Empresario Stephen F. Austin (1793-1836) is considered by many the “Father of Texas” for leading the first Anglo-American colony into the then-Mexican territory back in the 1820s. A few years later, while on a diplomatic mission to Mexico City, Austin was arrested on suspicion of plotting Texas independence and imprisoned for virtually all of 1834. During this time he kept a secret diary of his thoughts and musings—much of it written in Spanish. Austin Pen is my interpretation of Austin’s scribblings in this miniature prison journal (now in the collection of the wonderful Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, in the Texas city that bears his name). The little leather-bound book is filled with notes in ink and pencil—some of the faded penciled pages traced in ink years later by Austin’s nephew Moses Bryan. A genuine replication of 19th century cursive, Austin Pen has two styles: a fine regular weight, along with a bold style that replicates passages written with an over-inked pen. Each is legible and evocative of commonplace American penmanship of two centuries ago.

Based on a revival of one of the popular Textura fonts of the early 20th century; suitable for display, or text.

The PL Westerveldt font has a late twentieth-century style, with flared strokes. Use PL Westerveldt for display and short texts.

A condensed American blackletter designed for ATF in 1932 by Morris Fuller Benton; the face grows out of nineteenth century roots.

A turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau display font, originally from the Aktiengesellschaft fuer Schriftgiesserei und Maschinenbau, Offenbach, revived and extended.

Classical nineteenth century french engravers typeface, traditional with corners sharpened, a flick of the burin and a touch of Art Deco.

Based on a revival of one of the popular wooden type fonts of the 19th century, suitable for display, or text.

A thin, very elegant caps-only cross-stitch font, based on an embroidery pattern from the end of the 19th century.

An original design, loosely based on a typeface from an old wood type specimen book from the turn-of-the-century.

Based on a revival of one of the popular type fonts of the 19th century, suitable for display, or text, bold.

The German designer Emil Rudolf Weiss originally created Weiss Rundgotisch for the Bauer typefoundry in 1937. In their catalog for the typeface, Bauer began with this quote from Leonhard Wagner: The round gothic (rundgotisch) script is the most beautiful kind of script; she is called the mother and the queen of all the rest." While designing Weiss Rundgotisch, Weiss was inspired by Renaissance types cut by the Augsberg printer Erhard Ratdolt. Ratdolt had spent some time in Venice, which is most likely where he became familiar with round gothic letters. This sort of letterform was never as popular in Germany as Fraktur or Gotisch may have been, but round gothic types were used there for centuries to represent arts and craft feelings, as well as old-fashioned handwork. For a blackletter typeface, Weiss Rundgotisch is very similar to normal serif and sans serif designs, especially its uppercase letters, which seem to have some uncial influence in them as well. Therefore, Weiss Rundgotisch is more legible for contemporary readers, making this an excellent choice for anyone looking to set text, logos, or headlines with in blackletter. Weiss Rundgotisch was apparently quite a difficult typeface to design, even for a master designer like Weiss. He began work on the face in 1915; Weiss Rundgotisch's development took over 20 years to complete."

A Roman typeface with emphasized triangular serifs. A font like this one could have been designed in 18th century France. To some extent, Auxerre is a precursor of “Etienne,” which later became popular as an advertising typeface of the 19th century. Auxerre is available in five font weights: light, regular, semibold, bold and black. Auxerre supports Western and Central European languages including Scandinavian languages. Plus, the font includes lots of ligatures, tabular figures as well as a “Capital German Double S.” Auxerre fits perfectly with any topic related to the past two centuries. It also works amazingly well on technical issues. And of course it fits very well with topics of fine art and art history.

Handsome, adventurous, legible and elegant, this script has the feel of practical handwriting from past centuries. Aquiline is based on a cursive italic style influenced by the 16th century European writing masters. The Aquiline design team turned to Ludovico degli Arrighi, the great 16th century writing master, for period ideas on how to improve, strengthen and add grace to the font. Aquiline has strokes and gestures that seem very like the writing of Arrighi and Mercator, such as the flamboyant balloon of a flourish on the cap A; the graceful flourishes on the cap B, D, and L; and the compact lowercase with tall ascenders. Aquiline has a strong personality and is historically correct.

A revival of one of the popular wooden type fonts of the 19th century, condensed, bold, a very useful design for display.

The American nineteenth century display form as handed down through ATF and the composing machine companies, largely for use in newspaper headlines.

Romb is the display font based on feeling of the retro typefaces of the early 20th century. Good for posters, magazines, packaging.

A sans serif with the futuristic retro, Art Deco feel of mid 20th century science fiction, particularly the early Flash Gordon serials.

This is a classic design from the beginning of the 20th century. This font can be used in many kinds of books

An original slab serif design inspired by the slab serif designs of the 19th century, with a modern geometric look, bold version.

An original slab serif design inspired by the slab serif designs of the 19th century, with a modern geometric look, extra bold.

Heck Italic is based on captions, labels and legends appearing on 19th-century maps and natural history engravings by J. G. Heck.

Fresno is a two-font family. Fresno Inline and Fresno Black. Fresno Black is a recent addition. It can be used alone, and it is carefully tailored to fit behind the Inline font to add color to the inline. There are alternate characters: A, M & N in the caps and lowercase key positions. Fresno is a square gothic style typical of Mid-20th Century Showcard Lettering. A lettering genre known as “Gaspipe.” Signage samples similar to this still exist on buildings in my home town, Oakland, California. I have designed over a half dozen variations of this form over the years. Including Amboy. Golden Gate Initials, Matinee, Motel, and Hotel. Designed in 2001 by Jim Parkinson, Fresno has recently been refreshed, enhanced, and re-released.

Amboy is a two-font family. Amboy Inline and Amboy Black. Amboy Black is a recent addition. It can be used alone, but it is carefully tailored to fit behind the Inline font to add color to the inline. There are alternate characters: A, M & N in the caps and lowercase key positions. Amboy is a square gothic style typical of Mid-20th Century Showcard Lettering. A lettering genre known as “Gaspipe.” Signage samples similar to this still exist on buildings in my home town, Oakland, California. I have designed over a half dozen variations of this form over the years. Including Golden Gate Initials, Matinee, Motel, Hotel and Fresno. Designed in 2001 by Jim Parkinson, Amboy has been refreshed, enhanced, and re-released.

Fusion Sans is an amalgamation of traditional early nineteenth-century sans-serif letters. Despite its monotone structure it retains certain features common to roman. For instance lowercase ‘a’ and the two-storey ‘g’ are normal roman characters, while most letters are designed with a thinning of stroke at the junction of rounds to stems. Other letters are borrowed from earlier gothics, like lowercase ‘t’ which was first seen on a typeface that was developed by Paul Rand for Westinghouse in 1960. Fusion Sans is a tall family of 4 weights which is suitable for long headlines. The new ‘Pro’ version developed in 2006, provides support for all European languages including Greek and Cyrillic while it comes loaded with 19 special OpenType features.

Vinque is an interpretation of a nineteenth century Arts & Crafts revival of medieval lettering. British type designer William Morris completed Troy in 1891—a splendid blackletter typeface in the medieval style. It’s beautiful but some modern uses like UI and video game text require a less ornate gothic appearance. Vinque is simple. It avoids strong vertical blackletter strokes which can present problems for contemporary readers. The end result is an uncomplicated, crisp typeface that successfully conveys medievalness to the reader. Vinque was released in 2002 in one style: Regular. In 2019, Vinque was expanded to seven weights and italics. Language support was bolstered to support most current Latin based languages as well as Greek and Cyrillic. OpenType fractions, f-ligatures and old-style numerals are supported.

Craw Modern was designed by Freeman Craw in 1958 and first released by The American Typefounders Company, (ATF). In typography, 'Modern' is a style of typeface (classification) developed in the late 18th century that continued through much of the 19th century. Characterized by high contrast between thick and thin strokes and flat serifs. Bodoni is among the most popular of the Moderns. Moderns are also known as Didone and New Antiqua.

Linoscript was designed in 1905 by Morris Fuller Benton and displays the strong stroke contrasts of broken letter and the flowing quality of handwriting fonts of the 17th and 18th centuries. The font suggests a school book typeface common at the turn of the 20th century. Linoscript is suited for middle length texts and headlines, while its capitals can also be used as initials mixed with other alphabets.

It occurred to me years ago that the graphic arts community might find useful a digital typeface that mimicked the classic look of nineteenth-century handwriting. Conveniently, my mother then still volunteered at the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, my hometown. She made copies of the letters of a few famous Texans -- Houston, Austin, Travis, Burnet, Rusk. Thomas J. Rusk’s penmanship caught my eye as the most accessible of the bunch. I hadn't realized at the time what a challenge it'd be to render a realistic-looking script face, but the result has, in fact, filled a niche.

A small x-height typeface, originating with engravers near the start of the twentieth century, appearing in type in the 1923 ATF specimen.

A revival of one of the popular wooden type fonts of the 19th century, suitable for display, or text, closely related to Latin.

Thomas Maitland Cleland’s careful and scholarly creation of a typeface from 15th Century Florentine inscriptional capitals; designed for the Bruce division of ATF.

A revival of one of the popular wooden type fonts of the 19th century, suitable for text or display, medium and bold weights.

A revival of one of the popular wooden type fonts of the 19th century, suitable for display, or text, closely related to Latin.

A modified remake of one of the popular wooden type fonts of the 19th century. An extra bold sans serif suitable for display.

An original slab serif design inspired by the slab serif designs of the 19th century, with a modern geometric look, bold version, extended.

A revival of one of the popular wooden type fonts of the 19th century, for large display. Lowercase not designed for this type.

Henry8 is a historical caps font originally penned in the 16th century. I have extended it to include numbers and a few symbols.

Arte Critique JNL was modeled after an alphabet in an early 20th Century French lettering book spotted online at an image sharing site.