This collection of decorative initials culled from specimen books of the late 1800s will add nostalgic charm to any project.

These four sets are based on the elegant and beautiful work of the German graphic designer Emil Rudolf Weiss. The initials were made to complement Weiss’ text fonts and were cast in the 1920s by the Bauer Type Foundry of Frankfurt. Also known as Weiss Initials Series I, II, II Bold, and III, the lettering has a distinct antique quality. These extremely hard-to-find digital versions look superb in large sizes and remain huge favorites among book designers. Wellsbrook Initials are now available in the OpenType Std format. Some new characters have been added to this OpenType version as Stylistic Alternates. This advanced feature works in current versions of Adobe Creative Suite InDesign, Creative Suite Illustrator, and Quark XPress. Check for OpenType advanced feature support in other applications as it gradually becomes available with upgrades.

I became interested in designing Bodoni Classic because of a lazy graphic designer at Jacques Damase publishing house. He had to change a single letter on a bookcover about J. B. BODONI. The French call him Jean Baptiste instead of Giambattista! And that unknown graphic designer just took any old “J” from some newly cut Bodoni. All the new Bodoni cuts have square serifs, whereas the originals had rounded serifs and slightly concave feet. The single letter “J” with the squared off serif was for me like a road sign to start redesigning the entire Bodoni family. That’s exactly what I started in 1993 and a dozen years later I am finished. Okay, I am still adding new Bodoni Classics, but those are my personal additions. Yours very retro, Gert Wiescher

Evening Initials JNL are based on a few random examples of some unusual Art Deco initials found within the pages of an old Dover clip art book. A complete set of letters was redrawn from scratch and are offered for your creative endeavors as a digital type font.

Naroid Initials JNL is one of the most ultra-compressed sets of initials available in digital type. These twenty-six initials are so narrow that a test print with all of the letters at 2-1/2 inches in height took up no more than about 5 inches in width!

PM Eckmann Initials is our chromatic (layered) version of Otto Eckmann's Eckmannschrift Initial Cap typeface designed to work with his typeface Eckmannschrift. Our version can be used for general Art Nouveau initial caps or combined with our PM Eckmannschrift typeface.

Sensual Initials JNL is a revamped and cleaned-up version of an old freeware font by Jeff Levine. Redrawn, and now utilizing the typeface French Art Initials JNL

Contains characters A-z, 0-9, and ampersand in two variations totaling 74 characters.

The inspiration source for Monarchy Initials is the 1934 Book of American Types by American Type Founders. In that specimen book, they had created a sophisticated two color initial design they called "Stationers Initials" which was only available in metal type at 24, 36, and 48 points. This wonderfully detailed initial style is now digitally recreated and revived for modern use. Monarchy Initials is only capable of initial or single letter monograms due to its unique design. The two color aspect of the original design has been preserved and made accessible within all programs. The Capital character slots contain the background color glyphs, and the lowercase slots hold the outline art for the letters. You can choose a color, type a capital letter, then switch to black and type a lowercase letter for the two color effect, or just tpe a lowercase letter on its own. It's that easy! Download and view the Monarchy Initials Guidebook if you would like to learn a little more.

Pocket Initials JNL contains twenty-six initials inside of a white-into-black pattern for monograms, page headers, stationery and other creative projects.

Luxurious high-quality ornamental initials superimposed on elaborate Art Deco drawings of plants and flowers, inspired by 18th and 19th Century French designs, with a modern approach. Includes one set of A-Z ornamental initials conveniently assigned to both the upper and lower case alphabet characters. Beautifully ornate and perfect for the beginning of paragraphs in publications and texts conveying the feel of the 1920s and the Art Deco movement, garden-themed texts, or fairy tales.

Here's a companion font for the fun and playful typeface Doowop JNL from Jeff Levine. Doowop Initials JNL features an initial over the silhouette of a 1950s-style singing group. For an extra bonus, there's a handful of 50s-style icons on the number keys in both the upper and lower shift positions.

This family was created inspired from the two sets of rough initials fonts used by the famous William Caxton in Westminster (GB) in the late 1400’s. As it was normal for the time, there were not any differences between I and J, U and V. It is not a mistake. We have reconstructed the few other missing characters. This font was conceived as a supplement for our 1479 Caxton but may be used with all our Blackletters fonts.

A comprehensive set of initials (usually referred to as Uncials, Lombardic Initials, or Lombards) of the Germanic variety, designed after Henric Pieterszoon’s “Gothise Monnikke Letteren” as appearing in Enschedé, J. (1768), Proef van Letteren, Haarlem (p. 120); also mentioned as “Great Primer Uncials” and "2-line Brevier Uncials" in Vervliet, H.D.L. (1968), Sixteenth-Century Printing Types of the Low Countries, Amsterdam: Hertzberger (pp. 54-55, and 212-213). The font contains over one hundred glyphs, including as a bonus six layered plus two plain ornamental initials adapted from the Gutenberg Bible (Mainz, ca. 1455) and the Mainz Psalter (Mainz, 1457). Suitable to accompany most Gothic (especially Textura and Rotunda) typefaces, or to be displayed as drop caps or in full titles and headings. Specimen, detailed character map, OpenType features, and font samples available at Alter Littera’s The Initials “Gothic C” Font Page. Note: Several uncial initials in The Oldtype “Psalterium” Font have been derived from corresponding characters in The Initials “Gothic C” Font, adjusting them to cope with the special (large) x-height and letter spacing of the Psalterium font (so the two sets of initials are not directly interchangeable).

Little is known of the origin of these decorative Initial Caps. Series 448 at 24 point were a different design from the 36 point on which this digital version is based. In addition to the basic 26 characters, there is a negative version contained in the lower case position and a fill character (for two color caps) option in the number and punctuation key positions.

Gothic Initials Six was inspired by the beautifully-written gothic scripts of medieval scribes. The font contains the upper case letters A through Z under both the character set and shift+character set. This font is intended for use as initials, monograms, drop caps or wherever fancy letters are desirable.

A comprehensive set of initials (usually referred to as Uncials, Lombardic Initials, or Lombards) of the French variety, adapted from Bergling, J.M. (1918), Art Alphabets and Lettering (Second Edition), Chicago: Blakely-Oswald Printing Company. The font contains over one hundred glyphs, including character outlines for two-color layering. Suitable to accompany most Gothic (especially Textura and Rotunda) and many Roman typefaces, or to be displayed as drop caps or in full titles and headings. Specimen, detailed character map, OpenType features, and font samples available at Alter Littera’s The Initials “Bergling A” Font Page.

The inspiration source for Memoriam Initials is the 1934 Book of American Types by American Type Founders. In that specimen book, they had created a sophisticated two color initial design they called “University Initials” which was only available in metal type at 24, 36, and 48 points. This wonderfully detailed initial style is now digitally recreated and revived for modern use. Memoriam Initials is only capable of initial or single letter monograms due to its unique design. The two color aspect of the original design has been preserved and made accessible within all programs. The Capital character slots contain the background color glyphs, and the lowercase slots hold the outline art for the letters. You can choose a color, type a capital letter, then switch to black and type a lowercase letter for the two color effect, or just type a lowercase letter on its own. It’s that easy! Download and view the Memoriam Initials Guidebook if you would like to learn a little more.

Gothic Initials Two was inspired by the beautifully-written gothic scripts of medieval scribes. The font contains the upper case letters A through Z under both the character set and shift+character set. This font is intended for use as initials, monograms, drop caps or wherever fancy letters are desirable.

High-quality ornamental initials superimposed on nursery rhyme backgrounds such as Humpty Dumpty, Ride a Cock Horse, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Tom Tom the Piper's Son, Rub-A-Dub-Dub, the Queen of Hearts, Old King Cole, and many others. Includes one set of A-Z ornamental initials conveniently assigned to both the upper and lower case alphabet characters. Ornate and accurate renderings that can be used for the beginning of paragraphs in any children's publication or texts relating to nursery rhymes and fairy tales.

Gothic Initials Five was inspired by the beautifully-written gothic scripts of medieval scribes. The font contains the upper case letters A through Z under both the character set and shift+character set. This font is intended for use as initials, monograms, drop caps or wherever fancy letters are desirable.

Maria-Ballé-Initials are derived from the Ballé series I made by the Bauer foundry. When set at 60 pt this font will match the size of the original 48-pt Didot design.

Woodhaven Initials JNL were designed using an outline cast shadow wood type set against a rectangle with horizontal "engraving" lines to add background texture to the initials. An ampersand is on the corresponding keystroke, and a blank rectangle is on the period key.

LTC Goudy Initials has been a best-seller since it was reformatted to font format by P22 in 2005. We decided that while it works very well at medium sizes, when it was used extra large, the outlines were not as true to Frederic Goudy’s 1917 drawings as they could be. We decided to redraw from the ground up—and here we have the NEW LTC Goudy Initials! Meticulously redrawn by Miranda Roth, these ornaments referenced original proofs of large sizes of Cloister Initials. In our quest for artwork for this project, we even arranged a quickly sold out recasting of the 120 point size and have produced a limited edition letterpress print from this casting This new digital version features two additional layers to allow for quick colorizing of the central letter and/or the floriated background. Registered users of the previous version of LTC Goudy Initials may upgrade to the set at a discount.

Gothic Initials Nine was inspired by the beautifully-written gothic scripts of medieval scribes. The font contains the upper case letters A through Z under both the character set and shift+character set. This font is intended for use as initials, monograms, drop caps or wherever fancy letters are desirable.

Gothic Initials Eight was inspired by the beautifully-written gothic scripts of medieval scribes. The font contains the upper case letters A through Z under both the character set and shift+character set. This font is intended for use as initials, monograms, drop caps or wherever fancy letters are desirable.

Decorative monograms are easy with Longbranch Initials JNL from Jeff Levine.

ITC Dinitials is the work of German designer Helga Joergensen. When I started drawing the first of them, I was very much inspired by dinosaurs, but during the work my fantasy guided me more and more and then became rather fabulous creatures." ITC Dinitials is a capital letter alphabet available in both black on white and white on black weights."

Online auctions continue to be a surprising wealth of font design inspiration. In this instance, a number of silk embroidered Art Deco initials inside inverted triangles inspired Deco Pennant Initials JNL. The uppercase version is white lettering on a black background – similar to the originals. On the lowercase keys is a set of initials that are black on white with a black border. Since the inverted triangles resemble pennants, there’s a solid black blank on the left parenthesis key and a outlined blank one on the right parenthesis key. In this way, the initials could be used for monograms or interspersed with the blanks to form short banner messages.

19th Century American Initials is a collection of beautiful Art Deco letters surrounded by swelling, sinuous, stylized natural forms of flowers, scrolls, spirals, rosettes, waves, and rain drops. This curvy artistic font Includes one set of A-Z ornamental initials conveniently assigned to both the upper and lower case alphabet characters. Perfect for starting off the beginning of paragraphs in artistic publications, storybooks, fairy tales, and texts conveying the feel of the Art Deco period.

A set of transfer patterns for sewing decorative monogram initials on clothing was manufactured by Women's Day magazine circa the 1940s. Designed by renowned Copenhagen-born industrial artist and letterer Gustav Boerge Jensen [April 8, 1898 - June 27, 1954], these initials have been redrawn into a digital font entitled Danish Script Initials JNL. Large initials are on the uppercase A-Z keys, while smaller initials are on the lower case a-z keys and are centered to the larger cap height. An ornament is provided on the asterisk key, and can be placed between the small initials and the larger initial for decorative effect.

In 1529, Geofroy Tory, French scholar, engraver, printer, publisher and poet, was publishing the well known so called Champ Fleury, printed by Gilles de Gourmond, in Paris. It is a fully illustrated handbook where the author explains how to draw Roman characters. The font used for the text - a Humane/Jenson type - was not a very beautiful one, but rough and ready, and the book is well known for its capital letters designs. We are offering here the two complete historical type sets and more -- we have entirely redrawn the lacked letters: J, U and W, Eth, Lslash, Thorn and Oslash in the two initial forms. The text font, 1529 Champ Fleury Regular is now containing all characters for West European (including Celtic), Baltic, East and Central European and Turkish language, and the Initial set 1529 Champ Fleury Init is containing two complete alphabets, with a very great effort to be as close as possible to the original pictures.

Library Book Initials JNL was modeled from examples of Sidney Gaunt's Publicity Initials; originally sold in metal type by Barnhart Brothers and Spindler as a companion to the Publicity Gothic typeface. The smoothed-down lines of the original characters allow for these initials to balace better when set against complementary type faces. A regular version is on the upper case keys, with an oblique version on the lower case keys.

A set of rounded Art Deco initials set inside circular borders was found amongst the pages of the vintage French lettering book "Modèles de Lettres Modernes par Georges Léculier”. Now made into a digital font called Deco Spot Initials JNL, these classic letter forms are available in both the original white-on-black version and as a black-on-white alternate design.

The source for these hand-drawn initials was an early 20th Century French alphabet book whose pages were displayed online at an image sharing site. This style typifies the Art Nouveau period, and makes a wonderful paragraph starter or "drop cap" for your printed projects. Some users may still want to compose headlines with this font, but be aware there are no punctuation marks, accents or kerning - just the twenty-six initials.

Amidst the pages of the 1946 foreign-printed "100 Alphabets Publicitaires" ("100 Advertising Alphabets") was an example of a beautiful vertical script type design with a somewhat calligraphic look. This became the work model for Script Spot Initials JNL.

Roma Initial Caps JNL is a set of alphabet caps drawn from elegant lettering found in an old sign painter's manual. The upper case keys have the letters in white on black backgrounds, while the lower case has the letters in black on a white background with a black border.