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.

An offering by lettering artist Harvey Hopkins Dunn for the 1930 classic, American Alphabets, provided the inspiration for this graceful, engaging typeface. Use it liberally to exude elegance, or to turn on the charm. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Discovered in The Zanerian Manual of Alphabets and Engrossing was this quaint charmer, called simply "Italic Roundhand". The manual touts this face as plain, practical and rapid; it's lovely, luscious and nostalgic, as well.

This rollicking romp through the alphabet is based on an offering from the irrepressible M. Draim, seen in La Lettre dans le Décor & la Publicité Modernes, published by Monrocq Frères of Paris in 1932. Its animated and friendly demeanor will add personality to any headline it graces. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

A poster for Buster Keaton's 1925 classic film "The General" provided the inspiration for this bit of typographic falderal. Essentially a monocase font, the lowercase letters are alternates, so double-clutch the shift key to add visual interest.

Here's our interpretation of the classic typeface Arrow, designed by Walter Diethelm for Visual Graphics Corporation in 1965. It's clean, crisp, understated and elegant. Both versions of the font contain the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

This whimsical wonder is based on the lettering of Laurence Schall, as presented in Lewis F. Day's 1910 classic, Alphabets Old and New. The typeface radiates a charm reminiscent of the works of many talented artists (including Howard Pyle and Arthur Rackham) who illustrated children's books around the turn of the twentieth century. The Opentype version of this font supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages, as well as Unicode 1252 (Latin) languages.

Another typical Art Deco font from Nick Curtis. Uppercase only, but with alternate letterforms in the lowercase positions. I have completely redesigned all the diacritics (which were way too flimsy for this robust design) before expanding the character set in the usual fashion. Nick Curtis says: "Back in the Olden Days of Graphic Design B.C. (before computers), type freaks used to wait in anxious anticipation for each new release of the Letraset catalog. The inspiration for this font, Premiere Lightline, was one such release, and probably help spur my interest in Deco designs. The original font was VERY light indeed, suitable only for use in large sizes. My version is beefier, and includes an entire lower case of alternate letterforms, making this (at least) two fonts in one. The name is the 40’s hep talk equivalent of “Cool!”". ALL fonts from CheapProFonts have very extensive language support: They contain some unusual diacritic letters (some of which are contained in the Latin Extended-B Unicode block) supporting: Cornish, Filipino (Tagalog), Guarani, Luxembourgian, Malagasy, Romanian, Ulithian and Welsh. They also contain all glyphs in the Latin Extended-A Unicode block (which among others cover the Central European and Baltic areas) supporting: Afrikaans, Belarusian (Lacinka), Bosnian, Catalan, Chichewa, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Kashubian, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Maori, Polish, Saami (Inari), Saami (North), Serbian (latin), Slovak(ian), Slovene, Sorbian (Lower), Sorbian (Upper), Turkish and Turkmen. And they of course contain all the usual “western” glyphs supporting: Albanian, Basque, Breton, Chamorro, Danish, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galican, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish (Gaelic), Italian, Northern Sotho, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romance, Sami (Lule), Sami (South), Scots (Gaelic), Spanish, Swedish, Tswana, Walloon and Yapese.

No mystery here—it's a larrupin' good lighter version of the original Whiz-Bang Woodtype goody, Dime Box. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

With its extended complement, this comprehensive redesign of Bank Gothic by Elsner+Flake offers a wide spectrum for usage. After 80 years, the typeface Bank Gothic, designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1930, is still as desirable for all areas of graphic design as it has ever been. Its usage spans the design of headlines to exterior design. Game manufacturers adopt this spry typeface, so reminiscent of the Bauhaus and its geometric forms, as often as do architects and web designers. The creative path of the Bank Gothic from hot metal type via phototypesetting to digital variations created by desktop designers has by now taken on great breadth. The number of cuts has increased. The original Roman weight has been augmented by Oblique and Italic variants. The original versions came with just a complement of Small Caps. Now, they are, however, enlarged by often quite individualized lower case letters. In order to do justice to the form changes and in order to differentiate between the various versions, the Bank Gothic, since 2007 a US trademark of the Grosse Pointe Group (Trademark FontHaus, USA), is nowadays available under a variety of different names. Some of these variations remain close to the original concept, others strive for greater individualism in their designs. The typeface family which was cut by the American typefoundry ATF (American Type Founders) in the early 1930’s consisted of a normal and a narrow type family, each one in the weights Light, Medium and Bold. In addition to its basic ornamental structure which has its origin in square or rectangular geometric forms, there is another unique feature of the Bank Gothic: the normally round upper case letters such as B, C, G, O, P, Q, R and U are also rectangular. The one exception is the upper case letter D, which remains round, most likely for legibility reasons (there is the danger of mistaking it for the letter O.) Because of the huge success of this type design, which follows the design principles of the more square and the more contemporary adaption of the already existing Copperplate, it was soon adopted by all of the major type and typesetting manufacturers. Thus, the Bank Gothic appeared at Linotype; as Commerce Gothic it was brought out by Ludlow; and as Deluxe Gothic on Intertype typesetters. Among others, it was also available from Monotype and sold under the name Stationer’s Gothic. In 1936, Linotype introduced 6pt and 12pt weights of the condensed version as Card Gothic. Lateron, Linotype came out with Bank Gothic Medium Condensed in larger sizes and a more narrow set width and named it Poster Gothic. With the advent of photoypesetters and CRT technologies, the Bank Gothic experienced an even wider acceptance. The first digital versions, designed according to present computing technologies, was created by Bitstream whose PostScript fonts in Regular and Medium weights have been available through FontShop since 1991. These were followed by digital redesigns by FontHaus, USA, and, in 1996, by Elsner+Flake who were also the first company to add cursive cuts. In 2009, they extended the family to 16 weights in both Roman and Oblique designs. In addition, they created the long-awaited Cyrillic complement. In 2010, Elsner+Flake completed the set with lowercase letters and small caps. Since its redesign the type family has been available from Elsner+Flake under the name Bank Sans®. The character set of the Bank Sans® Caps and the Bank Sans® covers almost all latin-based languages (Europe Plus) as well as the Cyrillic character set MAC OS Cyrillic and MS Windows 1251. Both families are available in Normal, Condensed and Compressed weights in 4 stroke widths each (Light, Regular, Medium and Bold). The basic stroke widths of the different weights have been kept even which allows the mixing of, for instance, normal upper case letters and the more narrow small caps. This gives the family an even wider and more interactive range of use. There are, furthermore, extensive sets of numerals which can be accessed via OpenType-Features. The Bank Sans® type family, as opposed to the Bank Sans® Caps family, contains, instead of the optically reduced upper case letters, newly designed lower case letters and the matching small caps. Bank Sans® fonts are available in the formats OpenType and TrueType.

One in the series of fonts called Whiz-Bang Wood Type, intended to be set large and tight. Rio Grande is a classic ultrabold "Egyptian" face, named for the river that separates Texas from Mexico. The Opentype version of this font supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages, as well as Unicode 1252 (Latin) languages.

Handlettering discovered on a 1937 brochure for the Dutch Mails Shipping Company provided guidance in developing this rather unusual but commanding typeface, marked by strong geometric shapes and a very large x-height.

The typeface DIN Mittel, offered by Elsner+Flake, is based on the DIN 1451 used in Germany since 1931. The DIN 1451 which was primarily seen in the areas of technology and traffic had to adhere to the so-called DIN Norms. Variations of the DIN 1451 are also employed in Austria, Eastern Europe, Greece and the Near East. With its new release Elsner+Flake has expanded the DIN Mittel with the characters EuropaPlus and Cyrillic.

This delightful dervish is based on handlettering from a 1928 poster for a steamship line by renowned British artist Austin Cooper. It’s essentially a monocase font, with the exception of the letter A, which twirls in one direction in uppercase, and the opposite direction in lowercase. This font contains the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Dan X. Solo's book of Showcard Alphabets featured the pattern for this devil-may-care face under the name "Conway". Not too pretty, not too proud, but a whole lotta fun. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

In his book Victorian Display Alphabets, Dan X. Solo called this specimen "Marquette". This unicase version features a complete character set, and is named after a favorite watering hole in Texas on the Guadeloupe River. Both versions of this font contain the Unicode 1252 (Latin) and Unicode 1250 (Central European) character sets, with localization for Romanian and Moldovan.

Here’s a simple, classic hand-lettered gem, based on an old photoface named Adonis. Suitable for headline or text use, it’s a refreshing and lively alternate to Comic Sans. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set.

A clean, classic woodtype face from the William H. Page Company, as fresh today as it was over 120 years ago. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1262, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

An unusual blend of block and script letterforms, based on poster lettering for an Italian fashion house of the same name, designed by Wilman Schiroli in 1935, and notable for its very jolly lowercase c. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

The distinguishing characteristics of this typeface were suggested by cover artwork for the May 1930 issue of Inland Printer: a combination of caps based on Breda Gotisch, released by H. Berthold AG in 1928, and a lowercase based on Goudy Text. The result is a remarkably elegant and retro-stylish blackletter face. Both versions of the font contain the complete Latin 1252 character set plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Here's a new, softer take on the classic typeface Koralle, released by Schelter und Geisecke in 1913, and as fresh today as it was then. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

American Type Founders released the pattern for this typeface under the name "Thermotype". In the days of cast-metal foundry type, copyfitting headlines could prove problemmatic at times; this typeface, with a wide uppercase and narrower lowercase of exactly the same “color”, allowed stacked lines of type to be composed with uniform width. Clean, crisp and practical. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Here’s the follow-up to my Route 66 series, patterned after the typeface used on signage on the U.S. interstate highway system for fifty years. The numbers and uppercase letters are true to the original, while a number of the lowercase letters show the influence of the new Clearview type. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin and 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan) character sets.

Lewis F. Day, in his Alphabets Old and New, presented these letters as examples of rustic Roman lettering of the first through third centuries, AD. An uppercase-only typeface, most of the lowercase positions are occupied by letterform variants. It should be noted that the name does not refer to a savory dish made from a nocturnal American marsupial; it’s Latin for “I can dance”. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

This elegant face with a few semi-script flourishes is based on Morris Fuller Benton’s Announcement Roman, designed for American Type Founders in 1917. It’s perfect for invitations, programs and all kinds of formal ballyhoo. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set.

A collision between fine, fat caps developed by legendary letterer Alf Becker, and a squirrely, curly, uncredited lowercase uncovered by artist Leslie Cabarga produced this merry romp through the alphabet. The Postscript and Truetype versions contain a complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252); in addition, the Opentype version supports Unicode 1250 (Central European) languages as well.

In the 1921 work Letters and Lettering by Frank Chouteau Brown, these letterforms were offered as examples of typical medieval English fare. The font is all caps, but there are variant letterforms in all the lowercase positions. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

Here's an unusual take on the classic Tuscan face of the 1880s. The unusual finials lend a slightly spooky feel to the face, hence its current name. Both versions support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

This charming font, with its hints of the exotic, originally carried the rather prosaic name of Show Card Roman. It appeared in the book "Art Alphabets and Lettering: an encyclopedia of lettering including the most important standard alphabets and such classics as are in most demand for the use of engravers, designers, and all lovers of art" by the evidently rather verbose J. M. Bergling (1866-1933). As a nod to its exotic overtones, the font is named after the 1872 utopian novel of the same name by Samuel Butler.

This charming little number is based on a rubber-stamp alphabet set, sold in the early 1900s under the name "Perfection", which suits it well. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode 1252 Latin and Unicode 1250 Central European character sets.

Introducing a series of decorative initials with a twist: each font contains two complete alphabets, A-Z, and numerous border elements in the numeral and shift-numeral positions. Classic, ornate, quaint and exotic, these fonts are essential tools for adding style and charm to your next project. Kudos Kaps Five features Jakob Erbar’s eponymous Initials in the uppercase slots, and Aldo Novarese’s Fontasi in the lowercase AND numeral slots. The font also includes three complete eight-piece borders, a two-piece accent set, two single border elements and an elegant penman dingbat.