Ellington was designed by jazz lover, Michael Harvey for Monotype in 1990, and named after the great band leader, Duke Ellington. From experience gained carving letters in stone and drawing them for book jacket designs, Michael Harvey has created a condensed typeface combining the clear-cut sparkle of a modern face with some of the lively features of the broad-edged pen. Ellington has a fresh elegance that is particularly effective in display, while its compressed forms will prove economical in text settings. The Ellington font family has narrow characters with strong vertical strokes and angular calligraphic traits. Ellington is a lively face and an appropriate font choice for advertising and book work. Ellington has a sans serif companion family, Strayhorn.

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).

A stylish cartoon sans reminiscent of lettering by Harvey Kurtzman on early issues of Mad, or other casual mid-century types. The three widths give full versatility for expressive, customised headlines and layouts, while the lighter weights can be used for text. Conveys an approachable, light touch with style and finesse.

Barbara D. Berney (a graphic artist and friend of Jeff Levine) had suggested making a font featuring many of the ampersands from Jeff's large library of type, noting their popularity as decorative embellishments. And So Forth JNL is the finished font - loaded with hundreds of ampersands in a wide variety of styles.

This is a type design based on a retrospective food design posters from 1950 in the United States. The intention was to create handmade letters ideal for handmade projects. The principal reference was the book of Steven Heller Mid-Century Ads. This typeface was the graduation project of my degree as graphic designer.

Balthasar is a very distinctive, stencil-type display font. Its letterforms originally appeared on a lettered book jacket by Michael Harvey. Its highly condensed letterforms being very economic in the use of space. The augmented, Balthasar Plus version has many alternative characters and ligatures, together with Opentype features for their automatic substitution where the application in which they are used permits.

Kaldi is a tall condensed typeface that has gone through a natural process of handcraft and refinement to produce a speciality blend. On consumption expect light and dense notes with an earthy undertone. This font family was inspired by the legend of Kaldi – the goat herder who discovered the coffee plant after his goats started dancing after eating the coffee cherries.

The first Clarendon was introduced in 1845 by R. Besley & Co, The Fan Street Foundry, as a general purpose bold for use in conjunction with other faces in works such as dictionaries. In some respects, Clarendon can be regarded as a refined version of the Egyptian style and as such can be used for text settings, although headline and display work is more usual.

From alphabets created for book illustrations in the 1970s to lettering created for a book jacket in the 1990s, the Mentor family of typefaces has developed along its own slow and circuitous path. Always present in its evolution, though, has been the influence of three 20th century design giants: Eric Gill, Reynolds Stone, and Hermann Zapf, as filtered through the meticulous sensibility of Michael Harvey.

The first Clarendon was introduced in 1845 by R. Besley & Co, The Fan Street Foundry, as a general purpose bold for use in conjunction with other faces in works such as dictionaries. In some respects, Clarendon can be regarded as a refined version of the Egyptian style and as such can be used for text settings, although headline and display work is more usual.

The first Clarendon was introduced in 1845 by R. Besley & Co, The Fan Street Foundry, as a general purpose bold for use in conjunction with other faces in works such as dictionaries. In some respects, Clarendon can be regarded as a refined version of the Egyptian style and as such can be used for text settings, although headline and display work is more usual.

Scorpio is a font based on lettering Michael Harvey drew for the card “The Sign of The Nudge” which was designed in collaboration with the concrete poet, Ian Hamilton Finlay. The purpose of the card was to prompt those owing monies to IHF, into paying promptly. Michael also used it on some of the many book jackets he designed. As such, it is a condensed design necessary to enable a lot of text to be fitted with a restricted space. Scorpio has both style and verve. It was designed to attract the attention of potential purchasers browsing the shelfs in bookshops. In fulfilling this rôle, it succeeded admirably. In all these respects, it is unquestionably a unique Michael Harvey design. When Michael died in 2013, this font existed as a drawing of the basic upper and lower case letterforms plus numerals. Andy Benedek’s contribution to Scorpio was to digitise the existing letterforms and then create the remaining characters necessary for a modern font.

Mr Palker Dad — has appeared in a natural evolution of the Palker-Palkerson family. Its closest relative - grotesque Mr Palker Dadson. This generation is more stout than the previous one. One may even be brave enough to use them for composing small texts. Notably Mr Parker Dad has become one of the frequently sold typefaces on the «Peterburg. The city speaks» map as it is highly readable while remaining extremely tight. Mr Parker Dad has all the features of P&P’s family.

Clarinetist Milton ?Mezz? Mezzrow (1899-1972) was a remarkable jazz musician, as becomes evident upon reading his autobiography Really the Blues. His sharp tone and serpentine lines inspired English lettering artist and jazz lover Michael Harvey to create a condensed, oblique display typeface with the look of a chiseled alphabet in the musician's honor. Vertical formats such as book jackets and posters will be invigorated by Mezz as the display face.

This typeface was inspired by the font Pabst Heavy, designed by Chauncey Hawley Griffith in 1928 for Linotype. Because of its formal characteristics, recalls the popular Cooper Black and probably was the reaction of Linotype to counter the popularity of this font distributed by the "American Type Founders" was acquired. It's a heavy typeface, ideal for headlines or for use in creating logos, rounded shapes and gestures evoke dynamism and make it perfect to highlight specific words or phrases.

The letterforms are based on Inserat Cursive, a bold script popular in the late nineteenth century; the treatment was suggested by cover artwork for Graphic Styles from Victorian to Post-Modern, written by Stephen Heller and designed by Seymour Chwast. Included in the font are several handy ink blots (section mark and superior numbers positions), a stylish tailpiece (florin position), and a couple of ink bottles patterned after those on the bookcover (bar and broken bar).

Aesop was developed from some book jacket lettering drawn by Michael Harvey for an edition of Aesop’s Fables by a master Japanese Artist. It is based upon a pen-drawn script, and is characterised by a lively sense of movement and grace. Aesop Plus, being an OpenType font, contains many alternative characters and additional ligatures which can be automatically substituted to enhance the liveliness of set text, where the application in which it is used, permits.

Thebes is a font based on an ancient Coptic script. The Copts are Egyptian Christians, and theirspoken language is a dialect of ancient Egyptian. Their letters, however, are Hellenized andresemble the Greek Alphabet and do not have any relationship to hieroglyphics. Thebes comes with full punctuation, a character 535 glyphcharacter set that allows the user to type in most Western European Latinalphabet languages, Cyrillic, and Modern Greek. Being a decorative font, it works best at larger point sizes.

This typeface was created as a personal project. Inspired by places like Chattanooga and Berkley, I wanted to create a bespoke typeface family for the US Virgin Islands. I noticed that the typeface Berlin Sans was in use all over the islands, in signs, logos, even on the side of police cars. So I built this typeface from the ground up with the goal of updating an old tried-and-true font into a family with versatile potential.

Firmin Didot is credited with establishing the Modern genre of serif typefaces, of which Beaux Arts Didots stands as an exemplary model. Like the French neoclassical architecture of its namesake, Beaux Arts has all the hallmarks of the early nineteenth-century style: a clear and confident construction consisting of simple yet strong lines. Use it for elegant and formal settings, or when a direct typographic tone is desired. Mix it with styles of similar sensibilities such as Plinc Hanover and Davison Spencerian. Digitized from the original Photo-Lettering film matrix in 2014 by Jean-Baptiste Levée. BEAUX ARTS DIDOT CREDITS: Typeface Design: Photo-Lettering Staff Typeface Digitization: Jean-Baptiste Levée Typeface Production: Ben Kiel Typeface Direction: Ken Barber 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.

The Artful Dodger is a character in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. Dickens wrote his books in the Victorian Era, which also gave birth to a beautiful and extensively used typeface called Clarendon. The typeface was developed by Robert Besley and first published in 1845. Artful Dodger was modeled on the glyphs found in a 1865 book, which was typeset in Clarendon. Artful Dodger has not been 'cleaned', so the glyphs look rough and worn, just like the book I found them in.

Gutta Percha is a font for golfers. It takers its name from a hard, resilient natural substance that comes from the sap of trees grown in southeast Asia and which was used for the hard core of golf balls well into the twentieth century, when it was gradually replaced with synthetic material. It therefore seemed an appropriate name for a font using the image of a golfer of the 1920s. The letters are from our font Besley Clarendon, reduced to 70%. That means that Gutta Percha set at 40 points will have the same size letters as Besley Clarendon set at 28 points. However, it should be noted that the two fonts have different baselines. If you use them together you will have to manually adjust the vertical alignment. Gutta Percha is obviously a very specialized font, both because of the subject matter and because the uppercase is designed for use as dropped caps. There may not be many uses for it, but when it is right, it will be really right. Whether you are publishing a book about the history of golf or a clubhouse bulletin, Gutta Percha will surely be noticed.

Comix Gorilla GABRIEL BAUTISTA is the artist of John JG Roshell's CHARLEY LOVES ROBOTS series. His incredible watercolors graced the pages of ELEPHANTMEN #50. In some circles he is known as "Galvo" or "Gabo" and he has brought his brofu color skills to the pages THE SPIRIT, ALL STAR WESTERN and also illustrated JESUS CHRIST, IN THE NAME OF THE GUN. He is also the creator of comic battling site ENTERVOID.COM and indy press PULPOPRESS.COM. He loves his girl, his dog lulu and his font.

Tisdall Script is based upon the brush-drawn script lettering of Hans Tisdall, who was the designer of many distinctive lettered book jackets for Jonathan Cape in the 1950s. Michael Harvey, also a designer of lettered book jackets, long admired Tisdall’s style and so, with the blessing of his widow, designed this typographic tribute. The augmented Tisdall Script Plus version, has many alternative characters and ligatures, together with Opentype features, to enable their automatic substitution where the application in which they are used permits.

The first Clarendon was introduced in 1845 by R Besley & Co, The Fan Street Foundry, as a general purpose bold for use in conjunction with other faces in works such as dictionaries. In some respects, Clarendon can be regarded as a refined version of the Egyptian style and as such can be used for text settings, although headline and display work is more usual. Clarendon is a trademark of Linotype GmbH registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be registered in certain other jurisdictions.

During the heydey of automobile travel hundreds of motels, motor courts and tourist cabins sprung up along the roadways in order to offer weary drivers (and most often their families) rest with a night's lodging. Tourist Cabin JNL takes the inline portion from the inline font Asbury Park JNL and creates this pleasant monoline design. The original design inspiration (from which the inline portion of the letters was taken) was a 1930s WPA (Works Progress Administration) Federal art project poster with the hand-lettered words “Work with Care”

I named the font "Sangoma" after the traditional healers of the Southern African tribes. Sangomas often work by "throwing bones". The shapes of the bones have suggested the shapes of the characters in the Sangoma font. The font is useful for creating designs or producing text that has an African look. Typified by an African angularity the characters reflect the ethos of Africa. The Sangoma font contains the full range of upper and lower case characters, all punctuation and special characters as well as the accented characters used in the major European languages.

Patches is a multi-faceted, victorian-era serif typeface for when you need something more than plain text. Get that extra attention while adding a genuine, original appearance to your message. Patches was designed from scratch to give a sense quality and depth. Its designer Mans Greback has created a typeface with a complex structure, yet one that will be easy to master. This work will suit every style, taste and skill level. It is a decorative and completely hand-drawn design in vintage lettering, with the perks and flexibility of present-day technology, which is exactly what you'd expect from a modern typeface. Whether you are making a decorative floral headline, drawing a cowboy logo, or creating a unique design based on this ornamental font, the hopes are that Patches can give you a set of tools and inspiration to bring out the best of your artistry. Standing on the shoulders of giants, it was inspired by a wide range of works, and will hopefully be able to continue to teach and inspire future artists. Or at least help you become a better designer when you're designing an elegant and classic headline. Set the coloring of Patches to light gold and cream tones to apply a luxurious look, or in dark tones for a more rugged impression. Bold, bright colors will make it appear In the mid-1800s, decorative design flourished in the Western major cities. Victorian style thrived and encouraged techniques such as enamelling, embroidery and calligraphy. From the 1880s onwards, there were a series of reactions to higher Victorian tastes, with Art Deco reaching the heights of the 20th century. However, the Victorian art persisted popularity, as it changed to more sophisticated designs which made it more attractive to specific professions and groups. The evolution of the Victorian style in the mid-20th century was a key factor in the succession of the movement. Classic shops and salons, sport designs and traditional festivals, and later Rock'n'Roll and Harley Davidson-themed graphics ​inspired the continued development of the art. Aspiring to carry on this tradition, this typeface family consists twelve different high-quality variations. The main ones are Patched and Patched In – an outlined variation – and each one provided in five weights: Thin, Light, Medium, Bold and Black. Additionally, the two rough fonts Hangaround and Prospects, that tries to grasp the rough, earthy atmosphere of a shady motorcycle club. The font is built with advanced OpenType functionality and has a guaranteed top-notch quality, containing stylistic and contextual alternates, ligatures and more features; all to give you full control and customizability. It has extensive lingual support, covering all Latin-based languages, from North Europa to South Africa, from America to South-East Asia. It contains all characters and symbols you'll ever need, including all punctuation and numbers.

An unsold 1973 TV pilot for the series “Catch 22” (based on Joseph Heller’s 1961 book and the subsequent 1970 movie) had its title hand lettered in an extra bold stencil type style. Heller coined the phrase as a satire on absurd military rules and bureaucracy. Although the show’s title provided only five characters to work with, there was enough inspiration there to create the military styled Enlisted Stencil JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions. According to Wikipedia: “A catch-22 is a paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot escape because of contradictory rules or limitations.”

Songlines is based upon a pen-drawn script drawn by Michael Harvey to illustrate a poem by Johannes Thurman. The expressive and rough-edged letterforms of Songlines do not have any lowercase characters. Instead, alternative uppercase characters occupy their positions. By using a mixture of upper-case and lowercase characters, text can be given a very lively and vigorous character. For example, the two versions of L are designed to overlap and interact whichever way round they are used. The augmented Songlines Plus version, has many alternative characters and ligatures added together with Opentype features to enable their automatic substitution where the application in which they are used permits.

Okay, we admit it! Comicraft's latest offering -- wrenched heavy-handedly from the pages of CHARLEY LOVES ROBOTS – is definitely a little awkward, maybe even loose-limbed and goofy. Those (usually) awfully nice chaps in the Comicraft studio are perhaps best known for their dexterity, their lightness of touch and nimbleness of finger rather than the kind of bungling, graceless, clumsy work evident in their latest digital alphabet. So, yes, MALADROIT is probably the most inept, cack-handed, undiplomatic addition to our catalogue ever submitted by freewheelin' John Roshell (formerly GAUCHE-ell) but might just possibly be the perfectly wrong font choice for your more bungling, inept, incompetent and hamfisted characters.

In 1916 the Prang company - still famous for their excellent pens and pencils - commissioned Thomas Woods Stevens to hire the best calligraphers of the era to hand letter sample pages with different Prang pens and in a variety of styles. The resulting book is a font maker's dream, a collection of period lettering samples perfect for making new fonts. One of the sample pages shows off the look of the Spoonbill pen with a set of classic art deco style letters by Charles Earley. This sample is the basis for our Spoonbill font, which includes a full character set, plus character variations for nesting and overlapping, and a small selection of decorative border characters in the art deco style.

Cover art for the 1933 sheet music of Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler's "Stormy Weather" (from the musical production "Cotton Club Parade") listed the cast of the show in a condensed hand lettered sans that typified the 1930s and the Art Deco era. This served as the inspiration for Uptown Review JNL; available in both regular and oblique versions. The Cotton Club was a whites-only night club which showcased black acts, and was originally located on 145th Street in Harlem from 1923 to 1935, then existed for a short time in the New York theater district from 1936 to 1940. After the Broadway incarnation of the club closed, its space was taken over by the Latin Quarter.