Here’s a workman-like collection of border elements gleaned from the specimen books of various American manufacturers of woodtype from around 1840 to 1885. Refer to the PDF guides for detailed, yet simple, instructions for constructing various border patterns, all with Victorian grace and charm.

Here's a handy-dandy collection of border elements gleaned from the specimen books of various manufacturers of woodtype from around 1840 to 1885. Refer to the PDF guide for detailed, yet simple, instructions for constructing sixteen different border patterns, all with Victorian grace and charm.

Print Shop Parts JNL has a nostalgic assortment of blank sign panels, a pointing hand, decorative embellishments and even an assortment of "Made in U.S.A.", "Made in America" and "Made in United States" emblems located on the 1-9 keys. All are from vintage type catalogs and sign painting instruction books from the early 1900s. When scaled up, the blank sign panels can be used for small signs or price tags as originally made in years past. During the early part of the 20th Century, it was common to create show cards in attention-getting shapes matched with beautiful hand lettering.

AstroBats is a fun set of ornaments with a 'Retro Sci-Fi' theme. Think of those 1950s Japanese tinplate robots, think ray guns, think spaceships! Have fun!

Little Malio 8-Bit is a sci-fi, technological display font. It can be used to a variety of designs, related to the gaming or digital world.

Chatham is part of the "Staunton Script Family" of fonts designed by Ted Staunton for his historic novel centered around a family bible and the handwritten annotation through 7 generations. The Chatham font is overtly crooked and has an extreme right-leaning slant—perhaps we should call it "Cheney".

Justus Erich Walbaum was a German punchcutter who worked in Weimar around 1800. He produced both serif and blackletter typefaces. Walbaum Fraktur" is based on his famous blackletter-style type (called Fraktur in German). Walbaum Fraktur is an excellent font for anything old-fashioned, Northern European, or typographically quirky."

The collection Oro y Plata (Gold and Silver) is a Mexican style blackletter, dedicated to the three big silver cities – Taxco, Zacatecas and Guanajuato. Taxco is more angular compared to rounded Zacatecas and elaborate Guanajuato. The fonts contain small capitals, ligatures, initial forms, contextual alternates and other OpenType features. The special feature is a stylistic set of superscript caps with possibility to underline them. It supports all the European languages using Latin alphabet.

Notulen is an Serif Display Typeface, Extra Bold style and nicely balanced curves. Notulen is inspired by Classic typography and now come with modern serif nuance. Short serifs with slightly rounded corners make this font legible at small points. Having several alternative letter variations makes it easy to work on all design projects and works perfectly for Logos, Headlines, Posters, Packaging, T-shirts, Postcards, Invitation, Wedding Sign, Sign Painting, Signboard, and much more. Thank you,

Moutarde is French for mustard. At home we don’t eat that much mustard, as it is a condiment that goes well with burgers and hotdogs. We eat Asian food a lot, so our hot sauce of choice usually is sambal. Moutarde is a good name for this fine, handmade font. Moutarde font is a rounded, easy to read, display font that comes with all the condiments - including a set of alternate a’s.

RMU Edelgotisch is a carefully redrawn revival of the then trend-setting Schelter & Giesecke hot-metal original from the fin-de-siècle period. This fine vintage font elevates all your projects in an Art Nouveau style. To reach the historical long s, either type the integral sign [ ∫ ] or turn the round s into the long s by using the OT feature historical forms. It is also recommended to activate the OT feature discretionary ligatures.

Mantana - Retro Vintage DIsplay font is an old style serif font, its funky, round, hight-contrast and bold shape with a retro touch is perfect for displayed, head text, logotype and many more. Mantana - Retro Vintage DIsplay font comes with stylishtic alternates and ligatures. We highly recommend using a program that supports OpenType features and Glyphs panels like many of Adobe apps and Corel Draw, so you can see and access all Glyph variations.

Jumbalo is a fun loving family suitable for a variety of purposes. This all caps display font is characterized by its loose, rounded features and balloon-like structure which gives it a retro vibe. The letters are closely spaced together to create a snug feel. Jumbalo would work well in a children’s book, retail packaging, or company logo. The complete family contains full and basic Latin, punctuation, European accents, kerning, and includes an outlined version.

Anguita Sans is a condensed sans serif font family of 8 weights with matching italics- 16 styles in all. The font is characterized by rounded terminals, a large x-height and a condensed structure, which allows you to create a good vertical rhythm. Anguita Sans is a stylish and versatile typeface perfectly suitable for a wide range of applications- especially titles and short lines of text, in both print and digital media.

Grifa Slab is a chunky typeface with thick rounded slab serifs in 4 styles with true italics, ideal for very legible titles and with a hard and smooth aspect at the same time. You can use this font in editorial design for headlines, also for advertising and the design of posters, signs or posters, in all cases readability is guaranteed. The typography has a set of 525 characters (Latin Extended-A) and OpenType functions.

A blackletter font by William Caslon (1692-1766), with Dutch influences, which appeared for the first time in a font sample book of William Caslon & Son, London, 1763. To access all ligatures in this font, it is recommended to activate both OT features Standard and Discretionary Ligatures. The round s occupies the number sign key, and typing N - o - period and activating this combination with the OT feature Ordinals gives you the numero sign.

Rustico Farmero is a Textured ultra condensed Type Family that includes 3 styles: Regular, Rounded & Vintage versions. This family is an All-Caps family with each version contains a textured (Aged) and alternates. With 3 styles and iconic alternates, this font can give a diverse set of aesthetics. With light giving a much more simple modern vintage look, fashionable feel and the bold giving a more rugged vibe for Simple strong and mature design look.

Summering is a fresh, sweet, and friendly handwritten font. Its friendly feel makes this font incredibly versatile, fitting a wide range of contexts. Its distinct and well-rounded letters make this font a masterpiece. Add it to your creative ideas and notice how it makes them stand out! This font is PUA encoded which means you can access all of the awesome glyphs with ease! It also features a wealth of special features including ligatures.

Aerioz is a monoline all caps font, comes with over 600 characters including 324 alternate letters. Smooth with rounded lines, simple, elegant, and perfect in any layout project such a headline magazines, custom name, neon sign and more typography work. Aerioz is packed with ornaments and OpenType alternates, you can combine the regular font with the ornament to make it more perfect. How to get access alternate glyphs from open type fonts : http://adobe.ly/1m1fn4Y

The Wright-Regan Instrument Company (Wrico) was one of the leading manufacturers of lettering templates for many years. Aside from their own line of products, they also did custom manufacturing. A series of lettering guides called “Mimeostyle” for the A. B. Dick Company of Chicago (produced for use in making mimeograph machine printing stencils) featured an art Deco squared letter design with rounded corners. This is now available digitally as Template Sans JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Retro is in again! The distinctive font Kabif will give your work a vintage, extraordinary look. With its erratic, rounded, and geometric shapes, this font typifies popular culture from the 1960s and 1970s. A cool and simple font with an easy-to-see and easy-to-read typeface is called Kabif. The Kabif font works best for text, headlines, headers, signage, greeting cards, posters, flyers, invitations, packaging, book covers, printed quotes, album covers, and other visual elements.

Billsville is a fun font that mixes the casual sassy flair of an old Flintstone cartoon with the upright legible nature of a classic serif font to create something entirely new. Although based primarily on straight lines and simple letterforms, Billsville has got softly rounded corners that make everything seem softer. A friendly, versatile display font named after Williamstown, MA, home of a website called Tripod who originally commissioned this font for their members in 1997.

BRIGNELL SUNDAY is an eight font family designed by Ian Brignell. A relaxed, easy-reading companion for any day of the week. A clean, modern, friendly sans serif characterized by an open style with occasionally rounded corners, occasional curved junctures on diagonals and a slightly sloped lower case A. Brignell Sunday was born in 2006 and was inspired by corporate custom font ideas Ian designed for an LG Electronics sub-brand called Best Shop. Extended Latin set.

New Millennium is one of three font families that share a common name, a common design philosophy, a common x-height, and basic character shapes. (The others are New Millennium Sans and New Millennium Linear; all three work well together.) New Millennium is a serif face of what some might describe as a "modern style." But although it has flat serifs, it differs markedly from, say, Bodoni or Didot -- especially in the italic, which is a radical departure from tradition. (The bold styles are in fact sans-serif, identical to those of New Millennium Sans.) There's also a nice, dark Headline style for display text. New Millennium is a distinctive, legible, accessible text face that might be well suited to, say, scientific documentation.

Hellenic Typewriter is a slab serif for text and display, combining the typewriter aesthetic's balance of elegance and pragmatism with some of the extended western flavour of Hellenic Wide. Rounded strokes, some unorthodox slab details and playful, looping tails all add to Hellenic Typewriter’s warmth and approachability, while its typewriter-inspired proportions and clean forms provide rythym and an honest, confident voice. The lightest weights, laying bare the simple, partly-geometric and optically-monolinear construction, embody an assertive elegance. Ball terminals feature extensively throughout the design, in both lower and uppercase. This miroring of details creates a greater harmony between the cases and ensures that the true character of Hellenic Typewriter is not lost when setting in all-caps. Expressive true italics elaborate upon and emphasise some of the freer, more decorative elements of the roman styles.

Blumenkind is a fresh, bright, humanist script font radiating boundless optimism and friendly enthusiasm. Its strokes are based on the rounded triangle, which lends it a dynamic bounce and a confident human touch. It shines in a wide range of display and editorial applications, but excels in particular in the context of art, creativity, food, social events, and spirituality. Blumenkind is inspired by an instance of metal-strip lettering found on the B�rgermeister Kornmesser Siedlung residential building complex in Berlin from the 1960s. The font name, being German for �flower child�, aims to capture the positive zeitgeist of that time evident in the letters. Blumenkind comes with extensive language support, tight kerning, attractive ligatures, and subtly varied alternate shapes for some of the most commonly doubled letters � and all that in three linear weights and one calligraphic weight. Furthermore, a complementary version of the font (Blumenkind Alternate) is available, in which the overlapping tittles and accent marks of the original are replaced with more traditional free-floating marks. This font is dedicated to the miracle of medical science. Thanks to Georg Seifert, Rainer Scheichelbauer, and Michael Wallner for technical aid.

Here's a Collector's Item Classic for all our fiends! Sit up in your Caskets and we'll help you spin a Shocking, Suspense-filled Tale of Terror with a font Bad Bad Leroy "JG" Brown found in the Vault! Give us your grimy little dimes and come down into the Crypt with us. We call this rotten little font... RIGORMORTIS! AHAHAHHAHHHAHHHHAHA-HAH-haa... Features: Four weights (Regular, Italic, Bold & Bold Italic) with alternate uppercase characters. Includes Western and Central European international characters.

RAN Reformed Typeface for Beginners by Georg Salden - 
a headstrong and courageous approach to an improved handling of handwriting. Diverse and sometimes irreconcilable theories exist about how beginners are supposed to learn writing and reading. This has led to fierce discussions among experts already. We don’t want to pour more oil on the fire, but hope to create a new awareness for this topic, which is important to everyone of us. For beginners the combination of single characters (sounds) to whole words is essential during the acquirement of reading and writing. In this process they develop the skill to recall entire terms from memory. Therefore, after current practice, every word shall be written in a single stroke without lifting the pen in between. Georg Salden contradicts this postulate and warns, that coercively holding the pen down within a word can easily lead to exaggerated loop formations and a general meandering of the written text. The intellectual process in connecting single sounds to words while writing would happen anyway and the prohibition to lift the pen would often lead to tensions. 
To still support the necessary connections in general and to simplify the connecting, he teaches to write all round letters like a, e, g, o with inclusion of the connecting stroke, so that the spacing and combining with the next character arise by themselves. By settling the stroke at certain points and with a clear and logical writing method, a conscious and careful contact with the various strokes arises. All this automatically leads, together with a certain deceleration, to an increase of beauty and readability in the handwriting. 
The repeatedly discussed topic »connected or unconnected« appears to be solved in the most comfortable way as, depending on the particular character combination, both solutions are possible.

A few years ago I've discovered the work of one of the most prolific typeface designers of the Bruce type Foundry in NYC during late nineteenth century. Browsing Julius Herriet's work I found a very unique kind of ligatures in his patented "Old Style Ornamented" type design. Some letters were designed with a little top tail that allowed them to connect to each other. After that, I found that he also designed a single italic weight of the same font 7 years later. Since the beginning of the Opentype days I’ve been deeply obsessed with exploring different ways to build ligatures, so that lead me up to this point where I felt the need to create “Plethora”, this new font inspired by Herriet’s work. Extrapolating weights, adding variable technology and playing with additional interconnected letters and alternates. Definitely, Plethora means a large or excessive amount of something, and this font tries to bring back this abundance of details two centuries later. Available in 9 weights, from roman to italic, and also as variable format, “Plethora” supports plenty of latin languages and is a perfect choice for today’s design tides.

Introducing The fashionable Jophie Modern round font display. I try to make the family font as much as possible The round and diagonal versions are great for applications that are more friendly and fun and as the name suggests. You can uniquely stack various parts of this font making it very fun to use together :) The Jophie includes 3 regular, italic, outline, clean and modern fonts, thus creating more variability. The Jophie sans that cannot be blamed for diversifying your headlines, visual identity branding, posters, logos, magazines, etc. What's Included The Jophie Regular The Jophie Italic The Jophie Outline Thank for looking, and I hope you enjoy it.

Trapper is so named because it exploits a typographic design mechanism known as ink traps purely for graphic effect. Ink traps are a device used by type designers to create significantly higher legibility under adverse printing conditions, especially when the intended use of the type is to be printed at small sizes on mediocre substrate. For Trapper the ink trap is overused for exaggerated visual effect. This gives the Round version a playful twisted balloons look while the Sharp has a stern mechanical default effect. Trapper is a versatile font family of 8 fonts -- Sharp and Round variations in regular and bold weights each with an accompanying oblique.

Sorren Ex is a slightly less condensed, more robust version of Sorren. Its overall width has been increased to the point just before its rounded forms begin to flatten, retaining the aesthetic essence of the original without compromise. Sorren is a definitive bold condensed sans influenced by neo-grotesque designs. A relatively low stroke contrast complimented with sharp, horizontal stroke ends lend an unyielding appearance, while its rounded forms and refined curves juxtapose its inherent strength with grace. Stylistically, Sorren has a classic, timeless feel with a contemporary finish and attention to detail. It is characteristically more elegant and considerably sturdier than the typical condensed sans, lending to its singular disposition.

Magnetik is a versatile geometric typeface that boasts slightly rounded corners, which give it a modern and unique appearance that sets it apart from traditional geometric fonts. The font’s design is bold and striking, with sharp angles and precise lines that create a sleek and futuristic look. Its clean and minimalist style is ideal for a variety of applications, from logos and branding to web design and print materials. The slightly rounded corners of Magnetik lend it an organic, dynamic feel, suggesting movement and energy, while the geometric structure conveys stability and strength. The fusion of these seemingly contrasting elements results in a design that is visually appealing and attention-grabbing.

Introducing Rofak, a unique and captivating display font. Rofak takes inspiration from Arabic script and introduces a distinct rounded design to the characters. This choice softens the edges while preserving the elegance of Arabic calligraphy, resulting in a typeface that exudes a sense of warmth and approachability. Rofak prioritizes readability by maintaining low contrast between strokes and curves. With its unique combination of rounded forms and low contrast, Rofak is versatile and well-suited for diverse design projects. Rofak fits in headlines, logos, posters, flyers, branding materials, print media, editorial layouts, and many more designs. Find out more ways to use this font by taking a look at the font preview.

Binario Soft is a friendly typeface with rounded edges, offering a warm and soft impression. It comes in three weights with matching obliques. Drawn with subtle references to Art Deco, this type is ideal for a clean, warm, and modern look in branding, posters, magazines, and screen-based projects. The light weight is good for short body text. The regular weight exudes confidence, making it suitable for both body and heading text. For impactful headlines, the bold weight is excellent. The clear weight distinction make it easy to create organized text. Binario Soft is a gently rounded version of Binario, which is also available on this vendor’s website.

Durazno de Chile are cursive fonts based on Chilean school script. It can be written in Aymara, Mapuche and Rapa Nui from Chile. It can also be written in Dutch, Maltese, and other languages. This font family is cute. The style is wide and rounded. It has wide and open loops. The strokes are drawn with a round cap tool, with no contrast. It is cursive and connected. The form is upright because upright is the Chilean script standard. It is easy to read in Chile. Parts A have capitals with high starts. Parts B have capitals with low starts. Parts F are Final forms.

History, as it's said, tends to repeat itself. The round-point pen lettering used in the 1920s logo and ads for Dodge Brothers cars (pre-General Motors) is an early predecessor to the techno type styles of the 1980s. Square in shape, with unique stylization to some letters, Jalopy JNL can cross the decades and be used for a 1920s period piece and still look fresh in an ad for computer parts. Rather than round out the inside lines of the characters to fully emulate the strokes of a lettering pen, the inside lines have straight intersections for the contemporary side of this font's design.

Although ITC Styleboy has a retro feel, it isn't based on any earlier typeface. As far as inspiration goes," says designer Chester Wajda, "I'd have to say comic strips of the '20s and '30s, and silent-film marquee lettering from the '20s - with a hint of a Chinese brush?" He originally created the typeface for a children's book he was working on. "I wanted it to be fun, but still somewhat formal in its underlying structure," he says. "It's largely based on right and 45-degree angles, with slight tucks inward on the stems and bowls, and a few flourishes here and there." Styleboy's top-heavy look is most noticeable in the caps, but it's exaggerated too in the "8" and the lowercase "g." Styleboy is Wajda's first typeface design."

Named for a Manhattan neighborhood, Morningside Heights JNL is based on lettering found on a 1920s-era piece of sheet music. Part of the charm of hand lettering from the Art Nouveau era is found in the non-standard line thicknesses, experimental character shapes and varying character widths.

ITC Johnston is the result of the combined talents of Dave Farey and Richard Dawson, based on the work of Edward Johnston. In developing ITC Johnston, says London type designer Dave Farey, he did “lots of research on not only the face but the man.” Edward Johnston was something of an eccentric, “famous for sitting in a deck chair and carrying toast in his pockets.” (The deck chair was his preferred furniture in his own living room; the toast was so that he’d always have sustenance near at hand.) Johnston was also almost single-handedly responsible, early in this century, for the revival in Britain of the Renaissance calligraphic tradition of the chancery italic. His book Writing & Illuminating, & Lettering (with its peculiar extraneous comma in the title) is a classic on its subject, and his influence on his contemporaries was tremendous. He is perhaps best remembered, however, for the alphabet that he designed in 1916 for the London Underground Railway (now London Transport), which was based on his original “block letter” model. Johnston’s letters were constructed very carefully, based on his study of historical writing techniques at the British Museum. His capital letters took their form from the best classical Roman inscriptions. “He had serious rules for his sans serif style,” says Farey, “particularly the height-to-weight ratio of 1:7 for the construction of line weight, and therefore horizontals and verticals were to be the same thickness. Johnston’s O’s and C’s and G’s and even his S’s were constructions of perfect circles. This was a bit of a problem as far as text sizes were concerned, or in reality sizes smaller than half an inch. It also precluded any other weight but medium ‘ any weight lighter or heavier than his 1:7 relationship.” Johnston was famously slow at any project he undertook, says Farey. “He did eventually, under protest, create a bolder weight, in capitals only ‘ which took twenty years to complete.” Farey and his colleague Richard Dawson have based ITC Johnston on Edward Johnston’s original block letters, expanding them into a three-weight type family. Johnston himself never called his Underground lettering a typeface, according to Farey. It was an alphabet meant for signage and other display purposes, designed to be legible at a glance rather than readable in passages of text. Farey and Dawson’s adaptation retains the sparkling starkness of Johnston’s letters while combining comfortably into text. Johnston’s block letter bears an obvious resemblance to Gill Sans, the highly successful type family developed by Monotype in the 1920s. The young Eric Gill had studied under Johnston at the London College of Printing, worked on the Underground project with him, and followed many of the same principles in developing his own sans serif typeface. The Johnston letters gave a characteristic look to London’s transport system after the First World War, but it was Gill Sans that became the emblematic letter form of British graphic design for decades. (Johnston’s sans serif continued in use in the Underground until the early ‘80s, when a revised and modernized version, with a tighter fit and a larger x-height, was designed by the London design firm Banks and Miles.) Farey and Dawson, working from their studio in London’s Clerkenwell, wanted to create a type family that was neither a museum piece nor a bastardization, and that would “provide an alternative of the same school” to the omnipresent Gill Sans. “These alphabets,” says Farey, referring to the Johnston letters, “have never been developed as contemporary styles.” He and Dawson not only devised three weights of ITC Johnston but gave it a full set of small capitals in each weight ‘ something that neither the original Johnston face nor the Gill faces have ‘ as well as old-style figures and several alternate characters.