The Latin, or Roman, alphabet was originally adapted from the Etruscan alphabet during the 7th century BC to write Latin. Since then it has had many different forms, and been adapted to write many other languages. According to Roman legend, the Cimmerian Sibyl, Carmenta, created the Latin alphabet by adapting the Greek alphabet used in the Greek colony of Cumae in southern Italy. This was introduced to Latium by Evander, her son. 60 years after the Trojan war. There is no historical evidence to support this story, which comes from the Roman author, Gaius Julius Hyginus (64BC - 17AD). The earliest known inscriptions in the Latin alphabet date from the 6th century BC. It was adapted from the Etruscan alphabet during the 7th century BC. The letters Y and Z were taken from the Greek alphabet to write Greek loan words. Other letters were added from time to time as the Latin alphabet was adapted for other languages.

Almost a half of a millennium after being mistaken for the original 4th century Gothic alphabet and falsely labeled "barbaric" by the European Renaissance, the blackletter alphabet was still flourishing exclusively in early 20th century Germany, not only as an ode to Gutenberg and the country's rich printing history, but also as a continuous evolution, taking on new shapes and textures influenced by almost every other form of alphabet available. Blackletter would continue to go strong in Germany until just before the second World War, when it died a political death at the height of its hybridization. For almost 50 years after the war, blackletter was very rarely used in a prominent manner, but it continued to be seen sparely in a variety of settings, almost as a subliminal reminder of western civilization's first printed letters; on certificates and official documents of all kinds, religious publications, holiday cards and posters, to name a few. In the early 21st century, blackletter type has been appearing sporadically on visible media, but as of late 2005, it is not known how long the renewed interest will last, or even whether or not it will catch on at all. The last few years before World War II were arguably the most fascinating and creative in modern blackletter design. During those years, and as demonstrated with the grid-based Leather font, the geometric sans serif was influencing the blackletter forms, taking them away from their previous Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) hybridizations. Blackhaus is a digitization and elaborate expansion of a typeface called Kursachsen Auszeichnung, designed in 1937 by Peterpaul Weiss for the Schriftguss foundry in Dresden. This is one of very few designs from that time attempting to infuse more Bauhaus than Jugendstil into the Blackletter forms. This is why we used a concatenation of the words blackletter and Bauhaus to name this face. The result of injecting Bauhaus elements into blackletter turned out to be a typeface that is very legible and usable in modern settings, while at the same time harking back to the historical forms of early printing. The original 1937 design was just one typeface of basic letters and numbers. After digitizing and expanding it, we developed a lighter version, then added a few alternates to both weights. The Rough style came as a mechanically-grunged afterthought, due to current user demand for such treatment. Having the flexibility of 2 weights and many alternates of a blackletter typeface is not a very common find in digital fonts. More specifically, having the flexibility of 2 weights and alternates of a 20th century blackletter typeface is almost unheard of in digital fonts. So the Blackhaus family can be quite useful and versatile in an imaginative designer's hands.

In the last decade of the 19th century, Bruce Type Founders, New York - among others - released this shaded typeface which they named Bowery. Carefully redrawn and digitized, RMU Bowery breathes fresh life into this great design.

Spring#7 is a 1900s-style font based on text on postcards found after the turn of the century. Italic in nature, it works nicely for text and graphics that need a humble old-timey look.

Scrolls A are a set of pictorial scrolls like signs of the zodiac, animals, dishes, flowers, symbols, decorative and Americana. They are beginning of last century American. Your I-found-them-somewhere type-designer, Gert Wiescher

Absinette takes us straight back to 19th century France. Its a decorative family of Roman faces in three widths as well as a more elaborate inline style, ideal for posters with an Edwardian or Victorian theme.

A late-19th Century song book entitled "Gems of Scotland - A Beautiful Collection of Scottish Songs" had the words "Gems of Scotland" hand lettered in an ornate, condensed type style now reproduced digitally as Gemstone JNL.

A revival of one of the popular serif wooden type fonts of the 19th century, tall x height, quite short descenders, thin, rounded serifs, thick stems, based on Roman styles, deliberate, accurate rendering of the original.

Dave West released the Behemoth Semi-Condensed font in 1960. With nineteenth-century wood-cut influence PL Behemoth Semi-Condensed is an example of the revival of slab serif styles, popular in the sixties and seventies.

Dolphus-Mieg Monograms is a collection of monograms from a rare cross-stitch booklet from the first year of the 20th Century. This new Monograms series was entirely designed by hand, without use of auto-tracing.

Ultimate Ornaments was inspired by the decorative elements supplied by European type foundries and printing companies in the 18th and 19th centuries. There is an assortment of 47 ornaments all located under the character set keys.

An historical font based on early 18th century printing, with the visual effect of uneven inking and indifferent presswork on handmade paper. Ideal for evoking the period. Effective in continuous text setting or in display sizes.

The Kyouking design is basically the structural century blend with a modern feel approach to make it a flexible and epic, effective font for the creation of ambitious poster headlines, Book covers, logos and so on.

Steamer is a grimy grotesque with a thick early 20th century air to it. A tireless workhorse, it is accustomed to carrying out any typographic task from continuous text to bold headlines steadily through any conditions.

Proudly Presenting, Xwisth a Gothic Handwritten Font that will bring an a classical type. Xwisth is perfect for any titles, logo, product packaging, branding project, megazine, social media, wedding, or just used to express words above the background. Xwisth also come with Multi-Lingual Support. Enjoy the font, feel free to comment or feedback, send me PM or email. Thank You!

What would a typeface look like that used a gothic arch, a feature of medieval architecture, as its motif? I decided to find out and the result was not beautiful but frightful. GothicHorror uses a pointed arch almost everywhere that it can be used and is unlike anything else. It is ugly, but for some uses that ugliness is a virtue.

An offering from Barnhart Brothers & Spindler’s Catalog No. 9 from 1907, with the rather prosaic name of "Lining Gothic No. 71", inspired this non-nonsense and surprisingly ageless face. As versatile as it is simple, this typeface is a stylish choice for heads and subheads. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

This is a blackletter display font with additional ornaments inspired by gothic and horror metal styles because its shape is very unique and very suitable for any project you will use with this theme. Features : Uppercase & Lowercase Multilingual support Number Symbol Ornament Punctuation Support in Mac and Windows OS Support in design application (photoshop, illustrator, and more) I really hope you enjoy it.

Atrocious - Display Typeface exudes a Gothic aura that's both eerie and distinctive. Its captivating design adds an unparalleled artistic charm, evoking a strong air of mystery. This font is perfect for creating impressive visuals, with OpenType features and multilingual support for limitless self-expression. Ideal for captivating book titles, enhancing cinematic experiences, or infusing graphic designs with a unique touch.

Queen Mestalla is a sherif font in gothic style with a good thickness making this font look bold and eye catching. This font is perfect for designing t-shirts, posters, music albums, magazines, billboards, and graffiti. This font is available in 2 style options, regular and italic, also comes with many alternative style options making it easy to create more awesome designs.

Stitch Warrior is a a gothic style stitch font. It's made of cross stitches ("x") even the kerning - the distance between the letter pairs varies between 1, 2 or 3 stitches distance. I was trying to be as accurate and close to reality as possible. It can be pefectly used for stitch lettering or text pattern to create visual effects.

A new layered font family called The Hipton. Inspired from single strokes of gothic letters from signed paintings and made it layered. This is a collection of styles with a layered type system and many possible combinations and options. As a display typeface, The Hipton is suitable for headlines, logotypes, signs, posters, greeting cards, letterhead, t-shirts, and many more applications.

Clairvaux is a part of the 1990 program Type before Gutenberg, which included the work of twelve contemporary font designers and represented styles from across the ages. Linotype offers a package including all these fonts on its web page, www.fonts.de. Herbert Maring developed his Clairvaux based on early Gothic typefaces. Its clever design resulted in highly stylized yet legible characters.

This is a blackletter display font with additional ornaments inspired by gothic and horror metal styles because its shape is very unique and very suitable for any project you will use with this theme. Features : * Symbol * Number * Alternate * Punctuation * Multilingual support * Support in Mac and Windows OS * Support in design application (photoshop, illustrator, and more) I really hope you enjoy it.

Blackout is the first and signature font to the Blackout Foundry. Inspired by gothic structures, but maintaining a constructive form. Everything in balance, simple, and straightforward. The font has hard corners on one end, and subtle curves on the other. It is intended for anyone wanting to have a moody appeal to their work, but still maintains a legible format.

XIKAS is the newest font in our gothic series, featuring a classic and elegantly designed typeface. With a classic design, this font uses striking details to exude a confident elegance that appeals to all genders, ages, and tastes. It can be used in a variety of projects to create an attractive vintage and elegant style that evokes elegance, luxury, and a strong personality.

This hefty little number is an amalgam of two typefaces from the Flower Power era, Dave West’s Elephant Gothic and Wayne Stettler’s Neil Bold. It’s an extrabold, sassy headline face that will get your message across, loud and clear. Both versions include the complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1254 character sets, as well as localization for Moldovan and Romanian.

This no-nonsense titling face is based on a Morris Fuller Benton 1934 offering for American Type Founders called, simply, Poster Gothic. Its crisp, clean lines and subtle Art Deco modeling make for attractive and attention-getting headlines. Available in plain and prismatic styles. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

The first in a series of typefaces based on the work of legendary lettering artist Alf Becker, whose works appeared in Signs of the Times magazine for almost thirty years. Originally titled "Extreme Thin Gothic", this was Becker’s 185th design for the magazine. Both versions of the font include the 1252 Latin and 1250 CE character sets (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

With a large variety of stencil fonts contained within the Jeff Levine Fonts library, Another Stencil JNL is simply another stencil design added to this growing collection. Modeled from a lettering guide manufactured in the 1970s, the style is influenced by Franklin Gothic, but has enough differences in the shapes of the stencil characters to be considered a cousin to that classic design.

Circle Sans is one of the most unique wood type font designs we"™ve found. It was made in Europe and our cut measures just 3 picas. Letters are a basic, rounded gothic with a medium amount of stroke contrast. This font is easy to read and packs a special punch dropped out from the negative space of a circle.

Noted British type designer David Quay designed Blackmoor in 1983. Based on an old English letter style, this textura-style Blackletter evokes a mediaeval character, expertly mixing a gothic lowercase together with Lombardic capitals. Blackmoor's rough, distressed features make it ideal for a variety of applications, from serious historical publications to horror movies, and comics. Featured in: Best Fonts for Tattoos

Hellebore is a font inspired by the logo and the game Mortal Shell itself. The font conveys the medieval era, the spirit of cutting weapons and dark fantasy. It is sinister, dark, dark, Gothic, rough and sharp. Perfect for logos, headlines, posters, banners. The font is named after the plant of the same name. The name conveys the font's mood.

Goat is a font display with extremely fine and sharp serifs, inspired by Gothic architecture, which brings a vertical elongation in extent and an allusion to the typical ogival vaults of the style. A font that not only carries a texture of writing with magnitude and elegance, but also causes some kind of strangeness for the subversion of some typographic laws.