Here's a collection of Art-Noueveau-era border elements, gleaned from the pages of various German type foundry catalogs from the first decade of the twentieth century. Refer to the accompanying PDF guide for instructions on constructing twelve different, distinctive and elegant border sets.

CS are the initials of Carsten Strinkau, a young German graphic and type designer who studied in Hamburg. CS Courthand is based on 16 hundred century English monks handwriting. Text in CS Courthand looks like a pattern, like a text-carpet, but still readable.

"Baker’s Showcard Book" (1916) was an early 20th Century instructional book on sign lettering. One of the sample alphabets entitled “Decorative Roman” was a spurred serif, Art Nouveau design that has been recreated digitally as Elegant Showcard JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

Based on a popular design of the 50s-60s, Sandcastle JNL has the retro-casual charm of many prints ads of that era. It lends itself well to headlines, price tags, announcements, name plates and just about anything that recreates the mid-century panache.

Ellida is a very elaborate and elegant script in the tradition of the 18th-century English calligrapher George Bickham and the 19th-century American calligrapher Platt Rogers Spencer. I really enjoyed designing this script and maybe one day I will add starting and ending letters. Doing this script was extremely time- and brain-consuming, it is a huge challenge to make calligraphic letters work on computers so that they join perfectly. That's also the reason that this has become my most expensive font so far, but I think the price is fair for the incredible amount of work I put into the script. I really need a break from scripts now! Yours very exhausted Gert Wiescher.

Based on 10th century Carolingian scripts, Silentium Pro sparkles with a quiet but ebullient sense of the human hand. As a multi-featured Adobe Originals OpenType family, Silentium includes myriad alternate forms, ligatures, and titling characters that add an air of tasteful liveliness to contemporary graphic design and typography. Designed by Yugoslavian calligrapher and type designer Jovica Veljović, Silentium works well in both display sizes and text setting as small as 8 points. Silentium is the Latin word for silence, a discipline commonly practiced in the medieval European monasteries and court scriptoria where the Carolingian script flourished. Now, more than ten centuries later, Silentium Pro brings the fluid energy of their work to contemporary design and typography.

Richard Lipton designed Meno in 1994 as a modest yet elegant workhorse serif family in seven styles. In 2016, he expanded this spirited oldstyle into a 78–style superfamily. The romans gain their energy from French baroque forms cut late in the 16th century by Robert Granjon, the italics from Dirk Voskens’ work in 17th-century Amsterdam. Meno consists of three carefully drawn optical sizes—Text, Display, and Banner, with Condensed and Extra Condensed widths added to the latter two cuts. Steadfast in text settings, Meno is replete with alternate forms, swashes, and other enhancements that showcase Lipton’s masterful calligraphic hand. The series offers a complete solution for achieving high-end editorial typography.

Richard Lipton designed Meno in 1994 as a modest yet elegant workhorse serif family in seven styles. In 2016, he expanded this spirited oldstyle into a 78–style superfamily. The romans gain their energy from French baroque forms cut late in the 16th century by Robert Granjon, the italics from Dirk Voskens’ work in 17th-century Amsterdam. Meno consists of three carefully drawn optical sizes—Text, Display, and Banner, with Condensed and Extra Condensed widths added to the latter two cuts. Steadfast in text settings, Meno is replete with alternate forms, swashes, and other enhancements that showcase Lipton’s masterful calligraphic hand. The series offers a complete solution for achieving high-end editorial typography.

Josephine, named for Josephine Baker, the legendary dancer of the 1930s, is a twenty first century sans serif typeface that harks back to the earlier part of last century. Although very modern, it has been greatly influenced by the many art deco fonts produced during the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century.In it I have tried to capture the art deco spirit in a modern humanist font. Josephine is exceptionally readable and yet completely characteristic of the Art Deco period. It can be used for text passages as well as display in posters, advertising, labels and packaging. It is professionally finished and contains all upper and lower case characters as well as all special characters, punctuation and symbols.

Okoye occupies a liminal space between the bonkers curviness of 19th-century grotesques and the sandblasted neutrality of 20th-century models. Both extremes are nice, but there’s something to be said for some neutrality with character left in place, yes? Okoye comes in 9 weights, Thin to Black. If you’re using it for interfaces, each weight lines up from 100-900 in the CSS specification you already know, with Regular sitting at 400 and Bold at 700. You’ll see what you expect to see without extra font-weight specification. There’s extensive Latin language support, a set of small caps which mirrors full-size caps (good for control labels), and arrows. Okoye will be your quirkhorse: hardworking, with personality.

Clearface Gothic first appeared in 1910, designed by Morris Fuller Benton, the world-famously prolific typeface artist. In addition to Clearface Gothic, Benton also designed classics like Franklin Gothic, Century Expanded, and many other types. Clearface Gothic is a sans serif face with light forms displaying the Zeitgeist of the turn of the 20th century. Distinguishing characteristics are the open forms of the a" and "c," the arched "k," and the upward-tilting horizontal stroke of the "e." The relatively narrow typeface, with its open inner white spaces, is extremely legible even in small point sizes. There is no accompanying italic. This digital version of Clearface Gothic was made in 1984 by the Linotype Design Studio."

When it comes to poster design, the line between wild west and psychedelic can be surprisingly fine. Dave West combined both typographic genres to create his refreshing Banjo. Developed in the late 1960s for Photo-Lettering, Inc., this curvaceous high-contrast sort-of serif might have been born on the nineteenth-century frontier, but it was raised in the counterculture of the mid-twentieth century. Use it wherever the conventional and uncommon collide. Vectorized by Mitja Miklavčič in 2017. Like all good subversives, House Industries hides in plain sight while amplifying the look, feel and style of the world’s most interesting brands, products and people. Based in Delaware, visually influencing the world.

Richard Lipton designed Meno in 1994 as a modest yet elegant workhorse serif family in seven styles. In 2016, he expanded this spirited oldstyle into a 78–style superfamily. The romans gain their energy from French baroque forms cut late in the 16th century by Robert Granjon, the italics from Dirk Voskens’ work in 17th-century Amsterdam. Meno consists of three carefully drawn optical sizes—Text, Display, and Banner, with Condensed and Extra Condensed widths added to the latter two cuts. Steadfast in text settings, Meno is replete with alternate forms, swashes, and other enhancements that showcase Lipton’s masterful calligraphic hand. The series offers a complete solution for achieving high-end editorial typography.

ITC New Baskerville is one of many contemporary type families based on the work of John Baskerville (1706-1775), a writing master and printer from Birmingham, England, whose types were cut by the punchcutter John Handy. Baskerville produced a masterpiece folio Bible for Cambridge University, and today, his types are considered to be fine representations of eighteenth-century rationalism and neoclassicism. ITC New Baskerville is a late 20th-century interpretation of Baskerville’s style, designed by John Quaranda. It makes an excellent and very readable text face; its sharp, high-contrast forms make it suitable for elegant advertising settings as well. ITC New Baskerville® font field guide including best practices, font pairings and alternatives.

Boxcase is inspired by pixel fonts from the 20th century. Instead of having sharp corners, which was a limitation back then, Boxcase comes with soft touchable corners. Diagonally chopped pixels/boxes, merges smoothly with the rest of the shape, giving a slide like feel to the letterforms.

Orlando is the work of British designer Freda Sack. It is an all capital, outline typeface including a complete set of swash initials and an array of stunning flourishes designed especially for this typeface. Orlando was inspired by and modelled upon 19th century antique type styles.

Headline Bold is a sans serif face in the nineteenth century English Grotesque tradition. The Headline Bold font is based on types from the Stephenson Blake type foundry called Grotesque no. 9. A bold and compact font, its name gives a strong indication of its primary use.

Bonlivet is an all capitals display face, which starts from Roman letter forms and pushes them into wild decorative extravagance. There is a somewhat early 20th century feel to this, but really it’s just a bit of good fun, with a hint of elegance thrown in.

This font provides a variety of symbols for decorating maps simulating those of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. For fans of piracy, there is a range of skull and crossbones imagery. The font also includes cartouches, scrolls and symbols for mountains, hills and castles of various sizes.

Flighter is a bold sans-serif typeface, in a somewhat geometric and balanced style.  It has speed and stability and should bring the thoughts to a mid 20th century traveler.  Created by Måns Grebäck in 2017-2018, this high-quality font has support for hundreds of languages.

Orlando is the work of British designer Freda Sack. It is an all capital, outline typeface including a complete set of swash initials and an array of stunning flourishes designed especially for this typeface. Orlando was inspired by and modelled upon 19th century antique type styles.

Inspired by 15th century Venetian italic book texts and based on examples from volumes on the history of type. Fourteen64 has a rugged charm and lots of character featuring 'Roman' capitals with italic lowercase. Includes alternate characters, extra ligatures and a small selection of medieval ornaments.

Sherwood is a reproduction of an unusually small wood type font from England, dating from the last years of the 18th century. Somewhat reminiscent of Caslon Old Face. The original wood type is used at Sherwood Letterpress and can be seen on the Sherwood home page.

Sweet Titling No. 22 is part of the Sweet Collection of engraved lettering styles from the 20th Century, published by MVB Fonts. This obscure, art deco design would have been used for engraved letterhead, business cards, etc., and likely first appeared in the 1920s or ’30s.

A design reminiscent to school script and handwriting, yet slightly off beat, with a gracious and elegant motion. Originally designed for invitations for a book store, the typeface likes to think it refers refers to book typography of the 40s and 50s of the last century.

Pomponianus comes from a 4th century inscription found in North Africa. It is an attractive example of early uncial lettering. Uncial inscriptions are quite uncommon, because although the style was well suited for writing on vellum, the curved letters made it more difficult to carve in stone.

French Serif Moderne JNL gives a slab serif treatment to the lettering comprising Jeff Levine's French Art Initials JNL. The font - containing a full character set - was inspired by a page from an early 20th Century French alphabet book posted online at an image sharing site.

Intellecta Design, in partnership with Monocracy Types (Paulo W) launches Augusta Torino Ornaments. Classic art deco ornaments digitized from the font catalogues of "Società Augusta Torino", also Nebiolo Fundicion, one of the most important european extinct typefoundry from last century. Soon, more fonts of that collection.

Britannic is a sans serif face with a vertical axis and a high degree of stroke contrast, especially in the heavier weights. This typeface exudes a degree of elegance that has not often been matched during the Century that has passed since it was first drawn.

Albo is part of a new set of typefaces inspired in ancient documents from Portuguese 15th and 16th century books. Based on a document from Afonso d'Alboquerque (Goa, July, 1514), Albo was designed to be an inspiring typeface, a blackletter with ornamental elements and many design possibilities.

Antique is a bold, classic font with high stroke contrast and no bracketing on the serifs. This letter style was hugely popular during the early 19th century and was the basis for a myriad of other designs. This version is based on wood type of unknown origin.

This is a simplified Tuscan, free from excessive ruffles and flourishes. Types of this general design began to appear in profusion in the 1830, and continued as a popular form until the end of the nineteenth century. We added the lowercase to this one for increased usefulness.

Nowie Vremena is a sequel to a previously released Vremena Grotesk, a sans serif typeface, inspired by Arial’s apalling combination of grubby tidiness. The sequel travels back in time and explores Arial’s elder brothers and some 19th century sans serifs, through initial concept of hectic neutrality.

Vox Populi was modeled after an early 17th century Latin translation of a Greek epos. It is a cursive typeface with a rough edge to it - not unlike the rather decayed original. Vox comes with a whole bunch of alternates and ligatures for that ‘ancient parchment look’.

Melusine is based on an ornate style of gothic calligraphy used primarily in decorative signs and advertising in Germany around the turn of the century. It has many of the characteristics of a true medieval gothic hand, but is a more elaborate, extreme variaton on the style.

Inspired by the art deco movement in France at the turn of the last century and in United States in the 1930s. Boasting over 500 glyphs, with its multiple ligature sets and alternatives, this is a wonderful typeface to use on posters, magazines and on promotional collateral!

This came from a shop near Munich, Germany, and was a very poor proof with no font name on it. Never did identify it. When we cleaned it up, we liked it pretty well. We think it is typical of some early twentieth century art nouveau fonts.

Springfield is a narrow, western-style display face from Bob McGrath. The design recalls wood types that were popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but which also found resonance during the 1970s. Use Springfield to liven up otherwise dull headline and logo projects.

Here's a refined version of Grange, released by Edinburgh's Miller & Richards foundry just around the turn of the twentieth century. A bit quirky with a lot of warmth. Both flavors of this font feature the 1252 Latin, 1250 Central European, 1254 Turkish and 1257 Baltic character sets.

Jacob Riley is based on antique 18th century printers’ specimens and has been hand-illustrated with calligraphy nibs dipped in walnut ink. A goodly fellow, Jacob delights in uses varied and sundry including personal correspondence, rustic decor, graphic display and even amongst the pages of children’s books.