Here's another collection of ornate border elements gleaned from the 1888 specimen books of James Conner's Sons United States Type Foundry in New York City. Refer to the PDF guide for detailed, yet simple, instructions for constructing nine delightfully different border patterns.

Erich Heckel (1883 - 1970) was a German painter and printmaker. He was a founding member of Die Brücke (The Bridge), a group of German expressionists. Heckel font somewhat resembles the loose (and messy) handwriting Erich Heckel used in some of his drafts.

Vario is a bold brush-based design. Created by the renowned type designer and calligrapher, Hermann Zapf, Vario offers superb emphasis for use in headlines and displays. It is availble in both regular and italic styles. Vario was first produced in 1982.

Kunze font was inspired by the work of German graphic artist Carl Kunze (Minden, 1884). Kunze is a fat display font; a little rough around the edges, a little wonky in places, but very distinguishable and useful. Comes with extensive language support.

Trade Printer JNL is another font design inspired by an old rubber stamp sign printing set. In this case, the lettering has a classic "wood type" look, reminiscent of the letterheads, billheads and fliers made by local printers of the 1880s-1920s.

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.

Originally issued as Palm from the A. D. Farmer Foundry in New York, about 1887. This is a good early example of the transition from the ruffles and fluorishes of Victorian fonts to the more restrained decoration that came to be called Art Nouveau.

Hayfork JNL is based on a vintage wood type sanserif typeface from the 1880's. A font of similar design is Eckhardt Poster Display, which was modeled from a 1920's sign painter's handbook; no doubt getting its inspiration from this wood type's design.

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.

Praitor is based on a devotional inscription to the goddess Diana found a short distance from Rome in 1887. It is an early style from before 100 BC and has some characteristics of Etruscan lettering. It's a rough, strong font which works very well for distinctive titles.

Scribner's Magazine was an illustrated periodical published from 1887 to 1939. The 1895 holiday issue “Scribner's for Xmas” had the cover text hand lettered in an Art Nouveau style with spurred serifs. This is now available digitally as Nouveau Style JNL, in both regular and oblique versions.

Grace was designed by Elisabeth Megnet and appeared with Linotype in 1992. The font is a part of the package Calligraphy for Print, which also contains Ruling Script and Wiesbaden Swing. Calligraphy for Print 2 completes the set. These packages offer modern calligraphy fonts particularly well-suited to use in posters, magazines and advertisements. The basic style of Grace is based on the Gothic miniscule of the 13th century. It represents a modern philosophy held by Andre Guertler, Professor of Typography in Basel with whom Megnet once studied. With this philosophy, calligraphy is not to be seen as a decorative art, and fonts created according to this tenet have far fewer ornamental strokes. They are eccentric, drawn out and almost bulky. Like Gothic forms, one of the predecessors of this font, Grace gives vertical lines a particular emphasis. This font is not meant for long texts but makes a distinctive impression in shorter texts or headlines.

A typeface named, simply, Geometric, from the 1885 Cleveland Type Foundry specimen book, has been beefed up a bit and softened with round serifs to create this everything-old-is-new-again gem. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

OTC Underground is a geometric condensed display font, presenting a compressed letterform structure with an even stroke contrast. Available with Latin, Cyrillic and Greek characters. The font is inspired by Gustav F. Schroeder's Othello from 1886 and the lettering on the 1967 album cover from The Velvet Underground & Nico.

Here's a faithful rendering of an old face from the James Conner's Sons specimen catalog of 1888, alternately known as Aetna or Painter's Gothic. Its compact descenders allow for tightly-spaced headlines. Both versions of the font contain the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

In 1885 Heinrich Wallau, printer and typographer in Mainz, picked up the idea of creating a rounded gothic font written with a broad nib. This idea was then realized by Rudolf Koch between 1925 and 1930. RMU Wallau is a bringing back this beautiful font for present typography.

Designed at Polygraphmash Type Design Bureau in 1988 by Svetlana Yermolaeva. Based on Kirillitsa (1982), inspired by typographic poluustav of the Printing Office of the Russian Empire Academy of Science (late 19th century). Shadow style was added by Alexander Tarbeev in 1994. Latin alphabet was added by Oleg Karpinsky in 2009.

Salida is a reimagining of William Page’s Series 504, a wood type created in 1887. Named for a town in Colorado on the Arkansas River, Salida is a strong and rustic display font reflecting the rugged landscape of the area. Salida is useful for impactful headlines, logos, packaging and signage.

Originally issued by the Palmer and Rey Type Foundry of San Francisco in 1884, this typeface bore the name Octagon Condensed, and is as fresh today as it was way back when. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

Art Gothic was attributed to the Central Type Foundry of St. Louis, Missouri, USA by Henry Lewis Bullen, writing in INLAND PRINTER in 1907, with a reproduction shown in Kelly’s American Wood Type. The typeface appears on the cover of an issue of “The Superior Printer” pictured in Typology by Heller and Fili dated in the 1870s. Art Gothic was designed in 1884 by Gustav Schroeder and proved to be one of the more popular and enduring of the American-designed Victorian display faces of the period, appearing frequently in ads in various publications. The Hamilton Mfg. Co showed a very similar wood type, No. 232, with a modified and rather heavy-handed upper case in 1892. As late as 1897, it may be found in the advertising section of The Ivy of Trinity College of Hartford, Connecticut and was included in the Norwood Press 1902 Specimen Book. Our font includes a complement of five upper case and four lower case alternatives as follows: 123=C, 125=E, 135=H, 137=S, 172=c, 175=e, 215=m and 247=s. Great for period pieces. ART GOTHIC HIH is clean, readable, and surprisingly modern-looking; unlike so many overly complex Victorian display fonts, it can be used in text sizes.

Gotico™, meaning Gothic, is a Blackletter script (sometimes referred to as Old English). The original Gotico design was first brought to market by the Fundicion Tipografica Richard Gans type foundry (1888-1975) in Spain. The designer of Gotico is unknown and for many years the font was formerly sold only in Europe.

Even the original founder, Barnhart Bros. & Spindler, thought this was a freaky font, and indeed they called it "Freak" when they introduced it in 1889. It was reintroduced in 1925 under the somewhat more elegant name of "Bamboo," and is one of the prizes that the collectors of antique metal types seek.

This “Anglican” style typeface is based on an 1880s release from St. Louis’ Central Type Foundry originally named Euclid. It’s amazingly versatile, easily at home in both formal and fun settings. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set.

The Commodore 64 (C64) is a home computer with 64 kilobytes of RAM that was popular in the 1980s. Released by Commodore Business Machines (CBM) to the public in August 1982 at a price of US$595, it offered sound and graphics performance that was good compared to the standard at that time.

Senatus was designed by Werner Schneider in 2003.

MFC Hills Medieval was developed from a unique historical Blackletter type specimen in the 1882 Hills Manual of Social and Business Forms. While you could use its ornate capitals to construct a monogram, this is not a monogram font, but a fully functional typeface for invitations and period lettering. From stylish and ornate capitals to a soft lowercase resembling bled ink, this period lettering style is a true eye-catcher. Because of some of the unique medieval letterforms, standardized letterforms were created as the default typeable letters while the true historical forms were setup as Stylistic Alternates. A sophisticated Blackletter for manuscripts and invitations alike.

In the 1889 Franklin Type Foundry specimen book is a type face called “Armenian”. With lighter weight horizontal slab serifs than more traditional Western fonts, it could be pictured as being used as copy on wanted posters or town notices. This is now available as TV Western JNL in both regular and oblique versions.

This forerunner of Helvetica made its debut as Breite Grotesk in the 1886 specimen book of the Schelter & Giesecke foundry in Leipzig. This classic face still retains its freshness, even after more than a century. Both versions of this font contain the complete Latin A Extended character set, as well as extended ligatures and fractions.

BD Motra is fat wide uppercase font with some variants on the small character keys. The inspiration source for this typeface is the stencil lettering on Honda’s rare Motra CT50 off-road scooter made in Japan 1982. The font usage ranges from big lettering on vehicles, cargo boxes, products, buildings with an industrial approach.

Based on wood type designed by William H. Page & Company in 1872, Aldine Extended is one of many variations within the Aldine family. The characters are extremely wide relative to their height, and have heavy, thick serifs. Aldine was extremely popular in broadside printing during the late 19th century and conveys America’s enthusiastic westward expansion.

The 1885 specimen book of the Palmer and Rey Type Foundry of San Francisco featured the inspiration for this typeface under the name Courier. This version has been thoughtfully designed to use Contextual Alternates to avoid unsightly swash collisions. Both versions of this font include the complete Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

Grotesca Extra Condensed™ defines the term ""extra condensed"". With some unusual design quirks, this sturdy design has roots in styles popular in 1920s Germany. First brought to market by the Fundicion Tipografica Richard Gans type foundry (1888-1975) in Spain, the designer of Grotesca is unknown and the font was formerly sold only in Spain.

Correntino Railway is a product of argentine typographic archeology project called “Tipografía Histórica Ferroviaria” (Fabio Ares & Octavio Osores, since 2012). Is about the signboards of the stations of the line of the Argentine Correntino Economic Railway (1892-1969). The letter of this signboards can be described as display type, with elementary geometric shapes, vertical line modulation and slight contrast.

The 1884 specimen book of San Francisco Palmer and Rey Type Foundry featured this elegant design under the name Oxford. The decorative caps, combined with the centered small caps, have a timeless appeal. Both versions of the font include complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1524 character sets, with localization for Moldovan, Romanian and Turkish.

Alan Meeks designed Cancellaresca Script, a decorative, almost cheerful script typeface, in 1982. The details that grace Cancellaresca Script's forms, both capital and lower case, give the typeface its unique appearance. Its generous and flowing capitals are complemented by a more reserved lowercase. This font's elegance offers a variety of possibilities for headline or display use.

A single line of type, identified as "Ornamented No. 5" and spelling out "ROPE ONIONS", from the 1888 MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan specimen book provided the pattern for this whimsical face. Offbeat yet elegant, graceful yet bold, it’s a natural choice for distinctive headlines. Both versions of the font include 1252 Latin, 1250 CE (with localization for Romanian and Moldovan).

A decorative font with descending tails on the capital letters. The design is based on a popular typeface from the 1880s, mainly used for personal names on title-pages, advertisements and stationery. Today, you can use it e.g. on book and album covers, invitation cards, restaurant menus and concert programs to give a fin-de-siècle impression.

This loopy offering is patterned after a typeface from the 1888 specimen book from the Central Type Foundry of St. Louis, called simply "Spiral". The ragged contours on the original face have been smoothed out, but it still is an attention-getter. Both versions of this font include the complete Unicode Latin 1252 and Central European 1250 character sets.

Two classics from American Type Founders specimen catalogs of the 1880s—Othello and ATF Black Caps—inspired this powerful headline face with a decidedly menacing quality. Suitable for creepy, eerie and spooky occasions. Both versions of the font include complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1524 character sets, with localization for Moldovan, Romanian and Turkish.