a full character set and numbers. […]
Read MoreCreating the Glastonbury ...
Too many years ago to count, I was lucky enough to attend St. Albans School in Washington, DC. It’s a great school with a rich history and an association with the National Cathedral and the rich cultural heritage of the Episcopal Church and many of the traditions of the English public schools. It’s a school […]
Read MoreNew Font: Tilbury
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Tilbury is based on advertising lettering from the 1930s. It has a unique and stylish look reminiscent of a swashed italic brush script. Tilbury includes a full character set with upper and lower case, numbers and punctuation. It has fully customized kerning and spacing as well. You can try the DEMO […]
Read MoreNew Font: Power Tie
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Power tie is based on a design for hand lettering from the 1930s. It was originally done as a conceptual design for signage in a men’s haberdashery. It is a handsome, muscular font in the Art Deco tradition. It includes a full character set with numbers and punctuation, and a set […]
Read MoreNew Font: Sarandiel
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Sarandiel is a new script font based on vintage hand lettering. It has complex flourished capital letters with simpler compatible lower case characters and numbers. It is carefully spaced and kerned and well suited the formal uses like invitations and certificates. It takes its name from the angel of the twelfth […]
Read MoreNew Font: Tantalus
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Tantalus is a display font for titles with a basic Roman design and elaborately embellished characters. It features the more decorative versions of the characters in the upper case positions and a plain caps set in the lower case positions. It’s a neat whimsical font and if you need a compatible […]
Read MoreNew Font: Cavegirl Gothi ...
Cavegirl is inspired by the genre of prehistoric epic films, the most memorable of which is One Million Years BC, starring the voluptuous Raquel Welch clad only in a legendary fur bikini. The style of the font is typical of the lettering used in the posters and titles for these movies, with a rough and […]
Read MoreNew Font: Undertaker
Every year around Halloween we come out with a new font that fits the spirit of the holiday, drawing on all sorts of sources for inspiration. You can find our past fonts in our Halloween Font and Art Collections. The font for this year is Undertaker, based on title lettering from Creepy magazine, the classic […]
Read MoreNew Font: Highball
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview Highball is a bold font in every sense of the word. Yes, its weight is heavy and pronounced in the traditional meaning of bold, but it is also of an extreme height which could be considered bold, and of a boldly progressive style. Highball features a full character set […]
Read MoreNew Fonts: Carillon
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview You may recall a couple of months ago when we had some font samples posted on the page to vote on. Well, the winner of the vote by a significant margin was a sample of lettering by Samuel Welo, and now as promised, it is available as our newest […]
Read MoreNew Font: Carillon
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview You may recall a couple of months ago when we had some font samples posted on the page to vote on. Well, the winner of the vote by a significant margin was a sample of lettering by Samuel Welo, and now as promised, it is available as our newest […]
Read MoreNew Fonts: Carillon
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview You may recall a couple of months ago when we had some font samples posted on the page to vote on. Well, the winner of the vote by a significant margin was a sample of lettering by Samuel Welo, and now as promised, it is available as our newest […]
Read MoreNew Font: Mannering
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview Mannering is a new font design derived from some samples of an uppercase letter set by Samuel Welo, with additional lowercase characters and numbers added to it in the same style. It is a sans serif font with calligraphic lines and distinctive embellished horizontal crossbars. It’s a great font […]
Read MoreNew Font: Lyceum
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview Lyceum has the stylized shape and look of a font designed for the program at a lecture hall, hence the name. It is super bold but remains highly readable at fairly small sized, though the contrasts are dramatic. It features only an uppercase characters set because the style of […]
Read MoreFacebook Acquires 2 New ...
Citing the boring sameness of their web presentation, the management of social media giant Facebook has contacted us here at the Scriptorium to purchase two new proprietary colors and 3 new custom fonts for $1.2 billion. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg observed that now that his company has topped the $100 billion mark it seemed safe […]
Read MoreSave Ink with the InkSav ...
While I still think it may be some sort of obscure and premature April Fool’s joke, an article called Kerning, Kerning, kerning through the years in the Washington Post presents a mildly humorous presentation of the story of a 14 year old research genius who figured out that switching from a heavier weight font to […]
Read MoreNew Font: Edifice
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview Edifice is a decorative titling font based on samples of lettering by J. M. Bergling. It has an architectural, constructed look to it. Very well suited to sign and poster design. It’s stylish but still readable and clear. Edifice includes a full uppercase character set, custom small caps and […]
Read MoreNew Font: Doge
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview Doge is a new font based on samples of late-renaissance period lettering from Venice, preserved and reproduced by early 20th century calligrapher and designer J. M. Bergling. It has some similarity to some of our other fonts based on lettering from the same period like Acadian and St. Nicholas, […]
Read MoreNew Font: Startling Stor ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview Startling Stories was a pulp-era science fiction magazine known for its lurid covers by Earle K. Bergey and its eye-catching title designs. It was a companion to Thrilling Wonder Stories and Fantastic Stories. The magazine was very successful in the immediate post-war period, but as the golden age of [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Startling Stor ...
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview Startling Stories was a pulp-era science fiction magazine known for its lurid covers by Earle K. Bergey and its eye-catching title designs. It was a companion to Thrilling Wonder Stories and Fantastic Stories. The magazine was very successful in the immediate post-war period, but as the golden age of [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Ripley
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Custom Preview Ripley is a new titling font with a bold character weight and a somewhat randomly distressed and unbalanced, tall and narrow sans serif look. It includes capital letters and custom small caps weighted to match the capitals. It is based on the title lettering from the original 1955 pulp [...]
Read MoreNew 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 from the 1930, characterized by super high contrast between the weighting on the left and [...]
Read MoreNew 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 designs, like suspicion. These old book cover designs are a great resource for period fonts and lettering, [...]
Read MoreClassic Font: Zothique
BUY NOW TRY DEMO Zothique is one of our most unusual decorative calligraphy fonts. It is based on original hand lettering with a fanciful, flourished style which is charming and whimsical. The font includes a large selection of alternative decorative characters and special characters and swashes. Zothique was first released way back in 1998 and [...]
Read MoreWalter Crane Initials an ...
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 than we bargained for. One reason that there are four fonts is that [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Original Djang ...
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 based on the lettering used in the original Django, a process similar [...]
Read MoreNew 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 in our Constructivist Font Collection should be named after Eisenstein, especially as the font partakes of the kind of lettering [...]
Read MoreNew 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 be featured in a new edition of our Futuristic Fonts which will be released [...]
Read MoreNew 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 stylized essentials for a very powerful visual impact. It is the kind of type you’d expect to see [...]
Read MoreNew 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 salacious – with more gore and sex – [...]
Read MoreSpecial Font Release: Po ...
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 lettering derived from that same neo-gothic southwestern tradition. The main difference was that [...]
Read MoreNew 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 it a sort of a naturalistic look which makes the characters stand out more. Fougasse gets its [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Cantoria Initi ...
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 accompanying uppercase characters is based on bas relief lettering by 15th century Florentine [...]
Read MoreNew 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 design. His unique and dramatic style defined Russian popular art of the early Revolutionary period. There is a special [...]
Read MoreNew 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 much the kind of font which we might include in a new release [...]
Read MoreNew 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 feature that if you use the underline key it puts top and bottom rails connecting the characters before [...]
Read MoreNew 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 release of Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows movie in mind. It combines gothic capital letters with Latin [...]
Read MoreNew 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 sophisticated modern audience with the upcoming release of Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows movie in mind. It combines gothic capital letters with [...]
Read MoreNew 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 [...]
Read MoreNew 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 [...]
Read MoreNew 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 of illustrations will be available soon. With Elsene you really get several fonts in [...]
Read MoreNew 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 create an effect almost like a framed decorative initial. The basic style of the upper and lowercase characters [...]
Read MoreNew 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 font based on Bergling’s series of art nouveau themed lettering styles. Bosphoros fits the [...]
Read MoreNew 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 is an unusual simplified alternative to traditional Art Nouveau lettering styles. It’s also set apart by [...]
Read MoreNew 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 is an unusual simplified alternative to traditional Art Nouveau lettering styles. It’s also set apart by [...]
Read MoreNew 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 is an unusual simplified alternative to traditional Art Nouveau lettering styles. It’s also set apart by [...]
Read MoreNew 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 is an unusual simplified alternative to traditional Art Nouveau lettering styles. It’s also set apart by [...]
Read MoreNew 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 is an unusual simplified alternative to traditional Art Nouveau lettering styles. It’s also set apart by [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Rodrigo Initia ...
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 dinners held by the Borgias, and hence the name after the notorious Rodrigo Borgia who [...]
Read MoreNew 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 these genre classics from the 1950s and 1960s. The archive of covers I [...]
Read MoreNew 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 [...]
Read More2010 Font and Art Sample ...
At the end of every year we put together a special discounted package with samples of what we produced during that year, and now it’s time to release a sampler with some of our best items from 2010, including selected art and featured fonts. 2010 saw the release of some extraordinary fonts and art and [...]
Read MoreNew 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 needed a font like that – a relatively simple t-shirt design – I decided it was time [...]
Read MoreNew 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 characteristic of colonial period Mexico. It is based on suggestions from budding design critic (and [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Andrano
Once again I have fallen under the influence of my fashion conscious teenage daughter, who tells me that I absolutely must produce more “shabby chic” fonts like the trendy scrapbookers and hip fashion label designers use. On showing her examples this turns out to mean more circus style fonts with wide ascenders and decoration. [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Antrobus
Antrobus is a new font based on hand lettering in a style which draws on horror movie title lettering, urban graffiti and even art nouveau poster titles like those by Alphons Mucha. The cahracters are tall and thin and tapered towards the base, with rough outlines and softly squared corners. The look is [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Airship
In a slightly different reality where the Hindenberg never crashed, we were contacted by the TransAtlantic Zeppelin Company to develop a new logo font specifically for use on their new line of airships and the advertising campaign for their new schedule of overnight flights from America to Europe. We met their request with the development of [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Madding
We’re in an ongoing quest to make the perfect poster font — something bold and hard to ignore, but also different and with character. We had some success with Aventine, but it was too generic. So we kept working on the concept and the result is the new Madding font, a bold poster [...]
Read MoreFont Club Exclusive – ...
Once a year members of the Font Club get a bonus font which is an exclusive release only available to Font Club members with their membership. Past Font Club exclusives include Peck Initials, Galloys and Peck Shields. As the Font Club enters a new year, we’re releasing a brand new exclusive font for members. [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Changeling
As we mentioned in a recent article on Projects in Development, we’ve been working on some fonts based on lettering by Fanny Railton. It took a bit longer than expected, but the first of those is done, a new font called Changeling based on her caption lettering from her illustrated edition of Midsummer Nights [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Krasny Mir
Working on revisions to Structura a few weeks ago brought the whole topic of Russian poster art to the surface and it seemed like a good time to do a font based on typical poster lettering from soviet-era propaganda posters. The result is Krasny Mir, a new font which combines the look of [...]
Read MoreNew Font: Rockne
New Font: Atkinson Egypt ...
We've done several fonts based on lettering from early 20th …
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